-24 hours (week 1)
Only 786 hours to go. . .I should get one of those "baby tickers" to show my progress :)
Monday: Labor Day
1.5 hours Birth Rally-Social Studies (yeah, on a holiday) & Healthy Living. She might be a little young for a Govt Class, but this would also qualify, I guess that's the "S.S." requirement at this age
1 hour math-Unit 7 measures and geometry
20m-Unit 1: Parts of Speech- Nouns
Handwriting (for above)
Do I use the centimeters or measuring? :) UH, yeah!
Finished Unit 7 of Math section. . .finally we can move on
Computer Math-1 hour
30 minutes: Made pizza dough with Mike-measures and "the arts"
Reminds herself to check her answers twice:
"I don't have to make up silly ways to remind Alani to check her work, she does it all on her own "OH, I should have checked twice, just like Santa checks his naughty and nice list." bwahahahahaha. . .I did try to make it rhyme "Always check twice, like Santa checks who's naughty and nice." But she corrected me and went back to saying it her own way :)
Tuesday: La Leche League
Spent the morning watching shows, then I went off to LLL while Mike took them to the mall. . .I'm sure they learned SOMETHING there right? Then they were at LLL with me playing with friends.
1 hour-Phonics workbook "bl" "br" and "ch" blends, this also included reading and writing practice
Tuesday was a day a little light on the schooling, then she taught her sister how to play Go Ballerina
Wednesday: Cafe Debriefing
2 hours Park and Water Play
During naptime: 5 games of mastermind and 1 "go ballerina"
Followed by at least 1, maybe 2 hours of Phonics workbook
Both girls helped in different parts of making dinner
Airi on the porch making "snow" with a little sifter and flour, then she moved on to using the meat tenderizer to beat up the dead lavendar plant. . .discovery :)
1.5 hours small group: Singing and playing outside
I've had to reevaluate what homeschool is going to look like in this house, particularly this first year of giving it the old college try. Homeschooling is not a set of hours in a row at the moment. It's mostly workbooks, because they are stretching Alani's mind and giving her daily practice at reading, writing, sounds, math, etc. It's free reading time and I really do need to be focusing more time on reading something "classic" with her too. It's asking her to quietly do phonics blend sounds while I get her sister to sleep at whatever time of day Airi decides is naptime. It's checking her work between washing dishes, when she completes one of the pages. It's also a lot about getting outside and being active, as well as meeting new people or playing with common friends.
So on Thursday, homeschool looked like:
2 hours of playing with a brand new friend (Beach) who is older and has very different interests than her own, and a fairly new friend (Marley) who she really seems to easily click with.
1 hour of hanging around with her dad as he taught differently abled people how to make calzones (Diego & David, adult men)
1 hour of art class, where she painted in a class WITH David and Diego, which pushed her outside her comfort zone when considering it, but she completely enjoyed once she was there
20 minutes (at least)-Math drills where she asked me to give her "10s and 1s" equations to figure out
1.5 hours of phonics-blending sounds workbook (which included listening to directions, reading, handwriting and phonics)
and 2 hours of playing with good friends (Abigail, Nora and Zoey) and another completely new friend (Leona) while playing dress up and make-believe during a Girl Scout parent meeting
That's nearly 8 hours hours of learning about new people and new interests, the arts, a little "school" type work and moving around a whole lot. . .and today, that's what school looked like. Tomorrow I'm going to clean off the table, because we're having guests. . . and then I was thinking that maybe we could get into this book about artists that I really want to embrace, use the table for some creative space, get the little one involved. And Alani, though she complained about having to do yoga a second day in a row (which we didn't) last week, said today that she absolutely loves yoga. . .so we need to make sure that's back on our priority list.
Today I pulled out "Little House in the Big Woods." I've owned it since I was 9, and never read it. . .I have the entire series. I think reading "a good classic book" will really enhance our time together during naptimes. And making sure she had reading time every day too. I know there will be times when we hurry up through something and times when we are finding our compass. . .I thought I had a great plan, I got derailed after day 1 and I've been leery of doing anything similar again. . .but if at first you don't succeed, find another way around :)
So this morning we shopped for a friend's birthday, and new fall clothes for my big kid, who is SIX now and has pants that aren't getting any longer, in her dresser drawers. We bought wigs for halloween :) Then Airi went easily down for a nap when we got home, while Alani worked on her Phonics blends again.
Sometimes there is a personal expectation. *I* feel like a good (homeschooling) mom when we do the work we *should* do. . . but should we? Or should we just look for the learning opportunities as the day goes? This is our second week for the girls getting an "allowance" (or really just some spending money). It has given Alani a real sense of responsibility and pause. The first week it was like "I'm ready to spend this NOW." But as the week went on and the dollars grew thin, she had to consider her purchases. Today she got her money again. Then she asked if we could buy something at the store. I said "Sure, it's $4" and she said "Then I'd only have ONE dollar left for the week?" Her sister saw the same item and it was something large enough to share, so I proposed "If you'd like this, would you like to go in on it? That leaves you each with $3 this week." And they were excited about that. It helped that I said I would buy the last icee of the season with MY money instead of theirs tonight :)
This week Alani FINALLY got her free fair ticket in the mail, for reading ten books all on her own before mid-summer. It also came with a free ride ticket and a free drink ticket. We've decided we don't have the money to do the fair this year. When considering the options, we came up with either Mike taking her on his own, or all of us going together, both options cost nearly the same amount, depending on which date we were to choose. Then Mike said "Why don't we offer to buy Alani's ticket from her?" So we decided to do that and she chose an activity that the whole family could for the same $10. . .we'll be going to Nicklemania on Monday, as a family :)
I got Alani a cool new "magic multiplication" board and she had so much fun asking me multiplication equations on all of our drives today
Math-30 minutes (oh and "10s and 1s" drills with Beta too)
Violin-30 minutes
Phonics-30 minutes
I'm looking forward to starting with our co-op, our history book, and getting a copy of our first Fred book from my friend "CJ" next week.
20.5 is where we end this week. . .oh, maybe 21
I thought there would be something school-like on Saturday. We did go to the Farmer's market, so there was the 30 minutes of walking/wandering and then Alani making some purchases with cash she had in hand. After that it was a birthday party and our annual "Pig Pickin'" where a hundred or so people show up to devour an entire pig that's been cooking on the giant grill in our backyard since 4am. . . but there was really nothing to learn there, seriously NOTHING!
We even forgot to practice violin. . the FIRST day of practice and we forgot!!! OOPS! We promise to do our practice on Sunday Miss Mindy.
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