WOW. . .I kind of just totally failed to write ever again! This "first grade year" has been soooo laid back. It seems like I should be able to find enough time to do the basic stuff I want to do with my 1st grader, each day, but a block of time is hard to come by and having to take out and clean up a mess of school work several times/day is just not on my list of things I want to be doing. I really thought that once winter forced us indoors I'd really get my act together, but it has just NOT happened. . .not between trips, holidays and visitors.
We have a weekly co-op and it's been a great time to socialize, learn some really fun skills and just have a good time with a couple of other girls in the same age range. Our first session we had "playground games" and "fun with plants" along with "sign language" and then "art class." Our second session we had "sewing" (hand and machine) and "yoga" along with the sign and art classes. This session is REALLY getting fun and more in-depth. This session we have "drama club" which will include reading out loud, improv and eventually move in to getting the kids to act out plays/short stories as well as hopefully write and create their own sets/costumes for their own plays. We have "fun with science" which will be a bunch of different simple science experiments and cooking class, with Mike. In his class they get to do a lot of hands on stuff with pretty instant gratification of being able to eat what they've made by the end of class, but making things from start to finish, week 1 was pizza from scratch! But they also have to do copy work, copying down the recipes each week, which I think is SUPER cool! They also still have sign and art :)
A couple of weeks ago I finally broke down and bought "What Your First Grader Needs to Know." This book is heavy on reading/writing in the beginning, with some info on history, I think she's pretty much touched on all of the math that the book suggest and then there's some stuff about art and music, which I'm just going to assume we're covering if she's having an art class each week and a violin lesson each week as well. One suggestion was having children write every day, just sounding things out on their own. This week I implemented daily writing. The first day she cried before she even took pen to paper, but each day she does it with more and more ease and excitement. Now we are embarking on week 2. She is still using a lower case "i" nearly every day, but remembering to capitalize the first letter and put a period at the end. This week we will add an additional element. All week she's essentially written "Today i. . .." with a simple short statement to follow. This week we will add "Today I. . .and I (felt how)." It will be a joy to see her journaling as she progresses and grows and I do hope it creates a desire to journal/record/write for the future.
Math is Alani's very favorite subject. Today she said to me "Mom, please give me just a little homework." She said this over and over again until I explained, as I wrote out a list, that homework is not me writing down a bunch of math problems, rather, a list of things she has to do on her own once she "goes home." I finally broke down and wrote out some simple math problems. She did them while we drove to the pool, then excitedly told Lila how she got to do homework to which Lila replied with something that basically sounded like "ugh." :) I am obviously NOT doing the amount of school work with her that SHE desires at the moment and I really do need to read that. There was a time when SHE was not ready, and now she is VERY ready and I want to keep pace with HER, not myself. She is begging for math daily. Writing with Ease, First Language Lessons, and even having to read out loud, she is NOT asking for. . . but math she enjoys a great deal. However, I have noticed that she does each of these lessons with less and less complaint each time. I hope I can be more consistent and have really struggled to find a balance between social obligations, family obligations, taking care of myself and others in the family, AND offering Alani the amount of time/day that she needs to in order to do school work (not to mention that sometimes I want to offer her my time and it NOT be school work, but how do I also fit that in?).
Slowly, slowly, things around here change. . . my daily time structure and priorities, my toddler's compliance, nap schedule, etc. I know that not all is lost, though I do feel like we could be SO much further than we are in her learning, if I could buckle down and be consistent with her. Today she completed "Caterpillar" after months of not having even looked at First Language Lessons. I love seeing her learn and really enjoying and yearning for it, much better than the alternative, but it makes me feel even cruddier about not being able to devote the time I should to her studies.
