Thursday, August 28, 2008

Day 4

Well, I'd heard somewhere that you can homeschool a kindergartener with a good half hour of time every day. It's totally true. Maid Marian woke up with an attitude and a hacking cough and spent several hours lying in the living room with Noah and his pals. We didn't start school until after lunch and we're fine. We got caught up on Bible work, still ahead on math and novel, and we just need to read our biography to be done for the day.

But first we're off to the grocery store to get picnic fodder. We're going to watch the new Ariel movie and eat on the floor tonight. Because she doesn't have to get up crazy early for school tomorrow. :)

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Day 3

We've had a few setbacks today. Already? Really? I thought we're still in the honeymoon stage. Anyway. She got frustrated writing her 5s last night and erased all of the math work she'd done so far- 12 lessons worth. So today we had a talk about practice and how NO I do NOT expect perfection from her, it's OKAY if it doesn't look good, that's what practice is FOR! And I want her to leave her work there so that we can look back in the book after we've finished and see her progress. She's redoing it and is already up to lesson 7, and it's only day 3, so we're still ahead.

I realized there's a study guide for history that I was supposed to be reading ahead of time, and it had a whole bunch of stuff in it about Martin Luther that frankly confused me. They said the book I was reading was written inaccurately and had a strong Protestant bias and might anger some readers and that Luther would be studied again a few years down the road and that it was okay to skip it for now if it didn't make sense. And yeah, that didn't make sense. So we blew off the history reading for today, but did do some more map work because they had a blow-up of Germany to discuss the different towns in the reading.

We've done our poetry and copywork for the day, and we'll read more Boxcar Children later, so officially we're still right on track. I just feel like we didn't do anything today.

And oh yeah, I have two kids! I need to be making a list of goals for Robin Hood and figure out what I want him to learn this year. He's never been to the zoo, and we haven't gone in so long that Maid Marian barely remembers going either, so I know I want to do a lot of animal work with him. It's still too hot to go, but we're planning a trip for the fall. I'm going to do a lot of Little People zoo "work" with him and teach him the animal names. I haven't gotten in the floor and just played with him lately.

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Noah's Ark

So it turns out we're supposed to be reading that story tomorrow. Today is the Fall and also Cain and Abel. You know, just some light reading... Good times. I'd already told her it was Noah day though, so we're switching it around and doing that other stuff tomorrow. Yay! Have I mentioned how much I love making my own schedule and working with her interests?

Anyway, Marian's in the mood now to play with her Noah's Pals, and I always love watching her interact with the animals. She has quite a few now, having spent all her birthday money on ordering more. Today they're having a race. She's lining them all up in order from smallest to largest and dividing them into two teams. So far the line seems to be between Owen and Olivia Ostrich. She gets to run with the small team. I'm thinking she'll smoke the skunks and kinkajous. Something's not quite fair there.

She talks to them constantly as she works, and I love the way she can remember all the names they came with. "Okay, Blake, you run next to Taylor, and be nice this time...." "Hayden lost his ear last time running on the rocks, he needs to be more careful!" She's discussing the creation of special saddles to put on the bigger animals so they can carry the smaller ones who can't run well. It's so cute. She's in a really creative mood.

Then she tells me, "I have some bad animals, Mama. Some of them CHEAT! and also LIE! And that is not nice." I ask why do they do that? and she says very seriously, "It's because they're from the devil." I had to work so hard to keep a straight face. She's been asking a lot of deep spiritual questions in the car lately about angels and God and the devil and I know she's really been mulling it over. I told her she needed to try to show all her animals God's love then, so they wouldn't want to stay with the devil, and so now they're getting lessons. She's got them all lying down to take a nap before the race and she's talking to them very earnestly.

"There is just ONE God. There is not, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eightnineten Gods. And He loves you! You should love Him too...."

Day 2

I'm going to try to use this as a record of what we get done daily, so it may be a bit dry. I'll try not to make it as boring as the 95 Theses though.

~She is now on Lesson 8 in the math book and can't get enough of it. I figure her enthusiasm may slow down later on, so I don't mind her getting a bit ahead right now. It'll give us wiggle room if we need it in a few months or get caught up in other topics.
~We are in the middle of chapter 4 in The Boxcar Children. Same situation there.
~We've read some poetry this morning: "hello and good-by" and also some Mother Goose rhymes. Little Bo Peep (I wrote Poop at first, whoops) and that has more verses than I remember, by the way. We also read Little Boy Blue and Rain.
~more Martin Luther discussion and she's actually starting to get into it a bit. She wanted to get out the map and have me show her where Rome is and how far from his hometown in Germany that would be if they made him go there for his trial, and we talked about how it took much longer to get places without the modern transportation we have now.
~We also worked on her Book of Time. I can't say enough good things about this. Even if you don't use Sonlight, I think every kid should have this book. It makes time much more concrete for her. It comes with stickers for all the major events and people we'll be discussing this year, so we put in Adam and Eve, Martin Luther, and a bunch of family birthdays and anniversaries so she can see how it all fits together. She had no idea how many years ago ML's birthday was (1483) until she had to turn SO MANY pages backward from her birthday to put his sticker in.

The only thing we haven't done for today's work is read the bible story. Pages 12-16- I'm not sure what story it is. I think maybe Noah's Ark. And then I'm sure we'll work with the Book of Time some more because there's a sticker for that too.

She asked me today why it takes so long for everybody else to do school and have to be there all day when we get finished so quick. :) She's catching on already.

Monday, August 25, 2008

Day 1

Accomplished before 10:15 today:
~Language work- F week. Cut pictures from magazines and make F collage. Look at F pages in My First Picture Dictionary. Copywork- first name with proper spacing and shape of letters, 3x
~Math work- Lessons 1-3 Kindergarten Horizons Math book 1. She loves this. Was annoyed I would only let her get that far ahead.
~Read creation story in Genesis. Working on Romans 3:23 for this week's memory verse.
~Began discussion of Martin Luther in Hero Tales. Talked about indulgences and why the church was not teaching the truth.

I woke her up at 8:00 this morning. No more sleeping in as late as she wants. She has from 8-8:30 to get her morning chores done and then we sit down to breakfast. School starts at 9. Except Tuesdays when she has tumbling class. Then we'll do it at 10.

The only thing we have left on the agenda is to read Chapter 1 of The Boxcar Children and do the discussion questions about Luther. This is fun. REALLY fun. I got up on time and had the kitchen all clean and the table set for breakfast and I made pancakes.

It's been a good day.

Update: And now we're done.  She's like her mama- nonfiction is BORING.  I'm going to have to work a little harder to make Martin Luther interesting and memorable.

However, she's loving The Boxcar Children.  We read two chapters already and again, she's annoyed with me that I won't whiz through it.  :)

Sunday, August 24, 2008

Getting Started

Kids,
I knew before you were born that I wanted to homeschool you. I've heard all kinds of reasons why I shouldn't, and how you will grow up to be sad strange little people. I've also heard many reasons why it's the most rewarding, best, and most fun job I'll have. Those reasons win by a landslide.

So if you do turn out sad or strange, don't blame me. I'm doing the best I can here, and I just really feel like you are supposed to be home with me. I want to teach you about the way God's world all fits together, and help you find His plan for your life, and nobody can do that better than I can. No matter how high your test scores are or if you can memorize all the important facts, that pales next to knowing without a doubt that you are God's creation and that He made you because He loves you. Public school won't do that, private school won't do it, and most of the time neither will Christian school. Family does that.

Besides, you are two of the funniest, smartest, most awesome kids to be around. Why would I not want you with me all day? Marian, you are barely five years old. The thought of sending you off into the world makes me sad. Neither one of us are ready for that yet. I want to be the one who sees your face light up as you sound out words and make connections. I want to kindle your love of learning and let you set your own pace as we go. I want to be able to take all the time in the world to do extra research on topics that interest you, and have the freedom to skip over something you already know how to do. I want to watch you interact with your sweet brother and help him grow.

I don't want to be that mom crying on the first day of school as she sends her baby away. And FOR WHAT? Why do we buy into the lie that other people can teach our children better than we can?

Tomorrow morning we start kindergarten. You won't be getting on a bus. I'm not packing you a lunch. We don't have to rush around in the morning feeling Nervous Tummy about meeting new people. We're adjusting our schedule just a bit to account for this new exciting work we're doing and all of the reading I'm going to be doing with you, but our days may not change that much. We're doing the things we always have, in the way we like to do them.

Last week I took you to Target and we looked over the kindergarten supply list for the school you would otherwise be attending. I gave you $27 in cash (because that's all I had in my purse) and we decided which things were a good idea, and which things we didn't need. We got the specific scissors they asked for, because you didn't have any like that, and we changed almost everything else on the list. We got a big pack of white paper to feed your drawing habit and some other office supplies, and then you wanted a new school outfit with the rest of the money. You ended up with a pink sparkly shirt and two pairs of shorts, a pack of glue sticks, some markers... it cost much less than buying everything they thought you needed, it's stuff you'll actually use, and you budgeted it yourself.

I am proud of you. No matter what we do together in school this year, I am proud of you and your spirit and your love and the way you're living your life. I'm so glad that I can be here every day to watch you do it. I'm glad your little brother gets to have you around to help him out. I'm glad we're a family.