What Week Is This?...

I want to keep posting for the accountability, but there hasn't been anything terribly exciting to say. I suppose that's life, so here's a recap....

The book we started reading after we finished The Boxcar Children is The Apple and the Arrow and I find it excruciatingly boring so far. It's hard to keep her attention- I think it's pretty far above kindergarten comprehension level. Amazon.com says ages 9-12. Hmm. Sonlight always says to tailor the curriculum to suit your family, but I feel guilty just throwing something out, and I'm not sure what to put in its place. Right now we're avoiding it and working on other things. She says she wants to learn all about dinosaurs, and I don't really have anything to give her for that, so maybe we'll go to the library this week and get some books that are more interesting.

Officially it's week 6. We're in week 7 for math, right on schedule for Bible and language, and a bit behind in poetry. We've been doing lots of Bible stuff lately- they're memorizing the books of the Old Testament in her Sunday school class and I think she only knows up to Judges so far, but she's supposed to know through Psalms. :) For me she's memorized Romans 3:23, Acts 16:31, Colossians 3:20, and Matthew 7:12 so far. We're using Sing the Word from A-Z (music in the link, watch out!) and she'll be learning 26 verses throughout the year, one for each letter of the alphabet. They're fun. Typing this I was singing in my head, "Colossians 3, verse 20, obey obey, Colossians 3, verse 20, obey obey, Colossians 3, verse 20, obey obey, for this pleases the Lord!" I like the way they include the address in the song. We have Steve Green's Hide 'Em in Your Heart, and she knows a lot of those verses but he doesn't work the reference into the song so she never learned where they're found in the Bible. This is better for that. We're both learning.

Robin Hood is making good progress on his animals and colors. Right now he's obsessed with rabbits. He likes to throw them at people and then look at me innocently and say, "HOP!" Like, this is what rabbits do, mom, don't get on my case!

Week 4

We're settling into a kind of routine, I guess, but on the other hand it feels like every day is different. Officially we're still in week 3, because we haven't done everything it called for us to do, but we're also half way through week 4 in some things, and in week 6 for math. As long as we're getting work done every day I feel good about our progress.

Somebody gave us a copy of the kindergarten science program, which I hadn't ordered, and Maid Marian is really excited about it. Most of it deals with nature and trees and the way God made the world, which is right up her alley. It looks like it's going to have a unit on simple machines though, and some other stuff that it will be good for her to know. We went on a nature walk last night and picked up a bunch of leaves, and then brought them back and looked them up in the field guide we got from the library. She's having a good time.

We've finished The Boxcar Children and are going to be starting part of James Herriot's kids' stories next. The math is getting a bit more challenging- she's learning to count by tens and do simple addition problems properly. It's still pretty easy for her, but she does have to think about it now.

So, off to do some reading while she does copywork. If you'd like her to write you a letter, tell her! She's getting good at writing and loves sending out mail.

Week 2

So much for posting every single day. :) I knew that wouldn't last long.

The Labor Day holiday has thrown us off a bit for week 2, plus we've had other things going on and she hasn't been in much of a school mood. I finally told her today that it wasn't a choice, that everybody who was five HAD to do kindergarten, and it was her choice whether she would listen to me and do work here, or if we needed to think about sending her down the road. I hate to use that as a threat- if we ever do decide to send her to public school I don't want her to think it's a punishment. On the other hand, I DO sort of feel like it would be a punishment and I don't really plan to do it. There's no teeth in that argument, but just the thought of having to go away to school made her buckle down and do some work, so there you have it.

Now she's leaning over my shoulder watching me type and saying, "Dog. You almost typed dog before, with the capital letters, but you didn't put the G. What word is that? Dog with no G?"

Anyway, what's working this week is to let her pick one book or activity, and just to keep working with it until she's tired. We've done all the poetry for the week and she's on lesson 16 I think in math. She says after lunch she wants to do Bible stories, and I'm just going to chug ahead until she begs me to quit. The curriculum is a guide, not a stranglehold around our necks. We can adjust it to suit ourselves.

And on the animal front, Robin Hood will roar at me now if I show him the fisher price lion. He still calls it a dog, and he watched a documentary on lions with his daddy and didn't recognize that's what they were. So clearly there is more work to be done. But his roar is adorable.

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. :)

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.

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.  :)