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Aug. 11, 2008
Noses to the grindstone, so to speak
Today marks our official return to lessons for the 2008-09 year. The morning went very well with 2 hours spent on table work (science, math, reading/phonics and a bit of penmanship) and another 20 minutes listening to a book on CD with our lunch. We've managed to stay busy but not one-legged-man-in-a-butt-kicking-contest busy, if you know what I mean. Just busy enough.
We've pretty much just picked up where we left off in the spring with our curriculum. We're starting The Mystery of History when we receive it in the mail, but other than that it's same-ole, same-ole. Math is still Saxon Math 1- I really regret the time we spent on Math K. I think both boys could have handled the level 1 work last year. So I am skipping some lessons altogether and we're skipping most of the "Daily Meeting" every day. I do read through them and when they get to something we haven't already covered to death, we'll pick those parts back up. We may finish and be on to Level 2 by Christmas. Both boys are enjoying the math lessons though, and doing well to boot.
We've been plowing through The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading a little at a time this summer so they haven't completely forgotten the little bit of phonics that they do know. I alternate giving each boy a one-on-one lesson with me and doing the lessons on the chalkboard, taking turns between them, reading the sentences. Neither way works ideally but they both work all right. Neither of them has really taken off but they both do what's expected and sound out the words. I expect it will "click" for one or both of them in the coming weeks or months and I won't be able to get them to put down the books.
We're reading aloud Charles Kingsley's The Water Babies and listening to Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince on CD (from the library). We also have many picture books and science books and animal books and what-have-you books from the library. I intend to record the ones we read this year and include them (and the time spent reading them) as part of our report to our cover school.
I've decided to give each child one day per week to hold the coveted title of "kitchen helper." Today was TH's turn. AC will go Wednesdays and MJ on Fridays. The other days I may ask them to help from time to time but I'm not required to include them on those days. This takes some of the load of having to find something for a child to do every single meal of every single day, off of me. It's also much easier to remember than a rotating meal schedule or any other sort of 5-7 days per week set-up. If it seems that one of them doesn't get as much to do, we can always rotate the days among them, but I think it will work out well. I just got Sue Gregg's cookbook of lunches and snacks with the CD for helping children learn to cook so their time in the kitchen will hopefully be well and fruitfully spent, instead of just being underfoot.
I hope to update here weekly so be sure to check back. I'll also be keeping up with my homestead blog over at http://homsteadblogger.com/lindseyinal. I will try to cross-post so there should be something to look at from these quarters a couple times a week.
Blessings for a fruitful and pleasant schoolyear!!
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