I was busy the latter half of this week rearranging the house in an effort to make better use of our limited space. We are enjoying a much less cluttered living room and this week I intend to tackle closet space while trying to figure out what I want to do with Bug's room.
I looked back this week at my projected schedule and noticed things haven't been playing out as originally planned although not dramatically different. I do want to take a new look at things and type up a new plan however. I have found that after Wednesday, my enthusiasm is waning and things are unlikely to be done if I have not prepared for them in advance at a time when I do have enthusiasm. Using my planner to record the page, chapter and lesson numbers of what is done each day gives me a weekly and monthly overview which is helping me to rethink my plans for the weeks ahead.
What we did this week - briefly because it's late and I'm exhausted:
Monday/Literature: Chapter 6 of The House at Pooh Corner. Tuesday/History: Chapter 8 of A Child's History of the World. Wednesday/Nature Study: Chapters 8 and 9 of The Story-Book of Science. I have noticed that it frequently rains on Wednesdays. Thursday/-: We didn't do anything extra as we originally had crafts planned but plans changed late in the day. Friday/Craft: Paper turkeys after a brief lesson on the history of the Thanksgiving holiday.
In phonics Mr H. has been practicing three letter words. He still guesses occasionally because of not tracking all the way through the word before deciding what it is and will need to be encouraged to slow down and look through the letters one at a time. Besides a few such instances his reading is progressing quite impressively. He has a habit of wanting to use each word he reads in a sentence or give an example of it which is encouraging in that it demonstrates his comprehension but draws out what should be a brief exercise quite substantially. As a compromise I have limited him to one example per word.
In math he was introduced to addition this week and counting in 10s. We listen to the 1s family addition sung to Tchaikovsky's The Sleeping Beauty and he's been enthralled with the ballet performance on YouTube.
For writing he did a few Starfall.com work sheets namely Uu, Ii, Kk, and Ll and Friday he practiced writing more three letter words on notebook paper.
For music I think we will stay with Tchaikovsky for a while. The addition CD we have comes with information on the composers which is more helpful to me than it is to him.
Bug has learned a few extra shapes: heart, crescent and semi-circle. She seems to have vowel sounds down so we're branching into consonants.
Monkey is crawling around, pulling up on things and cruising all over the place. He is also falling and hurting himself a lot. He enjoys sitting in the high chair at the table, preferably with food, whenever everyone else is at the table. He insists quite vocally on not being left out.
Still working on the schedule. The week started out great but lost momentum as it progressed and the new order I was doing things in had me totally forgetting to do calendar, Bible and catechism which there was no excuse for. It took me until Friday to get that back in order so, like I said, still working on the schedule. One thing I changed with school is that I've been giving Mr H. his writing straight after phonics as it just appears to make more sense than leaving it until after math.
Anyway, the week past:
Monday/Literature: Chapter 5 of The House at Pooh Corner. Tuesday/History: Chapters 6 and 7 of A Child's History of the World, reading about the Egyptians. Wednesday/Nature Study: Chapters 6 and 7 of The Story-Book of Science. We read about how many different things eat plant lice and how quickly plant lice reproduce to make up for it. So much, in fact, that if there weren't so many things eating them they would become a plague on the earth and in fact have done so in some parts of the world at certain times. There was a great discussion about (basically) the weak things of the world being capable of putting fear into the hearts of the strong. I cannot recommend this book enough. There is an opportunity for worship to flow out of every science lesson. Thursday/-: Tuesdays and Thursdays seem to be the most prone to chaos and upset. It's a phenomenon that I can not explain. Friday/Craft: Papier mache balloons with home made (flour and water) glue. I totally forgot how messy this activity was.
Mr H. has been continuing through Phonics Pathways this week. We sit on the couch together with me on his left to point to the words as I've found this most helpful in encouraging left to right tracking. His progress has been impressive - he will now frequently blend as he tracks across a word with his eyes rather than making the individual sounds and then blending them together. Early in the week he was often pronouncing the g at the end of a word as /k/ and also confusing d and t at the end of a word but has been self correcting and making the mistakes less as the week has progressed.
In math he is practicing counting to 50 and has started addition. Other stuff Horizons has covered this week has been stuff he's already familiar with like calendar, days of the week, ordinal numbers, zero and reading the time (hours, as in 1 o'clock) on both the analogue and digital clocks. Coming up next week is more addition and counting in 10s. It's fun to get to work with him on learning new things.
For copy work this week we've been back in the notebook. I've been writing out three letter words, mostly from his phonics lesson, with letters that he's practiced in the past few weeks. I'm making a mental note to make sure he learns to write i and u next week.
Bug, from listening to her brother, can count to 20 although consistently missing 13 and 15. She now regularly recognizes pink, orange, black, purple, brown and gray and is about 50/50 in recognizing red, green, blue and yellow. I can't recall if I've mentioned but she recognizes the shapes circle, square, rectangle, oval, diamond, star, triangle but thinks pentagons, hexagons, octagons are all hexagons. I did settle on teaching her the sounds rather than the names of the letters (although she can now sing through the whole alphabet song and still insists on ending it with "Amen"). She recognizes the vowel sounds /a/, /e/, /i/, /o/ and is getting closer to remembering /u/ - progressing from /h/ to something that sounds like "huh".
We haven't ventured too far in music - still listening to Beethoven's 9th.
The littlest ones have continued to suffer from congestion all week but besides that, if I remember correctly, everything went smoothly. I am re-examining my schedule in order to more effectively redeem the time, keeping the house in a more thoroughly clean and tidy condition rather than satisfactory and getting some reading and knitting done. There is a huge mental shift that has to take place however because I find it difficult to come to terms with the fact that I just cannot get everything done and have as much time for idleness, or sleep, as my flesh would like.
Here is what we covered last week:
Monday/Literature: Chapter 4 of The House at Pooh Corner. Tuesday/Nature Study: Chapters 4 and 5 of The Story-Book of Science in which we read about milk-maid ants and plant lice. On a trip down to the bridge we examined the changing leaves, sprouting acorns and discussed the need to be mindful of the small plants and baby trees when choosing where to place our feet. Wednesday/History: Most of chapter 4 and then chapter 5 of A Child's History of the World in which we read about the areas various groups of people settled, the beginning of these early civilizations and of their written records through which we can learn about them. Thursday/Slow and Steady, Get Me Ready: We explored shadows, experimenting with different shaped objects and a flashlight and talked about how shadows are made. Friday/Craft: The children made a couple more pine cone bird feeders with Aunt M.
DH had certification exams to do Saturday so it was, for us, essentially like a weekday except I had no desire to do school work. Mr H., on the other hand, did and so practiced counting to 40, writing numbers 1-10 and completed a couple of PES math worksheets with as minimal input from me as I could get away with.
We are still in Phonics Pathways and we've been going between the magnets on the side of the fridge and reading straight from the book on the couch. I realized this week that we were spending more time on Math than phonics and have taken measure to correct that as learning to read is more important at this point being that once one can read they can read the Bible.
I decided we'd focus on Horizons for math and leave the PES worksheets as an optional activity after school. DH bought Mr H. his first piggy bank and started giving him an allowance and he gets an extra penny to add to that for any extra pages he wants to complete.
For copy work we have been continuing with print outs from Starfall.com for the time being. Honestly, writing isn't something I'm paying much attention to right now beyond ensuring Mr H. is correctly forming his letters.
Bug is still doing her thing. She seems to be growing more aware of colors and even beginning to recognize a couple of them by name.
Below is one of the worksheets Mr H. did Saturday and the bar graph he made today that followed it.
Friday we closed on our house so DH took the day off and although we did more than I expected, we didn't do as much as intended.
One new thing I've been doing this week is incorporating Bug into the schedule, switching between her and Mr H. and reducing each one's feelings of being left out of what the other one is doing.
Their favorite activity lately has been for all 3 of them to crawl around on all fours pretending to be lions/crocodiles/tigers/whatever Mr H. is in the mood for them to be.
The week past:
Monday/Literature: Chapter 3 of The House at Pooh Corner. Tuesday/----: Not a great day all around. We all agreed on early naps instead extra activity.
Wednesday/Nature Study: Mr H. watched part of the first disk of Blue Planet and we read Chapters 2 & 3 of The Story-Book of Science. We read about the roles and work of ants in constructing an ant hill. I loved this quote from the second chapter:
"Compared with truth, fiction is a pitiful trifle; for the former is the work of God, the latter the dream of man."
Thursday/History & Crafts: Making up for Tuesday's loss of history we read Genesis through to the tower of Babel and will begin A Child's History of the World next week. After nap time Aunt M. came over and they worked with paint and origami. Afterward, Mr H. attempted to build a house for a raccoon down at the bridge at the bottom of our yard. Friday/----: We didn't get to do the activity I had planned because we spent the whole evening out and about. Thankfully I have a couple of years before officially beginning school to grow in personal organization skills.
I've been changing things up for Phonics. Instead of reading words from a book we now use the letter magnets on the fridge most days. Bug reviews the vowel sounds and then Mr H. practices three-letter cvc words and his first sight word, "the".
I've also changed up Math. Instead of putting the Horizons work on the white board we get down on the rug and do the work with manipulatives and we are not always doing both Horizons and PES together. For example, Wednesday and Friday we worked from Horizons and Thursday Mr H. requested a worksheet he could hang on the fridge to show Dad so he did PES. Before we get to work I go over colors, shapes and numbers with Bug with her books and/or flash cards.
For copy work I started printing out worksheets for Mr H. from Starfall.com again as it appears they are a lot more fun than the notebook. :) They've both been coloring, playing with play-dough and such at this time also to develop their fine motor skills.
We listened to Beethoven's 7th Symphony this week.
I figured, to the wind with the scheduled order for extra subjects! Well, not entirely. I just decided to be flexible so that we can switch up Nature Study for another subject if the weather doesn't permit us to get outside on Wednesdays.
This was a better week. I found some awesome free online books for incorporating into our lessons thanks to a thread on The Well-Trained Mind forums. I also may have found a great spot for a garden come Spring thanks to getting out and exploring our back yard for the first time in the two years we've lived here.
I also came up with the idea of recording what he does each day in my daily planner. I figured it might be wise or at least useful in future, to have a record. I'm glad I thought of this only 2 weeks in.
Here's what we did:
Monday/Literature: To the wind with Mother Goose! Still no word on it from the library so we began reading The House at Pooh Corner and despite the sparing distribution of pictures Mr H. is now a Winnie-the-Pooh fan. We read the first two chapters this week. Tuesday/History: We read Genesis 4-7. In our continued learning about the beginning of human history we read about the world-wide flood that entirely changed the climate of Earth. I'm looking forward to exploring this in future years when he's old enough to learn about the theories of "pre-history" and related topics in Science. Wednesday/Nature Study: We spent time outside exploring the back yard which is something we rarely do due to the hill back there, swarms of mosquitoes in the warm weather, snakes, etc. There is a little bridge over a gully created by run off rainwater during storms and we found some very interesting plants growing down there including wild ferns which I was very surprised to see. Inside we read the read the first chapter of The Story-Book of Science by Jean Henri Fabre which can be found free online due to it being out of copyright. From what I've seen so far it is a delightful find. Thursday/Art: We got out some paint pens and he created a few pictures one of which, he informed Daddy, was Noah's ark. He's paying more attention to what we read and talk about each day than I realize at the time. Friday/Slow and Steady, Get Me Ready: This week we explored the concept of sinking and floating and he was absolutely thrilled about playing with a tub of water and plans on taking it all to the bathtub after nap time. He was really quite good at guessing which items would sink and which would float.
In Phonics this week he got up to page 38 in Phonics Pathways and we stopped there and moved over to The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading. Today he did lesson 28 and worked with the letter magnets on the side of the fridge creating three letter words that end with "at".
In Math we have been moving smoothly through both Horizons and PES Math without slowing down yet but new concepts are just starting to show up in Horizons. Today he was introduced to tally marks.
For Copy Work I have moved away from printing out worksheets for each day and started ruling up appropriate lines in a notebook and writing in letters for him to trace with space for writing his own copies and simply dating the lines in the notebook that he completes each day, usually two or three. This has been saving time, ink and paper. This week he has still been practicing lowercase a, c, d and e.
I've been endeavoring to play classical music each day. This week we have listened to Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 and Verdi's Requiem. I realized while listening to Requiem that I'm going to need to read up on the composers and the pieces so that I can better appreciate them.
The new schedule is working well so far although I forgot the order I had planned for the extra subjects however everything did get done besides arts & crafts due to my lack of forethought and preparedness. The week wasn't as great as I would have liked due to dreary weather and sickness but it was a start. Here is what we did:
Monday/Literature: I had requested Mother Goose from the library but still have heard no word of it being in yet so instead we sat and read Little Bear, Little Bear's Friend & Father Bear Comes Home. Tuesday/Nature Study: A bleh kind of day. We stayed in and watched Planet Earth - Mountains. Wednesday/Slow & Steady, Get Me Ready: Taste testing! Mr H. experienced sweet, salty, bitter and sour. He also learned how to sniff after a couple of mishaps resulting in the wide distribution of cocoa powder. We examined the tongue and talked about poisons. Thursday/Arts-Crafts-Music: Another bleh day and I decided crafts after nap time with Aunt M. would suffice however I did not anticipate misbehavior that would result in him missing the majority of this time. Although we're hoping it doesn't happen again, henceforth I will be sure to cover this subject before nap time and let crafts with Aunt M. after naps be a special treat. Friday/History: We cuddled up on the couch to read and talk about the first three chapters of Genesis, taking the opportunity to discuss what we've learned through our catechism questions while we were at it.
Today's new Phonics Pathways page was page 33. He's been doing great with cv blends and the cvc words that have been introduced so long as the word is already part of his vocabulary. A couple have been unfamiliar and instead of blending the sounds together after sounding the word out he will guess but that has been easily worked through.
Since I don't have the workbook for Horizons Math K I have been putting the lessons on the whiteboard. After one lesson from Horizons he's been doing one page from Premium Education Serious Math K. Both are only winding up right now so he isn't learning anything new, just reviewing and practicing so far. When the content picks up a bit we may end up alternating the two rather than doing a lesson from each every day. I should have a better idea of that in the next couple of weeks.
As for writing, I've dropped cursive for what I think is D'Nealian. I'm not quite sure but it's basically cursive without the initial connector as in the lower case "a" begins on the center dotted line rather than on the base line but the letters do end with their connecting tails. He has found this so much easier and has been forming some very neat letters.
I had been flip-flopping around on what to do with Mr H. had finally settled on plan and ordered what I would need. Since then I have been looking over what I have waiting while continuing what I was already doing with Mr H. and as we have drawn to an end of the Pre-K workbooks I have been trying to decide whether to move on to what I had planned to do next or to delay it and in the meantime review the things learned in the Pre-K material. That is, until I realized that what we were doing for review was essentially the same as half the content of the K level math books which settled me on the decision to continue forward.
What I've laid out, beginning next Monday, closely follows the recommended schedule laid out in LCC and as per LCC, the core subjects covered daily - phonics, copy work and math - will progress according to Mr H.'s pace, not at the pace of the curriculum. In addition to those I've laid out additional subjects for each day of the week. This is the initial plan:
Monday: History [reading from the Bible up to Genesis 11:9 and then from A Child's History of the World from Chap. 5] Tuesday: Nature Study [to include nature walks as well as reading and videos on topics of interest] Wednesday: Slow & Steady, Get Me Ready Thursday: Music, arts and crafts [some with Aunt M. in the afternoons] Friday: Literature [selected reading from Mother Goose Reading through The House at Pooh Corner]
Daily:
Bible reading, memory verses, catechism [10 min]
Phonics Pathways, The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading or Hooked On Phonics [10 min]
Copywork, starting with Cursive First [5 min]
First Language Lessons 1 [5-10 min]
Math with Horizons K and Premium Education Series Math K [15 min]
.. with recreational read alouds, audio books, music, art, etc. interspersed throughout the week.
To spice things up we also have plans for a regular Science Saturdaywith Dad using From Mudpies to Magnets. Maybe not every Saturday but hopefully at least every other one.
It's a miracle. Mr H., just all out of the blue, demonstrated that finally caught on to the concept of rhyming. Now he's interrupting me during reading to point out the words that rhyme.
Some more random updates ...
I'm suspecting that it may be time to stop procrastinating and actually start teaching him to write. He's been forming letters with pens on paper, with his fingers on everything else, with his hands in the air and if he's really active he runs around like a bee doing a dance, forming huge letters on the floor ("Look at my D, Mom!" as he runs from one end of the room to the other and then around and back to where he started).
It was three years ago tonight that Mr H. pulled up to standing for the very first time. :D
Bug is making some encouraging potty progress. I'm really hoping she makes the transition with minimal help from me and preferably before winter.
I was thinking this past week about past discussions with various people on the topic of child-proofing. Some are of the persuasion it should not be done but rather the parent is responsible to train the children to obey so well that it is not needed. This idea seems to have made others I know feel 'inadequate' or 'guilty' when they feel so busy with child raising, house keeping and home schooling that they are considering "picking their fights" by child proofing (one less thing to worry about). I started out in the first camp, had a couple more children and migrated to the second. This past week I came to peace with it by facing the reality: I am fallible.
Speaking of child proofing, Monkey is getting up on his hands and knees and beginning to make forward progress rather than scooting backwards. Of course, the first place he's been heading for is the dog bed. Tasty.
Over the past couple of weeks I have spent far more than I care to add up (although DH insists I at least keep a record) on home schooling supplies. I'm almost entirely set up to begin kindergarten whenever Mr H. is ready but for now I'm trying to help him grasp the concepts of rhyme and ordinal numbers and strengthen the concepts of one-to-one correspondence and pattern recognition. Maybe what we need is a couple dollar store pre-k workbooks to review the past few months. It's not really "spending more" if it's only a dollar or two, right?
Mr H. is getting impressively good with letter sounds and can take separate sounds I make and blend them together into a word but he cannot do it yet with printed letters. He will sound out the individual letters but isn't yet making the connection needed between print and meaning in order to begin reading so we will be doing less individual sound/letter work and more blending practice.
I'm torn over his writing. I wanted to teach him cursive first but he could be legibly writing soon, if not already if I gave him printing opportunity and practice. He already forms printed letters by himself of his own volition some days. I am still having to check and recheck his pencil grip and he has my bad habit of strangling the pencil to death so that his hand is hurting after only a short time so I trying to help him with that as well.
Meanwhile, I'm learning plenty myself such as how to speak to him when he's getting frustrated and how to encourage him and reduce the likelihood of him getting frustrated. It's making school enjoyable again for both of us.
I've spent a lot of time reading in the past week. I'm almost through The Latin-Centered Curriculum and I've started The Well Trained Mind which I'm going to keep working on for now but am not sure I will complete as I'm inclined more towards the classical method of education described in the Latin-Centered Curriculum than I am the neoclassical method of the Well Trained Mind. There is so much I want to read. I've been inspired to tend to my own education as well and I'm beginning with some of the curriculum I already have for the children.
This past weekend I put together an order at Rainbow Resource of kindergarten level curriculum and ordered Song School Latin from Classical Academic Press. Mr H. won't begin Latin until he's reading fluently but as part of my own education I will begin as soon as Song School Latin arrives and will intend to stay two to three years ahead of him.
I love learning and I want to pass that love on to Mr H. With that thought, my excitement about homeschooling has been rekindled.
Yesterday was Bug's 2nd birthday. We spent the day at the Riverbanks Zoo in Columbia, SC with some friends from church and their children. We all got to feed a giraffe and Bug enjoyed herself quite a bit as did Mr H.
The Monkey tried back flipping out of the Baby K'tan while I was taking a photo of a parrot, giving me, and the guy beside me, quite a fright. I was so rattled that I didn't regain the ability to enjoy the outing for the rest of the day and was on the brink of tears for a while. It was just so close. He could have come right out if I hadn't reacted so quickly. I want to cry again just thinking about it. I will probably use the thing still but never without my hands on him, not even for a moment. I know people use slings and wraps hands free and it's supposed to be safe if positioned properly but Monkey is so wriggly and I realized in retrospect that the fabric had probably worked it's way down his back as a result of all his twisting and wiggling to see everything. Even though the Lord protected him from harm despite my oversight it is difficult to forgive myself for such carelessness.
I cried when I watched this. Well, almost. My eyes moistened. Emotionalism has been my companion the past couple of weeks. I have nothing to blame, no excuse to give.
Between this and my Bible reading last night I was reminded of a quote from a devotional I read a couple of weeks ago:
"Homeschooling forces us parents into knowing that it is not by might, nor by power, but by His Spirit that we are able to love and teach the children He has given us."
• Aug. 24, 2009 - The Week Ahead (With Meditation Upon the Substitutionary Atonement of Christ)
This week Mr H. is focusing on the number 6, the letter sounds /x/, /y/ and /z/ with HoP Pre-K, the rectangle, more pre-writing practice and a continued look at same and different with the added concept of same size. I incorporated some exercise into our schedule today and am trying to teach Mr H. to hop. Bug is learning the color red, the rectangle and I am continuing to go over counting and letter sounds with her by reading the primer.
Although I had planned to avoid letter names with Bug until after she had started reading it appears she is learning them by osmosis. Today while looking at the red page of a color board book and pointing to each of the red objects and naming them I finally pointed to the title of the page and said, "These letters are red" to which Bug exclaimed, "Arr". I looked at her blankly and then asked, "Pardon?" and was again met with, "Arr". I looked to where I was pointing and just to clarify I asked, "What letter is this, [Bug]?" as I tapped the big red "R". "Arr," she repeated. I slid my finger over and asked again, "What letter is this?". "Eee," she replied. DH found it quite funny. Now I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do with her since it's apparent that I can't shelter her from letter names. I might have her sit in with Mr H. as I take him through Phonics Pathways starting next week.
We stopped by the library on Saturday and now have cards! The children loved it and although I was looking forward to the convenience of being able to order books online and simply pick them up I am now looking forward to being able to make an excursion of it every now and then on the weekends with Daddy so they can play and explore. I picked up books to incorporate with our lessons along with some general reading books.
Meanwhile, I am working on gentleness of speech at all times, diligent use of time, nourishing my relationship with each child and meditating upon the substitutionary atonement of Christ. I read this quote today and the concept encapsulated in the last part of it has been a balm to my soul as I contemplate it:
"A surety is one that undertakes and is bound to do a thing for another, as to pay a debt for him or to bring him safe to such a or such a place or the like; so when he hath discharged what he undertook and was bound for, then the party for whom he undertook is discharged also." -- Thomas Goodwin
• Aug. 21, 2009 - Genesis, Opposites and Ordinal Numbers
This morning over breakfast we re-read Genesis 1 and took the opportunity from reading about God separating the light from the darkness to discuss opposites. Mr H. named several pairs of opposites, I taught him a few more and then he made up one of his own - "Eating and done, those are opposites!" - not too shabby. Ordinal numbers is another concept that came up.
• Aug. 20, 2009 - Where We Are Schoolwise This Week
The daily Bible, memory verse & catechism after breakfast and calendar with lunch is going great. Starting with "Today is Thursday, the twentieth day of August, two thousand and nine" (for example), we then go over the days of the week, ordinal numbers ("Sunday is the first day of the week."), yesterday/today/tomorrow, and practice counting. Mr H. has been pointing out the date if he comes across it in his math later saying, "Look! That's today's number!".
Today we tried a new activity before lunch. I got out an egg carton, wrote numbers on some colored paper (having Mr H. say them as I wrote, helping him as needed) then had him put glue on the backs (talking about opposites - front/back) and I stuck them on the cups of the egg carton. We then found tweezers and sunflower seeds and he used the tweezers to place the appropriate number of seeds in each cup. Today we only worked up to 6 because Bug was more than ready for lunch and was threatening to eat the sunflower seeds, shell and all.
I sat down yesterday with my monthly planner and Mr H.'s workbooks and wrote out weekly concepts to cover out of the rest of their content and even doing formal work for just 30-45 minutes a day (including time for coloring where called for and his phonics) he'll be finished with Pre-K math and concepts by November. I started wondering if I was going to fast with this but I can't slow it down any further without boring him to tears. I'm thinking of taking November to go over everything and starting him with Horizons Math K in December. I know it starts with a lot of basic review which he could do already but how many days a week we work on it will depend on his other lessons which I haven't even looked at yet.
Writing out the weekly topics for the next couple of months also helped to get me thinking about these things so I could start discussing them even now as the opportunity comes up (such as opposites - at bath time (wet/dry), at meal time (hot/cold), etc. and sequence, "What do we do next?", "Which comes first?", etc.) that way they aren't remotely new to him when they come up in his school work.
My next personal goal is to look over the Phonics resources we have and pencil out a general plan for that too. I also want to look more into Horizons Physical Education and Health curriculum to see if it's something I could use. Music and art are other areas I'm brainstorming for new ideas on. He watched a DVD of a Reading Rainbow episode (two actually - one on music and one specifically on jazz) and he was just enthralled. It was like a window into a world he didn't know existed. He came to me asking for his instrument and it took me a while to remember he had a harmonica which I found for him and his face just lit up. I was impressed that he remembered it and recognized that it was a musical instrument. Anyway, all this got me wanting to do more with him than sing and play music CDs but as for what, I just don't know yet. It's the same with art. He has pens, crayons, chalk, paint, play-dough and such but I want to throw open a window for him with art as well. Our first step towards opening windows is to get a long over due library card! I'm quite excited about it - free access to far more resources than we would ever have been able to afford to provide for him.
As for Bug, she pointed to the H key on the laptop today and exclaimed, "Aich!" I don't know where she got that from because we haven't covered that letter or it's sound for quite some weeks. This inspired me to commit to reading the primer with her before nap time each day though. Instead of the letter names we use the sounds. That's how we started with Mr H. and I'm wishing now I had held off teaching him the names until he was older because it's been a hindrance to his progress towards reading. I'm thinking of trying to teach her a color per week and depending on how that goes, trying out shapes afterwards.
• Aug. 17, 2009 - Reviewing Pre-K Curriculum Goals
I spent some time today looking over a list of Pre-K curriculum goals and considering which skills Mr H. already has, which ones he could master with a little attention and which ones we can be working towards long term and decided to slow down his number work to make more room during our school time other things. This week he's reviewing 0-5 (recognition, counting objects, writing), learning to understand same and different, working on some writing readiness worksheets and reviewing letter sounds, specifically /u/, /v/ and /w/. This is our second last week of Hooked on Phonics Pre-K Learn to Read and I'm ready to be done so we can change things up a little. Other activities we have planned are cutting, gluing, painting and play- dough. I'm going to attempt to each him how to do up buttons and I'm trying to remember to go over the calender with him at lunch time and do a short Bible lesson after breakfast (including his memory verse and catechism questions which we only recently transferred from being a part of family worship in the evenings to being a part of school).
It was a better day today by far, as far as school goes, than the ones we had last week.
I'm gleaning ideas from Early Education at Home by M. Jean Soyke to incorporate into our schedule. I have the book on loan from a friend right now but am thinking of buying a copy. I like the skills check-list and all the game suggestions. The back describes the book as "..a complete course of instruction for children ages 3-5 using simple, inexpensive materials that can be found in the home." That last point sold me. I was liking a lot about Learning At Home by Ann Ward as well but found it overwhelming - an ideal I could only dream of fulfilling at this point in my life - while the lesson plans in Early Education at Home look a lot closer to something I could pull off.
I looked over the resource section of my church's website for these verses relevant to today's temptations upon which to meditate.
PUT OFF: Anxiety / Fear / Worry
PUT ON: Trust
Matt 6:25 ¶ "For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, {as to} what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, {as to} what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?
Matt 6:26 "Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and {yet} your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they?
Matt 6:27 "And who of you by being worried can add a {single} hour to his life?
Matt 6:28 "And why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin,
Matt 6:29 yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these.
Matt 6:30 "But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is {alive} today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, {will He} not much more {clothe} you? You of little faith!
Matt 6:31 "Do not worry then, saying, 'What will we eat?' or 'What will we drink?' or 'What will we wear for clothing?'
Matt 6:32 "For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.
1 Pet 5:7 casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you.
PUT OFF: Doubt / Unbelief
PUT ON: Faith / Belief
Acts 16:31 They said, "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household."
Rom 10:13 for "WHOEVER WILL CALL ON THE NAME OF THE LORD WILL BE SAVED."
From my reading of Psalm 32 this evening I found these verses for meditation also:
Ps 32:1 How blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, Whose sin is covered!
Ps 32:2 How blessed is the man to whom the LORD does not impute iniquity, And in whose spirit there is no deceit!
Ps 32:8 ¶ I will instruct you and teach you in the way which you should go; I will counsel you with My eye upon you.
I have also found blessed truths to meditate upon in Seeing and Savoring Jesus Christ by John Piper and Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices by Thomas Brooks and have considered that I may be doing myself a disservice by neglecting the regular reading of such writings. I remember DH saying that one can get through quite a few books in a year by simply reading 20 minutes a day and I know I can find that time at least while nursing if nowhere else.
This doesn't come naturally to me. Mothering, I mean; although I may as well include home schooling, being a help-meet and anything else that involves thinking of someone besides myself. I'm going to confess right from the start that I'm intrinsically selfish, lacking all patience, kindness, thoughtfulness, gentleness and generally anything good. Apart from Christ, that is. I've found the hard way, through my own foolish, stubborn persistence in trying to accomplish my duties in my own strength that if I desire to raise up the children God has given me in the nurture and admonition of the Lord then my sole hope is in Christ. May my life be a witness to His power and faithfulness and may I ever be found giving Him the glory.
Somewhere between changing diapers and potty training, house keeping and preparing meals, interventing and negotiating, teaching and instructing and explaining to a three year old the reasons for everything.
