I have been having a lot of fun teaching these kids this year. Though there are days when I just want to give it all up and send them on the next bus to school, there are many days when I get to see the lightbulb click in their brain, or I get to see them begin to understand something—those times make it all worth it. I love that we can get up and get around slowly in the morning, head downstairs when we’re ready (and if they’re involved playing something really cool, school can wait), take as much time as we need, and then go run errands whenever we want to. We’re not tied down by a schedule, and we’re flexible to change up our routine if the kids are enjoying something more than another. I love that they are best friends with their siblings. And I love that we can incorporate our love for Jesus in all that we learn.
Leah is soaring with her reading. She is almost finished with our phonics book, which upon completion states that the student is reading at about a 4th grade level. While I don’t think she could technically have the stamina to read through a 4th grade book, I do believe she would have the know-how to decode all the words. She is a natural at it, which made things a breeze for me. Spelling, however, is a little more difficult for her, and she gets so frustrated. I try to make it fun and we play games and we use letter tiles and we write on the dry erase board, but since it doesn’t come naturally for her, she gets discouraged and we are working on learning how to learn. She’s pretty good at math right now as well, although I can’t say I’ve really tried to challenge her in that area. Our main focus in that area is learning the addition facts, telling time, counting money, and a few other basic things.
Andrew loves to sit and do worksheets while Leah is doing hers’. In fact, he usually can’t get enough! He especially loves mazes and connect-the-dots and is really quite good at them. He knows basically all his letters and letter sounds. We will probably start working on reading in January but I can already tell its not going to be as natural for him as it was for Leah. He isn’t really quite getting the blending of letters to make words, yet, but I have a feeling he’s going to be pretty smart! He is great at mathematical things, too, and sometimes figures things out that I would never believe he could figure out!
It is challenging many times dividing my attention between the two of them plus a destructive two-year-old who just likes to throw the school toys all over the floor while we’re working, but we somehow manage to make progress, slowly but surely. We do as much together as we can and we learn teamwork!
Some days they really surprise me by sitting down working together ON THEIR OWN. I love that Leah can now actually read to them so I don’t have to all the time!
And some days we scrap all the plans and just play games or color or build a fort. That’s the beauty of homeschool.
We are learning American history this year (and by WE I really do mean WE, because I am learning a lot that I did not know!) and one of my favorite projects so far has been writing our own Declaration of Independence. We made our own ink out of strawberries, dipped in our feather pens, and even made our own papyrus paper to write on.
And we’re participating in a postcard exchange through Facebook. Each month we receive 5 postcards from 5 different states. We send a Vermont postcard to 5 different states. So by the end of the year we will have received one from all 50 states. Leah is memorizing all the states and their capitals and doing very well with it!
In science, we just finished up learning about animals and animal classification, and now we’ve moved on to the human body. I have some exciting projects planned. The first one we did was make a model of a cell out of Jell-o and different types of candy. The kids thought this was really cool, and I think they learned a lot!
We also used a rubber glove with straws to see what our hand would feel like without bones.
We are really enjoying going to Burlington every Thursday for our Classical Conversations group. Although getting all our bags ready the night before and the drive there are sometimes tedious, Leah and Andrew both thrive on the interaction with other kids their age. They are memorizing tons of things I don’t even remember learning!
Andrew seems so small in front of the class for his presentation, and he is the youngest in his class, but he keeps up very well and other moms have even commented how mature he seems. He loves to try to do everything himself. Both kids actually do better without me around—I guess because they know they can’t get away with as much?
They recently had class pictures done. One of the teachers just took her digital camera and took the kids outside, so we get to enjoy them for free! And they turned out so cute. What great memories they are forming and great friendships!
