First Two Weeks of School

For anyone who homeschools, they know the first four weeks are hard.......and the last four weeks are hard. Every year I mentally go into "Survival Mode" for the first month. This means every other activity other than homeschooling is kept to a bare minimum so we all don't burn out. Thankfully, this year wasn't as difficult as some others - in fact we've had some very delightful times.

Allan is working on nailing down his addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division facts to 12 so that Math can go more quickly. He'll soon be there! I found this nifty Kindle book that works like flashcards for multiplication (now why didn't I think of something like that!). He's also working diligently on his Typing Skills so that he doesn't have to do so much physical writing when it comes to his longer compositions. Many an idea has been lost or greatly edited between the brain and the fingers so he has to write as little as possible.

Daniel is very diligently working on his phonics and reading but Math, Science, and History are "easy". He, like his brother, doesn't enjoy the physical process of writing so I think he'll soon be starting Typing Instructor too.

Stephen just started Kindergarten this week and thinks he has this "school thing" down pat! Today he finished and said, "That was short, I think I'll do today's next day's work (tomorrow's work)" and he did! He's so tickled that now he gets to watch Mrs. Lawson and Hopscotch just like his brothers have.

We've spent the last two weeks in music studying and listening to Peter and the Wolf by Sergei Prokofiev. Earlier this summer I had allowed them to watch the old cartoon version and they thought it was hilarious - which it is but I wanted them to appreciate it a little more than just for the funny antics of the cartoon characters. So I found the Vancouver Symphony doing a fine job with both the music and the story line and had them watch it. I quite surprised at how much they enjoyed seeing the instruments being played once they knew what each instrument represented and it gave them room for their imaginations to take over - so that they were acting it out as they listened. We finished by listening to the Classics for Kids program on the piece to round out this study.

Since it's the beginning of the year, we're sticking to crafts for art during the first few weeks instead of formal art instruction. They're all on such different levels that it's going to take me some time to get my head together to make our art curriculum work for all three of them. And it may not work - we'll just have to see.

And this year for PE we found a program specifically for homeschoolers and so we're giving it a whirl to see how things go.

Busy, busy days but such fun to be learning together!