Homeschooling lately.

The adjustment from staying home full-time and homeschooling to working part-time and homeschooling has been a little tough for me.  Mondays and Tuesdays are just too full to try and home school, or to home school at any great length.  Wednesdays are much easier for me to come home and home school knowing that I can leave my errands or chores to the next day.  However, Thursday morning comes and all I want to do is curl up with a cup of coffee and watch The Today Show and stay in my jammies until noon.  Thursdays are our Saturday/Sunday around here, as it is the only day Popeye and I both have off together.  And I'm fiercely protective of those days.  It has worked out lately that I can get up early with Swee'Pea, drink my cup (or pot) of coffee while he eats breakfast and watches a show or two, and then I flip on The Today Show in the background while we get to work on school.  By the time Popeye wakes up, we are done with school and ready for a day of family fun.  We treat the end of the week and weekend as school days and it has worked out just fine so far.  (Except this week when I instead decided to paint a bedroom and purge closets and generally work myself to the point of exhaustion each day.  Oops!  Double school duty the rest of the week!).  

Anyway... I am continuing to learn the rules and ropes of this homeschooling business and what I've learned so far is that there are so many rules and no rules at the same time.  What worked for us one week may not work for us the next.  A good day on Thursday may not mean a good day on Friday or Saturday or even Sunday.  A bad week does not mean that the next will be full of frustration and failure either.  Every moment we are going with the flow and moving at a pace that is good for Swee'Pea, be that slow or fast or somewhere in between.  The beauty of homeschooling is that he can learn at his own pace, study what he enjoys, and take the precious time that is needed to ensure that he understands and masters his skills.  

The past few weeks have been so exciting seeing what he has learned.  I am shocked at how quickly his math and reading curriculum moves him along, and although there are days when we skip a new lesson entirely to go back and review, he has learned everything that has been set before him and I'm so proud of all the hard work he has put forth.  Because the truth is, this is hard.  Learning to read is one of the biggest difficulties students have.  In traditional school, students spend their entire first four years of school learning to read.  They come to me in fourth grade and BOOM.  I'm not teaching reading anymore.  I am expecting them to come to me as readers.  We refer to this as teachers as learning to read vs. reading to learn.  In my class, students must come in having the ability to read so that they can learn!  And the truth is, there are a lot of students in my school and in this state that aren't learning to read.  Because I've never taught reading before, I was really self-conscious about teaching Swee'Pea.  We stumbled along at the beginning and there are times when I've both had to push him and slow myself down.  But my heart is so happy as I see him blossoming into a little reader before my very eyes.  My greatest desire is that Swee'Pea would have a life-long love of learning and reading for enjoyment, and I see that happening day by day.  What a gift this homeschooling has been!

So what have we been learning the past three weeks?

In Math we are working on counting to 100 by 1's, 5's, and 10's.  We are working on money (pennies, nickels, dimes, and dollars) and graphing.  We have also started adding two-digit to one-digit numbers.  

In reading we have been working on beginning and ending sounds and blends.  For example, beginning blends bl, br, squ, st, etc. and ending sounds mp, nk, sk, pt, lm, etc.  There are some sounds he really struggles with.  Some of it is age and speech ability, some of it is just that he isn't fluent yet and they are difficult sounds to master.  I am not overly concerned, these are just sounds we repeat constantly and practice on a daily basis.  

In phonics he has completed 11 lesson on short vowel sounds.  100 whole pages of written work!  Here he is taking his final exam.  I had to read to him dictation sentences and he had to write them down.  He did great!  Then he had to read passages and correctly circle answers from clues he was given.  I made some cute award certificates and awarded him one in an "official" ceremony and he has been over the moon excited about it.  We sat down and ordered Book 2 together, and he will tell anyone who listens that he finished his first book.  He is so proud!

Do you like his "space man?"  It helps him keep spaces between his written work.  Haha.  

In science we have been talking about animals, so for his journal writing this week I asked him, "If you could be any animal, what would you be?"  I do not give him any help writing this words, so it is all by sound.  He was having a really tough time trying to sound out "rhinoceros," so I let him just write "rhino."  

"A rhino.  It has a sharp horn."

For his animal report we study the animals together, then he dictates facts for me to write.  He cuts out the pictures and writes the title.  I love this little report!

"A" was our letter of the week.  We did several apple crafts and made our Astronaut and apple.  Apples will be our overall theme this month, even when we start letter B next week.  We have been reading all about Johnny Appleseed and are studying the seasons of the year and about the stages of apple growth. We will finish the month off with a field trip to an apple farm and will come home to make homemade applesauce!

I've really enjoyed going back through my blogs and looking through all that have done in the past 3 months of homeschooling.  I know this isn't interesting to everyone... and that is okay!  It is important for me to document what we have done, where we are now, and where we are headed.  I know home schooling isn't for everyone.  And sometimes I am sad that we are missing out on going to school with our cousins and church friends.  But I am sure in my heart it is right where we need to be.  It is what is best for him right now, and what is best for our family as a whole.  I couldn't imagine doing anything other than this with my dear Swee'Pea.  My whole life I've wanted to be a teacher... what a privilege it is to teach not just the 28 little ones in my class, but my own son as well!