Thursday, August 26, 2010

First Official Week

We are off and running here! I’ve been anxiously waiting for school to start, and it is finally here. My daughter was confused up until the first day. She thought she was going back to preschool. By the beginning of the first day, she was in the groove. My baby is such a good student. She did so well sitting and listening attentively. I definitely enjoy the Saxon math. There is a good variety of activities involved with each lesson. I opted out of getting the meeting book. It’s really not necessary, so I do not recommend buying it.
As we progressed, I found that adjustments needed to be made. The phonics book I picked up, for instance, was meant for a classroom full of students. I made a quick decision to use Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons which my Aunt had given me. It is a little basic, but I added it into my schedule. We did the first 3 lessons out of the book today. It was supposed to take 15 minutes per lesson, but we breezed through it.
I also made adjustment to our schedule because Saturday was kids’ fishing day at the local trout hatchery. I simply HAD to include a unit on fish! I went online and found some basic information on life cycles and fish anatomy. I know it sounds advanced, but you can adjust anything down for kindergarten!
Some of the things I’ve discovered so far:

It’s cool that we can have recess in the pool.
I get to enjoy the nice weather instead of being cooped up in an office all day.
My daughter is awesome.
I seemed to have forgotten some basics of child development. Young children are concrete thinkers. I have to keep it simple, so she can focus. I suggest using a ruler to cover up questions on worksheets. I want to see if this will help her focus on the current worksheet problem instead of looking all over the page.
I have time now to potty train! Yes I am homeschooling and potty training folks. I can multitask.
Homeschooling with a toddler is not as hard as I thought it would be.

Well, our caterpillars came in the mail today, so I’m heading off to teach Hannah about the life cycle of a butterfly! Bye!

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