Homeschooling stuff

We're into our fourth month of school this year, though we've only actually gotten in about 50 days so far. Our move took a couple weeks out of our schedule. The state of Georgia allows homeschoolers a full year to get their 180 days in. I don't think we'll have any problem getting it done by May or June, since we don't take off much time for Fall or Spring break, and the kids don't get two full weeks of chaos for Christmas. I usually can't handle the lack of routine for that long!

Jacob is not officially registered as a student this year. In GA, only children 6 and older have to be registered for school. However, Jacob is doing official Kindergarten work, and by the looks of things, will probably be doing first grade work before the end of spring. The Kindergarten curriculum for phonics and math are pretty easy, and he's doing 2 and 3 lessons a day for most of the year so far. He is also picking up reading a little faster than I expected, so we'll see how far he gets in that.

Katie Mei continues to work on little skills, such as colors, shapes, counting, the alphabet, and fine motor skills. There are some days she will sit and concentrate on one thing for a good half hour, and other days she is just annoyed at having to do anything for more than four minutes and will start bothering us to play with her. It's interesting having a toddler underfoot while I'm trying to teach the other two, but we're making it work. The main thing is to keep KM occupied, and sometimes that means stopping everything to play with her baby doll for a few minutes.

But no matter the inconsistencies, the frustration, the confusion, or anything else that makes homeschooling irritating sometimes, it is such a blessing to be able to watch the kids learn and enjoy learning. I cannot imagine not being the one to witness Jacob reading his first sentence by himself, or watching Merrilee's face light up when she "gets it" upon learning a new science concept. It's just too marvelous watching my own kids grown and learn, and getting to see what makes them tick. Kids in our neighborhood get on the bus at 7:20 am and don't get home until 4:30 pm. That's 9 hours a day they're gone! And then they have homework to do after that! I just cannot imagine being away from my kids 9 hours a day. I'd consider four hours pretty long, but 9 hours...just impossible.

Anyway, here are a few highlights from the past month or so. As I was sorting photos into files on the computer, I realized that trying to choose the ones to go into the "homeschool" folder was a little sketchy. When you homeschool, there are just too many "teachable" moments, so the whole day becomes school. Technically, I take the kids to the zoo and aquarium as part of their education; I do the same with teaching Merrilee to cook, letting the kids help me plant flowers, letting Katie Mei glue leaves onto paper, etc. So if I actually put all the education-related photos into the homeschool folder, the folder would pretty much include almost all our photos. So I'm just picking out the photos for this blog that are strictly academic. Enjoy.

Gluing leaves onto the autumn tree

Jacob making words with consonants and vowels he chooses.

Everyone working quietly...it only lasts for about two minutes, but it's nice while it lasts!

Merrilee doing an experiment to grow and observe crystals.

Katie Mei stringing Cheerios. We did this on the morning we visited the zoo for the first time. She wore the necklace, and I'm glad she did. I forgot to take a snack, so she ended up eating the Cheerios in the car on the way home.

Katie Mei kind of came up with this activity on her own. I drew circles, squares, and triangles on the paper and gave her felt pieces to match. She would pick up a shape...

study it...

then she would look for a matching crayon.

She picked out the crayon...

colored in the corresponding shape (and I had two of each shape drawn on the paper)...

and then she matched the felt piece to the shape she colored on the paper.

I think I spent more time one-on-one with Merrilee when she was this age, and she had her alphabet and other skills learned in no time. Merrilee was academically very smart and still is. However, Katie Mei has to spend more time on her own, and I think she has more creativity and imagination than Merrilee did at 2.5 years old. I wonder if it's just each of their own natural abilities, or if it has to do with the amount of individual attention they each received. Hmmmm...very interesting.

Happy November, Everyone.

Hugs,

Petrie