Friday, December 02, 2011

week 2 of school

We just finished up week two of school.  The girls are doing extremely well.  Information that they didn't know and have learned, they are retaining.  Just more reason to be happy about the curriculum I picked.  They know it is school.  Even sometimes they call me "teacher".  But, they are having lot of fun in the process.

Emily is 3 and I do have a slight problem with her sitting still for very long.  I would say an average day we spend from an hour to two hours doing school.  Some days we even split it up and do some in the morning and the rest in the evening. I have read that at this age you should stop when they lose interest.  To make it a fun learning experience.  Usually by just reminding her to sit still and listen to directions, she does fairly well.

Bella is 4 (will be 5 on Dec 31st) and she zips right through most of the exercises.  Bella is a perfectionist.  One of our school rules/mottos is "It's OK to not know, but it's not OK to not try.".  This rule was made especially for her.  If it isn't perfect she gets very upset.  With this rule in place (she also is a big rule follower) she seems to try more than usual.  She even says, "I'm trying, mommy!".  I'm proud and happy that it is going this way.  I was nervous about handling her and her personality.

Here we are building animals with our Bloco animal construction set.  The girls just build random thing right now.  They are getting the hang of it.  Together we built the giraffe.  It is a pretty cool learning toy.




Here you can see the girls working on the letter "b".  Both the capital and lower case.  They have been doing well with writing within the lines.



Here we are working on counting and numbers.  The workbook is pretty simple so I have asked them to practice writing the number that the book is talking about.



I know this is early in the game, but I have been surprised with how well the girls have been behaving and how willing they are to do as I instruct.  I'm hoping that we can keep this flow and enjoy doing this together.

3 comments:

Cutzi said...

I love this!! I wish I could show every friend of mine who is hesitant to homeschool your posts. It is a joy and I think many people would be surprised at how easily it flows. And when your mindset is that you are always teaching your kids, even when you are not officially, the progression from here just happens so naturally. Love, love, love it! Great job Val!

Tara said...

Awesome job! I love the giraffe! Where did you get that "learning tool?" My son is obsessed with animals in general and would be in heaven with something like that.

It looks like homeschooling is going very well for you guys! Congrats!!!

penny said...

AWESOME! I love hearing these progress reports... the girls are doing great! So inspiring!