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| 5 degrees in GA= frozen bubbles! |
Exhaustion. Friday night, kids in bed, exhaustion. It was a good week, a bad week, a week of brokenness and learning limitations. I am thrilled about our new journey, but I have to be honest and say that I had several moments of panic on Tuesday and Wednesday wondering what I had gotten myself into. I was throwing myself into the creative aspects of home school, but forgetting to keep up with some basics. By Wednesday, we were out of bread, milk, eggs, and countless other not-so-essential groceries, and I couldn't remember if I had showered on Monday, or was is Sunday? I announced to the boys that we would be going grocery shopping and Leif threw a fit, "Groceries??? I wish I was back in public school and you could go shopping without me!" I nearly said I wished the same thing, but in my heart I knew it wasn't true, and somehow God plugged my mouth. Definitely a low.
Wednesday evening I got to go to a spin class (yay!) and shower (double yay!) and Thursday seemed to go more smoothly. My main goal was to remember how to have fun together. I think that needs to be my main goal most days. Thursday evening I found about about a home school Kindergarten enrichment class that started Friday morning. I emailed the director around 7:30pm and was shocked to hear back from her that we could register in the morning. So, most weeks, I will teach the boys 4 days, and on Fridays Leif will go to class and PE for several hours.
I'm thrilled, he's thrilled. Hope is renewed.
Here are some highlights of our week (because I don't photograph the weeping):
Leif got a new Nerf gun, so our math lesson for the day was addition and multiplication. Shoot a bullet, write down the value and add or multiply with next value. I allowed him to use an abacus for any, and a calculator for some because he started writing 53, if his shot hit on the line between 5 and 3, so his numbers were getting pretty high!
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| Macro shot of my beautiful Leif. |
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| Macro shot by Leif. |
After photographing the frozen bubbles, I kept the macro lens on my camera and took some fun photos. And Leif even photographed me!
One of the things Leif has requested to learn is cursive. So, we started with his first name. We are still working on basic print as well, but he's learned to write fast and sloppy, so starting cursive is a great way for him to practice beauty. I think it's pretty beautiful.
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| Don't breath. Don't move. They are both working quietly! |
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| Leif's first morning at "school for homeschoolers", as we call it. |
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| Leif's favorite project from class. |
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| The kids making their own sculptures. |
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| Leif's final sculpture from the High Museum. |
We went to the High Museum for home school day. The kids got to do a scavenger hunt, and make their own sculptures. Owen did lots of "inappropriate" things like laying on his back on the floor and scooting around, and enjoyed how much his voice echoed. Luckily Charles and I were both there, so Owen and I spent a lot of time inside the kid's discovery area, while Leif and Charles looked at some art work. Both children enjoyed the creative time. Owen did discover a love for gluing things, but still requires close observation. His glue comment: "Can I sip this glue? It looks tasty!"
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| Hercules. The kids might have noticed that he was naked. Okay, they did. |
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| Owen loves glue. A lot of glue. We dyed noodles, and this is his project. |
Posted by Dawn.
Home schooling has always seemed both crazy and interesting to me at the same time. It seems like a lot of hard work, for one thing, and I also wonder how people manage to balance school and home when it's all within the same four walls. I would think, especially for younger kids, it would be distracting and hard to focus when you know that, say, your room and your toys are right nearby. I also wonder how this sort of thing works socially for the kids. That all being said, of course I am aware from this blog and your Facebook posts that your kids have a well rounded social life AND that Leif especially is a very intelligent kid.
ReplyDeleteI hope that your second week and the weeks to come find all of you getting the most out of this journey you've embarked on - and, for you, more showers LOL! :)
Oh, and by the way, those frozen bubbles were very cool! So were the boys' projects from the museum, especially Owen's brightly colored pasta! :)
DeleteCongrats on your first week! Yes home schooling can appear chaotic sometimes. I was amazed at how God would pattern my steps. There were days without showers and days without "choice" groceries. Those days were few in the end. My boys not only achieved an education as defined by our educational system, they learned to balance home life with studies, work and developed great friendships. Every task leads upon another intergrating life and looking back we had organized chaos at times . My only regret is leaving Cory in public school long enough to be introduced to the social crowd that leads to destruction. God bless you for trusting in HIM early in your boys education.
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