Gretchen Ronnevik

Homeschool Friday

homeschooling

I’m so excited to be back in school!

Mothers out there who sent their kids off to school this week may wonder what in the world we are thinking.
Just so you know, we do the same thing.

Mothers out there may get a little teary eyed and sentimental at the idea of letting go of their children into the hands of others.
We also do the same thing.

It’s funny to me that all the same emotions and lack of patience, and desire for time, both with and without our children is the same for both homeschooling, public and private schooling mommies.  The only thing that is different between us is our individual decisions about what we feel is best for our kids.

For the first day of school, we decided to take pictures to help us document where each student is.  I’m not to pleased with how the photographs turned out but I’m in love with the subjects in them.

Silje the 2nd grader.
David the kindergartener.
Elias (in potty school)
 although, that is news to him…
Solveig will learn how to walk this school year, as well as drink from a cup.  We’ll also work on the fine art of wearing pants, and try to squeeze in a speech class.  She had more fun crumpling her sign, though.
The year is off to a good start.  Actually, it went better than I had anticipated. The first 2 days with the kids were a breeze as everything was new and exciting.  Thursday, for some reason I had to repeat myself a lot, getting louder and more forceful each time.  On Thursday I had so many (2) students at the dining room table that I introduced the “raise your hand if you want to say something” rule to our school.  
Last year I was hoping to get David reading and writing.  He did a fair amount, but this year we will be working on those 2 subjects, as well as math every day…whether or not he feels like it.  That’s the new part this year.  Those 3 things put together take us around 30 minutes total, but he’s wanting to do more so somedays we spend more time on a subject if he doesn’t want to be done.  So he’s been in our “schoolroom” (dining room) with us all morning working on stuff.   Also, I’ve brought out some huge Walmart/Target “Kindergarten” workbooks for our activity side of the table and let him just work his way through there if he doesn’t want school to be done yet and needs something to do while I work with Silje.  
I’ve set the dining room table up with an “Activity Side” and “Work Side.”  When they’re at the work side, they do the work I tell them to, and I work with them to get it done.  They can go to the activity side to pick an activity to do when I’m busy working with their sibling, and they’re waiting for their turn, or if they’re done and have nothing else to do because the t.v. is off limits.  They have been choosing to hang around the table where I’m at, so it’s nice to have something for them to do.  The activity side has puzzles, workbooks, Mighty Mind, painting, drawing, and math manipulatives.
The favorites “work” activity so far: Geography Songs.  They LOVE this C.D. and the maps that go with it.  Even Elias sprints to my lap for this portion and sings along too. 

Silje is completely in love with Latin.  I was a little worried about introducing that subject this year, and I shouldn’t have been.  She’s her mother’s daughter with her love for languages and she’s picking it up too quickly, and finishing her work too easily so I’m having to look online for more supplements so we don’t race through the curriculum like she always prefers to do.  Sometimes it’s good to slow down and let the information simmer and soak for awhile.

The crazy time of day is when we’re all working on handwriting together.  I did not intend to work with them both on handwriting at the same time.  However, when one of them starts the other one bugs me until they can do it too, so it’s become a group activity.  The complex part is working on separate letters at the same time.  I intended to introduce one letter a day to David, and he’s pushed 9 out of me this week.  I wanted to review the whole alphabet in lowercase with Silje this week, which we did.  Next we’ll move onto multiple letter phonograms for review and continuation from last year.
But enough with the boring stuff.
I let Elias watch PBS kids for about an hour each day when he was really in the way and I needed to work with one of the older ones.  I hated doing that, and I am determined to find a new solution.  Coming off a holiday weekend with cranky kids, I decided to cut myself some slack.  We get most of our morning work done while Solveig takes her morning nap, and I try to get most everything done by afternoon naps, although sometimes we have some reading on the couch left to do then.
I think things will run even smoother when the garden is finally done.  However, next week we begin piano lessons for Silje and choir for both David and Silje.  That will throw a loop into the schedule. 

It has begun.

Comments

  2. Beautiful! Thanks for the pictures. It makes my day. Silje looks so much older and even more beautiful than before. Wow, it’s scary how fast she is growing up. What a wonderful choice you’ve made for your kids. Have a wonderful school year. I like the idea of having two parts to the dining room table, one for work and one for activities. I’d love to hear the geography songs, too!

    Reply

  3. My nine year old is still on a vacation trip with my parents and should be back soon, I have to see how much she remembers from last year, I sent work to upkeep her education but the grandparents don’t always do the work so I have to do an evaluation to see what she retained, she’s good with math but reading has been a struggle. I like your arrangement of the dinning table, might have to try that with us.

    Reply

  4. the kids have been watching a bit of t.v. this week as i get ready to ‘start’ our year next week! we had just the craziest summer ever and i needed to cut myself some slack. sigh. guilty? only a little! they will be so busy this coming year that they will barely have time to care about t.v.

    🙂
    jen

    Reply

  5. You sound so busy with all your homeschooling schedules. I hope it all goes smoothly for you. I like the potty training school poster, very funny! I was also wondering if you needed any test knitters for your Dirk sweater as I have 2 nephews who are turning 1 in October and another nephew who will be 6 and I would love to knit one up for them. Yours looked great on your post.

    Reply

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