Teacher Notes

School this week has been mostly of the outside kind.  I try to make sure that before we head out either on errands or into the garden each day, that Silje and David have at least completed Bible, language arts (their readers at least) and math.  We do our read alouds before bed, but this week that’s all we’ve been able to manage.

David has been loving Follow My Leader.  Loving may be an understatement.  Silje loves me reading it again as she claims it was her favorite book from last year.  We’ve been trudging through his readers lately, and I’m very concerned I’m giving him too difficult of books.  Then we got over a huge hump when he told me yesterday when he was deep in thought, “Mommy, I’m starting to like books without pictures in them, more than books with pictures.  The books with more words than pictures have more adventure in them, and I like adventure.”

It was a good moment.  I’m learning that just because he doesn’t speed through a book doesn’t mean he’s not enjoying it.  He pauses a lot to ponder.  He gets stuck on an idea and likes to explore it in his head before moving on.  I call them ‘hiccups’ in his reading.  I had no idea he was loving every minute of it.

The kids made a bunch of popsicle stick boxes the other day.  I showed them how to start the base, and now there’s about 7 of them on my dining room table, and I’m not sure what we’re going to do with them all.  I got a box of 1000 popsicle sticks last summer at the craft store and we barely dented it.

I may have mentioned before, but we’ve been getting in boxes of curriculum most days.  I ordered some of mine used on ebay, and some new and used on amazon, and still more from Sonlight.  I saved some money doing that this year, and it’s been a steady stream of boxes coming to our house.  The bookshelves in the den that Knut is building for our expanding book collection is not done yet, and has little chance of getting done during this planting season.  So for now, the safest place to be is with the popsicle stick boxes on the dining room table.  Anywhere else and Solveig and Elias start exploring them.

As you can tell from yesterday’s post, there has been a lot of outside playing going on over here.  I’m not stressing about it much that our school day has been short lately.  Mostly because David has been working on his 1st grade work for next year, and Silje is working on her 3rd grade work for next year, and I plan on doing these “small days” through the summer, so unless I am intending them to skip a grade just for the fun of it, I either need to slow down, or let the kids enjoy these nice weather days when I can.