Teacher Notes

So this was our first week of “real school.”  I always say that a little tongue in cheek, because it feels like we’re teaching our kids something constantly.  However, people seem to think it happens only during certain times and it’s true, that we have dedicated certain times to study certain subjects.  So we’ll call those certain subjects “real school.”

I’m not a big fan of starting the week of Labor Day, because we always go camping Labor Day weekend, and so our first week of school goes along with sleep-deprived kids, (and parents), loads of laundry, and no left overs in the fridge to fall back on.  In years past I’ve started a week or two early to avoid it.  However, with the wait for our organizational bookshelves to be finished, I decided not to start early this year. 

Since about every one of my Facebook friends posted pictures of their kids on their first day of school, with cute little signs saying what grade they were starting, I thought I should too.  I didn’t want my kids to grow up and say “Mommy, (maybe they’ll say ‘Mom’ since they’re grown up, and all) why didn’t I get first day of school pictures like all my friends?  You must have been slackin’!”

So here you go:

(She just got out of the shower a bit before.  Her hair is normally waaaaay cuter.)

David, who hates getting his picture taken with a passion, responds very well to “the sooner you smile, the sooner you can be done.”

I knew the little kids wouldn’t want to be left out.  I should give a disclaimer, though.  He’s preschool age, but I don’t do preschool.  I have nothing against preschool or those who send their kids to one whatsoever.  However, I’m a big believer that at this age, the most important thing a kid needs to do developmentally is play.  Play, play, and more play.  Elias is showing some interest in early reading much like Silje did, so we may start sounding out some letters this year.  He’s only 3, though, and will turn 4 in November.  If someone asks me what I do for a preschool curriculum, I usually say: “Read lots of books, go to the library and get more books, and allow plenty of play time.”  That’s pretty much it.  It works super.

Right on cue, as soon as Elias was done with his picture, Solveig grabbed her sign, and rushed over to the corner where the other kids took their turn, and stood there very nervously.  Her sign says “potty-training.”  Although she may soon be ready, I just so barely got Elias to poop consistently on the potty, like last week.  I might need a bit of a break before we start her.  However, it would not surprise me the least if that got done pretty quickly this school year.

She loosened up for the camera quite a bit when we got her some more “pretties.”

She just loves pretties in her hair, and loves wearing sunglasses at every chance.

As I said, we went camping the day before school started.  So we didn’t have a full week of “real school.”  Still, I wonder if they learned more camping than they did around our dining room table.

Here they are in between Grandpa and Daddy.  What do you think?

We may call it a school day, just because who wouldn’t want to go to school here?  In fact, this may have been the most memorable, learning-packed day of the whole week.

I should do a post soon on all that we are studying and using this year for curriculum.  I may have one typed up already around here…

School actually has been going great with 2 full-time students this year.  I was really worried and anxious about it, but it’s fine.  David has been doing fine with quite a bit more work.  Since we’re studying American History intensely this year, after devotions we are learning the Pledge of Allegiance.  We’re going through Jesus Storybook Bible for devotions and it is fantastic.  I’ll admit I cried reading the chapter this morning.  It is so beautifully written. The kids are really into it too.

Elias has been really, really whiny this week, and that more than starting school has been making me weary.  Solveig is still constantly getting into something.  I’ve been trying to let her color by us, and she enjoys that.  She loves playing with water, and loves to climb up to the table and pour water between everyone’s glasses.  I’ve resigned myself to the fact that it doesn’t make that big of a mess, and it keeps her very happy and quiet.

The 2 younger ones have been watching about 1 1/2 to 2 hours of t.v. a day so I can get the older kids’ schoolwork done.  I really hate relying on the tv, and that will be my next goal to remove that crutch.  However, this week I decided not to try to be supermom.  I needed some easing.

So we had a solid day on Tuesday.  I went easy on Silje for any writing work, because she got stung by a wasp (again) while camping, and her whole right hand was puffy and itchy.  So it was another week on Benedryl as she seems to have some pretty significant reactions to those little guys.  Friday morning was the first morning that she wasn’t itchy or puffy.  I’m so glad it didn’t last as long as it did with her foot earlier this summer.

We had a fairly solid day on Wednesday, but we trimmed a few things off so we could work on some garden preserving.  I intended doing school Thursday morning, and Thursday afternoon we had plans to go visit one of the other families at our homeschool group for a play date.  Silje missed her friend’s birthday party earlier this some due to sickness, so the mom invited us over for some play time, and to see the new kittens in their barn.  They live on a farm like us, but 30-40 minutes away.  Both our family and Lisa’s have 4 kids, and all around the same age.  We both removed our oldest daughter from school the same year, and started homeschooling at the same time.  It’s really fun to get together with them.  It was her son’s birthday that day too, so David brought him a Lego set as a gift, and the two boys were up to their elbows in Legos pretty much the whole time.

Anyway, when I saw all that I needed to get done around the house before we left, I decided not to do school that morning.  Knut asked me about it because he knew what I was planning.  I told him we did school off and on during the summer.  David has over half his read alouds for the year already done.  Both the kids are months ahead in math.  Other subjects are pretty easy to cluster together in other days.

Plus, we were having a field trip that day…to visit a farm.  He nearly spit out his drink when I said that.  Yeah, like the kids need to see a farm that pretty much is just like ours.

He agreed that there’s nothing wrong with taking the morning off.  My how laid back we’ve become.  We’re starting off this year in a comfortable position.  It will make taking time off when the baby is born a bit easier.  We won’t do it often, but it was well worth doing it that day!

Friday was back to the grindstone.  Silje is learning cursive this year.  She’s picking it up much faster than I had anticipated.  David is doing well with the extra reading.  We’re pushing the phonograms (phonics) really hard for him this year, and he’s doing well.  I decided last minute to do the Shurley English with David that I did with Silje when she was in 1st grade.  I thought it would be too much for him, but now that we’ve started I see I was wrong.  He’s so ready for some serious grammar.

This week we read the story about the words who grew up wanting to be a sentence.  They worked for a long time, appearing over and over before the Sentence Council in the Sentence Castle, where the council would judge whether or not the words were a sentence.  Each time they failed to become a sentence, the poor words were labeled a “fragment.”  Ashamed, they kept working towards their goal, and after getting help in Nountown and Verbville, they finally became a sentence.  The whole kingdom rejoiced.

Silje remembered that story, and asked to sit through it again.  In fact, even though I’m doing Sonlight English with her this year, which stresses writing skills much more than grammar skills (or I should say a stress of the application of grammar rules rather than the rules of grammar) she has been asking to be involved in much of David’s grammar program again.  I love her new program, and so does she.  I’m very glad, that she’s so eager to review what she has learned the last few years…just for fun.

Our year will be stressing much more memorization this year.  I’ll get into that more with some curriculum post.  We are working through some flashcards from “Classical Conversations” which is a co-op that meets together, however not anywhere near us.  I really like their memorization program, and although it’s a bit intense, I’m determined, and the kids have been following along so far.  I bribe them with puff balls so that makes it more fun.

All in all, it’s been a good week.  We made great progress.  I’ve gotten back on top of taking my prenatals, which have some essential B-complex vitamins in them, and I really think that has been helping me manage my out of control pregnancy emotions this week.  I think my whole family asks me now if I take them everyday, because I think I get a little crazy without them.

We finished school this week with a contented sigh.  It’s so good to be back in routine.  It’s so good to spend our time together this way.  The house is slowly getting decorated for Fall, and that makes me very happy.