Teacher Notes

As I posted before, we had a great week of school and I’m giddy about it.  After not feeling so well, I feel like I’m back on board, and the kids are so anxious to be as well.

This last Sunday, a lady at church who is back from the mission field with her family for an extended leave, asked me how homeschooling was going.  When they were in Africa, she homeschooled, but here in the states her kids have other arrangements.  Anyway, I didn’t think I was too down about how it was going, but she read between all the lines, and told me she was going to be praying for me.  I didn’t realize she meant right then, because she walked me into an empty room in the church, and we sat down together and she prayed over me right then and there.  She asked me what I wanted her specifically to pray for, and I told her I really wanted prayer for more personal discipline in my own life.   She prayed for me then, than gave me her cell phone number and told me to text her when I needed prayer throughout the week, and she would stop what she was doing and pray for me.

All I can say, is what a great way to start off the week.  First off, Monday was a successful day, and then Monday afternoon I spent nap time writing out their assignment pages for the rest of the week.  That way if I got distracted, their work was written there.  I intend on doing this every week because the kids thrive so much on this method, but I’ve been too scatterbrained to get it done.  So everyday they have enjoyed crossing things off my list, and will let me know after they finish their independent reading that “Mom, I just have spelling left with you and I’m done.”

All the subjects that we’ve been doing good on have continued to do well, but the subjects that I haven’t been pushing as much as I should have been going so much better this week.  Silje and I spent a lot of time on language arts, which was so needed.  She struggles in the details and we’ve been working on dictation, spelling and basic punctuation.  Her cursive continues to be beautiful, and I’m about to transition her to assigning all of her work in cursive.

David has been so immersed in memory work and has surprised himself at all he can fit in his brain.  Did I mention this last Sunday he was the first student in his class who was able to memorize all the books of the Old Testament?  I think memorizing is his favorite thing these days and I plan to harness that as much as I can. 

He’s also started assigned independent reading this week, which he was really nervous about.  Normally I have him read aloud next to me, as I help him track the words.  He knows a word if you point to it, but he gets overwhelmed looking even at a whole sentence and will say he can’t do it.  I’ve been slowly working to have him track the words himself, and just take one word at a time.  The idea of sitting and reading a whole book (his favorites are the Adventures of Little Bear books) without help was so intimidating for him, and this week he has done just that every single day.  He can read books harder than Little Bear when I’m standing next to him, but he still enjoys them so much, and I really want him to get in the habit of sitting with a book and reading the words with enjoyment.  Through the whole week, only once did he come to me to help him with a word.  As soon as Knut walks in the door, David can’t wait to tell him what he read all by himself.

I’m working on transitioning him to do the same thing in math as well.  He always asks me to read him the word problems, and I know he knows how to read it.  He knows every one of those words, but seeing them strung together intimidates him.  So we’ve been transitioning to him doing more and more of this independent problem solving, taking a deep breath and just reading one word at a time.  I think it may be possible that by next week he’ll be coming to me with actual math problems instead of reading problems during math.

We got all caught up in history, and have been able to broaden out all the things we can talk about there, and not just cross it off the list.  We’ve been spending so much time on the age of Exploration in history, and the discovery of the Americas.  I’m hopeful to do some really meaningful Thanksgiving lessons this next week, now that the kids have a bit more of a context to all that was going on in that time in history.

The biggest struggle I see right now, is trying to motivate equally both Silje and David.  It seems that these 2 siblings, only 15 months apart in age, but 2 school years apart have this habit that if one of them is doing well, the other one isn’t.  If one of them is taking initive, the other isn’t.  If one of them is thriving, the other is failing.  The negativity does not lay just on one child.  They take turns pretty routinely and sometimes even multiple times a day, although it’s most noticeable when one of them takes a run at sulking for a week or two.  I wish so much that both of them could just once thrive at the same time. 

Those are the things Knut and I discuss after the kids go to bed.  How do we get both Silje and David doing well at the same time?  I have some more talks, some visuals, and some other motivational activities planned for the next few weeks.  I hate seeing one climb a mountain and the other sulk in the corner.  The theme to David’s sulking is usually “Silje gets to do everything and I’m not as smart as her, and I have to work too hard.  Everything is hard for me.  Everything is easy for her.”  Silje’s sulking is usually to the tune of “I’ve done that for years, in fact, I did that yesterday and no one applauded me then.  I do that better than David does, and no one notices that.”

I’m hoping to come up with some goals for each of the kids and write them for the kids where they can see them right next to their name.  I want them to come up with some goals as well, and really embrace the idea of working towards something. I want them to see that they’re running different races.  They each have their struggles and the things they need to work on, and what is important is that they run the race set before them, and not the race set before the other child.  I want to get them in a habit of cheering each other on in reaching their goals.

Sorry for the lack of pictures.  It really would have been a better post with some inspirational pictures.  I’ll have to work on that for next time.