Teacher Notes

I’m not sure how many times I’ve written on this blog “I’ve taken the t.v. away, and this time it’s probably for good.”  During the first month or two of this year’s school I’ve let Elias and Solveig watch t.v. for an hour or two so I could do some much needed tutoring with the older kids without distraction. I always think it’s a handy thing, but it always ends up being an enormous distraction.  David especially would always somehow manage to get into the playroom to “get something” and take 30 minutes to get back.  So many melt downs, so much time wasted, so many bad attitudes.

I know I’ve talked about getting rid of it for good, except the fact Knut and I sometimes like to watch movies at home for date night, and he likes to watch football games.  Sometimes we like to play up a big family movie night.  There are some fun parts to it, but it gets so abused so quickly that I just have to take it away.  Even little Solveig knows how to turn it on, and I can’t spend my whole day playing goalie for the t.v.  So I disassemble some parts, remove some cords, and say, “Look, we need to remember how to play, and play nice.”

Actually, this time Elias and Solveig didn’t even notice it was gone until about the 4th day.  That made me happy.  During school times they worked on wooden puzzles a lot.  They like the draw on the easel, and of course, cut paper.  These 2 are sometimes thick as thieves, and make me laugh a lot.

For Christmas this year, Knut and I have talked about getting a smaller t.v. for the cabinets he just finished building in the den.  We could open the cabinet doors for those special occasions, or if we just want to chill and watch a movie after the kids are in bed.  However, when not in use, it would hide behind the cupboards and out of sight, and hopefully, out of mind.  We’ll see.

I’ve been annoyed at the selection of movies to rent for the kids, though, for our family movie nights we have once or twice a month.  There’s just so little out there that are any good.  Our internet has been so slow that streaming anything is impossible.  About 2 months ago, I bought “Little House on the Prairie, season 1” DVD set.  After reading through the series of books, Silje and David have really been enjoying this for our family movie nights.

Well, they’ll enjoy it again maybe after Christmas.  I’m loving this no t.v. thing, and I don’t anticipate bringing it back anytime before the new year for a family movie night.  Knut will likely put it back together to watch some football, and I’ll just have to be super on top of taking it apart again when he’s done.  I’m thinking that if we get a smaller cabinet t.v. this winter, we should just get rid of the old one in the basement.  It’s big and ugly and cuts off all the scores in football anyway because it’s not a wide screen.

Notable things that are happening in our homeschool:

–Silje’s writing is becoming intensely good, and quickly climbing from her least favorite subject to her favorite.  Thank you, Institute for Writing Excellence.  It’s amazing material.  Also, her spelling is actually gaining some traction for the first time, thanks to their “Phonetic Zoo” curriculum that we’re trying out this year.  It’s a lot more auditory work, and working towards mastery instead of a list a week.  This auditory stuff with her is really, really clicking, and many words she has spelled wrong for years are finally getting sorted out in her brain.

–David finished 2nd grade math, and is moving onto 3rd grade math at lightening speed.  I had the goal of having him finish his 2nd grade math by Christmas, and he wanted to beat it.  He’s also been begging me to teach him to knit, so I’ve been doing a knitting class for both Silje and David.  It’s been so fun, it deserves it’s own post later.  At any rate, he does so much better now during our read aloud times, since he gets to knit while I read aloud.  I think it’s probably super good addition to the “brain exercises” we do to help his eyes cross the mid-line as it uses both sides of the brain together.

–Elias and Solveig are so busy with their own play that I haven’t been able to work on reading with him much.  He’s been too busy playing teacher and teaching Solveig her alphabet.  I suppose that’s good too.  He’s not even kindergarten age anyway.  He’s still really into drawing robots.  He draws better, and sings more than any other kid in this house at that age.  I can’t wait until he can start choir at the center for the arts next year.  He’ll just love it.

–Ingrid is into everything, all the time.  That pretty much sums it up.