We survived our first week!!! The kids claim they had a lot of fun and can't wait until next week, but I think I have a lot of work to do (on myself, not them)! I loved loved loved doing it but I definitely need to work on finding more meaningful things for the younger ones. I had stuff planned for them, lots of stuff (or so I thought), but I need back-up stuff for when they get bored or finished with the planned stuff!
I wasn't too hard-core about how our schedule was organized, but we definitely had a schedule planned out every day. Wednesday was different because of the field trip and Friday we did some science experiments with our neighbors, but for the most part we would spend the morning on school work and the afternoon (after rest time) playing, doing some housework and cooking dinner together (not much different than when Caleb was in school). I am also reading "Little House on the Prairie" to them (not for school, just for fun). I think my favorite part of the week was being able to throw our schedule out the window for about an hour and watch the men in the bucket trucks work on the power poles in our neighborhood when we lost power one morning. One thing that will most definitely be different next week is more outside play. We were stuck inside all week because of bad weather.
As far as actual school work, we did some subjects like Bible, History and Geography all together and then I tailored the younger ones' "work" to match whatever Caleb was doing... if he was working on math, they worked on sorting or patterning; if he was working on Handwriting they worked on tracing letters or building letters with the
Handwriting Without Tears wood pieces. I came to find out that we definitely need to work on fine motor skills with the girls (especially Ella) who are not very good at cutting yet... so I am coming up with lots of activities to work on that in the coming week. My mom gave us a Hooked on Phonics full set that I will use with Ella as soon as I can find a cassette tape player!
This was Caleb's idea and I promise he was more joyful about it than it looks in the picture.
I am hoping this will help develop Jackson's ability to play independently - he has been somewhat clingy and fussy lately, part of which I think is because he has LOTS of teeth coming in. He loves to climb on the table and see what is going on! The best part is when I walk over to the table to move him and he runs to me and holds his arms out to give me a huge hug (after laughing hysterically because he knows he shouldn't be up there).
It is my goal every day to spend one-on-one school-specific time with them, even Jackson. I want to keep that as a priority. It's funny to see already their different learning styles and attitudes. I love doing this with my own little ones but I have a new found respect for teachers, just after my first week!
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