The Homeschool Mother’s Journal-I

In my life this week…was a bit crazy, I think. I have such vague memories of it. I remember cleaning, teaching, and taking care of the kids, of course. We did not go out to eat this week at all. I made pork chops on Monday and they were pretty darn good, and I loathe pork chops (or any form of pork that isn’t bacon, sausage or ham).

In our homeschool this week…we started a new math book for Karol. He can count items up to twenty now and rocks at figuring out which numbers are missing in a sequence…he did that one his own. For reading, he is working very hard and reads all the time. Margaret read her first word “me” yesterday. Her eyes lit up like I have never seen before when she did. We are using “Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Lessons” and for both kids, it works beautifully. Art class was coloring both outside, with chalk and inside they drew angels along with a million other pictures. Margaret is working on identifying numbers and is up to 7. She can count up to twelve without messing up but doesn’t know what the numbers look like, yet.

Places we’re going and people we’re seeing…we have spent a lot of time outside this past week, but haven’t gone anywhere. They have a lot to explore back there and the backyard is like a huge sandbox, so they have many things to occupy their time.

My favorite thing this week was…Hearing Margaret read her first word and seeing the look on her face! Also having kids who BEG to do schoolwork. Tonight Karol asked if he could work on a poem we have been reading together. He read it all by himself with two mistakes only; “behave” and one other one. You have to admit, “behave” is a hard word.

What’s working/not working for us…I will admit I am very bad at lesson planning and keeping on track. Some days I just don’t want to do this either. I know I am called to do this, so Joshua and I have discussed it and have decided to go with a much more detailed program for First Grade. We are pretty settled on Kolbe Academy and will purchase the curriculum soon. What is working is doing school work either at two in the afternoon, while the younger two are napping or in the evening when Papa is home. He does the reading lessons with them and I do everything else.

How do you deal with discipline issues when a child doesn’t want to do his work? We don’t come up with this often, yet, but sometimes Karol or Margaret get frustrated or distracted or just want to do a different kind of schoolwork and I am not too sure how to handle it.

A photo to share…I don’t have one this week, but I promise one for next week.