This past week’s been a quiet week of cleaning, homeschooling, and living. Nothing really to report, except that my house looks more straightened than it has in a long time. The laundry is also caught up to the point that I’m waiting on the clothes we are wearing today before I can make a full load. Don’t you love that feeling? Everything cleaned, folded and hung.
Abi got a little bug at the end of the week, resulting in some extra TLC and some unusual behavior for a day. But her character has returned with restful sleep.
We did the letter Gg in homeschooling this week. It was a fairly uneventful week of finger painting, puzzle work, reasoning worksheets, pattern work, and tracing/free handing letters. Rachael continues to write all her work with a fist-grab crayon hold that I don’t plan on correcting until we finish our Alphabet series in August (I have vacation breaks planned in). In August, the plan is to switch to our Answers in Genesis pre-kindergarten curriculum when Rachael is 3.5 years old. With the more structured curriculum, it will build on Rachael’s previous exposure to the alphabet and work on honing in more fine motor and cognitive skills. As with any pre-kindergarten material, Rachael will then be ready to either repeat the pre-K material or begin Kindergarten material at 4.5 (or whenever she completes the 180 lessons). I do not think age, but ability defines a child’s readiness for school, though maturity is certainly something to be considered. So we’ll see how she’s trucking along and tweak accordingly. I have no personal goals of Rachael being a genius nor do I feel that her age should restrain her willingness to learn. I’m just trying to cease the opportunities to play upon her enthusiasm and expanding attention span in exposing and absorbing as much as we can. Thus far it has worked out well.
Our alphabet series (approximately one letter per week), is solely for the purpose of exposing Rachael to the alphabet this time around. Since this is all new territory for her, I didn’t want her to be discouraged by the fine motor work and the pre-kindergarten level work of the Answers and Genesis curriculum. Since the Pre-K curriculum makes the assumption that the child is already somewhat familiar with the alphabet, therefore building on further skills of writing the letters correctly (emphasis on capitals), I didn’t want Rachael to be so distracted by the challenge of the foreign shapes of letters that she miss out on the joy and challenge of learning the other material. Answers in Genesis also uses the one letter per week method for the first 26 weeks and then continues on for there so the transition should not be abrupt. We’ll merely add on more to Rachael’s workload as her attention span continues to increase, striving to naturally challenge her newly advanced skills. During our current alphabet series, we are using good old dollar store preschool books to provide additional worksheet reasoning exercises. Rachael has enjoyed cutting, pasting, coloring by dots/numbers, reasoning, etc. worksheets that we do together in introduction to pre-K skills. She has gone from very scary cutting (eeek!) to more controlled paper manipulation and intentional cutting. It’s also really neat to watch her brain learn to reason from clues and prompts. So much is happening in that little head of hers in drawing connections, recalling information, and absorbing new information.
We also enjoy learning basic math skills, like counting beads/counters into an egg carton or into containers. We have used some marvelous $1 target bin colored shape counters to stack numbers 1-10 in an abacus style to teach her brain the concept of 10 being “larger” than 1, etc. We’ve enjoyed comparing measured amounts of water for “more than” and “less than” qualities. And we’re just touching into the concept of viewing a number as a whole collection of things. It really has been a joy to watch the lights turn on and see that “I’ve got it” smile creep onto her face, followed by her accomplished giggle.
It’s so neat to watch her put together things as her brain creatively computes making a big picture with many pieces. (Found the above sculpture as a bath-time creation and in delighting in her creative work, I took this picture).
Abi has been enjoying our homeschooling too, frequently taking the opportunity to rearrange materials on the table as she sees fit. 😉 She also enjoys the extra snuggle time that “sitting still” requires of Mommy. Abi finds herself enjoying looking at books and participating in group games (like shape and number races), running and imitating Rachael’s actions. On more squirmy or needy days, Abi draws a picture (scribbles like mad with any crayon she can reach) on the back of Rachael’s work or on a nearby scrap of paper. Since we are doing homeschooling primarily on Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings for only about an hour to an hour and a half, Abi has found a greater sense of independent play in her “I don’t have to share this” freedoms. Honestly, Abi is able to entertain herself for the majority of the homeschooling session without requiring redirection. Her favorite, by far, is sitting on the floor reading and talking to her books. Seriously the kid will do it for an hour!
Post homeschool, Rachael gives Abi a hug and thanks Abi for letting Rachael do homeschool (I want her to see that we’re all giving to her education) and then the two friends play together for the remaining hour (or less depending on when we get started) until lunch. I love the jubilant play that ensues after homeschool sessions. It’s like a reuniting of two long-lost friends. =)
So for now that’s a little look into what homeschooling looks like in these parts.
Some days we have field trips to spice things up. But most days we just do a handful of preschool-appropriate tasks, even cooking on a brave day (Abi always must help), mixing up worksheets (you can only sit still for so long) and hands-on activities with races reviewing information and dancing or playing instruments to music. Right now it’s just all about exposing Rachael to the things she’ll be later required to produce fruit from with increased practice and watching as time and exposure produces that fruit, many times, faster than anticipated.
I am so blessed by her little heart and her little mind as she delights in the joys of learning. It really is so precious to get to share this time with her and do something together just me and my Rachael.
I look forward to the one-on-one that Abi’s schooling will create as well in the distant future. And am grateful for her patient snuggles and contentment to watch and repeat Rachael’s lessons (my little teacher) and even participate some too, in sharing Mommy with big sister.
It is so rewarding that some simple intentionality in education can lead to such delightful fruit in both my girls.
– thankful and blessed.
