Monday, September 8: After morning time and chores Finn whipped through a few pages of Explode the Code to finish the book. On to the next one! Math equations, spelling lesson, read-aloud Frog and Toad, a little handwriting. We read aloud from Our Island Story; Finn gives beautiful narrations. We read a few other picture books as well, primarily focused on India. Bedtime story continues to be Little House in the Big Woods.
Tuesday, September 9: We didn't do any formal schoolwork; instead, we did piano lesson, piano practice, chores, art lesson, visiting a friend in a nursing home, natural foods store, and farmers' market. I think visiting friends in nursing homes is like a history lesson, though!
Wednesday, September 10: We did our morning time. Our piano tuner came and spent 5 hours tuning. My son dearly loves the piano tuner and his helper, and so Finn spent the entire time in the adjacent room listening to the tuning process and creating a very long "preschool workbook" for Annie. He did many pages of matching, tracing shapes, etc for her to do. It was very sweet. At the same time, Annie and I worked upstairs at making a big pot of soup and pan of gingerbread for our visitors. We served them the warm food and a little dish of cheeses and peanuts for lunch, then sat and visited and told stories about relatives who were at Pearl Harbor, interesting genealogical finds, and music in general. Finn read aloud at some point during the day, and I may have done some math with him--I don't remember!
Thursday, September 11: Homeschool group until 1pm. Finn's presentation was the animated movie he made with his daddy a few weekends ago. After that we hit the library and the bulk foods store, then came home. The children got deeply involved in playing with toy animals outside. When I took a snack out to them with a stack of books, Finn patiently (and, if I do say so, beautifully) narrated an Aesop's Fable, finished Albion and Brutus, and listened to me read a little from an Usborne Science book. A few pages into the science book he said "could I go play now?" Play, that hallmark of childhood. Seeing as how he'd spent all morning in his class, I couldn't blame him! Freedom until soccer practice.
Friday, September 12: We had our morning time together after excellent gluten-free waffles. Everyone loves Old Mother West Wind, but I think I might love it best of all. So charming. Finn practice piano for 20 minutes or so and then we started school. He sailed through the phonics lessons (two of them); I guess I will continue with phonics even though he's basically becoming a confident reader! Then he read a Frog and Toad story to me, no problems there--they're easy for him now. Then we did most of a Miquon math page. I have not figured out how to do 2-3 pages each day without wearing Finn out. One page, maybe two, is definitely our limit. After that--half a page of Handwriting without Tears, finishing up our spelling lesson, and we learned about what a sentence is--a complete thought. I made up hilarious sentences and non-sentences and put them on the whiteboard. Finn's favorite was the tricky "The tooth fairy is a purple dinosaur who lives under the sea." Tricky because yes, it was a sentence, but it is nonsense!
The entire time I was working with Finn I was also working with Annie. She was working through an Usborne sticker book, matching words to stickers (with my help; she can't read yet). Then I gave her a puzzle to do. She seems to love 'school' and sails through everything so quickly that I am going to have to start thinking up fresh things for her to do!
This afternoon it's free time for the little people and housework for the grown-up. The Polly of tomorrow will thank me for getting plenty done today--refrigerator, I'm talking about you!
Notes:
Spelling. Oh, spelling. We're one lesson down. I can't figure out why the book publisher chose the words it chose. Right alongside 'hat' and 'cap' and 'yes' (easy for Finn) are 'sick' and 'rain' and 'word' (challenging but not impossible). Is there a method to this madness? I keep feeling tempted to shelve spelling altogether for another year; it seems sort of banal and pointless until a child is very fluent at reading. And Finn toler-hates it--a phrase I just coined, and a perfect description of his attitude.
This weekend my father is coming to visit, we have a soccer game, we'll practice piano, and Finn is urging me to help him build the 443-piece 3D puzzle of the White House he got at the library on Thursday. Yikes!
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