Last week’s homeschooling got off to a great start! Here the kids are on the first day, excited and ready to learn. The biggest thing I discovered that day was that I had put way too much into the lesson plan. Because I have never used a lesson planner before to schedule out what we would do, I had no concept of how long things would take us. I completed less than half of what I had down and it took five hours! Over time, I will get better at judging the timing and will plan accordingly!
-Memory work: Bible verse Psalm 133:1, first verse of William Blake’s “The Tiger”, a Mother Teresa quote, our phone number, and the days of the week
-Reading: I read to them one chapter from “The Swamp Robbers” and read them the book “Amy Carmichael”
-they made folding mini book called MY HOUSE for their All About Me lapbooks
-the little ones colored an Amy Carmichael coloring page
-three of them took Spelling Tests (I use the book “A Measurability Scale in Spelling”)
-the four early readers did ten minutes each with me in Reading Lessons
-taught Fred more on homonyms
-Fred and Einstein did Read and Think Skill sheets
-Miss Optimism did handwriting practise
-Fred did Data Management, SOS Math, Devotions, Summer Bridge Activities, Map Book, and Daily Grams
-Einstein did Daily Grams
-Fred did this science thing with the little ones…it’s supposed to be with food coloring but we didn’t have any so we used paint. You put milk onto a plate, put some drops of food coloring (or paint in our case) in the center and add a drop of dish soap. The fat in the milk reacts to the soap and pushes the color out.
That was Day One. Unfortunately, later that day, Miss Optimism was admitted to the Children’s Hospital where she spent the week. The rest of homeschooling consisted of her doing coloring pages on echocardiograms and CT scans (yes, they give them coloring sheets for the procedures they are having!) and the rest of the kids being read one more chapter in “The Swamp Robbers” by M., and The Husband having them draw pictures of things that started with different letters of the alphabet. Einstein attended his first Digital Photography class. The rest of the learning looked something like this:
Miss Optimism is home now and her lungs are doing considerably better. I will be taking her to her Pulmonary Specialist today and hopefully can slowly start decreasing some of her medication.
Let’s hope this week is a bit less eventful than last week was!
