I've purchased the Kindy workbook for handwriting for Katherine. Bless her little heart, she was sick on Monday when we were going to start. She didn't let puking stop her. She literally stood at the doorway between the kitchen and dining area - hurled, cried a bit, rinsed her mouth and then sat down at the table and started working in her handwriting book. I kept telling her she did not have to do handwriting, but she wanted to do it. Of course, to her it's not school work, it's fun.
Annie loves to sit at the table while I'm doing school with Elizabeth (and now with Katherine). There have been a couple of times that I've done school while she's napped; but most of the time, she's right there in the middle of us. She has her own little steno pad, crayons and pencil - and buddy, she's particular about her pencil. She must have the "traditional" yellow pencil. All the cap erasers I have are brightly colored - and Annie prefers the green one or blue one, thankyouverymuch. I've wanted a way to focus Annie a little more, to give her something more substantial to work on during this time. Well, I found it thanks to a recommendation on a homeschool message board. I looked it over today - spent over an hour looking at things and then another hour printing, bookmarking, saving PDFs and organizing. I am so excited about what Annie and I will be doing for her "homeschool." We are going to be using the Preparatory Curriculum from Brightly Beaming Resources. There are 26 weeks worth of curriculum. It's fun and not trying to make her some kind of child prodigy. We'll read a story; do some gross and fine motor skills activities; sing songs (which all of us can do - not just me and Annie); have some coloring pages; introduce a letter, a number, and either a shape or color. I've reserved some books at the library for our story time next week for our "cow" theme, including Click Clack Moo Cows that Type which is a book I think all the girls will love - it is so funny.
Several of you commented about my reading curriculum dilemma. Well, after talking to several moms - including those who have used the particular curriculum we are using - I'm changing some things up but not ditching the curriculum altogether. I'm not doing the rhyming part (which is what really sent my girls over the edge of boredom). I'm significantly trimming the "say it slow/say it fast" parts of the lessons. I have added some homemade flash cards - each of the girls has their own set - and we do a game with them. I make the sound and they choose the correct card. Then, they make a sound I have me choose the card (thanks, Kim, for that idea!)
We've been doing our home management schedule for a month now and I love it. If I get behind on something - no biggie, I can get to it another day or it can wait a week. The girls are loving helping me. Elizabeth asks "What's on our schedule today?" and they fight about dusting. I mean they fight to the point that we stopped dusting because it did nothing but create strife - which did NOT help me in the least. We'll see if things are better Tuesday when we have to dust again. Perhaps we can get my bedroom dusted this time! And even though it's on my schedule, I haven't done a lick of ironing. I swear, I hate it! I've done some tonight and even though it's not on my schedule for tomorrow, I'm going to work on it more tomorrow because Brad vacuumed this afternoon (bless him) so I don't have to do it on Thursday.
Now that I'm doing homeschool for all three of the girls, I'm going to have to get lesson plans written down for each day. Off to do that. Oh, no I'm not. It's 1:40a.m. I'm off to BED!
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