My genius child !?!

We were sitting in Church on Sunday and my 4 year old turns to me and says, "Why does it say exit above all the doors?" Huh? what? I have done NO school with her. She joins us for school sometimes and I occasionally ask her what the names of the latters are. She does play a lot on the computer when the older girsl adn I are doing school. Go Starfall.com!

Today she was playing on the Sesame Street website (which she had found herself in the bookmarks!) and kept coming in the kitchen to tell me all about the different part of her body - "My heart pumps the blood through my body," etc. ah, my unschooled child.

Over and over again

My 4 year old's new thing is to pick a movie and watch it over and over again. Last week it was Hercules. This week it is The Fox and the Hound. I have heard that it is developmentally appropriate and even good for their mental processing to want to hear to stories over again, so I am sure that it is the same for movies... Or at least that's what I keep telling myself :)

Aw, forget it.

We didn't have co-op today. We are taking a week off between sessions. I thought we would do some school today. We are learning about Space and the girls are making their own planet books. Today, I was reading books about Mars and Asteroid Belt. The girls were so chatty. They were interrupting me constantly - sometimes on topic, sometimes not.

I have been trying to doing narrration after each book. I don't call it narration, for fear it will turn them off to the idea. I just say, "Tell me at least one thing you learned from this book." I was very happy today when KE remind us to do this after the first book. I was so distracted by the interruptions that I had forgotten.

After 3 books, I decided that we should take a break and have lunch, but no one was hungry. I have a bunch of stuff I want to get done today, so the girls played while I worked on my to do list. I finally got around to making lunch around 1pm and thought we would do some "lunch school" (I like to read grammar lessons or discuss math topics during lunch}, but my 4 year old had just started watching "The Fox and the Hound", movie she had gotten for Christmas, but refused to watch until now - no princesses :p

I was going to make her pause the movie, but then I realized that they would be distracted by wanting to get back to the movie and wouldn't get much out of a lesson. When I informed the girls that they could keep watching the movie, AE said, "Thank you Mommy for letting us sit at the coffee table for lunch". Aw, I'm such a nice Mommy!

I was planning to read Grandfather Tang's Story after the movie is over to get some math in, but our friends from Idaho just called to talk to the girls and now the movie is paused. Oh well, I have lots to do today anyway...

The blahs are gone

Whew! The weather was so nice today! I am feeling so much better about homeschooling. A month ago I was about ready to throw in the towel, but now I am loving it again. Today after coming home from the grocery store and realizing how warm it was, I suggested that the girls go outside and play. They happily obliged and the house was quiet for an hour. Wow!

I adjusted our homeschool schedule and it has been going really well. Between the weather warming up and the new schedule, I have been a very happy mama lately. I had been trying to do everything every day. Too much. It leads to a stressed out mama. So, here is the new plan:

Mondays - Our current topic(usually science or history, but sometimes art or music), math, spelling 8yo/phonics 6yo

Tuesdays - Topic, math, grammar

Wednesdays - co-op

Thursdays - Topic, math, spelling 8 yo/phonics 6yo

Friday - Topic, copywork, grammar (and math if we have time)

It is kind of a light schedule, but it works for us right now. I was tired of being stressed out over not getting everything done each day. I still have lots of stuff I want to fit into this "school year" like math and reading games and a few more topics that we may not get to before summer, but with this new light schedule it may work to continue doing some "school" in the summer and we can always get to them next fall.

A no school day?

Last Wednesday, we were supposed to go to our local homeschool co-op. It runs from 9am-12pm and lots of times we hang out with friends afterwards, so we never really "do school" on Wednesday when we have co-op. But last Wednesday, it was snowing and although I tried to get there, our '94 Saturn with old tires wasn't up to the task. After sliding and spinning onto the side of the road. I thought it best just to go home. With no co-op we had no plans for the day. I spent a good deal of time reading a new blog and the girls played. We had been listening to Inkheart in the car and after an hour or so we decided to bring it in the house to listen. While we listened the girls asked if they could make some crafts from a book they had gotten from the library. At dinner daddy explained why the snow on the ground looked blue (light wave lengths being dispersed by the snow in the air) We discussed how many fingers and toes we had altogether - 50 fingers and 50 toes =100! - and the different ways to figure it out. At the end of the day, I figure we covered literature, art, science and math all on a "no school" day. Nice!