One pleasant side effect of Millie's schooling is a decrease in wastefulness. She begged me not to throw this plastic lid away, and I later found it labeled and in use. (The snapshot cuts off the beginning and ending d's, but you get the idea.)
1.17.2008
Having No Post for These, I Create One
The girls durng school this morning as I tackled a dismaying amount of dishes. Susannah was practicing her orange-eating.
One pleasant side effect of Millie's schooling is a decrease in wastefulness. She begged me not to throw this plastic lid away, and I later found it labeled and in use. (The snapshot cuts off the beginning and ending d's, but you get the idea.)
One pleasant side effect of Millie's schooling is a decrease in wastefulness. She begged me not to throw this plastic lid away, and I later found it labeled and in use. (The snapshot cuts off the beginning and ending d's, but you get the idea.)
You have a sticktoitiveness that is VERY admirable, Abby. Great job! What excellent progress has been made in just a few short months...Millie reading and writing already with Annie no doubt, not too terribly far behind. Great job. You are a picture of determination and devotion.
ReplyDeleteUm. I really, REALLY hope you wrote that with your tongue growing from your cheek. (You must have been, right?) I've been trying to be more consistent with school since New Year's, and things have improved, but I haven't been anything like the Mary Poppins you describe.
ReplyDeleteYes, Millie reads simple books and is doing well in math, but she's not about to pick Rumplestiltskin off the shelf and read it through, though she might have been if I was miraculously on top of things like this unknown Poppins character. I also mostly try to keep Annie busy with simple workbook pages while Millie does school because she, also, wants to "do school." Annie knows the sounds of her letters and can count to "twenty-ten", but sure isn't ready to read! (Ahem, unlike some little boy named Stephen that we both know...) I plan to begin Annie in kindergarten in September, but as she'll be not quite four and a half, we'll take it slow and easy and go her pace.
I didn't have huge goals for Millie this year, mostly because I know my weaknesses (procrastination comes to mind) and adding school to the mix would require a serious switch for me in order to fit all I'd like to into a day's hours. I don't know if I'll ever be satisfied with what I'm able to accomplish in the balancing act, but I did set a few, simple goals out of necessity, to keep myself as a teacher on a wavering track.
My attainable goals were to help her finish first grade Saxon Math (we've heard their kindergarten program- no workbook- is uber-simplistic and a waste of time; we didn't buy the manipulatives, either, and haven't needed them), count by fives, count by twos, tell time, smoothly read non-school books such as Frog and Toad, etc., and so on. These are simple goals to reach, and I trust she'll reach all of them.
I believe she's capable of more scholastically than I'm presently putting in front of her, but homeschooling is a lot more than just stuffing a child full of as much as their intellectual capacity allows. Knowing the adjustments I had to make (and STILL need to make) in balancing teaching and mothering, as well as the fact that formal school is also a big adjustment for a five-year old's mind and active body, I had no dreams of her spouting Cicero by year's end.
After much, much personal failure on my part for the first half of the year, I'm striving to consistently guide Millie to a point at which we can both be satisfied and SANE by the year's end. I'm such a greenhorn at this, too, and, even though it will be different with each child, I'm looking forward to getting the hang of things as much as one can.
I could blab lots more, but I feel like I'm just shouting wide-eyed gibberish in the streets. :)