Nuts. Pecans and walnuts for breakfast. And nuts, as in, am I totally insane to be doing this? Nuts. Some days, like yesterday I think I am totally bonkers to be attempting to homeschool. What happens when I feel like crud? Not much in the way of education I assure you. There will be no sub coming in to keep the kids' minds occupied, there is just me. Whoa responsibility really weighs heavy there sometimes. But then I look at CJ and Eliza, and listen to them converse with each other and realize that I made the choice long ago, before I consciously thought about official homeschooling. Someone told me something about parenting and homeschooling and it rings true every day. A new mom wanted to know how she would know if she was doing it wrong. The older, experienced mom said you are, you always are, deal with it and move on. Moral of the story, just do the best you can, because that is more important than doing it right. My kids already know that I am their teacher, and that means something special, it means I am putting them first, and that I think they are important. That means so much to them, even at this young age.
So today was far more educational than yesterday. We spent a lot of time working with numbers and counting things around the house. We went outside and were entomologists, looking at all the insects, comparing and contrasting what we saw. Of course the kids had to wear their new safari hats to be scientists. Awesome. We worked in the garden and picked some veggies for a special picnic dinner. We went on a nature walk at the park for dinner. We brought nacho noodle salad and some yummy cookies. We looked all around and talked about what we saw throughout the park. We identified some mammals from the park, and identified several types of birds including Canada geese and mallard ducks. Again we talked about how they were the same and how they were different. The kids had such a great time, and ran around like crazy, therefore went to sleep easily. Score!
We had nuts for breakfast and Nicoise salad for lunch, which brought about some discussion of other countries. The kids were a little confused about that, but extremely interested. I then taught them to count and say the alphabet in French. They already know how to count to 10 in Spanish. And CJ shocked me today by counting backwards from 10 by himself, all the way to zero. I realized it is because I always count down with them when we are microwaving their milk. Every little thing helps strengthen their number sense and word knowledge. They remember EVERYTHING!!!
CJ never had an accident on the potty, and though he was wearing a diaper at the park, he told us he had to go when we were leaving and he held it till he got home. Nifty neato, huh? Sorry, running out of N words! We spent some time coloring this morning, but no writing letters, except in the carpet, as we do every morning. We cleaned up the play dough, and did some cleaning. They played with their alphabet toys, and sang all the songs they know, and we danced and played and had a nice day. Nothing is as satisfying as happy intelligent kiddos. They need constant support to grow, and lots of chances for independence. Having nerdy parents helps too!
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