The Journey Continues

Pretending to cut steak like Daddy does!

Yesterday was yet another really late night, so I had no energy once we got the kiddos to bed at 9:30 to do anything but send myself to my electric blanketed bed.  The past two days have been extremely productive.  Yesterday we spent a lot of time working with letters and numbers.  We did more work with squares and the color orange.  We read lots of books, and even had friends over.  Sue brought McKenzee (I hope I spelled it right!) over for awhile to play.  They had a great time, and it is great since Mason and Kenzee are the same age.

Tada!  We have LEAVES!

Today we made a square wreath with leaves the kids found, played more with our pumpkin pie play dough, and reread all the B and pumpkin books we have read.  We colored and added pages to our color, alphabet, shape, number books and read B books together that Mason's mom Miria sent me from readinga-z.com.  It used to be one of my favorite resources when I taught after school reading classes.  I am thrilled to have access to them once again!

I love play dough!

We ate outside for lunch during one of the few bouts of sunshine today, and checked again on our lettuce seeds, which have not yet started to germinate.  CJ has made a hypothesis about what will happen to the seeds, and we check every day to see if he is right.  His hypothesis is that small green leaves will pop out of the dirt.  (His words, not mine.)  Mason said he wants to eat the lettuce when it gets big enough, and Eliza wants to plant more vegetables.  But not zucchini, she says.  To celebrate B week we had banana cake yesterday and thoroughly enjoyed the biscotti Miria made.  I think next week we will have to make some C shaped cookies.  One of my favorite C foods!  Maybe with cinnamon!

Hard at work.

I have spent some time this week creating a skeleton of what I want to cover in the next few weeks and compiling some resources and materials.  Over the weekend I am going to organize it even more so the days can be more fluid and easy.  A bit of preparation now means I don't have to scramble when it comes time to start a project or lesson, and makes for a much smoother day and more educational time.  It also gives me more freedom in the schedule and allows for more things like craft projects and science experiments.  The leaf craft today will help introduce a more in depth study of leaves next week, and I like the fluidity and progression that creates in the kids' learning.

I am excited to continue this journey.  I learn from the kids every day, and I am learning how to fit this into our lives in a meaningful and enjoyable way.  Education is part of our lives daily and progresses amazingly well, even when we aren't doing "lessons".  Their ability to extrapolate information from tv, songs and books astounds me on an ongoing basis.  Some days I still feel like I am not doing enough, and then other days I say to heck with it and lets watch an extra hour of Dinosaur Train.  Every day is a lesson for them, and every day is a lesson for me, finding what works, what doesn't, how to work the schedule so that I can do laundry and still complete what I want to do with the kids schooling.  The process continues.

Oh you wanted to see my face in the picture, I thought you just wanted leaves!