Saturday, September 14, 2013

Feeling slacked

This week was a more relaxed...um slacked week. I am not sure if the beautiful hot scorching weather had anything to with our very minimal attempt this week on our school work but we definitely spent more time outside than in. However, we still did a lot of learning using more kinesthetic learning techniques and making sure that while we were having fun we were still learning.


We started our week with our usual morning routine, which I have learned to never go without. The morning routine of brushing our teeth, making our beds, getting dressed, and saying prayers, sets a pace for our day and holds the boys to be accountable to the expectations I have of them.

This weeks goal was trying to get Isaiah to understand the concept of the calendar. The first thing we do to start off our homeschooling, and before attempting any lessons, is going over the calendar and dates. We talk about the weather, the dates, and the seasons. So at the beginning of this week I also wanted to incorporate the story of creation into our lesson. I wanted Isaiah to understand the days of the week and what better way than to read about how God made everything. I read them "My Creation Bible" By Ken Ham. It is a visually pleasing kid friendly book that also rhymes, which is great for these boys. The book not only covered on the lesson of days of the week but also on sin, God, Jesus, and choice. I am not sure how much they understand but they really enjoyed the book and even asked me to read it to them again.

The kinesthetic part of this week's learning was getting the boys to help out and learn about the concept of chores and responsibility. Since the sunny weather lured us outside I decided that they needed to burn off their energy, and what better way to do that than wash the car. And this car definitely needed washing.


In addition we learned about differences. On our walk to the park we observed the different trees in our neighbourhood. Isaiah learned that certain trees have sharp prickly leaves or needles whereas other trees were more tall and had flat red coloured leaves.

We also continued with our language arts curriculum and started our first lesson on learning how to read. This curriculum is great as it incorporates the different sounds of each letter and instructs you how to move your mouth when saying the sound. This is great for Isaiah's apraxia as it will help him develop the phonological structure he needs for his speech.

The boys are not the only one learning. I too am learning a lot.

What I learned this week was that schooling does not have to be during the day from 9 am until 3pm but it can be in the evenings as well, which is great because Aaron can teach too and he has. In addition I have learned that I need to have a schedule but a flexible one. I need to plan my days and hold myself accountable as well, not just my kids. This will also help me as I gradually return to my usual work schedule and allow me to see what days requires more or less schooling.

I don't know how this will turn out but Lord have mercy on us!

1 comment:

  1. I'm so glad to hear that the Language Arts curriculum is a good fit! It sounds like you are a natural at homeschooling. Finding that balance between routine and flexibility is key but tricky and you are off to a great start.

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