First Week Back to Normal

chutes and ladders for school...why not?
artistic creations with jenga blocks for dead pocket
rocket and sandy checking each other out
Eliz working on spelling
jordan working on handwriting
the big kids working on language arts
and kim working on file games with letter sounds

Well, alot has happened this week. After lots of planning for the "school year" I started off with a big ole flop. I guess I figured that since Kim had gone through 2 sets of preschool curric and one set of K curric that she would be fine taking first grade really slowly. WRONG! The kid is just barely five and very bright, but still in no way ready for the workload of first grade. It was glaringly obvious, as was my oversight that I have a kid with noverbal learning differences who needs tons of one on one and reinforcement, and the day started kinda roughly. By lunch on day one I had redone our schedule about 4 times until I found something workable, then I had researched K curric for Kim. Teaching and helping to organize an 8th, 6th, 3rd/4th, 2nd grader, and kindergartener is a bit of a challenge at times.

This week we also started back to dance classes. Added more... We have 2 in theater dance, 2 in balllet, one in jazz, one in hip hop, and one in irish. Three nights a week they dance, and they LOVE it. Works for me. It is a great Christian studio. Just one kid not dancing yet.

Another kink in the system was the addition of a new dog. (i dreamed we had a dacshund last week.) Our neighbor comes over Tuesday with a stray dacshund and asks if we want it. Of course the kids want it! But he has to be neutered and get used to our dog. Well, he is used to our dog, but his surgery is Monday. And so Rocket enters the family. He is very submissive and quiet. I like that.

So back to the schooling stuff. Jacob is doing well on his independent work and so is Em. They are fine. Elizabeth is learning and feeling more confident every day, and I am learning how to modify for her needs. It is good. Jordan is learning quite a lot with less resistance than last year. I feel he will be an independent learner at a fairly early age. As long as he can earn my trust to complete the work well. And as for Kim, she got to get some new stuff from Mardel for school. We bought another Saxon K kit. I really liked it better than the others. Most were too advanced for five year olds, and had almost no hands on work, in my opinion. I am an advocate of Better Late Than Early. And for reading I just read to her daily, sing with her, and we are doing a developmental alphabet approach with cut and paste, searches, tracing, and coloring, mostly with free internet printouts. We are all learning history and are at the point in the Roman Empire where Christ is about to be born. Jacob loves his book so much (Genevieve Foster series) that he has been reading ahead.

Creativity has been the order of most days, too. Jacob has been creating art and figures and conversing w/ Mr. Wood. I think they are having too much fun! Not really. Jordan has been drawing like his brother (and he is really good). Emily and I have been sewing. The younger girls have sculpted and painted and done pastel work, and of course there has been a ton of dancing in the house...and they still daily perform something from Fiddler.

Such a blessing to homeschool. Oh, the family relationships that are being built, and the people they can surround themselves with through homeschool, dance, and church. The artistic ones seem to be the faves here. Soon I suppose scouts will start for one of them, but he is rumored to be asking for some dance classes in the spring if he doesn't choose baseball......I better hold on tight. It promises to be an adventurous ride!