Here we are. How many weeks into school? I don't know, and I'm not sure if I care to count. I can say that life is Meh! And that we are just keeping up with the pace. And to be honest, there's nothing wrong with that.
Around here we have an official motto: "
It's all fun and games until WildRose comes by".
Friends, WildRose has been a force of nature. She is very good at keeping us on our toes, afraid, and literally guarding our sanity. Whew! I am being kind and I want to leave it at that.
Our schedule is RIDICULOUS. Never in my life - that I can remember, has my life ever revolved around a calendar. Now I have not one, or two, but multiple calendars for everything. Chalk it up to the kiddos having more extracurricular activities and are out most days getting and staying busy. Nope, it's not because we love to venture out in COVID, it's just that we made all these plans and we already had one foot, more or less in the door of "whatever", so we didn't pull out.
Rainman and Moonface are still doing private music lessons. Moonface is skating; Rainman is shooting, and swimming (lessons) will be restarted in 2 weeks, if even. Anddd, WildRose even has her own stuff going on - mostly preschool stuff (music and language), but my goodness what a time we've been having.
On the home front my goal is to keep learning fun and engaging. I guess that's not new, but we are striving. Schooling has never been more random to me than it is now, because honestly, we spent most of our time indoors. For those who know me, you can see why this has seeped into our play, moods, and general culture of the home. But it is what it is.
So why the drastic decrease in nature-time, and will it last? Well, this change is a result of me doing a lot more studying during the days. So, nope, it shouldn't last, but in the same breath I must say that we are discussing our time together as a family, not the children...they get plenty of nature time, just without me.
This week in grade 2, we're really continuing with creating and understand patterns. We are also learning all about singular and plural in reading and writing. Moonface is also learning how to read. There's a social studies project that's in the works - the topic is Iqualuit, Nunavut. This one is going to be fun/interesting.
Moonface is very excited. I am really learning a lot with her. Most of our days revolve around finding ways to make learning fun, and "accessible". I think that I am mastering this child-led learning thing (ha ha...famous last words right?!)
Photos above are a result of us finding ways to count, and even read with various materials...such as the use of the flat beads above. This week's lessons have us using the beads along with our numbers chart to figure out patterns.
Not all children need this level of stimulation- but some do so we find the best tools when needed. You can purchase beads such as these, but we prefer something with a larger hole in the centre such as these donut shaped ones, which makes it easier for little fingers to manipulate, to string them along for play or storage, or more importantly as you can see in my photos, the child is able to get a small glimpse at the numbers or words.
Rainman is learning about ecosystems, lots of info about nouns, verbs and adjectives, and is really interested in figuring out how this subtracting from zero thing really works.
...and at the end of the day? It's all in French. I am scared. I am excited.
The kids are fine lol.
How's your homeschooling journey going?
