Homeschooling + James

I wanted to write a post about how homeschooling was going, and then I realized that I've taken the most pictures whenever James has gotten involved.  It makes me really happy when I'm able to teach both Ella and James at the same time.  So far I've let James choose his level of involvement, and I haven't tried to keep him on any kind of regimen.  I think this fits his needs right now, but I have always been pleasantly surprised at how much James enjoys sitting in my lap reading a book or doing some other "educational" activity.  I'm pleased he has this side to him as well as his more active side.

 Ella's first short story

(based on the story of Henney Penney we read)

As far as teaching Ella goes, everything has gone so well.  I absolutely love what I'm learning, and she is a great student.  She soaks up what we read, and we continue to talk about things as we go about our days.  All the thunderstorms we've been having recently have been a great way to reiterate what we've studied about clouds, thunder, and lightning.  We've also studied the water cycle, so when we're driving down the road, and it comes a gullywasher, I ask, "What happened up there in the clouds?" and Ella replies, "The water droplets in the cloud got heavier and heavier until they fell."  I love teaching.  And science.  Who knew?

In math we've been learning about the tens and ones place, and we had these handy tiles that James used to sort by color and then to practice counting.  I think this was the first time he participated with us, and it was so fun.

 

 And c'mon, Mom, stop taking my picture.

Ella and I have been getting dressed each morning for school, but James kind of stays in his p.j.'s and doesn't wear pants for the most part.  He makes so many trips to the bathroom it just seems easier.  If I'm going to take cute pictures though, we should probably put him in pants more often.

The math curriculum we're using also has me spending 5 minutes at the beginning of the lesson drilling Ella with addition flash cards.  I wouldn't have done this on my own, but Ella has impressed me as she always does.  She gets so excited when I pull out the flash cards.  We've been working on addition facts up to 10 this past week.

Flash cards turned out to be another good way to include James.  He tells me the names of the numbers, and then Ella tells me the answer.

This past week we played a phonics game that both kids really enjoyed.  I pulled out several letter cards, called out words, and Ella put the cards together to spell the words.  James wanted to play, too, so I say the word, and Ella tells James which letters to find.  It's turned into a good way to introduce James to lowercase letters. 

Phonics was my favorite subject in 2nd grade.

Ella's Kindergarten teacher and the Abeka curriculum she used did an excellent job teaching Ella Phonics last year.  We've been whizzing through this first grade Hooked on Phonics book.  I figured it was good review, so we're working on spelling the words from memory since she's got the reading part down so well.  

So there's a lot of good things...any negative things so far?  Not really.  Sometimes James does talk really loud and school gets interrupted by potty emergencies.  And last night I tried to make a tornado in a bottle and failed.  Ella complains a little when it's time for me to read aloud to her.  She's actually a really good listener and enjoys the story, but she's too much like me and would much rather be the reader than the listener.  I've let her read everything to me this week except for our main read-aloud right now, The Boxcar Children.  

The first full week (in which KJ was also out of the country) was a busier schedule than I was used to having.  I didn't have the option to have a lazy day because there was always school to teach.  It took me a few days to get used to losing my morning cleaning time, but thanks to an introduction to The Fly Lady (whose website I still haven't checked out), I have a new cleaning schedule forming, so the house has actually been more clean and organized.  

Whenever I write about how well things are going, the next day usually brings disaster of some kind.  Oh, well.  Things are going great so far.  I did have to clean a lot of poop out of the floor last week, so you know, things weren't absolutely perfect around here or anything.