Today was an extraordinarily unusual day of happiness and cooperation from Zeb. He's been with us for just over two years and each day feels harder than the last. I think that just when I feel completely defeated God sets a day like today at my feet and reminds me of why we adopted and what it is eternally worth.
0 Comments
So this is supposed to be our wild day ... all lovely lessons. It is going to take immense discipline {for me} to get into a habit of five days of school a week. We shall see ... for now, here are some gems of my girls with MEP. Last night Kevin asked the girls to choose their #1 MOST favorite part of school.
Viola: Our Island Story Mae: MEP Kevin wants me to honor Mae's fire for MEP and keep her with it and let Fred be something she does independently on our light day. Viola says she wants to do Fred. I asked why. Her reply, "I don't have to think as hard." Hmm. More to mull over for me. Until then ... My girls are happiest counting with jewels or smooth pebbles they find outside. Jack prefers aliens. Why not?
And a little war always makes him beam. It never gets old, for him. ;) We are continuing to work with word building and phonics review alongside our copywork. This is proving to be incredibly beneficial for Mae's spelling, as well as a lot of good fun for both girls to work together, not competitively as Viola is want to do at times. ;) We're using letter tiles that are all uppercase, bummer!, but I am on the hunt for a vintage set of ivory alphabet letters in a box ... a girl can dream, right? Until then ... I spent every free moment this past weekend reading from Charlotte Mason's original writings on arithmetic and comparing it to this, which is the original 1800s Eclectic manual that goes along with our Ray's Arithmetic. That said, today began our exploration of Ray's using the EMOM. {So many thanks to AO users, yet again, for endless conversation on this topic.}
I worked with corn kernels (concrete) with both Viola and Zeb, separately, on numbering and not counting for approximately 15 minutes. I've decided to start Viola at the beginning despite the fact that she is wildly beyond this in math; all the same though, there are nuggets of learning in this manner of learning in which even I could use remediation. This approach to math is perfect for Zeb: concrete -- mental -- written. I can't say for certain if we will use Ray's as suggested by the EMOM or by Beechick in her guide, or just as my intuition dictates, but here we gooooooooooooooo ... I hope to use some of the brilliant concepts and ideas I learned from the EMOM and from Ms Mason with our math lessons, but I foresee Mae pining for MEP, which she has loved from Year 1. It's hard for me to allow the messiness of several different maths happening in my home, but then I step back and remember that is precisely why we home school. ETA ~ We are pressing forward with MEP for Mae and Life of Fred for Viola and MEP for Zeb ... I mix in some Ray's story problems, but we're best right where we're at presently. Jesus wants us to come to him as little children ... it is for those who are like little children that the Kingdom belongs. Have soft hearts full of the Holy Spirit; do not harden your hearts but bring your hurts to the cross. This is something we work on every.single.day with Zeb, especially, but among us all as well. I made the softness of being gentle and kindhearted tangible ...
We try for 30 minutes of free reading every afternoon. The girls each read for 30 minutes first thing every morning, as well. Let's see, Mae is currently reading The Saturdays, Viola is reading Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and I am reading The Book Thief, Suprised by Joy, The Reason for My Hope: Salvation, Rumi's Tales from the Silk Road, and Captivating. Zeb and Jack read picture books from various baskets ... seasonal, Five in a Row, and the like. Additionally, we each spend a good hour daily with our Bibles, close to Jesus.
Our Thanksgiving book basket is full and ready for the reading over the next couple of weeks. The week of the 17th we will be reading Louisa May Alcott's An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving. It's a simple tradition to fill a basket with books of the season and around here, there is always room for another basket of books. Giving Thanks: Poems, Prayers, and Praise Songs of Thanksgiving by Katherine Paterson Celebrate Thanksgiving by Deborah Heiligman Squanto and the Miracle of Thanksgiving by Eric Metaxas Cranberry Thanksgiving by Wende and Harry Devlin Thank You Sarah, the Woman Who Saved Thanksgiving by Laurie Halse Anderson How Many Days to America? A Thanksgiving Story by Eve Bunting Over the River and through the Wood by Lydia Maria Child A Strawbeater's Thanksgiving by Irene Smalls This First Thanksgiving Day: A Counting Story by Laura Krauss Melmed Pilgrim Cat by Carol Antoinette Peacock Hardscrabble Harvest by Dahlov Ipcar Thanksgiving Is by Gail Gibbons Balloons Over Broadway: The True Story of the Puppeteer of Macy's Parade by Melissa Sweet If You Were at the First Thanksgiving by Anne Kamma Squanto's Journey: The Story of the First Thanksgiving by Joseph Bruchac |
erin.kate
Adorer of my Jesus. Home school mama to four ... three home grown and one from the far reaches of Africa. Ridiculously blessed wife of a man who loves with a servant's heart. Devotee of Charlotte Mason and clean, humble living. Archives
July 2016
Categories
All
|