Patience

All my life I have been complimented for my ability to be patient. I still feel I have this great quality, but I feel like since I've had kids (and a husband, too), it has been tested harder. Since we've been officially home schooling these past few weeks, I have learned that I can really loose it.

Then I realized that the reason we are home schooling is because we want our children to be able to go at their own pace and learn in their own style. I don't have to go by a book and I can be as flexible as I want. Since realizing that, I have not let W's tendency to space out, or his difficulty in paying attention to what we are reading, bother me. I just take it slow and we are both a lot happier.

I remember when I was teaching W how to read. He was about 2 when he started showing interest in the word cards that I had. I would try to teach him the phonic sounds and he would remember many of them and try to sound out a word. Some of the sounds he did not get right away. I remember feeling a tinge frustrated at having to be so repetitive. But eventually he got it, it worked and W is a master reader now! Children will rarely get how to do things right away. Somehow I keep forgetting that. W has this incredible memory! I have seen it and am aware of it, everyone he meets know this about him. If he is spacing out, he's bored and I need to step it up a bit, or make it more exciting, or take it a little at a time. Even if I have to summarize things FOR him, so he can get how to do it, I know he will learn it and be really great at it.

Patience is the key and I need to bring that side out of me again. I have been doing it for the past 5 or 6 home school days and it's been working in our favor.

The Library

W got his first library card today. He even signed it himself. Look how cute his signature is!

I had him check out his books on his own (following my instructions of course). I am excited for W to learn what a valuable resource the library can be. We are going to try and make it there once a week. W has been so excited about having his own library card. He insisted on going to the store to find a wallet for him to put it in, so he will not loose it. Unfortunately we did not find one, but we will. The librarian told him that he needed to keep it in a safe place because if he lost it, he would have to pay $1 to replace it. He is taking this very seriously. I believe this will teach him some independence as well.

First week done.

I thought I would leave a note after the first week has ended.

What I learned this week:

1. I need to figure out a way to get W to love it when I read to him. I must have a super boring reading voice. I try to make it fun, but I guess I didn't inherit that quality from my mom.

2. I was spending way too much time on "Grammar". That is fixed for next week.

3. I must get a priesthood blessing. What was I thinking in NOT getting one. I need to be blessed with patience and understanding toward W.

4. W's best subjects right now are, Writing, Spelling, Grammar, and Math. He LOVES art!

5. I am fairly certain that I am getting the hang of it. Hopefully the trend continues.

6. We all love spending more time at home. Hopefully as we get use to things we will be able to get out to the library more. That did not happen today.

The first week is almost over

This is hard. I just want to say that any homeschooling critics out there who say, "Homeschoolers just keep their kids home because they aren't big enough to let their kids go," are SO ignorant! And I don't mean that in a rude way. Maybe some homeschoolers actually do homeschool for that reason. But for those of us who take it seriously, it is hard work! It has only been four days for me and I feel like it's been at least four weeks. I have thought many times in the last four days of what it would be like to send W off to school and let someone else do all the work. I would then get this break and get so much done around the house, (Saturdays are now my cleaning day, where I use to clean every day). Then I thought about how I would have to help him with homework. Homework that I did not decide he should be taught with. Homework that probably would not be up to his level and catered to him individually. Yep... then I knew that what I was doing was good. I know that we will all get use to it. Sometimes I think about adding more children to the mix and I get discouraged, but I tell myself, "One thing at a time, A."

W is such a good boy, and he does love to learn. But the subjects, Science and History, are not easy times for us. He gets so bored. Yesterday R took over History, and W was so much more engaged. R is so much better at that. I'm more of the boring dictator-type teacher that can teach from a work-book. Ha ha. Not really, I can be fun too. It will just take me a while to figure it out. I need to read W's cues. I need to research fun ways to teach a certain subject. But for now, I plan on roping R into teaching History on Tuesday and Thursday mornings.

It is Friday today. W is at his Chinese tutoring this morning. We do school after lunch at 1:00. Fridays are a more relaxed day where History and Science are not covered, but Art and Music are! Then we take a trip to the library. I am excited for school today.

First Day of School at Woodruff Hall

WOODRUFF HALL

Woodruff Hall has opened it's doors. The first day was successful, aside from the fact that our Grammar book still has not showed up, and we weren't able to go over that. W started to get distant and distracted at the end of the last subject, but since it was our first day, I was scrambling a bit and the block went a bit longer than anticipated. Other than that, he seemed engaged and cooperated quite well. I am so proud of him! Of course, many of the work-book type subjects are too easy for him right now, so I think he enjoys the fact that he knows all the answers already.

Woodruff Hall administration and teaching staff:

(Picture to come)

Here is our first student:

W's first day of school

 We start every day with a prayer and then the Pledge of Allegiance

Here is an example of our daily activities. Here is our first day's work:

We started out with Religious Studies, 15 minutes a day. Today we read from the LDS Church's scripture reader "Book of Mormon Stories", which summarizes the Book of Mormon with pictures and captions to visualize things for small children. W really loved that. We read about how the Book of Mormon came to be. He narrated back to me very well, how Joseph Smith wanted to know which church was true, had a vision and was told that none of them were true, was ridiculed and mocked, the angel Moroni later came and told him about the Gold Plates, then over a course of years was taught and then shown where they were buried and then obtained them, translated them and published the pages into The Book of Mormon. Then the reader goes into what was taught by ancient prophets in the America's, (what is in the Book of Mormon). I figured we could do the Book of Mormon and the Articles of Faith right now for Religious Studies, because much of our reading and science is based on Bible verses.

Reading and reading comprehension. Everything is written in my handwriting because W cannot write fast enough yet. I just wrote down what he said. This week we are reading out of The Bible. Next week we will read from a kids book about the Trojan Horse. :) W also get's half hour of free reading time, but today was so scattered that he did not get that. I am anxious to get a routine down. 

Math. This is Singapore Math. 

 I felt really silly making W do this kind of stuff. Hopefully it gets more into actual problems soon. I hear Singapore moves fast, so that's promising. 

Writing. W has been able to write pretty well for some time now. The reason I am making him do something formal is to teach him the proper spacing and slants. What is funny is that his regular handwriting is more readable than his dad's. Maybe I should have Dad do A Reason for Handwriting.

Spelling. This is Explode the Code. I also felt silly making W do this. It was way too easy for him. He is reading so well right now, but I feel like he reads more by sight than phonetically. He knows phonics well, but I wanted to start him from a first grade level just to cover the basics again. It can't hurt. If he breezes through it, then that's even better. 

Science. This was our last subject of the day. We spend 60 minutes per day, two days a week on this subject. History is studied the days in between (Tuesdays and Thursdays). This is where W started getting tired of "school". I had to really coax him to narrate what we learned. I kept track of things to look up on the computer so that I could make it more visual for him as well. I felt like he wasn't getting much out of reading after having read the last two or three hours. He was really interested in the videos of hawks preying on squirrels.

E (our 17-month-old) fell asleep during science. Just plopped down on the floor and went bye-bye. Most of the time she played with the box of markers. Thankfully she can't open them up yet and they kept her pretty entertained as she took them out and put them back in. Soon, I will have to incorporate some time of official instruction for her. Which is mostly playing! So, yay for me!