You are currently browsing the monthly archive for August, 2007.
Because we can’t keep every single piece of art work our children make, I keep a photographic record. Here’s today’s happy girl.
I am so very proud! E4 has just written her first word independently. She’s been able to write her name and B2’s for quite some time, and was able to write words when she’d ask me to tell her the letters. But today, she wrote a word all by herself that she’d never written before. It was ME. She wrote in in upper case letters (she struggles with the little e) and had two e’s instead of one but the point is that she knew that the two letters together made the word ‘me’. Good on you girl!
I know it’s a little thing, but I guess learning to read and write is all made up of little parts of understanding the code of our written language.
August 2007 – B2
Our lovely boy is growing up fast. His counting is coming along. He’s consistently getting up to seven or so, and numerically understands about 4. He has developed verbally in the last month. Now using longer sentences and from time to time says things like: “I can’t say: ————–” (insert tricky word) and then says it over and over. If he gets it right he says “I can say ———–”. So, he can hear what is being said and works hard at getting it right.
Still LOVES trains. Will probably get him some for his birthday.
We’ve been going to folk dancing weekly and today after 7 weeks he participated for the whole lesson. The first few he sat on the side. Around week 3 he joined in the ones he knew like “Hokey Pokey” and gradually has been joining in more and more. I’ve so enjoyed watching him settle in. It seems he’s reluctant to try until he has observed many times, although he sings the songs later at home and talks about the class even if he’d sulked his way through it. Today he laughed and ran with the other kids and I was so proud. (Although secretly I was proud each week when he learned in his own way and repeated what he’d learned at home).
Our lovely girl is growing so fast. She has been steadily learning her letters by completeing the pages of a colouring in book I gave her. She has to stick on the correct letter sticker (upper and lower case) then trace the letter, then practise it. Then colour the pictures. I’ve let her do it at her own pace and tried no to make her do it ‘right!’ Which has been hard for me. Rather I’ve let her do it herself and sometimes she’s asked for help. There’s plenty of time for her to learn the ‘right ‘ way of doing things. Besides she’s doing a great job by herself anyway.
Reading time has dropped off a little (my fault) although she still loves it. We finished The Magicians Nephew and The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. We got to about half way through The Horse and His Boy , but today she asked if we could stop reading it as it was a little bit boring for her. The story is interesting enough but I think she was getting a bit lost in the writing style which is more suited to older children that the first two books.
E4 has been enjoying folk dancing this term We’ve done 7 of 8 weeks, and she’s picked up the steps quite well. She has gradually been participating more and more in terms of contributing answers to questions about favourite dances and today she took a turn in the Ponchinello dance (she did big ballet actions for us all to follow) as well as being a scary bear in the middle of a circle dance. It’s nice to see her becoming comfortable there and confident.
Here begins the recording of our home schooling experiences. I hope to keep this well updated with our life, play, learning, discovering and adventure. We are excited about the days ahead, and a little nervous too, but convinced this is the way for us. I will write more about why we home school, and answers to questions I’ve had from family and friends, as well as the possible path we’ll take. I’ll write learning experiences as they happen, and document some of the stuff we do, mostly as a record for the children.
