We are now three days behind the lesson plans I made three weeks ago: I had a bad head cold last week and was too foggy to teach. Also we had one really nice day and several days that were pretty decent so I sent the big children out to play as often as they would.
Here’s where we are though:
F:
F started First Grade with the new year. We’re about three weeks in and he can already sound out short vowel words and read simple stories using a mixture of sounding out and sight words. He still has a little trouble with just guessing and/or saying the word that makes sense to him as the next word without actually looking at the page to see the next word! As I recall that’s actually pretty normal for beginning readers and will resolve itself naturally.
In Math he’s also doing a First Grade curriculum and is thrilled to be learning to add. He finds the amount of writing somewhat daunting (he is after all three and a half not six) , but with patience does a good job. Mostly I think he struggles to allow himself to make mistakes and gets very frustrated when he doesn’t write as nicely as I do. I keep stressing that this is how he learns and I think he’s starting to see that.
His schooling usually takes an hour and a half.
Su:
Su is working her way through the Rod and Staff C and D Preschool books, as well as a handwriting book and a few other odds and ends of papers that I have collected over the years. She does really well with anything involving patterns and has good fine motor skills for a two and a half year old. She listens in on a lot of F’s lessons too and I suspect is picking up quite a bit. Now if I could only get her to keep her crayons and pencils out of her mouth!
Her schooling usually takes about 45 minutes.
They are both very eager to learn so I don’t feel that I’m pushing them, especially since the reaction to “Papa’s going to work today.” is “Yay, we get to do school!”