New Focus

As you probably know if you have visited here at all, I have changed the topic of this blog as our life situation changed. I am now going to post about our adventures in home schooling.

I will use this space to document our journey along this yet unexplored path. Unexplored, I say, because although I have several years experience with home schooling my older girls, this will be the first time I attempt to do it with an only child. This should prove to present unique opportunities and challenges as well.

I was not expecting to begin quite this early. I planned to begin with first grade in the fall. Due to unforeseen events and circumstances, I found myself kind of scrambling this week. I was under pressure and am still under pressure to get organized. As of this moment, I am not. Not at all.

We did mange to do schooling three days this week. Athena learned to read the first two Bob Books on her own. The gleam in her eye when she realized that she could sound out words was beyond reward for both of us. She has taken them out several times a day to practice.

We did some simple math. A color by number and some rudimentary measuring. We baked two items and she did all the measuring herself. And of course we read books. We spent time outdoors building Fairy Houses and splashing in puddles. We spotted the first spring robin this morning.

As luck would have it there is a butterfly exhibit coming to the city this weekend so we began her Field Journal. She wanted to call it a field journal instead of a nature notebook because of course, Deigo has a field journal. Whatever works. We cut out pictures of the featured butterflies from our news paper, pasted them in the journal and copied their names below the pictures. We hope to find all 8 species this weekend. (Hopefully not the Giant Owl. It is reported to have an 8 inch wing span)

I feel a huge relief at having taken her out of school and yet a huge responsibility now lies on my shoulders. I have not written down my plans yet and that about drives me nuts. I am methodical and organized if nothing else.

But, my husband, my oldest daughter and my dear sister put it all into perspective for me when they told me "Don't forget, it's only Kindergarten." Indeed.