Homeschool Struggles

This has been a crazy week in our homeschool! I think taking a holiday from school on the 4th of July threw us off. I didn't get the lesson plan made until Tuesday afternoon. So we took their workbooks with us to a restaurant for dinner and they did their math and reading at the table while we waited for our food to arrive. I had planned a little bit more stuff, but we ran out of time. Math and reading are my requirements to complete every day, but I really like doing the extras. Wednesday we got everything done except for reading a story about Pocahontas. I tried to teach Danya to count by 2's, but she wasn't really getting it. I've been feeling so nauseous and tired lately from being newly pregnant that it's making things a little more difficult to accomplish.

I'm going to call today Thursday because the clock just ticked over to Friday. Today I worked on counting "pairs" with Danya and writing the letter "i" with Gloria. I gave Danya a pile of pencils to use as a visual aide to understanding the word problems about pairs. That seemed to really help. Gloria did really well with hearing the short "i" sound like in "igloo".

We also read the story of Pocahontas and how even though she was only 10 yrs old she bravely saved Captain John Smith's life. We colored pictures about community heroes. Danya chose a veterinarian and Gloria picked a nurse again. Then we made and colored Indian headbands with feathers in them. The girls invented Indian names for themselves. Danya was "Morning Rainbow" and Gloria was "Dancing Flower". I let the girls wear their headbands to the zoo.

Today was the MIT mom's group zoo day. We looked for animal "tracks" in the concrete (a neat thing the zoo has) and compared the girls feet and hands to the pawprints we found. I explained to them that the Siberian Tiger is very heavy, that's why their paw prints are deeper, and the Cheetah barely touches the ground at all when it runs, so it's tracks are not as deep.

When we got home Gloria took a nap and Danya read to herself from an easy reader book! After naps Danya read one of the stories to me. She is doing so good! This has been such an up and down week. But I still have to say I am loving homeschool!