Monday - Classical Conversations Parent Orientation... I was nervous because I knew that a lot was being expected and that my wonderful director has given me glowing referrals. I wanted to make a good first impression as a tutor. I am not sure how I did but we had some fun. I took foam bags and stickers and let the kids do a craft and a coloring page while I talked with a few of the parents. I had put their names on each of their folders but the glue didn't stick and several had already fallen off (my luck!) I also laminated their names so they each have a name card to bring to class and leave on the first week. We'll use those for their Oral presentations so we know who has gone and we can take each name down as they finish. I think the kids will have fun as long as I am having fun. I was exhausted afterward and I am afraid I missed something I was supposed to do as a parent but as a tutor, all in all, it went well.
Tuesday - Lily had Preschool Orientation and then that afternoon, we did Math-U-See Lesson 1 and quickly discovered that he would be flying through the first few lessons because they would be review. We skip counted by skipping around the room and sitting on the floor clapping hands together. We did language arts by writing his name, reading some books and remembering the letters, followed by a worksheet or two. We looked at the geography book and read about Maine and New Hampshire.
Wednesday - More Math-U-See, I love the videos because the man is pretty easy to listen to and the classroom setting makes it seem like he is the "real" teacher. Joel and Lily watch each video at least twice since they are fast before they do some of the worksheets. Lily is right up there with Joel doing everything he is doing. Even though Joel can move on he is still not great with his number recognition so we're just doing a quick review and it helps Lily keep up too! She's loving feeling like a big girl. Joel started writing his numbers on a dry-erase board to get practice with writing them neatly. He is able to look at the numbers and write them now instead of tracing them. Language Arts was review again and he started writing his name a lot better than last year! Went to the Library and checked out books about Christopher Columbus, Pilgrims, and the Human Body. We learned the History Statement for week 1 of CC.
Thursday - Math-U-See, Skip counting outside and reading books about Christopher Columbus. When Lily came home from preschool, Joel was telling her about Columbus and asked me to teach her the song for the History Statement. We did more letter recognition and number writing. Later, while Lily was napping, Joel wanted to study Ants. So we read Proverbs 6:6-7 and talked about what we could learn about the Ant. We put cookies on the ground and watch the ants gather around and hall them off. We ate popsicles because it was super hot yesterday and watched as the Ants came to see the droppings but left quickly since they couldn't carry any of it. He finished his day by watching "Bugs Life" which is all about the Ants and the Grasshoppers!
Friday - Math was the same and he has finally finished the review of numbers 0-9. We did skip counting by skipping around the room again (they both love this, except since neither can actually skip it's more of a run around the table.) Joel used the Bob books to start reading on his own. He sits in his bean bag chair and does his own reading while I worked with Lily on the letter 'A'. She cut out pictures and we name each picture to decide whether it started with an A sound and then pasted the ones that did onto another workbook page and she colored the pictures. In between, I folded laundry! Joel read 3 books today and got so frustrated I made him take a break. That's the cool thing about homeschool. He was able to walk away, blow off some steam and come back and finish up! After lunch, they played outside for a while and then Joel and I read about muscles. He did the old stand in the doorway trick to learn muscle memory and wanted to do it 3 more times after that. Afterwards, we went upstairs and created a moving hand out of foam, string, straws and glue. We're waiting for the glue to dry... We read another awesome Christopher Columbus book and as a reward for doing so well this week, he is getting to play the Wii now!
I make sure to incorporate snacks and breaks so they don't get board throughout the day and because we are up and moving all the time, they really have a lot of fun. Plus I think they like the devoted time I can give to them! Lily is enjoying preschool at the church and it gives Joel and I some one on one time to do some harder things that are easier done without her needing attention too. It's been a great week but I am also looking forward to some downtime this weekend!
