Thursday, August 26, 2010
Day 3 of our first year!
School went really smoothly today and I am starting to get into a routine. Each day the girls have their lessons, they have lunch, Miriam has her hour 1/2 of one on one while Sophia & Georgia nap/play, then they get to watch an hour of cartoons while I work on the next days lesson. I am not using a set curriculum but making my own. Which means if I cannot find the worksheets or activities I want online then I make them myself. Given that Miriam needs to have everything adapted to fit her needs I just feel it is a waste of money to pay that kind of money for a curriculum that I wouldn't be able to use most of. I figure why bother, just do it yourself and anyone that knows me knows that this kind of thing is just up my alley.
Today we worked some more on our Letter of the week "A", our number of the week "1", counting to 5 (which both the girls can do but I want Miriam to make a habit of doing it if asked) and our shapes of the week "Triangle, Square, Circle". Yesterday I made up some worksheet packages for each lesson. When we started the year I had a set half hour by half hour schedule. I know some people who keep to one of these but I am starting to realize that my schedule is too much. We finish an activity in about 20 minutes (sometimes less) before the girls have had it. So I think we are just going to wing the time from now on making sure it is kept within the time frame we normally have but it isn't going to kill anyone to end early. (well maybe Georgia because she is addicted to this classroom..lol) If we finish the activity in 15 minutes we will review then move on to the next. Miriam has about the same attention span as Georgia, sometimes a little less. I want her to learn and if I push her she is going to clam up, we had some issues today with that very thing because we had too many counting exercises for her patience level. Today we actually started everything late because we had a repairman come over to fix a bunch of stuff all over the house. We started at 11:30 and finished all activities , minus Miriam's speech, O&M and OT, by 3:00 which I think is pretty good. We just skipped the other for today. She only had one day a week of each at public school, at home she has all 3 everyday so she can stand to lose a day.
My goal for Miriam is to have her willing to sit and color, cut & paste and actually get some enjoyment out of it, to be vocal using words ALL the time to express herself, to not bite herself anymore and to be able to use the potty. We do potty breaks for her after every activity and she actually asked to potty last night and that is a breakthrough. Another breakthrough is that she is "enjoying" playing with Leggos and is actually attempting to stack them on her own. She has never done this for me before and started trying herself on day 2 which is amazing. Today she actually managed to "build" a structure, picked out her own blocks for the structure and took care in not breaking it once erected. I am so amazed by this and so proud!!! :D
Anyway, here are some pics of our activities and craft for the day. Sophia was napping during craft center so she didn't get one. :( But we made musical horns out of towel paper holders and foam. Should I be concerned that Georgia loves using scissors as much as she does? lol 
And here is a pic of Miriam doing a wall hand stand during our gym/exercise time. I have a feeling she has done this before because she lasted 2 minutes and was prepared before she ever hit the wall. Georgia lasted about half a second so no pics..lol
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
God bless your first year in this homeschool adventure. I am praying you have a wonderful year full of lots and lots of fun. I remember those first few years with great fondness. I remember telling God I needed help and that I needed him to help me brainstorm ideas that would pull my unit studies together. He was so faithful always, we had such great fun too!
ReplyDeleteSo nice to meet you and your beautiful family.
Kimmie
mama to 8
one homemade and 7 adopted
It is very nice to meet you as well. I enjoyed reading your blog earlier! I am absolutely amazed at the job you have taken on but I am sure the love you get from those 8 kids make it all worthwhile. One day we hope to be in a position to adopt. We would really like to adopt a blind child, there are so many waiting for adoption. God Bless you!
ReplyDelete