Rea-Ding- Lessons!

The other day, after lunch I sat by Noel and just started a reading lesson with her without asking if she wanted it. A few minutes later, I tried the same thing with Amy. It worked! After our lessons, I showed the girls some of the things they would be learning as we continued on. They both got so excited to hurry ahead and read read read. Amy did 8 lessons that day - she was the one less interested before. Noel did 5 that day. We decided to keep doing lessons interspersed with Sorry! games. That's what the girls have wanted every day since then. I am so happy about this development.

Today they got to do lessons interspersed with morning routine and chores. We finally just finished the first Sorry game because it took so long to do Joy School, morning routine, chores, walk with Grammy, art time, Mom's nap, etc. with so many reading lessons in between. The girls have made great progress. They're almost a quarter of the way through the reading lesson book.

A Normal Day - What A Blessing

After a super busy morning and early afternoon filled with non-kid activities, I came home to two girls very ready to paint. I suggested we have opening prayer and start school with painting. So we did. Noel actually seemed to enjoy telling me what to paint and then watching me do it more than doing her own painting.

Towards the end of painting, we did our opening routine stuff - date and weather, exercise. We decided that for America Moment we'd get our flag out since it's veteran's day. Then we'd stay outside and play since the girls both wanted to. They rode bikes. A neighbor stopped by and chatted with me for a long time.

When I could get everybody back in, we had a little snack and a lesson about why today is a holiday. (Thank you Wikipedia for some facts I didn't know.)

For closing class, we decided to work on preparing our script for the play Amy wants to put on at "Armstrong Days" over Christmas. She wants to do an episode of Alexander's Amazing Adventures, which is a wonderful series of episodes that are fun and interesting (even for me) and teach good values to young kids. We love them. So we transcribed part of the script.

We read a few stories and had our closing prayer.

Good day. I'm especially grateful I had the energy for all that after the hectic morning going from one thing to another.

Now Amy is practicing her reading with Grammy. They try to work on that every day. I told Amy she could still delay her chore if she chose to do that now first. It worked. :) She loves doing it anyway.

The Loveliest Kind of Marathon

Today was another couch day in the afternoon. So we had a reading marathon, inserting reading lessons between stories. Then we ended the day with a Sorry! game when I felt a little better. The kids had good attitudes and said it was fun.

Cookies and Sorry and Reading

My mom has been wanting to make cookies with the girls for school so today was the day. They worked on it for a long time and made two kinds of cookies. Then we tried to figure out how to fit in as much school as possible before the evening plans. I surveyed everyone's interests for activities and figured out how to help people get as much of what they want as possible.

We agreed to a Sorry! game first of all. Then we split up for reading lessons. Amy is reading with Grammy, and Noel is just finishing practicing writing some sounds at the end of her lesson.

Fun school day and the cookie time gave me some nice quiet study time.

Aunts and Uncles and How School's Going These Days

Update:
Wednesday - Grammy taught school, and I went to bed.
America Moment: Map time.
Lessons: Write the date and names of states.
Amy: Books with electronic pen that reads the words.
Noel: Game (I don't know what, but I'll tell you we have played Sorry! SO MANY TIMES lately.)
Reading: They read something, but I don't know what.


Thursday - Grandma Anne School
Grandma Anne was coming so we hung out with her. We had a game of Sorry! After Grandma Anne came, the girls and half the neighborhood climbed into all parts of her truck to play. She wished it was just the girls.


Monday - My aunt and uncle came to visit. The girls and I stayed in the room so as to not be unfriendly and to get to see them. Noel and I did a reading lesson. We read a few stories together. And of course, played Sorry!


Tuesday (today) - Normal school day
That means sometimes people fought against me about participating and sometimes had a good attitude. Eliza was woken up early; I almost started to cry.
All that said, here's what we did.
For America Moment, we looked at pictures in a book of US Presidents and said their names.
I tried to choose reading lesson for lesson time because Amy agreed earlier today that she would continue doing them after all. She refused during school. We settled on drawing lessons.
Amy chose bike riding for her activity. I was cold and sat in the van.
Noel chose playing with the barn and farm animals.
We then took a pause for me to make dinner. I'm still hoping we can have closing routine.