Choosing Day: Amy
Pre-School Class (Meaning the class that happened before school "started", before some of us even ate breakfast or got dressed. That happens sometimes.) Let's Play Music homework.
Opening Prayer: Eliza
Move Your Body: A little baseball.
Water Class.
Stand and Share: Another cute thing about Eliza is that she kind of sheepishly and shyly grins and runs to a couch after standing and sharing. It's darling. Today she talked about feeding her pretend Benjo and how he wasn't crying.
Memorize Class: Recite Amy's tithing poem. She quizzed me and cheered me on really cute. Noel's totally uninterested in memorize class.
Pledge of Allegiance: Only Eliza was interested again.
Class: Prepare assignments for Joy School. Noel has a secret one (I want Eliza to be surprised about it.) I realized it would work better to work on it after school. I asked Amy if she would be willing to read a story at school. She was willing, and I asked her to practice. She read well, even pretty quick. She did skip a few words and her intonation was on the boring end for 3 year old listeners. Eliza ran off early on in the story. I really wasn't sure what to assign to Amy instead so I told her I'd figure it out later and let her know.
Class part 2 was the revealing of a bunch of books I got yesterday at a book store when I went for a girls' night out with my friend, Anne. We had such a great time and got tons of books. I included a knocking for each of my girls. They were pretty excited.
Activity was more baseball/ recess. I stayed inside to get Benjamin to bed for the first while. Then, when I got outside we were hiding from and killing dragons.
Little Britches: Amy forgot to listen because she was reading another book. (I was tempted to interrupt her and ask her to book the book down but didn't because of recently reading this. On a side note, Matt and I also really enjoyed this article.) I wondered if just maybe Amy could read a book and listen to another book at the same time. Turns out, nope. She was in the zone with the book she was reading and totally missed Little Britches. She asked me to start the chapter over. Noel said she would like the book more if she could understand the words. I asked if she wanted me to stop a lot to tell her what was happening. Yes. I declined reading any more today because it was already 12:40, and I wanted to have time for our favorite class without skipping the others. We'll pick up on the same chapter next week but this time with more explanation.
Family Work: Eliza's room and the hallway. We just did Eliza's room yesterday and it wasn't bad at all. I usually would not let that fly - same room two days in a row - but I wanted to move on to lunch.
Reading/ Writing/ Drawing Class: Amy and I did our usually writing in her notebook. Today I wanted to do interviews - I want to make them Thursdays at the end of the day to make plans for the upcoming week. Today's topic was if anyone wants to change things about how we do our school. Now that we are three weeks in, I was ready to consider ideas. Amy had none. She likes everything. Wouldn't change anything. Awesome. She has a good attitude for the most part too.
Noel wanted to change nearly everything. I wondered what I may be learning about their personalities from this stark contrast. It is true that Noel has shown her dissatisfaction with certain aspects of school although her overall school opinion seems high. Still, she was bringing up stuff I never heard of. She may be one who likes to change things up a lot. Who knows.
Eliza said she likes reading and writing class and other silly things. She mostly just wanted to write names or some such. :)
We also read a couple picture books together. Amy and Noel have been asking for some individual time with me the last couple days. I thought that they would like to each get to choose something to read together. Amy has been saying she likes to sit by me and snuggle when we write in her notebook. Something good is happening there. :)
I haven't made it to my study stuff yet, and the girls have long since run off to play. It's good.
Closing Prayer: Noel
I have been praying for small ideas to help me make progress towards a few goals. They are mostly related to the ideas Matt and I had for what our kids and our family need this year. Many are unrelated to academics. Today I had the idea to look Noel in the eye when she's talking to me. We are trying to encourage expression from her, and I think that will help me really listen to her and show her respect. I also praised her like crazy for expressing herself really well one time today when she was upset.
Good.
Last night at the bookstore, Anne and I talked and talked, a lot about school stuff. I shared some ideas with her and some things we are doing and that I believe. Being in the bookstore got me excited and hopeful. I often feel that way when I think about the years and years of learning ahead of our family and what it's going to do for each of us to prepare us for life and personal life mission and teach us to be happy and make strong our relationships. I get excited specifically thinking about all the cool things I'll get to learn that I wouldn't if we weren't homeschooling. It's times like that that I doubt that I'll ever put the kids in school. (I don't ever think that I necessarily will, just that I always could if we decided that was what would be right for us. Seems like the chance are remote at this point, but who knows.)
Amy just came into the living room and got her school supplies, announcing that they were going to go have school. :) I guess the about 5 hours of school for today was insufficient for their appetite.
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