Half Day & Packing

January 7, 2009

Homeschooling Day 3

I woke up early today, yet not feeling rested or motivated to take on a whole day of me and RocketBoy on our own. I think the 9am start time is great for us. It gives me the time I need to really get with it and RocketBoy happily gets some tv time. We’ve been so restrictive with the tv lately that I think giving him some regularly scheduled time to watch makes it less of a forbidden fruit. I’m even considering coordinating lessons with certain PBS favorites. I’ll happily let him watch Cyber Chase then use the concepts in a math lesson.

Today he was all about reading. We started out with “The Treasure” by Uri Schulevich (sp?). First we read very slowly, stopping at each word RocketBoy can read. He carefully printed each word on a cue card and placed it in his new “word box.” I think we added over a dozen today before his attention started to wane. Then we just sat and I read the story for the story’s sake – not a single interruption to define a word or ask him to read something. Then I asked him a ton of questions about the story – I am duly impressed with his comprehension – he was readily able to retell the major events and only faltered at the metaphorical bit. We then went on all sorts of tangents imagining what if. It was funs and silly and decidedly bouncy. In fact RocketBoy bounced away from his chair a few times so I decided a wiggle break was in order.

Earlier RocketBoy noticed that I had an activity book. It is actually the “School At Home” book for 1st grade with 36 weeks of lesson plans and activities. After moving his body, he asked to do some pages out of the book – really simple stuff for him – beginning sounds, a maze following alphabetical order, and lower case vs capital letters. I turned the lower case/capital one into a math lesson by having him count how many of each and making a graph.

After that he really wanted to plan UNO again. This time we did it with addition – he had to add the card placed to the card below it. He did really well.

Then we had luch and things broke down a bit. I got word from my father that he was on his way back and someone wanted to see about renting the place at 2. I needed to do some serious cleaning and packing in no time. In went Word World again, and again I had him pick out words and write them in his notebook. Then I had him pick his favorite and draw and write a story about it. This time it was watermelon. Leave it to RocketBoy to pick the longest word. He drew it growing from a seed to a full-grown fruit. He wrote a couple of words about it. I got us packed up.

After my dad got back it was mayhem. We were trying to get out by nightfall, but had lots to do to extract us from our home for the last 5 days. RocketBoy Really wanted to do social studies again – in the form of a giant United States floor puzzle. That was great except that he really did not want to do it alone which ended up frustrating us both a bit. We managed to do the puzzle in between me straightening up. Not the ideal situation. It really has to be either or. I think he was feeling a little lonely. It’s been just the three of us for quite a few days, mostly just him and me. I think he’ll be quite happy to be back in NYC with his dad and some playmates (must get aggressive about planning more playdates!)

We got ourselves into the car and on the road by 6 – after dark, but at least we ended up doing to the rive to town behind the snow plow. Slow, sure, but nice to have a freshly cleared road. At the hotel at 11, with a long dinner in between. The driving was slow snowy/icy. Home tomorrow, hopefully with better weather.