After a successful trial run of home school Friday, we decided to go ahead and pull her. We filed the withdrawal form from the school and drove to central office (which doesn't seem so central--it was a half hour drive) to turn in the home schooling paperwork. The clerk was thankful we brought all the required paperwork and pleasant. Justin said the school secretary was asking a lot of questions (hence the reason I sent him, so I wouldn't be tempted to offer to donate the copy of The Hurried Child I procured as a part of my Intro. to Eduction class to the principal). After giving several vague responses, he finally asked if the questions were necessary--they weren't.
We are officially a home schooling family. Kate had lessons this morning. We took a late morning trip to the grocery, resumed lessons this afternoon, and then took a trip to the discovery museum (since we were close by at central office). There we found a little bit about our lesson in phases of matter from last week written on the wall over the water table. We still have a little more to do tonight, since Justin is doing some music with her tonight.
It's definitely an upside down week. I thought that I would be sending my gal off to school and have more time to focus on the little ones, and instead I'm working more intesely with Miss Kate than ever before. And she's reading. Sentences. The little ones are going to have to adjust some. Gabby gets to play or sit and do preschool pages, as she wants--due to her birthday she has three years until she's eligible for kindergarten.
I have my lessons planned for the week, ideas for experiments (one a week until December so far), and some ideas for several units in the works. I got the academic expectations from the state education website and I'm writing plans from those. It's taking all that is within me not to annotate them all with the corresponding code, but I'm just making do by checking off as we accomplish each of the items on the student skills list. So, life is crazy, but it's fun to be a teacher again (and quite busy--someone forgot to relieve me for my planning period today), especially when my children are my students. How can you beat reading Where the Sidewalk Ends with your kiddo and seeing her smile at the same things that make you smile.
Of course Kate, who didn't want to go to school last week, is complaining that she's missing out on the playground this week. The grass is always greener...
Oh and can I just say that I am thankful for William Holmes McGuffey, (He wrote the McGuffey Readers.) and my mom's mother for buying the reprints. They are perfect for teaching Kate to read.
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ReplyDeleteI hope that all goes well in the days, weeks, years? ahead for all of you with homeschooling. I'm sure they will be able to learn a lot more in a much shorter period of time than they would have in public school. I can't wait to have Kate read to me -- I've read to her enough over the years that I think it's my turn!!
ReplyDeletesoooo jealous. :) I don't even have kids yet, but oh how I would love to do this. I wish you the best!
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