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Friday, October 2, 2009

We are way behind

We are behind in many things, but today my concern is about homeschooling. My goal was to work on one letter and one number each week. This week we fell behind. Last week I did not do anything on Friday so Monday was catch up day. Then Tuesday became Monday's plans, and so forth. Yesterday was cut short due to a special playgroup we were attending. Then today we went to the Big E and did not do anything academic. Madeline learned a lot about animals and other things while we were there but nothing of what I had planned.
So Monday I will still be on Wednesdays plans for this week. I think we will just finish D and 6 and then spend the last two days reviewing all the letters and numbers that we have been working on.
The way I plan is on Sunday I sit down and look up craft ideas for the number and letter I am working on. Then I look at our planned activities for each day and decide which days we will do our crafts. This week I had planned on being home a lot more on Wednesday but we ended up with only half our morning at home. Which meant my time to work with Madeline was cut in half as well.
Earlier this week I wrote about my struggles with working with Madeline at home. I am committed to homeschooling her this year and have some thoughts on how I can make it a more positive experience for both of us. One is to continue to have a routine but change it a little. I think I try to get too much done in each learning session. I do switch activities often but I think I plan too many activities in a row. My new schedule is going to look something like this:
Calendar, song and letter book -15 minutes
Free coloring time- 10 minutes
Letter activity and/or craft- 15 minutes
Snack- 10 minutes
Math/number time- 10 minutes
tv time- 25 minutes (yeah I am one of the moms who allows tv every morning)
Handwriting- 5 minutes
Walk- 30-45 minutes
Playgroup, storytime or other activity (zoo, park, museum, etc) or just playing at home.

The days we stay at home I will also work on small motor skills- lacing beads, cutting with scissors, lacing cards, and things like that.

I am going to try this schedule for a couple of weeks and see how it works. Hopefully this will work. Otherwise it is back to the drawing board. I know if I keep trying I will find what works for us, I just need to patience for it!

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