Some Body

I had been teaching Simone science by having her do copywork.  I would give her sentences about what elements, atoms, molecules and body tissue were and she would have to copy them in her own handwriting.  But once I got into human organs,  I realized that copywork was not going to help her remember the their functionality as much as this game Somebody that I had seen in the Rainbow Resources catalog.

Now even Max is learning about the digestive system!  It seems to be working because this morning Simone told me that her gummy bear almost went down her trachea instead of her esophagus.  

Homeschool Shortcut

One of the cool things about homeschooling more than one kid is that the younger ones absorb what the older ones are learning.  Max has an advanced vocabulary for a 5-year-old.  They were watching Shrek and some humans were reacting (badly) to the sight of the title ogre.  Max exclaimed, "Man, those guys are horrified!"

Another cool thing is that the older kid can teach the  younger for you!  Part of Simone's spelling is to put the spelling tiles in alphabetic order.  She already knows how to do that quickly so she took it on herself to "teach" Max his letters!  She pretended she was the teacher and worked with him to put the letters in order.  When he got stuck as to what was next, she would prompt him to sing the ABC song with her to retrieve the answer.

She was so excited about teaching Max that she wrote a lesson plan book right after.  It consisted of only two pages, but that was enough because Max was done with being the student.  

Common and Proper Nouns

Simone thinks I'm in loooovvveee with nouns.  They're fine.  Sure!  But I'm just trying to teach her grammar.    She doesn't quite get it yet and we have to revisit the concept regularly.  Well she had had enough of nouns today after 45 minutes of homeschooling so when I asked her to give me a common noun she said with a smirk on her face, "Poopoo!"

I was about to scold her into taking the lesson seriously when I had a bright idea.   If I have the definition correct, I think this is a teachable moment.  I said to her, "You're right, Simone!  Poopoo is a 'thing!'  Now do you  know the name of a specific poo?"  At this point she was just giggling because I kept saying poopoo, so I answered the question for her.

"I'll tell you.  'Mr. Hankey' is the name of a particular poo! So 'Mr, Hankey' is a proper noun and 'poopoo' is a common noun!"

Hurray for knowledge!

First Adventure in Homeschooling!

We decided that I would start Simone's 1st grade homeschool during the summer after her Kindergarten.  In fact, we started the Monday after her last day of school.  My belief is that learning, formal or not, happens all the time.  The only reason why there is a vacation in compulsory education is that, historically, children needed to help their farming parents between the months of June and August to reap the harvest.

I have been preparing for about 3 years for the moment I would start homeschool.  I had chosen The Well-Trained Mind as a structure for teaching Simone, but I can already see that we might veer from its organization.  In fact, I go through a re-evaluation of teaching methods every day!!!  Issues include number of breaks, when is the best time to teach Simone, where is the best place to teach her, how to present information, and how to mix up the subjects from day to day.

One thing I have learned with how I present information is  I need to be more interesting!

Simone straight up told me that I am boring.  Wha- what WHAT?!?!?    Me? Boring?  Well that was a shocker, but a very constructive criticism.  AND an instigation to give more props to teachers who teach more than one child!

The funny thing is that our first day was one of our most creative.

I had bought a lot of e-books from Teacher Express, a sub-company of Scholastic, Inc.  For the first day, I turned to one of their activities.  I chose the brain hats because Max had recently asked about our brains and where it is.  Simone really liked coloring hers.   Max got frustrated that he couldn't color and cut as well as his sister.

After a few more days of our doing worksheets, Simone kept telling me that learning is borning.  So for one of our writing prompts, I asked, "Why do you think learning so boring?"  Here is her answer.

"Because you do it difrnt"

On the left is a picture of Simone with her teacher Mrs. Dye.  Simone is happy and standing tall.

On the right is a picture of Simone with me.  She is cowering in a corner.  She told me, "Here, I am crying."

My ultimate goal is not to copy what teachers do, but I do want to get her more excited about learning.  Simone did comfort me by telling me that she likes how I teach her Spelling. 

I think Simone might be more of a kinetic learner than I originally thought.  Well ... here's to learning more about learning.  

Quelling the Tiger Mom in Me

Simone successfully finished her first year in compulsory education.  My measure of success is that she merely went to school everyday that she was healthy enough to.  I knew that she wouldn't like it at first, but I suspected she would tolerate it eventually.   Luckily for all of us, she accepted this new routine and many days she came home smiling and recounted some fun experiences she had with her new friends.

As is to be expected, there were bumps along the road.  Within the first few months, Simone told me stories of classmates saying mean things to her.  "Everyone is trying to be mean to you."  "I don't like your hair."  "Stop looking at me!"  There were even incidents of kids taking money from her.  It wasn't a case of being bullied to give her lunch money away; instead she just happily obliged when classmates asked her for money.

It was no surprise during Simone's first quarter awards ceremony that she got Honor Roll.  But it wasn't that hard since their school- and homework was reading the words for colors and coloring the correct shapes.  As the year progressed, we found out what Simone's strengths and weaknesses were.  She excelled in Reading and remembering the science topics, but her printing left much to be desired.  We knew that she would get awards during her second quarter, but I had not expected she wouldn't be on the honor roll.  The tiger mom in me started to worry.

Simone does not look enthused.

I started to think I should be harder on her to do her homework more neatly.  We were already wrestling with having to do homework in the first place. I had grown up with a gigantic emphasis on grades and delivered the final As and Bs.  But I honestly couldn't regurgitate any of the information that did not initially interest me.  I hated literature and was so poor at comprehension.  History was not interesting unless we were talking about mythology and folklore, which I read on my own and didn't learn in school.  I didn't want Simone to be so focused on getting the grade that she didn't learn anything.  But inside I still used the honor roll as an external gauge.

The kids were told to give themselves a pat on the back.

I tried not to worry about it when she didn't get honors.  I congratulated her for getting the "Citizenship" and "No Tardies" awards, but I also talked to my friends about my feelings of incompetency as a mother.  In the end, I didn't push her extra hard on her writing and just continued to read to her.   I fostered her extracurricular interests such as gymnastics and dance.  I tried to be a kick-back mom about her grades because I know she is an intelligent girl who has a thirst for knowledge.   If Handwriting was the only thing keeping her from Honor Roll, then so be it.  Heck! 5-year-olds aren't usually developmentally ready to do such fine motor skills for penmanship.  At least Simone was doing well with other subjects.

Well, a surprise happened after her 3rd quarter awards ceremony.  No, she didn't get honor roll.   A couple of days afterwards, she expressed her desire to get onto the coveted Honor Roll!  I don't know if it was because her friends were on it.  I don't know if I subconsciously pushed her to want it (I hope that isn't it - I know my face can reveal my emotions when I don't want it to).  But now that she really wanted to improve, I really wanted to help her with all my might!

Honestly, I didn't do anything.  She did all the improving by herself!  The only thing I did was point out to her that her low grade in Handwriting was what was keeping her from getting the award she wanted.  With that info, she took more time and patience to write more legible letters.  And wouldn't you know it, Simone ended up with not just Honor Roll in her last quarter, she also got the "B.U.G." award which is given to kids who "Bring Up Grades!"

Look at her joy in getting an award!

Simone learned a lot in her first year of Kindergarten.  She learned about nocturnal and diurnal animals, the phases of the moon, how to count to 100, how to add and subtract, the rainforest and its four layers, America and its symbols, and 2D vs. 3D shapes.  She also learned how to verbally express her feelings to kids who were being mean to her, the consequences of talking back to her teacher, and the joys of having best friends.

I too learned a lesson:  that true change will come from Simone if she initiates it.   She is as stubborn as her mother after all.

Yrotsih, or History Backwards

I've been plagued with the question, "Should I start homeschooling Simone at 1st grade or at 2nd grade, which is when we move to a new Coast Guard station?"  I brought up the dilemma to Michael and said that we could follow the well-trained mind curriculum if I afterschooled Simone the history part, Ancient Civilizations to Middle Ages. 

Maybe it's the philosopher in Michael that he brought up more questions to my question, but he pointed out, "I don't know if it's the best thing to teach Simone in the conventional chronological order."  I welcomed his opinion and elaborated that the beginning of known history is so far removed from what Simone knows now that it may not be interesting at all to her.  He thinks that going backwards might be best to teach history backwards.  

I'm now researching how I would go about it.  I'm not fully on board, but I'm very intrigued because I know I didn't retain very much history when I learned it the conventional, mostly chronological method.  But then again, maybe history was taught poorly to me.  But then again, maybe if it were tailored to what I was experiencing around me, maybe I would have been more interested.  Who knows, but I'm definitely going to consider teaching history from the present to the past. 

 

 

Opposition

The tides have changed with my mom's support for homeschooling.  She used to be all for it when I said I wanted to homeschool Simone at around 4th grade.  Lately, I've been thinking I want to homeschool her sooner - like 1st grade!  Since we're going to do Classical education which is taught in cycles of  4 years, I was leaning towards starting her at the beginning of a cycle in 1st grade instead of starting in the middle at 2nd grade. 

When I told my mom this yesterday, she made it known that she thought it was a bad idea.  Her main argument for keeping her in school was that Simone needs to be exposed socially so she can deal with peer pressure.   She asked why I thought homeschooling was a good idea, and I responded that it's more efficient.  Again my mom stressed that Simone needs socialization, which I think is something that she can get through gymnastic classes, swim classes, 4H, etc.  Yes peer pressure will always be around, but I don't need her to be in school 6 hours to learn about.  One hour intervals is fine enough.  

My mom further argued that Simone may not listen to me.  I had just told her how Simone wanted to do things her way when I asked her to write "I can hop."  Simone did do it her way, but she ended up writing an extra letter with "I can play." I like to think of it as Simone's way of subliminally encouraging me to let her have fun.  I answered my mom with an analogy.  "Just like with breastfeeding in which 'there is no try, only do,' I will just have to force Simone to listen to me."  My mom, I could tell was not satisfied so I told her in a light and jovial tone, "I can tell this is all going over your head and you don't agree."  She laughed too and said, "We'll just agree to disagree."

Honestly, it angers me.  But it's not worth it to try to convince her I think we're doing the right thing.  And actually, it's not the only right thing to do.  My niece and nephew who will go to conventional schooling will learn as much as our kids!  There's many ways to do things; I just wish my mom would see that alternate paths can lead to the same endpoint.

Perspective

Last night was another struggle to get Simone to just do 1/5th of her homework.  I brought down the discipline and declared she could no longer have TV before finishing homework. 

I talked to Michael about it this morning and he gave me perspective on her entire education. 

"You want to keep learning fun because the moment it's a struggle, she's not going to want to learn.  I'd rather she learn to read later on instead of hate reading it because we forced it on her now." 

I told him that reading wasn't the problem - writing is.  And really, the problem is with the school system forcing her to write in Kindergarten.  Children are prepared to read earlier than they are capable of the fine motor skills needed to write letters.  So I'm going to relax on Simone and have her do maybe 1/7th of the homework and then do other fun learning things.  

So what if she doesn't make the honor roll in Kindergarten, right?  The Asian parent in me is struggling to come out and engulf all the homeschooling philosophies I've come to agree with.  Simone just got a progress report and I thought she was doing well with her "S" for satisfactory designation on 90% of her assessments.  Well, after reading the school newsletter I found out there is an "E" mark for excellent.  This means that Simone is average with all her S's, which is so not true!

Again Michael calmed me down with his great perspective ....

"Those report cards don't matter.  I almost failed according to those report cards and we all know I'm a genius!" 

It sounds arrogant, but he really is incredibly intelligent.  Simone's S's and N's are not going to let me get Tiger Mom on her.  I've got to keep learning fun!

Simone's First Story

I found Simone's first self-composed story!  It was written on September 1, 2012.

Queen Simone and Princess Gigi went into a rocket ship and flew out of Earth.  They went to a hotel out of Earth on an asteroid.  They found a hotel room.  Then they lived in it.

The End

It's time to head to Lakeshore Learning Store and buy some handwriting paper and journals.  :)

Short-Lived Homework High

I thought it was a miracle that Simone loved homework so much. I was right. It was a miracle, a temporary one.

Her homework this week no longer involved coloring and Simone did not want to do it. Monday consisted of reading short 3- or 4- letter words. Can I; I can; we can; I like; to go; I can see; etc. We were instructed to repeat it 3 times. Within the first try, Simone had lost TV privileges because she didn't want to stop goofing off and concentrate. I gave her a break, but she was still in the mood to goof off and lost more TV that she now could not watch any TV the next day. After another break, she finally finished her third time.

Now here's the funny thing. After the struggle was over, we went about our business for the evening and had dinner and played. While I was cleaning up before bedtime, I saw her pick up the list of words and then repeat them effortlessly!!!! She does know how to read. She just doesn't want to be told to do it! Hmmm .... sounds like me.

Last night was another struggle because we now had to write those words she was reading. The gobbledygook she's been drawing are poor representations of letters so I set out to teach her how to write in a fun way. I made these foamcore sticks and arcs to show her how letters are made! I pulled out the kit, of which I was quite proud I had accomplished, and how did Simone receive it? She was excited BUT ... but but but .... she wanted to do it her way. She thought she was going to show me how one draws an "h." Well, shouting ensued. I told her to take a break. I calmed down and resolved that we would be lucky if we wrote 1/5th of the homework.

I started writing the letters myself to see if I might glean some wisdom in having to do the homework myself. I happened to write the letters in a new notebook I had bought a while back. When I started ignoring Simone, she was very interested!! She now wanted to write letters. I told her to pick a letter from the top line and to practice that.

To make the long story short, we achieved the 1/5th goal, but we had to take about 10 breaks. I didn't have her write the letters in the proper sentence because it felt too advanced for her to focus on writing a capital "I" and then jump to a "c" and then to an "a." Sounds easy to us adults, right? Well it was maddening to Simone to jump so much. She wanted to perfect her letter and got frustrated when it wasn't coming out write. At one point, she threw her pencil down and said, "I never do anything right!" I felt really bad for her and tried to assure her that everyone goes through this. I then praised her highly when she did do write correctly.

Another key to having her do homework was MY doing homework. She got really into writing her letters when I let her give me homework. We were suffering together. But I must say my homework was easy. She told me to draw different amounts of toys in different boxes based on her instructions.


Our homework journey has just begun. What a looooooooooooooong road we have ahead of us.

Any advice is welcome and greatly appreciated.

Simone's Second Story

I really need to get those books that have a space for a drawing, and lines for whatever you want to write.  Simone likes to make up stories.  Here is the second one she created.

"There was a princess named Gigi and a queen named Simone.  They went to the moom and saw aliens.  They played together and they became best friends.    The End"

Handwriting Without Tears

When I went to a Great Homeschool Convention in Los Angeles, CA, I was so impressed when I saw the Handwriting Without Tears books.  I liked that their space for writing was smaller than what I've seen before.  I also liked that they have manipulatives! 

One thing I didn't like, however, was how their "B" looks.  I saw a video on their website demonstrating how they teach kids what the Upper Case B looks like.  I'll be blunt. It looks like someone squashed it with a rolling pin.  I wouldn't want Simone to write her B like that. 

So, I'm going to make my own manipulatives.  If I can do it under $32, which is what Handwriting Without Tears charges for just their uppercase letters, then I'll have come out ahead!  I'm going to get some foamcore at Michael's with the 40% coupon I received in the mail.  Then I'm headed to Home Depot for some 80 or 120 grit sandpaper.  I read in Talkers, Watchers, & Doers: Unlocking Your Child's Unique Learning Style that kids who are kinesthetic learners do better when the objects they're playing with have more texture. 

Wish me luck!

Homework

Guess who loves homework!  Here's a hint:

Yes!  Simone loves it.  Last Friday night, she was so alarmed that she didn't have to do it.  To calm her down, I told her I would make some for her.  She was satisfied and actually quite eager.  She wanted to look at the worksheet before it was ready!

It may be that she loves all the coloring she's doing with her homework.  Her class is learning how to read the words for colors.  Either way, I'm going to foster her enthusiasm!  I'm quite enthused myself in that I get to work with Photoshop to put these exercises together.  I couldn't find free worksheets online that seemed worth the printing of our paper.  Well, they were worthwhile, but they just weren't what I had in mind. 

Ok, I just wanted to do something creative and deemed all other sheets unworthy. 

Where Have We Been?!

I just realized that the last time I wrote on this blog was 1 year ago!!!!!!  Quel horror!

In the last year, we've left our home in California for our new station in Tampa, Florida.  It wasn't a simple move in that we bought a 1970s 35'-long bus that we are converting into our RV / homeschool-on-wheels, stayed in Minnesota for 1 month (doing the initial bus conversion), took a road trip from MN to FL, and found a new home 4 days after we arrived. 

We've always known that Simone should do some conventional schooling before we start homeschooling, but for a moment I thought we might have to begin earlier than expected.  Our new home is in a somewhat impoverished area.  The statistics for success are not high with WestShore Elementary, but things like that don't really matter to me when we're talking about Kindergarten.   What solidified our decision to send Simone to public school was what we experienced during her physical. 

The local military base offered free physicals, something Simone would have to complete to get into the Florida school system.  She hadn't had time to do her 5-year well check so we thought this was an excellent opportunity to kill 2 birds with one stone.  The first part of the exam is to check Simone's visual health.  She had to do an eye exam with pictures and symbols instead of the regular one with letters because she was entering Kindergarten.  Simone     would      not      do      it.  She just outright refused to even tell me what symbols she saw.  I knew very well she could recognize her letters, but she didn't even want to do that.  I knew that she had inherited her father's introversion, but even her father responded when spoken to when he was little. 

My thoughts when Simone refused to do the eye exam, "Oh no.  I'm not prepared to homeschool her so soon!!!"  I only thought for a moment that she should definitely go to public school to learn communication and socialization.  For sure I thought Michael would want to shelter Simone, his mini-me, and homeschool her right away.  But I was surprised by his reaction - he agreed with me that she should go to school to correct this extreme aversion to strangers. 

She was quite nervous her first day, but that quickly dissipated over the next couple of days.  She in fact told me one afternoon, "I wish I could stay in school!"  She seems to be the quiet and reserved one in class, but she is so happy to see other kids and to play with both boys and girls.  She also loves to recite the rules that her teacher creates for the kids.  Sometimes she comes home and wants to play "teacher," in which she instructs Max and me on how to learn different activities.  Part of "teacher" is disciplining us!  I can feel the surge of power is exciting Simone. 

We are stationed in Tampa for the next 2 years and we were thinking that Simone should do public school for 2 years.  But with my conviction to do Classical Homeschooling, I'm thinking I might want to just do one year.  The 4 year rotation of this pedagogy begins at 1st grade and it would be a logical place to start.  But then again, I could just afterschool with things she doesn't get at public school.  Things like the history that begins with the Ancient Civilizations. 

Our schooling journey is ever indefinite!

Why Can't I Comment?!?

Well, here is when I should lead by example. I don't know how to comment on other people's sites, and finding out the answer is difficult. Or rather, reading long paragraphs is difficult.

Don't You Want to Learn ....

I was teaching Simone how to read her first words, "at, am, an." We were then poised to move onto three-letter words like "pat, pan, ham," but she didn't want to repeat after me. I asked her, "Don't you want to learn to read?" She replied,

"No, I want to learn how to drive!"

Slow down, little mama!

Apples or Shakespeare?

This weekend, the kids and I have an opportunity to experience something new. We can either attend an apple festival or a Shakespeare festival. I already know that lots of people are heading to the former and the long lines I anticipate do not enthuse me. But my kids aren't familiar with Shakespeare and anything renaissance fair-like. In fact, I myself have never been to a "ren fair."

Hmmm, I think I'm leaning towards all of us experiencing something new at the Shakespeare event. If it sucks or if the kids freak out, we'll leave! Simple as that.

Read Aloud and Comprehension

About 2 months ago I started reading the only child-oriented novel I have in the house, The Tale of Despereaux. I got it while rummaging through a used book section at the local maternity / baby consignment store. (No, we don't trade in our babies - we trade in baby stuff).

Simone liked it a lot! But she didn't seem to be remembering what was going on. This is another example of my adult mind expecting too much from my little girl's still growing mind. I've been an adult so long and have been used to memorizing what I've just heard that I forget that it took a while to gain these skills. I would be reading about different characters and she would ask questions such as "Who's that?" "That's the bad guy Roscuro." "Who's Roscuro?"

I became quite frustrated. It was partially the expectation factor and the other part was being tired at the end of the day, the time I would read aloud to her. But I thought it had to be something else! So I started looking at other books that might be appropriate for her attention span.

I tried Usborne's Illustrated Stories for Boys (I got it for Max, but it's fun for Simone too!) and she still asked questions like "Who's that guy?" "That's Sinbad." "Who's Sinbad?" Ay-yai-yai!

I turned to professional help and skimmed through The Read Aloud Handbook by Jim Trelease. Armed with ideas, I tried to get some books at the library. Operative word: tried. Max and Simone were so squirrely that I turned to the librarian for quick help instead of just looking for what I had on my list. "I need something more advanced than picture books, but not as long as Despereaux." She picked up a couple of suggestions for my situation and we came home with The Stories Julian Tells and Jenny and the Cat Club. They weren't on my list but I was in a hurry with my whining kids making so much noise in an environment that is supposed to be quiet!

Last night I eagerly started reading Jenny and the Cat Club to Simone. It's a book that has lots of cute pictures and is not too long. I tested her after 2 paragraphs to see if she was listening. She wasn't, or at least she wasn't owning up to it. Maybe she was too scared to answer based on the look on my face. Maybe she could tell I had a lot of hope riding on her answer. Maybe that shut her down. I read just a little longer and we went to bed.

Extremely disappointed and lost as to what to do, I read the Read Aloud book again - this time with much more concentration. Hey, maybe Simone gets her lack of comprehension from me! My goal is to find out how important it is that Simone is understanding what's going on. Turns out it isn't. You read to your infant even though they don't even know words, right!? In fact, one of the "DON'Ts" is to not quiz your child about what was read. D'oh! I was doing it all incorrectly!

Simone later that night was up because of a low-grade fever. I read to her again and it went so smoothly! She asked obvious questions but I just answered them anyway without irritation in my voice.

Sigh ... I have some relief again that I'm not messing up my kids' development!

Homeschool Convention 2011

We became members of HomeSchool Association of California so we could get discounted tickets to their conference, which was recently held August 4 - 7 in Sacramento. I went there to learn more about how I would go about in homeschooling our kids. The wealth of information out there is astounding! We already decided we wouldn't include religion in our schooling, but the other choices of curricula, method of teaching, scheduling, and whatever else I didn't know I'd need to know, were still looming out there. I had been hoping that there would be many vendors who could show me what textbooks look like, but there were barely any there. There were a few online schools, but they gave off this vibe of "we want your money more than we want your child to succeed."

Despite not seeing as many books as I wanted to, I got a much better understanding of how I want to approach teaching the kids. I was particularly impressed with giving our kids a classical education. It seemed to be more organized than other such methods as Waldorf, Montessori, Thomas Jefferson, and Unschooling. I learned about mini-methods like afterschooling (which is what I originally thought I would do) and carschooling!

I don't know if the presenters were just used to addressing kindergarteners, but some speakers talked to us as if we were 5 years old. The Waldorf lady thought it imperative to show us firsthand how kids sing a song and move while learning their even numbers. I left after 30 minutes because I didn't want to do a third song and dance. I noticed that these speakers talked a lot about what happens up to 5th grade, but became vague in the middle school years. But maybe it was a time-crunch that affected their presentation. This was also true of the classical education lady.

I'm not a fan of the child-directed movement called unschooling. Maybe all the uncertainty of when to teach what is unsettling or maybe I legitimately don't think a child should have that much control in our relationship. Interesting thing though is that I recently have let Simone guide our approach to phonics. But I think it's more of my figuring out her learning style. For example, she doesn't want to do the busywork of repeating 5 times the /k/ sound for the letter "c", nor learning the extra poem lines.

The HSC Conference had a superduper sale that started at 8am on one of the days. I was so set! I had an excel sheet of books I wanted to buy, how much they cost on Amazon, on Ebay, and if they were available at our local library. I scored some sweet deals and found a lot of childrens books for prices as low as $0.25! All in all, I paid $21 for about 2 grocery bags of books. We still haven't read through everything.

While I went to lectures, Michael took care of the kids. And with confidence too! He just required that I give him instructions of when and what to feed them. He had hoped that they would sleep everytime I left, but he did well taking them to the designated play spaces and to the hotel pool. We found out how much of a fish Max is when they visited the pool for he jumped in with gusto while Michael wasn't paying attention. Max sank for a few seconds before Michael got to him. Max was still a happy camper and after coughing out the water, he continued splashing and kicking around the water while Michael held onto him.

If I have the opportunity to go to another convention, I will first check out the vendors and see if they're worth meeting in person. I think I'm lectured-out and for now, my research mainly consists of going online and reading forums and reviews. The super sale, however, was so kick ass that I think I might by a day pass for just something of that nature.

The convention also served as a mini-vacation. Simone loves to go to hotels and, while her needs are easily met, we are going to wow and pizazz her with our trips to hotels as much as possible. Observe her glee when we hung out at our room ...

Max wanted in on the fun ...

Simone happily obliged by wrestling with her brother.

Max had fun in the room, wandering around the mess.

We don't know what he was doing here, but his facial expression is so hilarious! He was looking at the TV, but he usually has a more affectionate gaze towards it.

Too Excited

Simone is only 4 years old and in preschool. When homeschooling at this stage, there is nothing really formal I can do. Even for classical and traditional homeschoolers. The thing to do is to just expose her to the world - the real world and not the virtual one on the TV or the computer.

Some moms might be excited about this because there's not much planning to do. I am relieved that we started researching homeschooling early and there's no panic in our engagement with it. But the addictive personality in me kind of wants to get all into schedules and buy curricula / unit studies! Because it's not necessary for preschoolers, I have this extra energy that I feel I need to dispel. That's why I'm blogging. As I'm finding out about the homeschooling community, reading reviews, interacting socially with local homeschoolers, I want to write about our experience.

I did start on a phonics program with Simone. She's into it - not enthusiastically so, but into it for a few minutes a day. I'm trying to not push her too much because I'm afraid of putting her off the entire learning process. We started out (2 weeks ago) at 3 minutes a day and I think we're now at 7 minutes. We did the short-vowel sounds, and are 1/3 through the consonants. We're doing about 2 consonants a lesson session. I'm using Ordinary Parents' Guide to Teaching Reading and am not following the script at all. I did for the first lesson. Halfway through the second, Simone was so over the having to learn a poem to remember the short-vowel sounds. Can't blame her - it isn't catchy at all. After each letter, we read from the BOB books. The BOB books are like the incentive for learning the phonics.

I still don't know Simone's learning style, but I'm glad I haven't squashed her interest in learning ... yet.