It always happens. Someone asks what the three little ones do, or what school they go to, or ask them to read or spell their name, and I immediately get pulled back into my little bitty childhood when people would always ask me to read for them, since I was an early reader. At first, I’m sure that I was happy to show off my skill, because my love of reading was massive. Just for reference, I would OFFER to take a nap so that I could go and curl up in my bed so that I could escape into whatever items had words drizzled all over them. After a while, my punishments were re-worked, and folks were told to never, ever to send me to my room because that would equal a happy Natasha. I could read for hours on end, and I would happily traipse to my room and lose myself in one of the books that I had lying around.
One of the things that I’ve had to learn is that the way that I love to learn, may not be the way that my children will love learning, but that doesn’t mean that they do NOT love learning. It just looks different. That fact has in turn made me rethink how I teach the ladybug and the twizzlers. I do wish that the ladybug was reading at the moment, but that’s my desire. I have no doubt in my mind that she’ll be reading before she turns seven, but for some people that’s SUPER late. I have to admit, for a while, I was a bit embarrassed about the fact that she wasn’t reading, and that she wasn’t catching on to things like other children her age were. Then, I said – bump it – she’ll be just fine. So, we’re actively doing lessons in reading, but we are having fun. I never, ever want her to hate learning. Ever.
We started talking about snow this week, and the timing was perfect. When we woke up on Sunday morning, the ground was covered in sparkly, crunchy snow. Just perfect as the backdrop for our week of learning. We love worksheets, and not just as busy work. I use different sources and sites for them, but for now, my subscription to Scholastic’s My Big World and Let’s Find Out which are great learning sheets for the three littles.
Today, we didn’t focus solely on the snow, but things that happen in the snow, and we talked about differences. Difference that we’re going to segue into a lesson about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and hopefully it will round out as well as it does in my head. Anyhow, this was a portion of the lesson today that Lil’ Miss asked to do. I let the kids sit where they want, and she decided that she wanted to sit squarely on the floor. I was all prepared to go through the lesson instructions when she exclaimed “This ice cream is not the same!” So we started talking about it with her leading the conversation. While her wrists aren’t as strong as they need to be in order to make dark circles around the differences, she got the gist, and completed her worksheet. In each box, she was thorough in telling me why each of the photos were different, and she would always look up with a smile on her face after figuring it out.
For Sir Twizzler, he’s all about letters. We’ve already established that Super Why is one of his favorite cartoons ever, and he’s learning sight words from Wonder Red, since she loves to spell. He sat with blocks today as he sang out his favorite songs from a spelling episode. We are trying to figure out how to teach the reading from left to right aspect, but we’re taking each day as it comes.
Homeschool for us is relaxed. Maybe when the kids get older, we’ll move into a more rigid atmosphere, and by rigid, I mean at a table, but for now, if they are on the floor, then I get right down there with them, and then nicely ask if they can help mommy up.
If you’re homeschooling, let me know how a day looks for you, and check back tomorrow to see our MLK activity in action!