School Days

#2 thing I am grateful for this week is being a home school mum. The last two weeks or so we are getting back on schedule with school and it is pretty easy right now. The kids aren't throwing big fits and are happy to have a great routine that is working for us. It makes it so pleasant and fun when things are good like this. We learn and grow and play together and our days are really pretty good. This is Enoch doing his reading from "Teach Your Child To Read in 100 Easy Lessons". We are LOVING this book. Enoch loved reading the stories and answering the questions and predicting what will be in the picture at the end. BUT he is loving even better the change at the end of the book. He is now reading and asking ME questions at the end of each sentence. He also loves that he only reads each story once now instead of twice. That change came none too soon. He was starting to get really annoyed at reading it twice every lesson.

This year we are using Horizons math again and Enoch is just about to finish Book 2 of Kindergarten and start his Book one for 1st grade. Ezra has finished his preschool math and has started kindergarten math. They both dislike working on writing #'s and letters but it is already paying off. Enoch had horrible penmanship when he was 4 and 5 but he can write really well now when he takes the time. Ezra has a naturally beautiful hand, but he is starting to get fast and lazy and so we have had to work more on slowing down and "trying", because trying is really all it takes for him. Lucky boy!
Ethne always wants to join in the fun. She loves letters and loves to have me draw them for her. Unfortunately she does make school difficult at times. Especially during Enoch's reading time. She is obsessed with "ice keem cones" and she wants me to draw them over and over and over with her :)

They really enjoy circle time where we practice memorization by learning poems and scriptures and have our daily devotional from the "Friend" magazine put out by The Church Of Jesus Christ of Later-Day Saints". Their most favorite subject though is History. It has always been their favorite. We have a fabulous curriculum that is so well prepared that I have very little to do to teach them heaps everyday. We are using "The Story Of The World: History For The Classical Child" by Susan Wise Bauer. I highly recommend it for every home school family. I also highly recommend that you buy not only the book, but the book on CD, and the big activity book. The Activity book has narration exercises, related activity projects, additional history reading suggestions, pronunciation guide, corresponding literature suggestions, map work, coloring page, review questions encyclopedia cross-references, and other extras for EVERY chapter.

We are on book one which is really suppose to be 1st or second grade so we take it really slowly and do lots of review so that it will become a part of them and not something they learned when they were really little and forgot :) So far they have learned about "The Earliest People", "The First Writing", "The Old Kingdom of Egypt", "The First Sumerian Dictator", "The Jewish People", "Hammurabi and the Babylonians", "The Assyrians", and "The First Cities of India". Yesterday the boys were able to tell me the whole story of Shamshi-Adad, Gilgamesh and Enkidu, and Utnapishtim and the scheme for immortality. They can identify the Assyrian empire on an ancient map as well as Egypt and the surrounding rivers and land area's. They impress me everyday. Most of what they are learning comes from listening to the CD's over and over during quiet time and free time, but the maps, narration exercises and activities solidify what they know and give me a chance to explain what things mean and correct any misconceptions.

Homeschooling is like most things in my life. There are times when I think it really just couldn't be any better, and there are those days where things are so ridiculously hard that I think I really must be crazy for even trying :) On those days it can be a huge challenge to just get through the day, but on the good days it feels close to perfect. My hardest time of homeschooling is when Garrett is working overtime for 6weeks or more and there are no breaks in my day. There is no one, for the kids or I, to look forward to seeing at the end of the day. No one for them to proudly display their work for and no one to tell us all how wonderful we are for surviving :) For now it is the very best thing for us and we are enjoying this time in our life where dad comes home for dinner and puts the kids to bed giving me a break to think and relax as I clean up dinner and the house at the end of a long day. Next week will come all too soon when Garrett is back to coming home, eating dinner, and studying statistics until bed time :( No fun for us but especially no fun for him. Poor dad :(