Sunday, January 25, 2009

Update! Update!

No, nothing exciting to report, as the exclamation points in the title would lead you to believe. I just wanted to let you know that I'm updating, and I thought I'd fancy it up with some cute punctuation. Because I've always thought that exclamation points were kind of cute. Not as cute as semi colons, but much easier to figure out how to use.

Last Tuesday, we schooled for a little while and then took a break to watch the Presidential Inauguration. I think that The Kids were bored out of their skulls, but I wanted them to see it. I didn't vote for Obama, nor do I think that he's going to be the savior that people want to believe he's going to be, but I can certainly appreciate the history that was made as he was sworn into office. I think there's kind of a neat irony in this Inauguration day falling the day after Martin Luther King day.


Everything else is going pretty smoothly, really. I recently went and bought a Comprehensive Curriculum book for Declan that has a lot of "fun" worksheet activities that cover a wider range of kindergarten level activities. I've not been thinking to do a lot of things that talk about sequencing or things like that, plus I thought he'd like a bit of a change from the regular routine. His reading ability is chugging along like gangbusters, and I'm really excited about that because it was really so easy with Reilly that I was concerned that it was a fluke and I'd run into some big issues with him or something. We've started doing long vowel words with a silent e and he's really getting the hang of it, although I do have to remind him to pay attention and look for an e, but I think that's typical.

Here's a confession for you: I think this is the first year I'm truly comfortable as a homeschooler and with the way we do things. It has taken me four years to realize that if we don't finish every single lesson in the curriculum, we will be okay and the world will not fall down around our ears. If we skip math one day, the Math Police aren't going to come to our house and flog us with logarithms. I think I spent the past three years stressing out because I felt like I was hanging on by my fingernails, but I'm finally (ha! finally!) in a rhythm that feels pretty right for our family. Yay!

3 comments:

Heather the Mama Duk said...

You're a REAL homeschooler now! Woohoo!

Ani was interested in the inauguration. Cameron was just mad that he had to miss something on Cartoon Network. He was like "Big deal. It's just some guy stumbling over some words."

Sherri said...

Good for you on you new revelation! I have come to that same place this year too, but I don't know if it is for real or only because we are not doing the formal testing at the end of the year. I keep trying to tell myself to enjoy this time a little more...be a little more relaxed while we can...before we start home study!

Mama Teaching 3 said...

Yay! I remember the day I felt this way! :) Enjoy it. :)