Wow, the time is just flying so fast these days. Jesse’s already finished his first month of homeschooling & Misha’s at 5 & half months. I’m amazed a the overall difference in the boys these days.
I thoroughly enjoy having them home. They both seem so much more relaxed. Misha is more confident & happy too. They even get along much better & fight less. As a matter of fact, the whole atmosphere in our home is much more settled & relaxed.
Boys at play.
We’re slowly getting into some sort of routine. Jesse seems to be coping fine with the homeschooling so far. I am however still slightly concerned about all the group work in his books & am rethinking what teaching aids we should add… I will be looking out for some teaching DVDs etc. to help him along. Of course I still catch them playing & wrestling often when I leave the room, but I enjoy seeing them bonding like this…
As for Misha, progress is still very slow. He is now able to read, however slow, but his confidence is getting better. He actually does a lot more reading aloud without being asked to these days. That in itself to me is major progress.
I’m needing to rethink the whole teaching strategy. He’s currently spending a whole lot of time doing worksheets when we’re not doing controlled outside play & instead of 20-30 minutes each, he takes anything from an hour and more to finish them. He’s interest just doesn’t seem to be there. I must admit, I cannot fault him on that. Doing worksheets all day, must be terribly boring. Now I’m considering Lapbooks as an alternative. What if I incorporated all those worksheets into lapbooks to make his learning a little less boring?
On Tuesday Misha had his first lesson back with Tannie Hettie for this year. She’s very happy with his improved reading & handwriting. The cursive handwriting is causing confusion, so she’ll be addressing that over the next few months. I trust that this year will be the last we’ll require her assistance.
For starters, I took him to Eyetek in Town Square across Hillfox yesterday for a complete developmental eye test. Turns out he is a little more far sighted than usual & his eyes move too much when he concentrates. He will need to do some visual therapy & wear reading spectacles when doing school work as his eyes get too tired when focuses. By 10am this morning I received a phone call that the spectacles were ready. That’s the fastest I’ve ever been able to collect a pair of specs.
Misha trying out his new specs.
This afternoon, Misha had his first afternoon of chess back at his old school which will continue on Tuesdays & Thursdays. Jesse’s starting next Tuesday. I of course, need to get back to gym for my back & neck, which I will do twice a week from next week on after dropping them for chess.
Tomorrow Misha has a visual therapy session so I can learn exactly what visual exercises he needs to do daily & thereafter they go to Junior Engineering. That will mark the end of yet another school week for us.
Well done! Sounds like you really are settling into H/E as well as starting to discover you children's learning styles. Lapbooks are a great alternative to worksheets - I wish we had done more of them when my girls were younger. If he enjoys computer work, then maybe consider doing less worksheets and more interactive computer - esp if the programmes you use are progressive - i.e you can carry on where you left off. I am discovering - have been a bit slow on the uptake - that Alexandra also does not enjoy the bookwork thing. Sarah is fine with it. So, not doing bookwork is not an option, esp Eng and maths - but we are looking into alternatives too.
ReplyDeleteWell, we have also finished 5 weeks now - will take a 1 week break next week - we are all ready for it:) It'a new concept for us as we've always just taken school terms and school holidays. Friends here introduced us to the 4 week on, 1 week off thing - but 4 weeks is just a bit too short, I think:)