Homeschool Update

So far, so good . . . well, until this morning.  Train wreck this morning.  Yep - nine blissful days with no word from me.  One crappy morning and here I am:)  Cayla did have a crappy day yesterday as well, so maybe our morning was just a continuation.  And after a long shower midday she (and I) recovered and we had a nice afternoon.

We're still finding our rhythm.  I can't decide between structured, predictable, independent academic tasks right at her challenge level and free-flowing days full of impromptu cooking projects, making worm bins by digging up gardens and spraying the garden hose at a pile of dirt to unearth worms, and listening to all the Wayside School books on CD in one sitting!  And, if you don't know about the Wayside School books, check them out.  They are like a modern day Winnie-the-Pooh with their play on language.  And, full of jokes that only adults get, but kids think are hilarious anyway.  They are almost like logic puzzles.  I thoroughly enjoyed them, making sure I was always within range of the CD and Cayla happily listened to all 9 hours!

There has been a lot of this:


Let me kill the suspense by telling you that the same thing goes on for the whole 1:44.  We love it!!!

Science experiment with Flannery in the basement!

I do try to give her some "desk work" each day.  It's waiting for her every morning.  Some days she does it at 7:30am, some days 2:45pm, and other days not at all.  And, she wanted to take her spelling test on Saturday afternoon.  Who needs a break on the weekend!?!?!

We rearranged our dining room once again to add a desk for Cayla:)

And, then there are the "extension activities" that probably don't occur at school.  She calls them fun.  I call them positive reinforcement.  Cayla is writing a math scroll.  She gets a number grid where she's writing the numbers 1-1000.  It's an activity that the kids do in first grade here.  I think you are supposed to go consecutively (1, 2, 3, 4, ...10, 11, 12, ...100).  However, the way she is jumping around shows me she really is developing a number sense and has a pretty good understanding of the 100-chart right now.

The start of the 1000 scroll

And, then there's the fun!  Eventually all the sheets will be taped together and put on a scroll.  Scroll are always old and have crumbly edges, so our daily dose of pyromania really motivates:)

Positive reinforcement = playing with fire

All in all things are going well.  We'll find our rhythm, be it classical or jazz:)  And, for any of you wondering if Cayla marches to a different drum, let me offer you this as proof.  We decided to have banana splits for dinner on Sunday.  About halfway though, she pushed hers aside declaring she did not like hot (as in warm) fudge mixed with bananas and stomped off to the kitchen coming back with this in her mouth.

Yep, she just chose a tomato over a banana split!