Weekly Review

Last week (I already forgot the dates and I'm too lazy to figure them out or look them up)

Monday- My mom was here for a nice long visit so our week was a bit relaxed and a whole lot of fun! We went outside to tend our garden. We pulled a few weeds and watered. We noticed some aphids on the cucumber plants and decided to leave them for the ladybugs. We collected a few more snails for our little snail habitat that we put together on Sunday and the kids spent a lot of time with Grammy playing legos. School time upstairs was spent examining snails, watching them eat, watering our plant, sharpening pencils, studying the "parts of a..." (snail, ladybug, insect) cards, pink tower and I think that's about it.

Tuesday- Library/reading day- We needed to give Grammy a break and we also needed to pick up some library books we had reserved and return the ones we had so we went to the library to do that. We also made a trip to the recycling center where I happened upon a box of free books someone left. Score! I found a near perfect copy of Make Way For Ducklings (a favorite of ours- don't be surprised if this is regifted to you) and a few other nice little books. Then we went to the car wash which the kids always love. School time upstairs looked much like it did Monday but we did some more reading about snails. I need to find a way to get T. concentrating more on working with the materials. I keep waiting to see him repeat an exercise over and over the way it is supposed to happen! Part of the problem I think is that I haven't found anything that really challenges him and that he is interested in enough to repeat over and over. Of course he'll play legos or catch lizards or dig holes on the beach for EVER!

Wednesday- I went over to Sarasota for my midwife appointment while my mom stayed with the kids. I know they had kind of a low key day. When I got back we went into the school room for a bit and then we went to gymnastics. T. is loving his gymnastics class! I tried to put him in karate but he did not want to join in or even watch really. He sits right up front in his gymnastics class, listens very well to his instructors and has a big grin on his face all through class. I know he is really liking it and I am glad we waited so long to put him in something so structured. Several of the other children in his class are younger and have trouble paying attention for a whole hour. They end up being disciplined and that is no fun!!

Thursday- We took my mom home this day and so we did not go into the classroom. W didn't do much at all really, we had an easy day as I had to pack and clean up a bit.

T. is slowly and surely learning to read and write. I honestly expected this to be easier and quicker than it has been. Of course there is no rush, he is only four but many kids read at four and parents all over brag about how young their kids read. T. is so verbal I expected him to pick it up without a problem, he has been memorizing books for two years now! He just isn't that motivated to learn it and I don't think he really gets it yet. It just hasn't clicked. He knows most of the sounds that the letters make but when it comes to sounding out words he just doesn't get it. He also collapses when he feels put on the spot to find a sound or answer a question so I am not pushing this. I don't want it to be a bad experience or one that makes him lose confidence. He will learn to read and like I said he is only four, he has plenty of interest in other areas right now so we'll keep moving forward with that.

Over all a good week. We are still expanding on insects. I've started introducing Animal Kingdom Classification to help the kids (and myself I suppose) learn how all these creatures relate in the world and to each other. I imagine we'll wrap up with this broad topic in a couple weeks and move on to identifying/classifying trees and leaves. The kids have shifted obsessions from insects to acorns. T. collected 301 acorns the other day (yes, I had the misfortune of counting all of them).