We put in an offer on a house the beginning of December. By the middle of January we were first-time home owners! Exciting stuff! Thus began the process of painting, minor repairs, sanding, staining and polying the floors. We had no idea that this process would take over 3 weeks! Looking back now, it doesn't seem like that's a lot of time, but at the time we were itching to get into the new house and get settled in.
Question: How do you decorate your house for the holidays, and pack up all your belongings at the same time? Apparent answer: you don't...
Second question: How do you pack up all your belongings, while spending every waking moment updating your new house?
Answer: See above
Third question: How do you homeschool your Kindergartner during all this?
Answer: You get creative! :)
Our answer to the third question has been to focus largely on reading and writing and math.... During this time we haven't been closely following our Sonlight curriculum, which makes it feel like we're not doing schooling, but perhaps this is what the unschooling people do.
We've been reading signs everywhere we go, making cards to send to friends, handwritten and drawn by my son. Either I spell the word aloud that he wants to write, or I write the words down for him and he copies them. Other times we talk about how things are spelled, and what rules a word follows. We've been reading books, going to the libraries, doing puzzles and mazes, and doing some math work.
We've been using some workbooks as well. Last year we bought Hooked on Phonics, Hooked on Math and Beginning Sounds. They aren't terribly deep for his level, but he enjoys them and they are good for reinforcing some concepts. In particular, the Hooked on Math book has been great for getting him to practice his writing skills, which has been HUGE. A couple of weeks ago, writing the number 4 or 5 had caused meltdowns. This week, he sat down and wrote out about fifteen 15s and 14s in his HOM book, independantly... for fun!! LOL... Can't beat that!
And I've been learning too. He can read words, I haven't taught him!! Yeah, it's kind of freaking me out, actually. And his handwriting is actually quite nice for a Kindergartner! I've actually been impressed by this, because usually for school work, he's writing on lined paper and a lot of it is tracing. We haven't done much copywork.... Now, I'm kind of thinking that we need to start doing copywork!
And art? The boy's got skills!! Mad skills! Yeah, we need to be doing more art. LOL... Speaking of which, he had a blast doing the Nutcracker photo with pastels, which we mentioned in the previous post. Here it is:
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