Time Flies When You're Having Fun!

I can't believe it's been two weeks of homeschool already. We've had fun and we've had some tough moments, but only one bad day and I've learned a lot from this experience. Keeping this blog is mostly to help me remember the things that I've learned along the way. I'm sure things will just keep changing too. I'm a parent, I'm use to that.

Kendi loves the new, bright, shiny workbooks right now. I was surprised by that at first, but I think it's just because they are new and something different. I have a feeling that the newness may where off. I'm even more surprised that Kendi doesn't love some of the games that I put together for math and such. In fact she kind of hates them. haha. Math is something that I really need to make a priority of figuring out right now. I think she needs more hands on manipulative math to do. The math book that I ordered is way below her level and not even fun anymore.

Kendi loves art. What kid doesn't? I'm so glad that this subject is well taken care of. I just need to schedule it into our week to make sure that it happens. There is so much we can do everyday and so little time to do it. Kendi could paint for hours.

My aunt passed away a couple of years ago. She had been taking art lesson's from Jared and was really quite good at it. Kendi and my aunt had become really close when my aunt was diagnosed with brain cancer. I was also very sick at the time and Kendi spent a lot of time with my parents who were also spending a lot of time with my aunt. Kendi and Aunt Mary would go for walks, draw and just talk together. It's safe to say they were best friends. My heart has never broken so hard as when I had to tell Kendi that Aunt Mary was gone. Mary's family left her art supplies with Jared. She had accumulated a lifetime supply of water-color equipment. Jared doesn't water-color much, but Kendi loves it. It is so fun to see her painting with professional paints from someone she loved with her daddy in the mountains that Mary was so fond of.

Kendi loves projects. I'm trying to think of some on-going ones. She already wants to start a project for the county fair next year. I'd like to get started on some service ones too.
I need to really remember why I'm homeschooling in the first place and not get all caught up in the fun things to buy and do. I really want Kendi to socialize with all age groups which means I need to start getting those types of activities set up soon. I also want her to learn how to work hard with a happy attitude. Anyone needing work done at their house, let us know. I also need to make sure that I'm focused on teaching her how to think and not what to think. I need to be a mentor, not a teacher. Sometimes this is hard when it comes to things like handwriting. She taught herself how to write and really doesn't want to take the time to relearn. I need to come up with a way to inspire her to want to.

I figured out that it helps to have a short, fun activity to start the day. It gets us in a positive school mode to begin. I'm glad that I have that old Kindergarten resource book from DI for that.

I just found out that the Montessori school nearby may let her do a subject or two with them. I'm meeting with them soon to find out more details. I love so many things about Montessori and it would be hard to do it at home so this would be a way for her to have Montessori and work with groups of kids in more age groups.

So far, I've really enjoyed homeschool and Kendi says she likes it too. My only fear is that time is flying by so fast. I want to make sure that I cover all the things that I wanted this homeschool to do.