Another lesson on letting go

After L's lame first day of school, I was determined to BE PREPARED for her second. I spent many hours after the kids were in bed, printing out worksheets, reading lesson plans, organizing projects. I decided that today we were going to be doing Math, Science, a read-aloud/narration session, Phonics, as well as our usual recitation of the poem of the week and reading.

We started the day downstairs in the den, where L & T cuddled up with me on the couch while I read a couple of Aesop's fables: The Wolf and the Kid, and The Tortoise and the Ducks. They were really interested and asked that I read each fable twice, though the moral lessons were as opaque to the kids as they were to me. But L got a kick out of the turtle hurtling to his death on trying to show off, so it was a good start to the day.

Bouyed by my first success, I turned to Science. After the fiasco with the Tanglewood nature study "curriculum", I had moved on to another free science course that seemed easier to prepare for: Math Science Nucleus. This curriculum was developed by a non-profit group of scientists & educators trying to bring science into classrooms. So there are detailed lesson plans, children's workbooks, basically everything you need to teach science. So I was psyched. Today's lesson was going to be on the different states of matter. I had the workbook, I'd read the lesson plan, I had rocks, water, balloons at my disposal...I was ready!

While I was gathering up the workbooks & everything I'd prepared the night before, L picked up a daddy-long-leg off the carpet and started playing with it.

"Is this a spider?" she asked.

"No honey, it's not," I answered, distracted because I'd misplaced something we needed.

"Is it related to a spider?"

"I don't really know."

"Can you look it up for me?"

I was about to tell her to put the bug down and listen to me while I lectured to her on solids, liquids, gasses and plasma, but then I realized that she was totally into this topic. She really wanted to know what it was. So I sat down at the computer and started researching daddy-long-legs and found a child-friendly site explaining what it was and how it is different from a spider. We watched the creature climb up and down her arm and she peered at it through a magnifying glass, enthralled. We ended up having her do a narration of what I had read to her about daddy-long-legs and draw a picture that she put in her nature journal.

What a wonderful surprise gift that daddy-long-leg turned out to be. It gave me the reminder that one of the beauties of homeschooling is the possibility and thrill of veering off course to discover something new. Serendipity should be a by-word here. All it takes is for me to let go. Not always easy to do, but worth it.

So the rest of the day went like that. Instead of finishing the day's program, we drove into town for lunch, then had ice cream, then went to Coxing Kills falls where the kids waded around trying to catch water bugs and fossil hunting. I consider it a day devoted to science.

The first day of first grade

Well, today is the first of our new 12-month school year, L's first grade. We had a graduation "ceremony" yesterday at L's insistence, where we all sang "Happy Graduation to You" and she passed out mini carrot cupcakes to our friends who were visiting us here in New Paltz.

I did some late night preparation for the first day, but felt pretty prepared. Ummmmm....nope. Wasn't prepared at all, it turned out. L requested that we start the day with Science. I whipped out my science curriculum, which I had copied and pasted from the Tanglewood website nature study curriculum, and all it said was "Study the movement of sun and time." I drew a total blank. Though I had read that thing over and over again in all my prep work, I never noticed that it actually doesn't tell you how to study the sun and time. Woops. I did some lame scrambling, read out loud to her from some book I found on the sun and tried to pretend we were done. L was pretty unimpressed.

Things went a little better after that--we did the introduction to the Story of The World (luckily L is excited to do it again, though we've already gone through the first few chapters already) and did a fun game identifying the continents. Later I read aloud Kipling's How the Whale Got Its Throat from the Just So stories and we did a narration.

We broke for lunch out on our deck, enjoying the sun and breeze and yummy fruit salad, then started math lessons with one from the Center for Innovation in Mathematics. It's interesting, as it introduces from the beginning mathematical concepts that most math courses save till much later on, for example, this morning's lesson on using the notations for more than, >, and less than, <. We're skipping around with that because while it brings in advanced concepts early, it also takes a long time to get to higher numbers (it gets to the number 10 only several weeks in), so will use it in conjunction with Singapore Math.

Now we're taking another break, and still have reading to finish. It's turned out to be a much longer day than I expected, but I think it will go more smoothly as we get into a rhythm and I learn how to be prepared (!). And know what to skip.