Well, after almost two weeks of thinking I would never have time to post in my blog I finally get a few minutes. We have been having a good week. Monday AM it snowed for the first time and the kids were so excited we got dressed and ready for the day in record time and headed out to play in the snow before breakfast. After a huge breakfast we completed a lesson or so in Calvert Math and Language Arts. After some dancing and somersaults we read chapter 2 in Little House in the Big Woods. It was very cool in that it was the chapter thar discussed how they prepared for and experienced winter.
Tuesday was a surprisingly good day in that we (I) actually managed to stay productive after spending the morning getting ready for and going to iceskating lessons. I don't know why 1/2 hour lessons blow our whole morning but they usually seem to. Yesterday, though we ate lunch as soon as we got home and after letting Jossy do art for about 15 minutes while I cleaned up we settled in for a very productive 30 minutes or so of Math and Language Arts. We are working on sight words. The, it, come and can were introduced Monday and Joss finds the and come esp frustrating. On Tues. we played memory with the word cards which seemed less stressful for Joss.
Wednesday (Today) was another good day. We went to the library first thing, for story time, although I was concerned that it would get us "off track" for the day and lead to formal "school" not being accomplished. However we had a lovely time at the library (good behavior even by the 2yo!) and went to the bread store. As a reward for their good behavior at the lib and at the store I purchased 5 loaves of "bird bread". We went home and had lunch. Jossy had no trouble getting down to work after we ate and her and Zeff played with clay for about 15 minutes. She did have a rough time getting through the worksheet working on sight words. She was doing a lot of guessing at the end and required lots of encouragement to finish the page. We ended up only completing a 1/2 a language arts lesson today. Even though the other 1/2 was poetry and she would have liked it, I thought she might get more out of it tomorrow when she is fresher. After the kids played in the basement while I folded laundry, they watched a magic school bus video and then we went and fed the ducks. It was great fun. The ducks are so used to being fed that they swarmed the minivan as soon as we pulled up. I gave each kid a bag of old rolls and it was fun to watch how differently they approached the situation. Jossy doled out small pieces of bread while having a runing conversation with the ducks "Selfish girl, share with your brother" "we're having a feast, duckies, share, share there will be enough for all!" She knows the difference between the male and females so referred to them as sisters and brothers. It was sooo cute. And her bread lasted FOREVER! Zeff's approach was different. He had fun hurling whole rolls as far as he could and yelling "I win!" When his and my rolls ran out (very quickly) he amused himself with chasing the ducks and seagulls. It was funny how they'd run and fly from him but be right back to get Jossy's crumbs. We could also see a bulldozer and excavator working very near us so he enjoyed watching them. We drove over closer to see them better when we were done with the ducks but they were done for the day.
Anyways - that's how things have been going so far this week. I think the main reason things are going so much better is I have made a very concerted effort to cut our TV time(from about 4-5 hours a day to 2-3 - I know that is still not great but it is only PBS and videos), I have also renewed my goal of 1 hour read aloud time which the kids are loving and so don't miss the TV time at all. The other thing I have been doing is playing classical music most of the day. It is good for my mood and seems to improve the kids behavior.
Tuesday was a surprisingly good day in that we (I) actually managed to stay productive after spending the morning getting ready for and going to iceskating lessons. I don't know why 1/2 hour lessons blow our whole morning but they usually seem to. Yesterday, though we ate lunch as soon as we got home and after letting Jossy do art for about 15 minutes while I cleaned up we settled in for a very productive 30 minutes or so of Math and Language Arts. We are working on sight words. The, it, come and can were introduced Monday and Joss finds the and come esp frustrating. On Tues. we played memory with the word cards which seemed less stressful for Joss.
Wednesday (Today) was another good day. We went to the library first thing, for story time, although I was concerned that it would get us "off track" for the day and lead to formal "school" not being accomplished. However we had a lovely time at the library (good behavior even by the 2yo!) and went to the bread store. As a reward for their good behavior at the lib and at the store I purchased 5 loaves of "bird bread". We went home and had lunch. Jossy had no trouble getting down to work after we ate and her and Zeff played with clay for about 15 minutes. She did have a rough time getting through the worksheet working on sight words. She was doing a lot of guessing at the end and required lots of encouragement to finish the page. We ended up only completing a 1/2 a language arts lesson today. Even though the other 1/2 was poetry and she would have liked it, I thought she might get more out of it tomorrow when she is fresher. After the kids played in the basement while I folded laundry, they watched a magic school bus video and then we went and fed the ducks. It was great fun. The ducks are so used to being fed that they swarmed the minivan as soon as we pulled up. I gave each kid a bag of old rolls and it was fun to watch how differently they approached the situation. Jossy doled out small pieces of bread while having a runing conversation with the ducks "Selfish girl, share with your brother" "we're having a feast, duckies, share, share there will be enough for all!" She knows the difference between the male and females so referred to them as sisters and brothers. It was sooo cute. And her bread lasted FOREVER! Zeff's approach was different. He had fun hurling whole rolls as far as he could and yelling "I win!" When his and my rolls ran out (very quickly) he amused himself with chasing the ducks and seagulls. It was funny how they'd run and fly from him but be right back to get Jossy's crumbs. We could also see a bulldozer and excavator working very near us so he enjoyed watching them. We drove over closer to see them better when we were done with the ducks but they were done for the day.
Anyways - that's how things have been going so far this week. I think the main reason things are going so much better is I have made a very concerted effort to cut our TV time(from about 4-5 hours a day to 2-3 - I know that is still not great but it is only PBS and videos), I have also renewed my goal of 1 hour read aloud time which the kids are loving and so don't miss the TV time at all. The other thing I have been doing is playing classical music most of the day. It is good for my mood and seems to improve the kids behavior.
posted by KatyM @ 5:26 PM
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