New Ideas
Today has been a good day for new homeschooling ideas. Early, while still lying in bed waiting for my adult children to leave for work and college, I was playing with my Kindle and phone and found a poetry app. It was easy and wonderful and I couldn't wait to show Dakota when our school day started. Next, I discovered it was Wear Your Pajamas to Work day.....well, we work at home, right? So I greeted a still sleepy Dakota with the wonderful news that on this gray, rainy morning, he could stay in his comfy pjs all day!
As our day was set to begin, Dakota asked if for art today he could make more pipe cleaner and tin foil figures like the ones my friend Kelly had shown him how to do learning about the artist Giacometti yesterday (Did I spell that right?) He loved the activity and I turned him loose in his room with some Reynold's Wrap and a bag of pipe cleaners. He appeared about 45 minutes later with his creations, very proud of himself!
I showed him the poetry app on my phone and he took right to it. You hear the poem, go through the steps 1-5 slowly adding more and more words from memory each time. Then, when you have it memorized, you can record it. After he recorded it, I let him open a Word document and type it so that we could print it. Today's poem was Eternity, by William Blake. The app is free on my Iphone 3 and it's called Poems by Heart from Penguin Classics.
After we finished our poetry we managed to get all our work completed by 1:00. He did simple division for math, learned about the Phoenicians and Carthage in SOTW history, watched BrainPopJr and completed a worksheet on the digestive system for health/science, read some books and did his journal and morning work. I never understand how doing all this takes all day through February or March and then somehow by April we are breezing right through it. Is it because he "gets" it more or am I more lenient and going with the flow more?
It's also been a day for great ideas. I have come up with a new system to try to put to use all the cool ideas and fun days planned for the fall and all of next year. I am going to use a large file box broken into months then each of them broken into weeks so I can start copying now and putting the things I find right into the folders rather than storing the information on my computer, often never to be seen again.
Dakota is now enjoying his free afternoon, relaxing in his pjs and watching Wreck It Ralph. Unfortunately, it's turned sunny and warm and I now feel guilty for not getting outside, so maybe a walk or skateboard ride for him is in our future.
As our day was set to begin, Dakota asked if for art today he could make more pipe cleaner and tin foil figures like the ones my friend Kelly had shown him how to do learning about the artist Giacometti yesterday (Did I spell that right?) He loved the activity and I turned him loose in his room with some Reynold's Wrap and a bag of pipe cleaners. He appeared about 45 minutes later with his creations, very proud of himself!
I showed him the poetry app on my phone and he took right to it. You hear the poem, go through the steps 1-5 slowly adding more and more words from memory each time. Then, when you have it memorized, you can record it. After he recorded it, I let him open a Word document and type it so that we could print it. Today's poem was Eternity, by William Blake. The app is free on my Iphone 3 and it's called Poems by Heart from Penguin Classics.
After we finished our poetry we managed to get all our work completed by 1:00. He did simple division for math, learned about the Phoenicians and Carthage in SOTW history, watched BrainPopJr and completed a worksheet on the digestive system for health/science, read some books and did his journal and morning work. I never understand how doing all this takes all day through February or March and then somehow by April we are breezing right through it. Is it because he "gets" it more or am I more lenient and going with the flow more?
It's also been a day for great ideas. I have come up with a new system to try to put to use all the cool ideas and fun days planned for the fall and all of next year. I am going to use a large file box broken into months then each of them broken into weeks so I can start copying now and putting the things I find right into the folders rather than storing the information on my computer, often never to be seen again.
Dakota is now enjoying his free afternoon, relaxing in his pjs and watching Wreck It Ralph. Unfortunately, it's turned sunny and warm and I now feel guilty for not getting outside, so maybe a walk or skateboard ride for him is in our future.
Comments