School at Home

We are in week 6 of school. If this were like childbirth, does that mean we should be all recovered? I don't think I could make that analogy; I'm definitely not used to this yet. I still feel like we're barely treading water. I haven't even been brave enough to look at the grades so far that are posted online! But, nonetheless, we are doing school every Monday, Wednesday and sometimes Friday.

We start each day sitting on the rug in the living room. We pray together, read the Bible, and then do all of our memory work. This includes the Bible verse, phonograms, spelling rules, grammar jingles, history timeline, and the recitation (this is whatever poem the teacher has assigned for the purpose of oral recitation in front of the class).

Then we move on to our assigned home work. We are usually "in school" from about 8:30 to 3:00, taking a morning break and a lunch break. Some of that time includes me reading to him. The most difficult thing, for me, has been trying to figure out how to balance helping him with the other kids (and how to keep him focused when it's sheer chaos all around him). In short, there just doesn't seem to be enough of me to go around and I always feel like a chicken with its head cut off.

The greatest thing has been the quality of the education. The stuff he's learning blows his old school out of the water, and we live in a good school district. So I try to remember that as I struggle through our home days.

I'm including my FIRST EVER video clip here on the blog. This is Elijah, reciting the memory verse that he is learning along with Samuel. They are learning all of Proverbs 3 by the end of the school year. At week 6, we are on verse 6, and Elijah is right on track. Samuel, being the competitive kid he is, has made a point of being a couple of verses ahead of Elijah at all times. Here's Elijah, reciting Proverbs 3:1-6 (don't mind Isaac screaming in the background - common occurance around here):

Another cool thing to brag on Lije about - he is reading! He's been learning the phonograms alongside Samuel and is really starting to put it all together! He loves the Bob books and this newfound discovery of reading all by himself.