Week 01: Mostly Fail

Monday: Homeschool FAIL. I forgot we planned to start school this day and ended up just putting on educational cartoons for a couple hours. All of our textbooks are in storage and there is such a large amount of boxes in there, we don't know where to begin. Spent the day watching educational cartoons on Nick, Jr and discussed the topics within the episodes.

Tuesday: For the time being, I went ot Target and grabbed some basic educational supplies, and then to Walmart to replace our dry erase and bulletin boards. I also bought basic school supplies that needed replenishing that had been, unfortunately, destroyed during the move thanks to the triple-digit weather the south is suffering through these past two months. The girls spent time going over the books (not doing work, just skimming through pages) and asking questions about the material provided.

Wednesday: Absolutely nothing. J was studying for his finals and I was sick. Girls had a free day but we talked about being a hero without super powers and how to measure.

Thursday: All the boards and supplies were still not situated, but that didn't stop me. We still did our foreign language with the month, day of the week, number of the day, and color (orange) of the day in English, Spanish, French, German, and (phonetic) Chinese. Lily worked on her cursive by writing letters A - H and the sentence "Amanda eats apples." For math, I gave her a pretend object that she had to pay for. She had to add pretend coins in the exact change to buy the product.

Iris refused to do any work whatsoever that morning and kept making up excuses, so since she didn't want to "go to school" she spent the entire time in her room and missed out on 1/2 an hour of TV. For math, Lily took over while I made lunch (I didn't ask her to, she just did it anyway) and helped Iris practice addition using Othello pieces.

Rose worked on identifying colors. She refused all colors except orange (ownj) and black (back) and then threw a fit because she wanted to "write," too. Lol.

The day's lesson was: "Try new things; you never know if you may like it."

After lunch we tried some reading and comprehension. Iris actually did it, but was terrible at it. :) Lily refused. Rose enjoyed the pictures. The book I was trying to have Lily read was at a higher level than she was used to and she didn't want to try. She just refused. I had to remind her about the day's lesson and told her to sit at her bed and think about the lesson for the day and how it pertained to her assignment. Eventually Lily caved after some time spent contemplating in her room and read her story wonderfully (with minimal help from me) and did great at her quiz afterward.

By then it was already 3pm (we start our lessons at 10am) and I was pooped from all the whining and excuses laid out that day as to why no one wanted to do anything. I called it a day and took a nap.

Friday: The girls had an uncle and aunt come to visit so they didn't get started until sometime after 1:30. We did our basic foreign language with Yellow as the color of the day, then proceeded to our new arrival. Last week, J sent out for the Team UmiZoomi math kits and we broke one of them in, partially anyway. This covered reading and comprehension, math and recognition, and all three of the children were able to participate.

Rose surprised me by being able to point out the shapes when asked. She can't say the names at all, but knew which ones to point to. Lily read the entire story by herself as well as did some of the activities. Iris did the activities requested, and all three of them had a great time. Even the older two girls excelled at the reading comprehension quiz I surprised them with at the end of the story. They then watched a DVD of TUZ and took turns filling out the pages of the corresponding workbook.

We finished everything up by 4, which was nice. Hitting so many subjects at the same time is pretty awesome.

I wonder what next week will bring...