I have come to the realization that I am not productive until at least 10:00am. No matter how much sleep I get, not matter how great of a mood I am in, no matter my grand plans for the day, unless I have an appointment that must be kept, I am not getting out of my pajamas until 10:00am. If it's a weekend? More like noon.
I find it humorous that things I have subconsciously known about myself seem to become definite truths for me the older I get and the more I just start excepting that I am who I am.
Deep, huh?
This ends up being pretty conductive to homeschooling Julia. How you ask? Well, first off, she gets to wake up naturally. Some days, that is before 7am, some days she gets up after 8:30. There is no rush to eat, no "Hurry up!" to get dressed. Julia's personality responds better to non rushing anyway.
We have a little school schedule that is working well right now. We get dressed (no school in pajamas, house rules), she sets up the chairs in the play area for calendar time. We say a morning prayer, go over the date, day, month, year, sing 3 songs of her choice (sometimes she even makes one up and serenades me), and then it's off to do some table work. Right now, my focus is on penmanship and getting used to sitting to do writing. I had an ABC workbook she flew through and now we're working on number penmanship. We do art, cutting, and reading for about 45 minutes to an hour. But, here's the kicker for me--Julia's started reading. No, we aren't working on it, she has just naturally been trying to sound things out and now can read simple sentences. It's amazing to watch it all unfold.
I realize that it seems ridiculous that a college educated former elementary school teacher seems amazed that she can, you know, TEACH her kid, but I am amazed. I felt very insecure going in to this endeavor. I am a firm believer that kids don't need pushed to learn, even those who struggle. I also believe that parents are children's first and most important teachers, but that kind of all went to the wayside when we decided that keeping Julia home for kindergarten was best for her and us. I am very, very thankful that what I have always believed came to fruition with Julia.
We still make it to the Y a few days a week. The girls love going to the Y. They have little friends there and know the teachers well.
Half the time they don't even say good bye to me. Two days ago, for the first time, Vivian told me "No, Mommy, no leave." She was playing cars and did not want to stop.
Both girls usually bring a toy to the Y to play with while they are there. I'm sure you are shocked to know that Pink Baby is usually Julia's toy of choice. Wednesday, as I waited for them to finish playing cars, I asked Julia where Pink Baby was. "She's in the swing." Dude, I thought a real baby was in the swing because it was on! Nope, the teachers let Julia put Pink Baby in real baby things:
This is how we roll at the Y:
This morning, Julia decided to do an art project for school first. She had a wooden bird house from this summer that we never got around to painting.
Of course, Vivian must do all the things that Julia does, so I got out some paints and paper for her too.
I'm pretty sure Vivian will just skip kindergarten. She's got two older sisters that love to teach her. In fact, I could probably just hire them to teach Vivian and I could stay in my pajamas reading books EVEN LONGER!!!
I joke, I joke...I'd totally get dressed and read. Gotta keep up appearances.
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