Friday, November 11, 2011

homeschool

Looking more into the homeschool laws... understanding why the lady told me to register with a 'church-related school' even if we were not going to teach religious curriculum. The laws are much more stringent about records filing and testing with the school-board associated homeschools than they are with the church-related school associated homeschools.

This is what Esme and I did today - probably less than an hour total time, but we really did cover a lot.

Esme and I wrote mail this morning before I went to work. She sat in my lap and used the little purple desk Grandma bought her at Hobby Lobby to 'write Stimpy letters'. She only wrote a few actual words for each letter - and Mama wrote the rest and read them to her. She was very adamant about signing her name to the end of the letter to Aunt Dot - she is getting better at those letters but still writes the S backwards and the M as an 'N'. What she really needs more work on is understanding all the letters 'always' go right to left and top to bottom. She wrote 'Thank you Dot' on one piece of paper with the THANK at the bottom edge, the Y to the left of the T, and the 'ou DOT' climbing up and to the right of the 'Y.' Mark said it was an 'authentic four year old's letter.' ;) He is right. She gets so upset when something isn't right - so I am trying to just encourage what she wants to do and not point out everything to fix yet... She wrote 'ALICE' as well tonight but put the E to the left of the A and then put another C on the end to fix it.. (EALICC) got mad at herself and wrote it correctly on the top of the paper. A very good job. After that she wanted to play xylophone and finish watching Alice. She watched me sewing another edge onto her Bambi quilt, and said it was beautiful.


'EALICC', the darker ALICE is mine as is the correction above the 'C'.


She still needs a lot of work with her numbers. She calls the six an eight and the one a four, and the ten a one.... but she can count items up to about fifteen just fine - it is just the print representations she is mixing up one for another... A friend at work passed down some 'flash' cards that have the number on one side and the number of objects on the back. We had a small session with those trying some recognition and counting.... very fun, spread out on the kitchen table while she was playing with other things - and she held up a card to me and I held up one to her. She thought we were playing cards or something... 'you play a card now Mom - go, there you go, good job.'

We also looked at FlashEarth and I showed her the United States and where Tennessee was - had her zoom out and in several times to see Tennessee. She said that the word said 'Here is the green house' (our house), and I explained the name again until she got it a bit further. I asked her where her Grandpa Harvey lived, and she said 'in a house.' HAHA. I know it will take quite a bit, but she does have interest in it. She asked the names of a few other states - and thought it was pretty cool. She wasn't quite as interested as she could have been because the Internet kept dumping us and the screen kept turning black. She thought Mama was making it turn off and saying we were done.. and then I told her I was just getting up to turn the Internet back on, and she got mad at all the up and down. She kept asking me if we were ready to see Dumbo movie after this five minutes etc. I opted for Beauty and the Beast instead.... now she is in her bed and watching it. Tomorrow will be a big day, I am sure - because it is Saturday and I have the day off.

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