Saturday, April 18, 2015

bits - homeschooling progress first grade

Mark and I counted up the days from public school, and the attendance calendar we keep for Esme's homeschool, and then added a week for good measure, and she should come out over and above her 180 day requirement for the year about May 15th.  Then she would be in summer vacation until August 1st.  That is a long summer for her, and she couldn't think of anything except bike riding she wanted to do with all her time.  We suggested there wouldn't be greenhouse duties to earn her money at - so she might work in the garden with us during the week and earn her allowance that way - she didn't think she could do that.  It might change once it actually starts happening.

She has grown up a lot this year - still things to work on, but she has become a lot more confident with what she can do.  We still argue a lot, and she still needs to learn to cut her losses in an argument and not keep digging deeper - ie: not get in a bad mood and make the best of what trip we do, or what we are going to buy and not buy etc. 

Her bravery on her bike is very good to see.  Yesterday she was riding uphill as well as downhill, and in circles - and we went up to the hard road for a bit.  *knock on wood* she didn't take any tumbles during that - and was taking caution to ride her brakes downhill to slow herself down.

I'm also glad to see her reading more on her own, and once in a while even writing something for fun again.

Some goals to shoot for this last month of homeschooling:
One last good field trip - been discussing options
finish out this math test and try to advance a little further in the K-2 Khan Academy (she was at 71%)
go over our spelling words one ore time

She still thinks/hopes she is going back to public school 'in June'.. we talked about that again - but she doesn't want to hear it, so she keeps forgetting and asking anew each time.  We still think it would be best to homeschool her one more year, see how much more natural growth she can show us, and then have her evaluated going into 'third grade' and see how well she has progressed. 

No comments: