Our second week (and first full week) of homeschooling is complete! So, what did Lillia do this week?
— She learned about the different types of clouds, and how to identify them.
— She learned about number sets from our math book, Life of Fred: Apples by Stanley Schmidt (highly recommend!). Can you think of a set with seven numbers in it? {The days of the week}!
— She studied world history from the Precambrian through the Triassic using her history book, Voyages Through Time: The Beginning by Peter Ackroyd.
— She learned how to make and use drop-down webs to organize what she learned in history.
— She learned how to make the letters A, E, I, O, U, Y, B, & C in cursive!
— She learned what a sentence is, and how to identify one of its parts (that of which we speak — the subject).
— She reviewed the concepts of latitude and longitude, and started plotting hominid fossils on a map using coordinates.
— She finished her first literature book, Children of Time by Anne Weaver, and used two column notes to help her remember all of the different characters.
— She participated in many extracurricular activities, including Phys Ed and Art at the school, and Hip Hop and Ballet at Moco!
— And, she had lots of time to play!
This afternoon, Lillia spent a couple of hours creating character studies for some wolves from her imaginary city. She typed up all the pages by herself, and then she used Photoshop to create illustrations for them!
All in all, this week went really well. Looking back at her list of accomplishments, I feel pretty good about homeschooling! There were a few moments where things were difficult, but each of those moments offered valuable insight into how Lillia learns, and what types of activities interest her/bore her/stress her out. I feel like it will probably take a couple of months for me to really figure out what I’m doing, but there is marked improvement just since last week.
One thing I noticed is that we don’t really follow a schedule. I had originally planned to do things in twenty-minute increments, but that has gone completely out the window. We don’t really follow a particular order, either. Every day is different. It certainly keeps us from getting bored. I’m curious how others deal with the schedule issue, and I’d love to hear your thoughts.