Smooth Sailing

This first week of school has been the smoothest re-entry into the routine of homeschooling that we have experienced yet. This is the beginning of our fourth year of serious homeschooling. I thought it would be tough to fold Sophie (age 5) into the full-time schedule as she is doing first grade level work now, but she has made it easy on me. How?
1. She is reading fairly fluently already. It makes me so happy to hear her reading straight out of the Bible. Yesterday, she read Gen. 27: 12- 17 aloud, pronouncing "Shechem" correctly on the first try without my help! During her free reading time, she picked up Evan's Bible and read for a good bit of time out of the New Testament. For Bible, we have some student pages that go along with the lesson. One side of the page contains a recap of the story with step-by-step instructions for activities to do in the cartoon retelling of the story. Today, Sophie read the instructions to herself, found the numbered cartoon panel, and did the activity. She is so much more independent than the boys were at her same age. She enjoys this type of activity!

2. She narrates stories that she hears or reads with ease and enthusiasm. One of my boys in particular has always acted like it is a form of torture to have to put a story or what he has learned in his own words. Sophie's attitude is like a refreshing breeze in the midst of the sometimes difficult task of homeschooling.

3. Sophie's favorite subject right now is math!! She likes to learn about place value and number bonds using blocks and wants to do more workbook pages each day than what I give her to do. One of my sons is very good at math, but he doesn't usually particularly like it.

Okay, okay maybe I'm celebrating a little too soon, seeing as it is only the first week, but a good start has put me in a corresponding mood. And...I have to keep the bright side in mind when it is time to help Sophie with practicing piano. Ugh! In that category, it really helps to have "been there done that" with Evan. Getting started on piano was rough, but he is Mr. Independent now with his practicing.

A resource which has helped me this week is math software, specifically Quartermile Math which the boys use to drill math facts and Rainbow Rock and Vroot and Vroom which have activities and games to reinforce the math concepts in Singapore Math 1-4. When I am working one-on-one with Sophie, the boys can drill math facts. When Sophie is done with her math work and the boys are still busy with theirs, she can do activities on Rainbow Rock. I am so glad that I decided to invest in that software!

Hopefully this post hasn't come across as one big brag. Please do a happy dance (or get up and do some hoe-downs in t-tapp lingo) with me to celebrate a succesful first week!