Measuring the marigolds

This is one of those weeks where it's hard to pinpoint something special.  We had good days, we had so-so days.  Nothing completely terrible, although Josh is still difficult to get going at times, which frustrates me.  If I had to specify one particular thing, I'd say this week he seemed to gain more confidence in his reading ability. Perhaps some people may have seen my post about him reading a story to his brother this week.  To some, this may not seem like that big a deal, especially if I were to tell you it was a book meant for a young child to be read aloud.  With Josh, he hasn't felt confident enough to attempt this until this week.  He reads with me all the time and there are even times when he's reading aloud that he barely whispers the words.  Usually, I must admit, this aggravates me because I think he's only doing it because he just doesn't want to read.  I am beginning to realize though that he does it when he is not sure of something and doesn't want to get it wrong.  I told him that he doesn't have to be afraid of getting it wrong with me.  That's what I'm here for.  I want to encourage him and help him when he needs help.  How will I know what he needs to work on if I can't tell what he knows?  So, in picking up this book and actually saying to his brother, "Hey Liam, you want me to read you a story?", I knew that he was gaining confidence.  His brother sat down with him but didn't stay in one place the entire time, as toddlers tend not to do.  However, Josh kept reading the book out loud until he got to the end.  He struggled a little bit but, for the most part, did an awesome job.  He never seems to want to read and this act surprised me, in a good way.  Progress!

Wednesday we had another science fun day, which we again took outside.  I will continue to do outside activities with this as long as I can.  It serves two purposes.  One, we all get out of the house and get some fresh air, and two, we get to enjoy nature.  It is a bit challenging with the younger one but we've been choosing areas where we can take the jogging stroller, which helps.  This week he wanted to do a nature scavenger hunt.  He got the idea from his scout meeting the night before.  They had their meeting at the park, where one of the rangers took them on a little hike and they did a little nature hunt of sorts.  For our scavenger hunt, we prepared the chart of things we thought we'd like to see before going to the park.( Why do these things always take way longer than you anticipate?)  I made a chart and Josh drew pictures in the blocks of different animals and plants he thought he might see.  Of course, some of the things he drew, I was PRETTY sure we would not.  He had at least 4 different snakes on there and a coyote.  Wishful thinking.  We did get to see a belted kingfisher when we were walking around the dam, but sadly I must admit, no coyote.  Snakes I am even more glad we did not see.  Especially the rattlesnake.  He is a big snake nut and thinks it would be so cool to see them in the wild.  (I do not agree, however!)  We saw a black snake when we were riding our bikes once.  In fact, Josh nearly ran over it because he didn't realize what it was at first.  That is the only snake we've seen...so far.  But Josh says he'd like to be a herpetologist, so more snakes would be great for him.  We saw most of the plants on our chart but not too may animals.  Lots of different birds and plenty of grasshoppers.  Time of day is probably key in what we see I imagine and we've been there late morning to early afternoon.  The best laid plans...sadly my plan for an early start went by the wayside with the prepping of the chart.  Oh well, we can also say he got in some art for the day!  Hopefully this coming week, we can have another outdoor adventure.

That about sums up our week. We marched on with our math, unit study, reading, language arts, spelling and writing, although the writing is beginning to seem more like a chore to him.  He isn't as happy to do it for me as he was in the beginning.  In fact, it's like I ask him to write the great american novel when I ask him to do it.  I keep trying to rethink how to get him to want to write more.  It is the biggest challenge right now I think.   Math is going pretty well, for the most part, except when it comes to some of the counting.  Counting by 4's, 3's, 2's, etc.  He is good with the 5's and 10's but everything else turns him off.  He says it too hard and he really refuses to even attempt it most of the time.  He does well with time, what we've covered so far at least. We started learning money and he's doing well with that. Addition is coming along but I'd say it's a work in progress.  He tends to want to give a good guess rather than figure it out a lot of the time.  I know he is capable of figuring it out, but he's very stubborn.  Like mother, like son I guess.

Through it all, we march on though and we learn from each other.  This experience teaches me to go with the flow sometimes more than I would normally like.  I try not to compare my methods with others, but it is difficult.  I read about other people's school days, those who homeschool, and wonder if I should be doing what they are doing.  Then I have to remind myself that their situation is different than mine, that there isn't really a right way or wrong way as long as I'm teaching and he's learning.  I also wonder what he'd be learning if he were in school, but then remember why I decided to do this.  I feel it is the thing I need to do right now.  We have some things to iron out but I think we'll figure them out in time.  Heck, we have almost two months in the books so far and he's starting to read.  I think that's great.  I am glad I am there to see it.  Life is full of surprises, but I don't want my children's education to be one of them.  I want to know they are being taught the things they need to know.    This gets tricky, but I guess I just want them to have access to the same information that I did growing up.  But I don't want to go on a rant so I must bid you all adieu.  To another good week and let it be one where the surprises come in love of learning!