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Dec. 6th, 2005 12:24 amAnanda is obsessed with making Yahoo! avatars, so now everytime I check my email, I have this asian cowgirl with dangly earrings winking at me o_O
We're reading The Magician's Nephew right now, which is first in the series of The Chronicles of Narnia. About halfway through. And I have this dream that maybe we'll finish The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (#2 in the series) before it's out of theaters, and she and I could go see it together.
I was talking to Grant about how I've been experiencing some major guilt, because we're doing very little structured homeschool stuff lately. By very little I mean, basically none for weeks. New baby, going out of town, getting sick, it always seems to be something. Before that it was hurricanes and being 9 months pregnant or practically living at the hospital. I don't ever want to shortchange her. I mean, there were a couple of mornings in a row where she and I cooked breakfast together and I talked about World War 2, the war in Iraq, presidents' terms, etc, and went and consulted the globe afterwards. She remembered much and participated in the talk the second day, and she's added Germany to her geographic repertoire. But that was like a month ago. We've been going to church and talking about Advent, the past couple of weekends. Mindy read them a book about germs and antibodies and such, and then they saw it on Reading Rainbow the next day, as well, so it's really all stuck with them and now it comes up constantly since we're all getting sick. We reviewed density and did the old density experiment again, at some point...She and Aaron water and weed the garden every afternoon. But I keep getting all antsy that we aren't really finding time to DO ANYTHING REGULARLY or in a measurable way or whatever...
Then yesterday I had this breakthrough. WHO CARES? In the last few months she's learned all about the end of pregnancy, labor, hospitals, midwives, natural birth (including dozens of birth videos, accompanying me to appts, visiting us in the hospital, discussions on and stepping into the NICU), asked a million questions about newborns and gotten answers, watched and participated in the care of a new baby. She now knows what a meteorologist is, how fronts and currents effect storm tracks, what the news is, why we need shutters and supplies. She can tell you about categories of hurricanes, which ones we would leave for, what the eye is. She's been out of power and used a generator, or just candles. She's only 5, and if she's on the computer I can say, "Ananda, pull up my thing on the taskbar and refresh it for me, please" and she does. She makes yahoo avatars. She talks to Bobby and my mom on AIM - she knows the KEYSTROKES for the smilies. I mean, she asks me how to spell most everything as far as words, but she types it out herself. And she increasingly doesn't need help recognizing words for the avatar stuff - she knows what is "appearance", "apparel", "accessories", "face and eyes", "hairstyles", etc. And with not a single dang workbook or flashcard. We get a new issue of "My Big Backyard" every month and go through it all, reading and activities, one page at a time together. She has a penpal and understands how the mail works. I get so stressed out and down on myself like her education is suffering, but I'm willing to bet she learns more here on any given day than she would in a classroom. Grant gives her a dollar sometimes for helping me so much around the house, or some change, and she's learned to tell pennies from the others, and quarters, and is working on the rest. She knows there are a hundred pennies in a dollar, that the silver coins are worth more, what sort of thing you can expect to buy with a buck or less. She's already getting good at saving and accumulating rather than spending all at once. Likewise she's getting a good grasp of time (minutes within hours, how long this or that is, hours in a day) just because she wants to know when Reading Rainbow comes on, how long it is until dinner, etc - and on dates, because I cross off the day on the calendar each night and then she goes to it the next morning to see what day it is (and when Girl Scouts, Christmas, La Leche League and Church are). I don't have to tell her to put on daytime clothes when she wakes up, anymore, she's up by 9 or so everyday and dressed even if I'm still in bed. And doesn't even complain about hair brushing anymore. She knows and expects to have to help pick up and clean throughout the day.
What the heck have I been worried about? Why am I wasting my damn energy feeling like I'm not doing enough? The only thing I can possibly imagine her being lacking in, is socialization and math. But math is what she works on anytime she gets out a workbook or her leappad, and she's got a good handle on adding and subtracting numerals up to 12, with and without a number line. That's pretty on target for Kindergarden. I mean it's first grade workbooks. She does pages independantly only bringing them to me for checking. Not on a schedule - sometimes four pages a day for 3 days and then nothing for two weeks - but she never needs more than the briefest review. And as far as socializing, even if I never took her out, she has a bunch of little brothers, and Robbie comes over (he moved out! Weeks ago, and I never even told you guys) and we just got back from visiting my mother who has Todd's kids there. I mean that's all worst case scenario, she also is great with Shaun and Grant Sr and my sister, and sees all of them regularly, and with other kids in Kids' Life (childrens' church). I wish her GS meetings were more often, and need to be taking her to the Homeschool Park Days weekly, instead of only now and then.
I suppose it's necessary to constantly re-examine this sort of thing and strive to do better, lest she REALLY fall behind. But tonight, I'm just happy to think that despite all my worrying...there's nothing to worry about. *
*if you feel the need to tell me there's plenty to worry about and I'm on a quick route to disaster, feel free.
We're reading The Magician's Nephew right now, which is first in the series of The Chronicles of Narnia. About halfway through. And I have this dream that maybe we'll finish The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (#2 in the series) before it's out of theaters, and she and I could go see it together.
I was talking to Grant about how I've been experiencing some major guilt, because we're doing very little structured homeschool stuff lately. By very little I mean, basically none for weeks. New baby, going out of town, getting sick, it always seems to be something. Before that it was hurricanes and being 9 months pregnant or practically living at the hospital. I don't ever want to shortchange her. I mean, there were a couple of mornings in a row where she and I cooked breakfast together and I talked about World War 2, the war in Iraq, presidents' terms, etc, and went and consulted the globe afterwards. She remembered much and participated in the talk the second day, and she's added Germany to her geographic repertoire. But that was like a month ago. We've been going to church and talking about Advent, the past couple of weekends. Mindy read them a book about germs and antibodies and such, and then they saw it on Reading Rainbow the next day, as well, so it's really all stuck with them and now it comes up constantly since we're all getting sick. We reviewed density and did the old density experiment again, at some point...She and Aaron water and weed the garden every afternoon. But I keep getting all antsy that we aren't really finding time to DO ANYTHING REGULARLY or in a measurable way or whatever...
Then yesterday I had this breakthrough. WHO CARES? In the last few months she's learned all about the end of pregnancy, labor, hospitals, midwives, natural birth (including dozens of birth videos, accompanying me to appts, visiting us in the hospital, discussions on and stepping into the NICU), asked a million questions about newborns and gotten answers, watched and participated in the care of a new baby. She now knows what a meteorologist is, how fronts and currents effect storm tracks, what the news is, why we need shutters and supplies. She can tell you about categories of hurricanes, which ones we would leave for, what the eye is. She's been out of power and used a generator, or just candles. She's only 5, and if she's on the computer I can say, "Ananda, pull up my thing on the taskbar and refresh it for me, please" and she does. She makes yahoo avatars. She talks to Bobby and my mom on AIM - she knows the KEYSTROKES for the smilies. I mean, she asks me how to spell most everything as far as words, but she types it out herself. And she increasingly doesn't need help recognizing words for the avatar stuff - she knows what is "appearance", "apparel", "accessories", "face and eyes", "hairstyles", etc. And with not a single dang workbook or flashcard. We get a new issue of "My Big Backyard" every month and go through it all, reading and activities, one page at a time together. She has a penpal and understands how the mail works. I get so stressed out and down on myself like her education is suffering, but I'm willing to bet she learns more here on any given day than she would in a classroom. Grant gives her a dollar sometimes for helping me so much around the house, or some change, and she's learned to tell pennies from the others, and quarters, and is working on the rest. She knows there are a hundred pennies in a dollar, that the silver coins are worth more, what sort of thing you can expect to buy with a buck or less. She's already getting good at saving and accumulating rather than spending all at once. Likewise she's getting a good grasp of time (minutes within hours, how long this or that is, hours in a day) just because she wants to know when Reading Rainbow comes on, how long it is until dinner, etc - and on dates, because I cross off the day on the calendar each night and then she goes to it the next morning to see what day it is (and when Girl Scouts, Christmas, La Leche League and Church are). I don't have to tell her to put on daytime clothes when she wakes up, anymore, she's up by 9 or so everyday and dressed even if I'm still in bed. And doesn't even complain about hair brushing anymore. She knows and expects to have to help pick up and clean throughout the day.
What the heck have I been worried about? Why am I wasting my damn energy feeling like I'm not doing enough? The only thing I can possibly imagine her being lacking in, is socialization and math. But math is what she works on anytime she gets out a workbook or her leappad, and she's got a good handle on adding and subtracting numerals up to 12, with and without a number line. That's pretty on target for Kindergarden. I mean it's first grade workbooks. She does pages independantly only bringing them to me for checking. Not on a schedule - sometimes four pages a day for 3 days and then nothing for two weeks - but she never needs more than the briefest review. And as far as socializing, even if I never took her out, she has a bunch of little brothers, and Robbie comes over (he moved out! Weeks ago, and I never even told you guys) and we just got back from visiting my mother who has Todd's kids there. I mean that's all worst case scenario, she also is great with Shaun and Grant Sr and my sister, and sees all of them regularly, and with other kids in Kids' Life (childrens' church). I wish her GS meetings were more often, and need to be taking her to the Homeschool Park Days weekly, instead of only now and then.
I suppose it's necessary to constantly re-examine this sort of thing and strive to do better, lest she REALLY fall behind. But tonight, I'm just happy to think that despite all my worrying...there's nothing to worry about. *
*if you feel the need to tell me there's plenty to worry about and I'm on a quick route to disaster, feel free.
