She has been awful this week!! Crying and whining and NOT doing what she is supposed to do. I wish I could change up her academics, but some stuff she just has to do. As soon as it's time to do school, she is in an uproar about not wanting to. So she sits in front of me whining and turning around and upside down in her chair. I finally just had to tell her to go to the living room so Neely could do her work. She gladly left.
She had to go to the living room and sit. No TV, no toys, no books, no nothing. And she did. She sat for 2 hours. She didn't even complain. But she WILL make it up. She WILL make my lesson plan tell the truth.
Homeschooling Neely alone was a dream! She works so fast and without complaint. She's done in 3 hours, tops. I even told Teagan that they could pick from the surprise bag after they finished and she didn't care. She was only interested in what Neely chose. I am going to put some gum in there this week since Teagan is into blowing bubbles with it. Maybe she'll get motivated then. I even thought about taking some of our work outside so it would be different than sitting in here all morning. When she does her assignments, she's great! She knows how to do everything I put in front of her and picks it up super fast, but she's just not into it lately.
What I REALLY need is some 10-drawer rolling storage cabinets. They're rainbow at Sam's and they are $30 each. I would have gotten them already if it weren't that shipping cost. Ugh. I guess I could check around at the fabric stores for some that are similarly cheap. That way they can work through their drawers and when they are done, they're done. Until then we're going to try more sleep. I really think that is 90% of Teagan's problem. She needs to go to bed a lot earlier than she does.
The bad part for me is having to redo social studies with her because she missed it with Neely. Neely and I worked on Christopher Columbus in honor of Columbus Day. We are also doing geography skills. Teagan will fly right through the geography we're doing, but still.....
So this was Teagan yesterday:
Her math is coming along wonderfully. We have been adding with Cuisenaire rods which have been perfect for forcing her to "add up" from any number. And we've used bears and blocks. So now we're adding with a number line, and she has really picked that up fast as well. We use a hand drawn line on scratch paper and she uses a little bear to take steps like in a board game. She did a whole sheet of math today and then colored by answers to find a hidden turtle. She liked it and was very excited to tell me what the picture was.
She is to the point of being able to memorize her math facts to 10 since we've been working on them for a couple of weeks. She still needs some practice because I'm not moving forward until she has mastered those. I'm am very proud of her for doing all this work in the 1st grade book. If Teagan's not careful, they'll be doing the same math come next year! ;)
search for and find. We started our three letter words this week. We're still
working on long vowels since we just started that last week. She'll do those for
a few weeks. I am really proud of how she is sounding out words when reading and
writing. She gets so close to the right spelling on lots of words, and since beginning the Handbook for Reading she is starting to write a lot more. She wrote me and Santa a letter just the other day. She really just has a higher interest in writing lately.
We practice patterns on our calendar daily. So at the beginning of each month I will use a paperclip (or two, or three) to start the pattern. Around the 3rd day, I'll start the pattern over. On the 4th day of the month, the girls get to go to the calendar and put up what comes next. This activity is really more for Neely, but Teagan enjoys is too. Neely put up our marker for Columbus Day and put the 12 down at the bottom----if you're wondering why it's there. Then she had to change it to the 14th since that was wrong. =) We'll work on adding him (way back when!) to our timeline this week.
marked day too. Not sure about y'all, but Halloween is not my favorite holiday.
I like to test the candy, but I do not like to fork out money for cheap costumes
or walk the 'hood.
If I can find the time, I am going to make Libby's. I found a really cute _(blank)_that will be AWESOME! Can't wait. Hope I get to show it.
Libby painted today. I LOVE the paint I got. They get it on the table but it comes right off. Clothes? Off. Skin? Off. Love it. Libby is adjusting very nicely. It took some time, and she is still the devil when it's most inconvenient, but she is getting used to us doing school. Yay me. I just wonder if my blood shot, glassy eye look will last the entire first year of homeschooling...