February 27, 2006

And now back to our regularly scheduled programming

Today it's back to (home)school, the more formal, Well Trained Mind way, rather than the unschooling way we adopted in early December, when the kids (and I) set aside the books in favor of Christmas crafts, baking, and stories. And then travel/island school, which was heavy on the phys. ed. and unschooled science.

I threw a week or so of schooling in after the New Year, before all the packing started, and now here we are, tanned (well, sort of, kind of, barely, what with all that wind and rain), rested, and ready to hit the books again. Surprisingly, the younger folks are around here, the more eager they are. Laura and Daniel are eager to get back to the Story of the World; Daniel wants to start his new math book (I'm hoping I have a new copy, or at least -- for temporary use -- Laura's old erasable copy, of Singapore 1B) and resume proper reading lessons; and since Daniel has a good head start on reading now, I'll probably start Davy with some phonics lessons now. Over the past week he rediscovered one of his Christmas presents, Flip-Flash Phonics: Words & Pictures, a little McGraw-Hill flip book of high-frequency words (no, I'm really not a whole word kind of gal -- more a Rudolf Flesch kind of gal -- and the word "Dolch" tends to give me the shudders, but it looked cute, was dirt cheap at Bookcloseouts, and keeps the kid busy and happy). We'll have to start out slowly though, especially for Laura, adding a new subject every few days. I'm hoping we'll be up to speed by mid-March, just in time for calving and the local arts festival, where the kids will each be reciting a couple of poems, to slow us down again.

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