Let's keep this up

I just looked at my schedule for the month. It looks as if we skipped a week of preparation. Our schedule was to have been to get up and go for a walk and enjoy some music time for the first week and then add storytime, math, and crafts the next week. We have instead decided to skip walks and institute story time this week. We've read Beauty and Beast, Mul de Plier The Girl From the Land of Plenty, and East o' the Sun and West o' the Moon.

The kids seemed to enjoy the first two stories but they weren't as enthusiastic about the third. But we did a craft associated with East O' the Sun and they seemed to warm to the story a little more in doing that. We did stick puppets of the characters. I'm hoping to print out the play I found and see if the kids will put it on for the video camera.

We listened to some kids' music and few of Aria's choices and then had some 'educational' computer time. They played on funbrain.com, which is Aria's favorite at this time. Lastly, we played 'bet you can't' with our addition flashcards. Which is a game where we bet play money that the other person can't get so many correct in a row. Both Casey and Aria are good at this game and enjoy it. Yesterday, we played the same game with multiplication. I am impressed with both my children's understanding of the concept of multiplication.

I'm proud of how we've done and I've really enjoyed the last week with my children. Today I felt, from them, a little bit of reluctance to a routine. I'm hoping it doesn't become something they dread. I guess I'll have be sure to choose very interesting stories.

Aria's been trying out some new vocabulary. I've noticed she's not so fearful of using bigger words although they are not always used in the correct way. Today, she found two empty paper towel rolls and handed one to Connor saying, "Take this as a token of my gratitude and let's have a war. Let's fight."

Casey, too, uses great words and will usually cause me to laugh every day. Yesterday, they were playing some pretend game and Aria was calling herself Ashley. Casey didn't want a pretend name and I said, "Casey Ryan is a great name because it means brave little king and Connor's name means valiant and wise. Aria means Poetic One." I think Aria teased Casey at that point and said his name meant something goofy and Casey responded by saying, "I think Ashley means, pathetic." I had to giggle at that one.

Now we're all doing our own thing again, but the nice thing is that even though our schooling day is over I know they haven't stop learning. They are reading, typing, figuring out strategies, learning social intricacies, and a host of other things I can't see.