The theme of this week was getting ready for co-op to start at my house. It was supposed to be exciting not-back-to-5th-grade time and start-preschool-for-Ava time but mostly it was let's-try-to-do-anything-plus-co-op time.
Hmmm. That sounds like perfectionism. Instead of reading Swiss Family Robinson every day this week, we only read once. Instead of completing all the writing, history, science and geography projects I had planned, we only did about 60%. In an entire week, we had one awesome morning at home, one good co-op morning, some more sporadic school work, and a whole lot of other kinds of work.
This week Noelle worked hard on her school work, when I was available and had work ready for her. But she also helped me so much. She cleaned without complaint, asking again and again what she could do next. (Well, maybe thinking she would get paid for some of the work helped, but still...) She watched Ava several times so I could either clean, shop, plan, prepare or just drop dead for a few minutes. Mel and I worked really hard to complete some home improvement projects before co-op started, and I did so much other stuff I can't even remember it all now. If homeschool is about learning at home, then what did we both learn from all of this?
Even though we didn't do as much as I had planned, our academic learning included the following: we learned about coconuts from Swiss Family Robinson, worked on some multiplication facts and how to find the area of a rectangle, learned about atoms and molecules and matter and mass, talked about country/state/city/capital categories and Washington DC, started Rosetta Stone for Spanish and absolutely loved it, learned some word processing skills, practiced brainstorming and generating quality ideas for writing, achieved 100% on a spelling test, began reading On the Banks of Plum Creek, found Israel on a map, and learned that Bald Eagles eat lambs and piglets.
Upon reflection, I believe we also learned life lessons about service, sacrifice, hard work, procrastination, teamwork, housework, flexibility, patience, forgiveness and gratitude. And I would argue that those kinds of lessons are worth more in the long run than coconuts and piglets.
Not a bad start to the new school year.
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| Noelle with her newly made September calendar and a present from Mom |
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| Ava tells the story of the 3 Little Pigs |
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| First day of co-op: Noelle's class |
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| First day of co-op: Ava's class |
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| Whew! |
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