Yesterday was our first day back at 'school'. I decided to take an extra week off 'just for the sake of it'. It was a bad idea, by Tuesday the kids were already turning my hair a darker shade of grey. By Wednesday they had nearly killed each other. By Thursday I had nearly killed all of them. By Friday I had a bad headache.
Anyway, First day using the Heart Of Dakota "Preparing Hearts For His Glory" with Ben (9). Thankfully I had a wonderful brainwave idea during the final week of holidays (well something good had to come of it) and decided to use our 16 year old daughter to teach Ethan 5 and Leah 4 using Heart Of Dakota "Little Hands To Heaven". To be honest with you I didn't know how I was going to combine the two without having another nervous breakdown. I take my hat off to anyone who can juggle the education of four children at the same time (including a mischievous 20 month old wandering around aimlessly without supervision), personally it has never been something that I am good at. Little Hands To Heaven only takes about an hour.......if that .....but with all the other things in my day it was just looking too hard.
So, having got 20month old off for a morning sleep I took Ben into the Lounge room, shut the door and opened the first page. By that stage it was 11.00 a.m, a late start but I spent way too long on the internet searching for a pink Christmas tree (that is a whole other story and one that I won't bore you with right now, Steve thinks it is the worst idea I have had since buying a toy poodle, or even a giant 7ft giraffe for the lounge room) We read the first chapter of "Grandpa's Box" and did an oral narration which was great. I'm always worried that Ben isn't absorbing the book because he spends so much time grunting, blinking and snorting (three of his very bad habits at the moment!) Then Ben had to look up information on "Coat Of Arms" which he happily did and reported back to me in an appropriate manner! We then had to cut out a shield shape and he had to talk to me about symbols of the Christian faith (cross, fish, dove etc) so he decided he wanted his shield to have four squares with the fish symbol and a giant cross in the centre. He has to paint the shield today so that was good because all over it wasn't very time consuming. He then had to do some drawing using the 'Draw And Write Through History" book which, to my utter amazement, was VERY good! After that he had to read Psalm (can't remember which one!) and that is his memory verse for the week (Even mum can't remember it!!!) For Science we read "One Small Square.......The Tundra" and he had to do some copywork from the chapter and also draw the map of the Tundra (Or Trace It). Our English component is "English for the thoughtful child" Which I thought after should be called "English for the lazy mother who hasn't got more time in the day for more extensive programs".I love it! That was all we ended up doing. By that stage we had broken up for an hours lunch, resuming at 1.00p.m, by then it was 2.00p.m and I wanted to go shopping and continue my search for a pink Christmas tree (glad to see that my priorities are right) I found a white christmas tree, a purple christmas tree, an upside down christmas tree and even a black christmas tree but no pink...............
I thought this morning that even if I did half the amount of work in the Heart Of Dakota program and it took two years then that would be FINE! Ben does a lot of self learning. He is always picking up books that I sneakily place around the house and giving me oral feedback on them! He loves watching "Animal Planet" and "The History Chanel" so this kid is never going to starve for education.
Yes, I'd rate it pretty well so far! but then again we still have 364 days left to go..........