Our Mornings

Confession. I am not a morning person. I despise mornings. I stay in bed until the very last possible second and then add another minute or two. I just don't DO mornings.

This does cause some issues in our day and our routine. On the rare occasion I am up at dawn I feel we get so much more accomplished in our home. But I just don't have the motovation to get up until I absolutely have to.

Thus we've create some uber simple morning routines in our home to allow me the extra time I need to wake up while drinking my coffee before I can jump into "Mom" mode and handle the day.

First, we write.




Now Doodle is getting better about writing, but he is still hesitant. So for Doodle all I want to see him do is trace the letters as above. No real need to push him to do anything else, although he is encouraged to write them on his own if he feels like it.

MissyMae, however, is ore advanced on her handwriting and so she is asked to both trace and write her own letters on her mat.




MissyLou is given a mat and a marker and allowed to do whatever she feels like.



After writing and eating, I have dishes to do. And the kids aren't quite ready to leave the kitchen. So we transition into a sequencing activity. This day we did the ABCs.




We have regular flashcards for letters and numbers as well as a few other home-made options that help the kids learn how to put things in order and think about placement. MissyMae is by far the better sequencer, but the other two help as much as they can.



And just about the time that they finish, my coffee is gone, the dishes are done, and we're ready to get dressed and clean for the rest of the day.

It's OK

I have to tell myself that often.

It's OK ...

that my house does not look like the cover of Martha Stewart Living.
that I forgot to shower today. And yesterday.
that I don't have life figured out.
Or that I still have yet to finish X or Y or Z ...

I am seeking contentment in my life. In my home. In the people I love and live with.

I want to be able to be proud of my home, which is difficult at the moment. Three young kids, two dogs, two cats, and a husband who works 9 - 5 leaves me the responsibility of caring for the house, kids, and pets and running a business. It's seems my work so often comes last on the list of my responsibilities but in truthfulness my work is the reason I am able to be home to care for the kids and house and pets. Without my photography, I would be in a 9 - 5 career path lacking the flexibility of being available to the kids. Contentment.

I don't have the bank account to buy the furniture I want. Instead, I have the time to spend at home to teach our kids the morals, values, and education we feel important.

Contentment.

And authenticity. We are busy. Life is hectic. We are rarely home and our TV collects dust. My house should work for us. It should work to minimize our work inside the home and make it easy to keep tidy during the days.

As I focus this week on purging items from our house which are extra, unnecessary or just unwanted, I am trying to keep focused on the thought of reaching authenticity in our home set up. And finding contentment with what we DO have.

Where have I been?

Living.

Thoughts to share -

Being active is important to us. Especially since so many kids are overweight, and with Doodle being a boy, the husband and I feel is so vital to introduce Doodle to appropriate physical play outlets for his energy and to get exercise. We have found our local YMCA offers 8 week "seasons" for sports and this is perfect for us and Doodle's attention span. We keep him rotating through 4 different sports during the year and he loves it.

Doodle is reading CVC words easily. We've not spent much time on sight words yet, focusing more on phonics, but we have started to examine where to bring in sight words in a fun, stress free way that encourages learning by play rather than learning by command. I am thinking some type of Bingo style game would be best at this point.

Math is centered on learning the "teen" number family. We're getting there. Doodle and MissyMae are both learning to understand that 19 is not just a 1 and a 9, it's a whole nother number. I believe reading has helped them understand the concept.

Science is whatever nature activities we happen to stumble into. Not stressing on it. Doodle asks lots of questions, and we try to answer them best we can.

More and more we feel that homeschooling is right for us. We've also located a few co-ops where kids can attend classes in a building two days a week so there is still some teacher lead instruction, but they're not being faced with peer pressures and introduced to peer culture before WE feel our kids need to be. I love the idea. Most places appear to be about $350 a month which works out to be the same cost of Doodle's daycare. This is something we are seriously considering. I have long felt one of my major issues with public school is the number of hours a week the kids are in desks away from home. Having my child in a desk two days a week is reasonable to me. Even three days a week I can get behind. I just can't see how a kindergartener or early elementary needs 5 full days a week to teach some of these basic learning ideas.

Off soap box.

For phonics we stumbled on this wonderful book : http://www.homeschoolingsupply.com/carson-dellosa/language-cd-104290.htm

Doodle loves it. It's put together in a test format that allows Doodle to quiz himself with minimal parental direction. It's become our perfect dinner time distraction.

Our days now look like this

Morning, pre breakfast, Doodle does handwriting which is just a simple ABC tracer page right now.

After breakfast is clean up, dressed, and play time. Generally around 10 we transition into logic play with puzzles and games, and before lunch we're back at the table working on worksheets. Some I print off the internet, some are from workbooks we've collected. Most of what we do in the mornings does not take a lot of "teaching" from me. The kids pick it up easily once I've read the instructions. We also listen to some CDs I've found which have "circle time" style songs, days of the week, months of the year, etc.

After lunch I usually encourage some free play time while I clean. It is at this time I will find myself sitting down with Doodle and we'll do some math on the computer or work on something new, read a book, focused learning is how I would describe it. Learning that takes a lot of my direction to explain and teach it. Again, at Doodle's age we only work in 15 - 20 minute spurts throughout the day because of his attention span.

Quiet time comes whenever Doodle is fussing over having to focus and I don't push him. Some days we only work for 5 minutes, others we'll get nearly 30 solid minutes.

After quiet time is more free play, some general picking up, dinner prep and we'll pull out the phonics book at this time. Or do a craft or coloring activity.

Since relaxing my approaching to Doodle's learning he has actually picked up in his interest. The less I made charts and lesson plans, the more I just had the next lesson ready to go and waited for Doodle to ask for it, the easier things have gone.