Getting Back in the Homeschooling Game

1. Finishing the essay - Esme has been working on an essay about our Brownie trip to New York for what seems like forever. She has a writing folder to help her stay organized, but this morning she couldn't find a couple pages of the rough draft. O..M..G. I did not kill her though, I just insisted she find it, which she eventually did.

2. I have to mail our assessment/intention letter today - I combined them into one long letter this year, and it makes more sense to me that way.

3. Staying organized is a challenge for ALL of the members of our family - I have to sort a huge pile of independent work for her into categories, folders, etc.

4. We are going to our first 4H meeting today - not an official meeting, but a picnic to meet the other people she'll be working with this year. The theme of this group is Science, which is her very favorite subject.

5. We are going to give her a year to really challenge herself and grow this year - if she was in public school she would be in *third grade,* which is the first really challenging year for many kids.

I'm on vacation - Esme isn't!

Although she doesn't have a book of the week, Esme is working hard. She's doing her phonics lessons, learning math tables, and playing the the envelope games I've set up for her.

I went through the MA Standards, which is what we've been using as a guide this year, and am happy to say that we have hit almost all of them! I thought I'd be overwhelmed by what we have left but I was pleasantly surprised to learn the only thing we haven't touched on is measuring. We got a balance and weights this week and she'll be using them next week!

Two Goals Surpassed!!

We are so proud of our little girl. The kindergarten goal is for her to count to 20 by ones, and Esme can officially count to 40. Another goal is for her to know 20 words by sight by the end of the year. We are about halfway through the year and are happy that she is already up to 14.

Coming up with have some challenging work. Esme will have to learn to count to 50 by fives and tens, she'll do more writing, and she'll learn her very first fractions. Also, we're hoping to get more involved with some other homeschoolers and possibly even hold a lesson for a larger group at our home.

Ethan has done wonderfully with homeschooling while I've been working full time these past three months. I've done the lesson plans and he's done ALL the lessons! I'm looking forward to helping him with that aspect of homeschooling again.

Esme can count to 30!

We've surpassed our first kindergarten goal. Before we started homeschooling Esme could count to 10 or 12. The kindergarten goal is to count to 20. Since we decided to do most of our counting practice at calendar time, we decided to go for 30. I am so proud of her!