In which a routine is loosely established

In my inexperienced opinion, we are doing great. It's my first time in a homeschool environment, and I'm teaching an almost 4 year old and a 5 1/2 year old with an 18 month old running circles and jumping off the furniture.

It gets a little crazy around here.

According to my lesson planner, Zachary is a day ahead and Gracie is a day behind. I'm not worried about it though, because my goal is to introduce Gracie to all the letters, and if that means we are off schedule a bit but she is solid on them, I'm fine with that.

We (that would be me and the mouse in my pocket) (my teacher's assistant) have discovered that she does love the Have Fun Teaching video series on the YouTube.

(I am sorry, really. Chris's blessed grandma called it "the YouTube" once and we laughed so hard over it - and now we are stuck saying it. Welcome to the workings of my mind.)

Anyhoo.  Apparently there's a whole website for Have Fun Teaching, and while I haven't done all of my homework on the whole Common Core issue, I don't think there is anything wrong with using resources that relate to both our homeschooling purposes and also align to CC. Feel free to email me your diatribe on the subject.

Zachary is loving learning how to read. This makes me fifty kinds of happy. My childhood was spent with my nose in a book, and I do not apologize for being a bookworm.

So once we get going in the mornings, which is mostly the kids dragging me from the slumber they keep me from in the night, we are able to get through our work in about 2 hours currently. I have determined that I don't work well if the house is a disaster, because instead of being focused on their schoolwork I am wandering the house in my mind thinking of what needs to be done first.  So directly after breakfast is house clean up time, getting dressed, etc, and then we can dive into schoolwork.  If that takes all morning and we don't get to school until after lunch, even better, because then Gabriel goes down for a solid nap and we have plenty of time for school AND extended craft time.

I'm looking forward to the day that Zach can work more independently, but I am pleased with his progress so far. I'm also thrilled with how easy they are learning their Virtues, and how applicable they are to every day life. We have gotten through diligent, helpful, perseverant, gentle, content, and currently in attentive, which seems to be sticking the best so far. Maybe because they are able to immediately put it into practice, thank the Good Lord above.