week alone

So the week before last my husband had to head off to New York state to do course work towards ordination, and it was a hard slog for us at home.  A five year old, a three year old, a one year old, and little ole' me.  Needless to say, home schooling took a bit of a back burner for the week.  We did read some of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and a fantastic little book called Maybe Later and we did some art study, which we're all LOVING.  Here's how we do it:  I have a big coffee table book of full colour works of art and a little bit of info about the artist.  We pick one and then the children work with watercolours to reproduce it while we talk about it.  We might discuss what different colours there are, or aspects of the picture or what it depicts.  I bought good quality brushes at the beginning of the school year, and lovely art books and I don't regret it, but I stuck with just your basic set of children's watercolours and that has also worked well.  When we're done this set I might upgrade us to the set with more colour options but I don't think I'm going to worry about getting a better brand.  Sometimes while we work we listen to music - this is when I like to play a piece of classical music that they otherwise wouldn't sit and listen to.  Again, I'm thinking next year I might combine seatwork with an audiobook such as Story of the World.  Lots of options here.

I don't remember if I mentioned that we have backed off of intentional reading practice with the boy.  He's clearly ready for something, but I just would feel so much better if he had a completely firm grasp of the alphabet first.  And surprisingly enough as soon as we stopped working on it suddenly he's progressed wonderfully.  Ah, the relaxed approach.

We also hung up our wall map that we just got and spent a lot of time looking at it.

Anyway, the week was long and the weather was not very good so we were stuck inside a lot.  I had borrowed or bought a whole bunch of movies for the children because I was anticipating needing some help but we discovered that the boy is really sensitive right now.  Practically every movie was too scary or too sad so we ended up just watching the Andy Griffith show.

And when daddy came home there was great excitement.