Thursday, May 25, 2006

So far, sort of so good

Our first school day this week was Tuesday. I kept the 3 middle kids on the 'schedule' and the 9yo commented that she liked having it all set up that way. (Maybe her mom having to send her to school next year might not work out too horribly after all?) The oldest had other plans, which was fine by me--my goal in having the schedule was to provide structure so that they would work. If she's setting up her own work, I'm not going to have her do something different.

Yesterday, though, we didn't follow the schedule. The two oldest were tired, I was tired, it was gloomy and rainy and Wednesday--for some reason, Wednesdays are our hump days this year. The previous two years it was always Fridays that were much more relaxed. Anyhow, after silent reading time, I read to them a little, then the three middle ones did some math, then I read to them again while they played Lego.

Today is wet and gloomy again, but I'm going to implement the schedule. Start off with Writers' Workshop, then math, then more individually-focused work (some will have reading to work on, others cursive, etc.) I'm not totally comfortable with this set up, because I really do like things to be more "Montessori", but with our year-end review coming up next week and some testing the week after that, I just feel the pressure of getting certain things done. After that, things can be more Montessori-style.

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