Holiday Homeschool, Eggs and Solar

Amie plants her onion sign

Our latest guests have left and Amie and I have settled back into the-two-of-us routine. What with all the commotion of guests and visitors and extended playdates we have seriously slacked off on our “schooling”. August, I’ve decided, will see some school every morning.

Amie so far has been enthusiastic. I am careful not to force anything. I try to make it into a game and help her stay concentrated, but the moment she becomes reluctant I leave the rest of the “lesson” up to her. So far we have been doing:

• 1/2 hour of math: Amie’s grandmother brought some neat math books from Malaysia, we’ve been doing two or three pages a day. Amie can write all her numbers, and addition under 10 is too easy now, so we’ve moved on beyond that – yesterday she had such a thrill when she read 23 as twenty-three. We’re now working on recognizing and counting in batches of 10 (10, 20, 30) and today I introduced subtraction under 10.
• 1/2 hour of reading/writing: Amie can almost read three-letter words without sounding out the letters and is getting more fluent by the day. She can also sight-read “the,” “and,” etc. I read a BOB Book, she reads one – our box will be finished soon, and they’re simply too expensive, so I’ll be making some myself (and making them available here, of course!).  She can write all her letters and every day we write a story, or pretend to, at least. This is aside from storybook reading, which happens on and off during the day.
• 1/2 hour of nature study, in nature: that comes easily, in the vegetable garden and buckwheat field, with the new seedlings, at the bird feeder and on walks in the neighborhood.

Amie harvests green beans

• 1/2 hour of art/craft: there is always something being drawn or painted or glued, but these days I make it a point to sit next to her at her desk with her and draw too. We used to do that so often but somehow lost the habit – and maybe it shows: she hasn’t made big leaps in drawing lately. Time to revive it!
• I should also involve Amie in food preparation and preservation. Those are definitely skills I would like her to pick up early.

I had a great moment of hope when Amie decided she “really, really” likes eggs. The dream of having a couple of chickens was instantly revived… Two bites  later her new-found love of eggs had already disappeared. I told her we would only get chickens if she also eats eggs, and she said she would try again.

Today a solar specialist came by with the SunEye (neat toy!) to see if our site has good potential for a solar water heater. He praised our roof – its condition and orientation (a little bit South-West) – but told us what we already know, that many more trees will have to go before a solar water system becomes viable. Knowing his ball park figure (around $10,000) and the price of tree removal…