Week One in Review

We just finished our first week of school. I'm tired, but I think it's more from the humidity than the schooling. (Can I get an "amen" from the heat-haters out there??) We had a great time and Matthew just loves it! I can't believe how much a little structure to the day has changed everything around here. The boys seem to be doing very well with it all, although they have been playing pretend alot more. One of the books I'm reading says that children play more when they have a new experience, giving them time to process everything. That's certainly true around here. I don't think Matthew lasted more than ten minutes with anything he was pretending two days ago. Everytime I turned around, he was something else. Pretending to be a turtle lasted the longest and he and Ben had to hang up their shells before bedtime. :)

Anyway, here are some of the things we did this week: Matthew has been working on his writing. He has Rob's amazing memory, so he had already learned to identify letters earlier in the summer. Now we're taking that up a level and trying to write them. He does pretty good at free-handing the letters, but I'm trying to get him to write them in a line. I have some tracing pages for him and he likes to work on them. It's getting better, I must say, quicker than I expected. He just loves doing it!

The kids both dictated an experience story this week about a family member. Rob took Ben into the living room and I took Matthew. Here are the stories:

Matthew: When Anna was a little, itty bitty baby, she spit up on me when I fed her. And then we washed my hands off. And then we put my pajamas on. Then, um, we went back downstairs with Benjamin, too.

Ben: Anna, well, Jesus Christ is holding her. Well, keys, Anna's keys, well (are you writing) she likes playing with her keys but she doesn't even lick them.

We've been reading the books off the list in my cirriculum guide and I have found the need to preview them. For example, we were reading "Little Red Riding Hood" and I didn't realize it was the original version, where she gets eaten by the wolf and the story ends. Matthew's expression at the end was priceless! My favorite book was "My Mother is the Most Beautiful Woman in the World."

In the afternoons, Matthew and I have been reviewing his three-year-old Brain Quest. He's ready for the next level for sure, especially since he memorizes things so quickly. Anyway, there was a picture of a telephone and the question was: What do you say when the phone rings? Matthew said, "Litwillers!" I'm still chuckling.....

We've played some Zingo as well, a great Discovery Toys game that I heartily recommend. Both boys can play it and they have a blast. Well, at least they usually do. Matthew got beat in three straight games, two by Mommy and one by Ben and then he said, "I don't like this because I keep not winning!"

All in all, we're having a great time. Matthew is disappointed that we aren't having school tomorrow, but he does have a great art project: painting his desk. Today Rob took the boys to Ace Hardware and had orange paint made (counts as a field trip, right?) and they are going to paint a desk that was given to us. It was blue and kind of yicky looking and Rob was trying to strip it and refinish it, but there are so many layers of paint on it that he thought he'd add one more instead. The boys are eager to begin painting. I may need to charge the camera batteries and get this experience on film...tee-hee....

And let's not forgot Miss Anna! She has found her feet and likes to eat them. She has learned that she likes to suck on animal crackers (blame Daddy for that one). And, she has outgrown both her bouncy seat and the swing. What a chunk!

I asked Matthew what he likes about school and he started to name the various things we've done this week, then he said, "Oh, I don't know. I just like it all!" Me, too!