School has now become a Reward--Wow!

Um, yeah, my brilliant children have decided that school is now fun and a reward for cleaning up their toys and listening!!

See, we took a break from "formal learning" in April after going pretty much non-stop for 2 1/2 years. We still read books together and had discussions about things, but no workbooks or lapbooks or formal anything. It was good, too, because I had been starting to get a little bit of pushback. They wanted to play and groaned a bit, and that is not what I wanted.

Well they are over that, now! It started Thursday night during the Saints game. Jordan brought down her History and Science binders (His Story--America's History and Wonderfully Made) that we put their work in, along with her workbooks for Math and Language Arts. She laid them out on the sofa between me and my husband and said, "Okay, I'm ready to learn and do school."

I said, "Great! That sounds fun." And I turned back to the game.

Apparently, what she wanted was for me to teach her. . . in the middle of the Saints kicking Viking butt. Not gonna happen! As much as I love their desire to learn and what to fan the flame of loving to learn, I have my limits and in the middle of a Saints game at 7pm is one of them. :-)

But this week, when we got back from Mississippi, we started school. The mornings have been best for me to get my writing done, and they get to play outside or upstairs. After lunch, I walk on our newly bought treadmill (loving it!) while they do water colors or art projects. BUT after that, if they clean up their mess while I shower, we GET to do school! And that makes them all excited!! They start busting butt to clean up so we can get school in! I used to have to bribe with a dum-dum sucker but I like this approach much better, ha!

So everyday we have been sitting on the coach and all working together. Cali is working through Language Lessons for Little Ones 2 and Critical Thinking Press Math Reasoning A. Jordan is working through Critical Thinking Press Language Lessons first grade and Math Reasoning B.

Both their language lessons are review for them mainly. Cali made a huge leap on her own this summer in teaching herself to read, so she is kinda beyond these lessons now, but I think it is good to reinforce what she knows and to let her see how far she has come. These lessons go really quickly. And for Jordan, even though she is on a 3rd grade level, I got the first grade level on purpose to make sure we lay a good foundation. And the way they present the material is fun and engaging so she doesn't mind. Math for both of them has been surprising--since we took so many months away from adding and subtracting, as well as the thinking skills they present in these books, I thought it would be slow going at first. But they picked up right where they left off.

What is working well is that we sit on the sofa and take turns--one day I start with Cali's language arts, then we do Jordan's, then Cali's Math, then Jordan's. I used to think I had to keep them occupied while the other did her work, but it has been amazing to see them be as engaged watching their sister to their work. Cali is seeing advanced concepts--and picking many of them up!--and Jordan is getting review and also being a good role model for her sister.

And then, if they do all that well, they get super excited because then they get to choose what two page spread in the Science Encyclopedia we read for the day. They are still obsessed with the Human Body so we are going through that one . . . again.

In family news, we spent the weekend in Mississippi and loved it. Their house is smack dab in the middle of a zillion acres and all I saw was green everywhere. I read two books (Return to Paradise by Simone Elkeles and The Duff by Kody Keplinger), worked on my outline for my manuscript, had MANY wonderful talks, and had MANY amazing meals.

On The Ending Unplanned, this week I reviewed The Duff and I shared how my current project is going. There is also a link to one of Cali's favorite songs of my story soundtrack, Mean Girls by Sugarland.

Have a wonderful weekend!