Homeschooling Update

Art Class!

Much like last year, this year has continued to be full of challenges. ZigZag may be the child of ours who lives up to his online name the closest. When I am on page 5 with him, he is on page 3.5. When I ask him, "How many days..." He answers 'blue'. For the past two years we have been saying to him next week we are going to... Immediately he shouts out an excited, "NOW?!!" Well, we are getting to the root of it. He has no concept of days, weeks, month and years. Things my bios had a firm grasp of before Kindergarten have been like pulling teeth with ZigZag. He has led me to knew levels - it has crossed my mind several times to look up is he is too young to send to boarding school in the capital! That is when it is great that God gave me El Padre to settle me and say, "We knew it was going to be difficult when we started, and we promised to do our best and deal with it!"

If I am honest, our math curriculum is a challenging math curriculum. Also, poor kid, I am a math teacher and I expect a lot! We started 1st grade with 22 days of review in math (for those who didn't do the K math curriculum). Honestly it was a wonderful time. 1.) He was successful in math. 2.) He had retained teaching from last year. 3.) It encouraged the teacher that we were getting somewhere. I honestly thought, If we give him the base in math, it will all come together. But Lesson 23 started hours spent on one math lesson. Can you imagine everyone's fragile state at the end of that? A lot of it comes down to problem solving, using tools available to solve problems and ESL. 

Zig-Zag is a natural in geometry.

It wasn't until this year that I realized even after 2.5 years in our home he still doesn't understand a lot of things. One problem is that he is not a naturally good listener. I don't know if it is good or bad, but he is a good guesser / follower without understanding. So many people say to me in conversation, wow, he has learned English so very fast. If we were to talk to him or listen to him talking, it seems like he is completely fluent. I now have a new appreciation for ESL learners in the schools who are trying to take the standardized tests. I have nightmares of when we might give him his first spelling test or standardized test! But after 2.5 years with intense, almost one-on-one instruction and much reading and direction, he really struggles with understanding questions - how, when, what, how many... Furthermore, if we read aloud a chapter book, I am only now beginning to realize how little of the chapter books he is understanding. I can only imagine what his understanding would be like in a classroom situation where he would be looking at the other children far more than listening to the teacher. I am so grateful for this time to be able to 'catch' his learning up in a homeschool setting where he can receive the individual attention he needs at this time.

So there have been frustrations, but in general this year we are studying the Proverbs, US history, and history from Creation to the Greeks- and we are loving all our reading and curriculum. I am amazed at how much the children learn each day. When I reflect on it, I am also very grateful that I have time to talk to them about the wisdom of the Proverbs and Habits to apply to our lives within their school day. All of them have come so far and I look forward to the people they are becoming.

-- La Maestra