School Days

Tuesday around lunchtime Governess

We started school back up yesterday after a 5 week break (it was scheduled to be a 3-week break, but I ended the last term at 5 weeks because I had no brain power or emotional energy to do school, then Knox postponed his arrival until the end of my planned post-partum week, so I took another week for post-partum recovery and we’ll have another 5-week term).

Hans now has independent work he does on his own and then shows to me afterward, including reading that he narrates back to me. I’ve started him just reading one Aesops and one short early-reader geography book that he has to retell to me. On Monday he mixed up the details of Aesops and only remembered 1/3 of it, so I narrated it to him to show him what I meant. Today he was able to narrate the full story on his own. No longer will I tolerate him telling me, as he has been, that “I don’t remember; I just threw that in the garbage of my brain.” He’s got to start hitting the ’save’ button. :)

In even more exciting news, Jaeger sounded out his first words today! “Sat,” “at,” and “last.” Hans just started reading more in spite of me rather because of instruction; I’m not even sure how he did it. Jaeger doesn’t have that natural bent, but he has more determination and work ethic than did Hans, who didn’t want to read what didn’t come easily to him. Jaeger knows most of the letter sounds, though he’s sketchy on the vowels still, and he can blend, and understands how reading works, but he has to concentrate and try hard to do it. So it’ll take him some work, but he’s ready and willing to put up the effort. We’ll be using TATRAS more according to direction this time around, I think. :)