A Healer’s Geste

Kindergarten Update

Andrea asked me the other day when our next term break week was. I replied, “Well, I figure you have to have a term before you can have a term break.”

Of course, that’s not to say there haven’t been off weeks. Actually, it’s more to say there haven’t been on-weeks.

We have been having “couch school,” as Hans has named it, 3-4 times a week. We read aloud a Bible story, a few pages from A Child’s Garden of Verses, a few pages from a Mother Goose book (whichever one I have out from the library), and a story from a fairy tale book (whichever one I have out from the library). Sometimes we add a science-related story book (I really like the “Let’s-Read-and-Find-Out” books I’ve checked out of the library so far) or an alphabet book. Then I’ll do a little phonics with Jaeger if he wants to (because he’s got to be just like Hans, you know. He is learning a is /a/ /ay/ /aw/ because learning letter names isn’t close enough for him to what Hans is doing). Then Hans does phonics/reading. He’s learned c is “/k/ /s/, /s/ before e, i, or y” and g is “/g/ /j/, /j/ before e, i, or y” and is now learning ‘ou,’ ‘ow,’ ‘ar,’ ‘er,’ ‘wh,’ ‘ng,’ and ‘ch.’ He’s read all the Bob Books (our set has 18 books) and I have a pile of level pre-1 and 1 readers from the library. So after phonics drill (about 1-2 minutes), he chooses something to read. He rarely chooses the reading words from the book, so sometimes I say that he’s going to read those or nothing, and then he’ll choose nothing. But the next day he’ll choose the word list rather than nothing. :) Because I can tell that he is sounding words out and not memorizing them, and because he’s figuring out how to sound out long words on his own (the other day, he saw the word ‘employee’ on a sign and, without making any audible noise, a minute later said, “Mom, that sign said em-plaw-YEE, what’s an em-plaw-YEE?) I’m not too concerned about using the phonics book’s word lists.

A while ago Hans noticed me reading a book and asked, “Mom, why are you being quiet?” And, because I was reading, I answered without really paying attention: “Because I’m reading.” “But, Mom,” he probed, “how can you read without anyone hearing you?” Smile, “Well, you wouldn’t be interested in this book, so I am reading it in my mind.”

Now, of course, he curls up into a chair and announces that he is reading in his mind. And, the thing is, he actually is. He will look at a sentence, making no audible noise, and then tell me what the sentence says.

How nice to have an easy, quick reader! I’m trying to remind myself that it won’t always be this easy. :)

So, we are regularly doing about half of what I had planned for our school year to hold, and we are accomplishing it in a much more relaxed manner than I had imagined.

I gave up math a couple weeks ago because I didn’t feel like pushing him. He could get addition after patient instruction and practice for several weeks or we could cover it quickly and easily next year. He’s been introduced to the concepts, I’ve learned how the program works and the language it uses to describe things so I can lead him toward “reading” numbers (which I couldn’t before), and I’ve figured out the program and thought of a few different methods of implementations. So I think we’ll add math back in after Christmas and see how it goes, but not get serious about it until first grade.

We’re not doing copywork or drawing or art or nature study or picture study. Copywork will reenter in January, but Hans is writing words he thinks of “in his brain” (his words) on his pictures. I have noticed that since we stopped copywork and I’ve left him to himself in this area, he has begun reversing ‘D,’ ‘d,’ and ‘J,’ which he never did before, so I do need to get back onto the copywork bandwagon. Hans enjoys drawing and likes to copy things. So instead of trying to do “Drawing with Children” with him as lessons, I checked out a few children’s drawing books from the library that show how to put shapes together to draw things. He loves those and follows the step-by-step instructions. I read into and did attempt both nature study and picture study earlier in the year. I decided both are good things after reading about it skeptically, and I found both were doable. However, it’s on the same plane as crafts for me. It doesn’t come easily to me, it takes double the effort for me to pull it off as it takes “nature-y” or “crafty” people, and while it’s a good thing, it isn’t a necessary thing. So it’s all dropped as unnecessary at this point. We will do a garden again next year and that will be nature study. If it’s just reading books, I can do that, so I’m going to be checking out the books Andrea discovered for picture study.

The saddest thing we have dropped the ball on is memory work. For some reason, it became more and more stressful for Hans. I tried several different things to help him out, but the stress only grew. With Matt gone none of us is handling stress well, so I eliminated the memory work. I even gave into the requests for books on CD at naptime, so they haven’t even listened to their Quiet Time CD of memory work for at least 6 weeks and they couldn’t even quickly and easily tell my dad “what else God made” when he was refilling his Sunday School “candy for catechism” jar when we were over once. So we are back to the QTCD, and I also finally got around to updating our car CD player. It holds 6 CDs, so right now I have a memory work CD, a hymns CD, the math facts CD that came with our program, the piano practice CD that came with the piano program, and lastly the latest Andrew Peterson CD is in there for me. The boys have been petitioning against the memory work CD at quiet time, but them clamor FOR it in the car. Go figure. One way or another. :) I think the car playlist will become part of my school planning!