And so the school year begins… fuh realz.  We are on roughly day 6 of having a daily public school class for the BigGuy and Girly is lagging behind.  Notsomuch in academics but just in “having things to do”.  So that is my next great endeavor… What to do with Girly?

I did purchase the Cornell Ornithology’s BirdSleuth curriculum for my Girly this year to feed her not-yet-dead desire to learn about birds.  I just found it today after seeing that UPS delivered it 14 days ago.  Apparently, BigGuy put it in the abyss that is our home office.  As I went to pick up some books on hold yesterday, I noticed that our library was selling off books at 10¢ each and grabbed easily 8 books about specific birds to compliment our studies.  Oh, and some Ethiopian and Native American folk tales for when we do world cultures. 😉

She is becoming better at sounding things out so I think we’re going to level up on what shows she watches.  I need to see if Electric Company and Word World will be enough for her.  Word World will be a definite because it’s making some comprehension connections she needs; but we need something that introduces more complex things like digraphs and two-vowel sounds if I can find it.  I’m not stressing too much about that yet.  I will also be browsing PBS Classroom Resources for her.

We’ll also attempt Rosetta Stone – Spanish with her this year, but I think we will first start with the DVDs Hola Amigos first… maybe doing those in the fall and Rosetta Stone in the spring.  I’m going to watch the DVDs with her because the whole family needs to transition to Spanish.  BigGuy is already a good chunk of the way through year 1 of Rosetta Stone’s Spanish.  He needs to be using it more, but I could say the same of his French (where he is a good chunk of the way through year 2).

We are reading Life of Fred starting with “Apples”.  That’s math, y’all.  We’ll see how it goes.  She needs to learn to tell time if nothing else because she’s making me crazy with asking what time it is ALL. OF. THE. TIME.  She says she wants to learn math, though.  I haven’t asked her what that actually MEANS.

Last but not least, I will try to follow the Tapestry of Grace – Year 2 literature for her age level and see how THAT goes.  If not the actual “assigned” books, then at least we will follow the themes and I will make better use of the librarian’s ability to find stories for me around specific themes.

What I actually need to do is look at BigGuy’s schedule and literally schedule time to spend with Girly.  Because I seem to fall into a habit of getting stuff done when BigGuy is occupied with classes and really, that should be time with Girly.  I need to lay out my week so that it’s a little more organized and these other things find places to get done.  I think I “steal” time wherever I can find it because I don’t know when I WILL get it done.  I’ve done this with my work, too, so I’m familiar with the problem and I can recognize it.  Thankfully, that means I also know how to address it.

That’s tomorrow’s great task.