It's been a very long time since I've posted about what we've been up to. And even longer since I've posted pictures of the girls. I love to take photos of my girls, but I'm in a photography rut right now, I think. Currently, it's chore instead of a hobby. I need to fix my attitude.
Anyway, here's a run-down of what we've been up to, and maybe there will be pictures added later if I can get my act together. I usually start with Lucy, but I'll start with Amy today. Being stuck in the middle means you never really get to be first for anything.
Amy
Amy is so much fun. She lives in the moment. She's still a very "busy" girl, but she always has a sunny outlook and never stays upset for long. She loves school, and has many friends in her class. She also adores her teacher, and I think the feeling is mutual. Amy is a fantastic reader, and she's a math whiz. When she has math homework that should take about 15 minutes to do, she whips it out (100% correct, I might add) in about 4 or 5 minutes. And she knows her math facts like the back of her hand.
She tells me she wants to be homeschooled for 2nd grade and go back to school for 3rd grade. Although the prospect of homeschooling her doesn't intimidate me, I'm not sure how I feel about the potential on-again/off-again relationship with the public school because although I found a curriculum I really love (more on that later), it doesn't match the education offered in school. So, at this point, I don't know. I'll just have to do a lot of thinking and praying about it before I decide. In the meantime, I am making an extra effort to spend some special time just with Amy, since she's the one I see the least. And I really miss her sometimes.
Amy did inform me the other day that she "wanted to go to culinary school so that someday I can be on 'Cupcake Wars'." She already loves to cook, and I think she would be an amazing chef!
Sadie
Sadie is still mostly enjoying preschool. There's another girl in there who can be quite bossy, and Sadie does not respond well to that at all. She was preoccupied about it over the weekend, and I told her that it would be okay to tell this other girl, "Thank you, but I can handle myself." When I picked her up yesterday, she told me she couldn't remember what I told her she could say. I reminded her, but she woke up this morning with a "tummy ache" and didn't want to go to school. She seems to be feeling well enough to eat breakfast and run around, so I think her stomach pain is more from anxiety than bacteria.
As far as life outside of preschool, Sadie has lately enjoyed "doing crafts". Her favorite thing is stringing beads for necklaces and bracelets. She has great coordination and it keeps her attention for a long time (for a 4 year old, anyway). She and I also completed a Valentine ladybug foam house kit that I bought at Michaels. She did a lot of the "contruction" herself and it turned out really cute. Sadie also loves to help in the kitchen, especially when it involves the stove. (Yikes!)
Lucy
And finally, Lucy. Lucy has been doing really well at homeschooling. She has been very flexible in letting me noodle around with her schoolwork, until I finally stumbled upon a curriculum that I think works best for us. I was really feeling lost and without a sense of academic direction for a few weeks. I was worried that I wasn't providing her with the education I thought she needed (read: what they're offering at school). I had originally looked at the "virtual school" option last summer, and it just didn't feel right to me. I think it works well for many, many families (I know 3 who are going this route for now), but it has never seemed like a good fit for me.
I almost gave up and contacted one virtual school for some details about their program, but before I did that, I forged on a little longer looking for SOMETHING. And I found it! I wanted something less stuffy than the "classical education", but more structured than "unschooling". Something that focused on learning through literature (including history), and also addressed music, art, and handiwork. I wanted an authentic learning environment, and not a school-at-home re-creation. The Charlotte Mason model is the perfect fit for us. And what's great is that Lucy can work fairly independently on much of it. What I will change for next fall, however, is I will definitely purchase a good math curriculum. I've been teaching her myself, and she responds well to that, but I worry that there will be holes in her mathematic knowledge. I also worry that I'm not on-par with what her peers are learning in math at school. Maybe I need to let that go.
In other Lucy news, she's auditioning for the upcoming Tacoma Youth Theatre productions. She is VERY excited, and Saturday can't come soon enough!
More soon.
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