Satori Smiles

Since we plan to homeschool all year round, I’ve decided to make an extended Easter or Spring break. I am simply overwhelmed with everything going on right now, so especially taking a break from the blog will help me. I’ll come back strong late April, and might post one or two posts between now and then.

Friday we leave for Wisconsin to see Grandma/Grandpa, and more family/friends. Satori has literally been counting down the days, every morning she tells me what day it is, and how many days remain until Friday, when we start our big drive.

After we get back, we’ll have a few days of normalcy at home before I take off on my very first vacation by myself, something I desperately need right now. Satori will fly back to Wisconsin with Daddy who is working in Minnesota. I will fly to a retreat where I can relax, be served whole organic food, and rejuvenate myself. Can’t wait!

We are covering hundreds now in RightStart and last night Satori completed her first Hundreds Chart. She was very proud of herself. Today we learned that 10 dimes make a dollar, and 30 dimes make 3 dollars. I love how it all ties together with this program.

About a year ago I promised that as soon as Satori learned money and basic addition that I would get her a play cash register. She’s been really wanting one early last spring. I think that educational toy may be just around the corner…

To be honest, I thought we’d have that cash register much sooner than this. I feel it is my fault for choosing wrong curriculum,  and not being consistent with math lessons enough. Satori picks up everything so fast, if I had been on top of things, she would have been this far already. She now loves math. We should be doing it everyday, but we only do it 3 times a week or so on average.

I sometimes feel that I am a bottleneck to Satori’s learning and that I’m going too slow for her. There are times I get distracted by side hobbies and several days can go by in that we don’t do any lessons. This happened just last week when we both got very excited to learn about birds. Can I call that a unit study? Last fall I took several months off, can I call that unschooling?  Sometimes I question if I’m capable of being a teacher. My personality is just so spontaneous. Even more, I’m so new at this. Just over twelve months ago I had no clue I would be homeschooling.

Am I going too slow? Sometimes I don’t feel like I’m challenging her enough. Are we covering enough subjects? Is there anything we’re missing? Are we covering too much? I suppose at age five I shouldn’t be worrying about all this… I also suppose I will be critical about myself and my teaching skills even when she’s fifteen.

I don’t know why I’m thinking this way tonight, but what I do know is that I get the most tremendous joy out of teaching and learning alongside Satori. We both truly enjoy our time learning together. I think my first entire year I questioned myself and if I could continue to homeschool year after year. But what I know now, as of this spring, is that my mental commitment has been made. Homeschooling is 110% one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.

On February 9, 2009, I created this blog to celebrate the joys of hanging out as daughter and mother, learning and playing from home! Satori, our only child, is 4 years, 2 months old and is starting to grow in so many ways! I hope to savor this time in her childhood by documenting our time together.

In a matter of days, I cleaned out an unused room of our house (the second kitchen in the basement) and converted it to our schoolhouse. We’ve stocked it full of learning tools, whiteboard, bulletin board, art/craft supplies, maps/globe, colorful construction paper, and of course a computer/printer. So far this week, Satori has come to my every morning and begs “let’s play school mommy”! School for us means reading lots of books, learning about them, doing arts and crafts, and if she’s up to it, studying the alphabet and numbers. I do not want to push her, but will be supportive for whenever she’s ready to learn more.

After studying a lot about different homeschooling methods, we’ve decided upon the “Five in a Row” unit study method. The curriculum is designed for children ages 4-8 and covers quality children’s literature.