Learning from the Student

As I mentioned before, I am new to homeschooling. My oldest daughter is the guinea pig, whether or not she wants to be. That said, it wasn't a horrible first week. She was excited to get started, and we had fun, most of the time.

One thing I've already figured out is that my daughter will not be the only one learning this year. Of course, I'm learning how to homeschool, but she's teaching me more than that. In the matter of one day, she taught me that she can be just as stubborn as me.  Along with that, she has taught me a good bit of patience this week. I've learned that we butt heads easily, but it's because we're so very much alike. However, one of our major differences is that she doesn't give a care one about learning to read. Reading is my favorite past time, and she loves to be read to, so this one threw me for a loop. But back to that in a minute.

I really wanted to make some of our experiences like those of non-homeschoolers. Hence, I plan to document our year in a yearbook (using a digital photobook).  Of course, all my like-aged friends were posting their kids "first day of school" pics on Facebook, so I had to, also.  I'd found a few ideas on Pinterest, my new homeschooling idea resource, so I copied them to the best of my ability, and we began our first day like this:

 

Then we dove right in. I had planned to teach Bible, Manners, Reading/Phonics, and Math everyday. Then I planned to rotate Reading Comprehension, Science, and Art/Music, so that we did each twice a week. For the most part, we stuck to that. Then Wednesday came. I knew my daughter had made it fairly clear that she wasn't interested in learning the sounds letters make, but wow. She made it painfully obvious that she didn't want to learn to read at all! It was a long morning! And my patience was being tested!

"I'll learn to read in college!"

So the next afternoon, we went to see a lady I greatly respect, my former seventh grade teacher, and she gave me lots of ideas for making reading more active, since my daughter loves  doing much more than sitting or listening.  But probably the best information she gave me was that her own daughter got a slow start to reading, and she is now a lover of books, and an incredibly smart young woman. It definitely helped to hear that! I know my girl is smart, but I want her to love to read like me; I'm just going to have to learn more patience!

She loves math and science, though!

Lastly, I've learned that when all else fails, and we're both feeling unsuccessful, that is the time to pull out something totally different, and something right up her alley. On Wednesday, after our not-actually-a-failure phonics lesson, I chose to go off the lesson plan, and come up with something hands-on.  I knew that tying shoes was something she needed to learn eventually, so I thought we'd give it a try. She mastered it in less than five minutes! I showed her step-by-step, and she was doing it by herself five tries later.  She went from feeling down about the phonics, to feeling like a million bucks in a matter of minutes! Lesson learned!

At homeschool, it's perfectly acceptable to wear Christmas tree shirts and tutus in August.