Looking back over the past eighteen months or so I have realised that I have been suffering a minor case of burnout. My enthusiasm has been very low and easily squashed, in a nuthell I have been uninspired by hsing and to me that is important. A good deal has been lifted by sharing with the special ladies at 4Real and dh has been supportive. Dh and I have sat down and looked at what are some of the problem areas contributing to this. The biggest issue is discipline. By the time I put up with all the nonsense from the boys and M I am exhausted, mostly I just manage to get by with the basics and that in itself depresses me as I like to have a read aloud, and I enjoy it when we have some creative arts happening as well.
This week I have cracked down and dealt with discipline immediately:) The week has been much better and I have even had energy left to do read alouds:):) In 4 days we have read ‘Misty of Chincoteague’!! On Monday we did cooking and on Tuesday we went for a Nature Walk. I am hoping to do our craft this afternoon (Wednesday).
I have also been reading the ‘Well Trained Mind’ and realised that we need to re-visit drill. Every morning we have been reciting the times tables and the phonics chart. We have also been using a form of phonetic spelling. I am determined that we learn the spelling rules, we do a rule a day and then find words to accompany in the dictionary. This is going well.
I am mainly homing in on Attitude and Application, I can finally see that the children are learning. I am not too certain of what C is doing, I’m sure that she could be doing more, some days she is great others she doesn’t hit the workbooks as much, she always reads however. lol. M and M are steadily improving, I have to say that Mariah is actually a better reader than Malachi.
We have also continued focusing on writing and in fact I have upped the expectation, dc are coping with this. I have managed to get some of the boys’ stories completed and printed.
We have picked up St Patrick’s Summer again and Dominic makes his Confirmation in 5 weeks!!!Yikes, I am not too confident there but I am more so than I was.
We are also trying a project based focus with our unit topics, the children have started building an Indian village.