September into October

Well, it's been a month since we've started Homeschooling. Definitely fun and challenging.
It's all so new and not at exactly what I've expected, although I have no clue as to what I've been expecting. Originally I had our days all scheduled and planned out. But after the first week, I found myself beginning to stress out over not getting everything on our check off list done. Amelie was doing just fine, loving everything. But I was the one overwhelmed! After the first week, I had to step back and deconstruct back to the basics. To date, I have revised our schedule about six times, and will probably do it again before the week is out. Each week, I incorporate a new element into our day.

The Enki rhythm has been so wonderful and pleasant. I had such trouble with our movement circle at first, but now that it's memorized (mostly ;) ) it's so much fun.
I just want to say thank you so much to the Enki Support group. I am such a lurker, but there were so many suggestions on how to improve the movement circle. It really helped me ALOT!!.

I begin by calling Amelie in with Come Follow, I sing it anywhere from 4 to 10 times. When the song starts, we clean up whatever we are doing, and Amelie follows me to the sun room where we begin the movement activities.
From there we do Round and Round, and Amelie likes to spin around slowly as we move around the room. Then it's Sally Go Round the Sun, Sally marches, skips, runs and jumps. After those 5 verses, we do My Little Pony about 4 or 5 times usually until we are winded and need to sit down. But not for long because next is Kookaburra who sits, climbs, turns, swings, and hops from limb to limb. Then it's Squirrel Bounds 2 or 3 times, and the short form of Autumn Leaves another 2 or 3 times. Since the first week, I've added a new verse Caterpillar (we have some in a jar who have just formed Chrysalis') and once the Caterpillars have transformed I'll add Butterfly. We've been closing the circle (which we never really do in a circle since it's just us and sometimes Daddy) with Owl. For I while I had trouble with Owl, but it all came together after watching the Kindy Movement DVD.

The pattern has been circle, snack then story, lunch and quiet time. But I never get to craft time in the afternoon. After lurking on the yahoo group (I don't know what I would do without it!!) I saw one mom post that she did all her activities in the morning. So starting next week we'll be doing Breakfast, Story, Creative Play, Circle, Snack, Craft, Lunch, Quiet Time. We'll have to eat breakfast at 8am, but Creative play will be outdoors while I work on the garden. Thank goodness the weather is getting so nice.

For our core stories we have read, Coyote's Rain Song, Masha and the Bear and now Stone Soup.
We also read Duchess Autumn as our Nature story.

We made some stone soup on Monday night with a friend. It was so much fun! I read them the story, and then we acted it out putting the stone and veggies in the pot. Both girls ate it all up!

Now need to make my lesson plan for this and next month, and include some harvest crafts. There are so many to choose from!

I also want to note, in addition to Enki, we also do 2 outside classes a week.
Tumbling on Tues, and Ballet on Thurs.
Occasionally, I let Amelie play Jumpstart World Kindergarten on the computer (this happens maybe once every 2 or 3 weeks)
And lately we've been listening to Hop, Skip and Sing French twice a week. and doing the Muzzy French program once a week.

I'm trying to keep everything very light. So it's on and she sings along, but I don't push her to do anything she doesn't initiate herself. I just play along with her and try to model the correct way. I try not to tell her how to do something, but then she'll try to correct me into doing it her way. Then I have to remind her that I'm the teacher... :)