Thinking, thinking, thinking

Sometimes when I sit down to plan out the homeschooling week everything falls into place.  Sometimes I sit and fiddle with it for what seems like forever and I'm still not pleased.  Sometimes there's that one kid who throws a kink in an otherwise smooth knot.

Ah, moy malenki Mishka.


Liza and Alyosha's schedules came together like a dream.  In fact, I'm excited about them.  Liza is learning about ancient Greece so I'm going to assign Padraic Colum's The Children's Homer for extra credit.  She's learning about cell mitosis for science, something I've spent a ton of time working on.  Alyosha is still deep in the Revolutionary War and he's beginning astronomy for science (The Story of Science: Aristotle Leads the Way!)

Good stuff, right?

Yes, I was impressed as I wove together the threads of their homeschooling week.  Then I got to Misha's.

Humph.

Misha is finished with the first quarter of OM1.  Now it's time for him to take his review of the alphabet and begin putting the sounds together to form words.  This is something he is ready to do.  The problem is that Oak Meadow, being Waldorfy and artsy, suggests, for example, drawing seven little dogs and making word families from these dogs.  The problem is that Misha hates to draw.  Part of it is his fine motor skills, part of it is probably boredom--he's just not a sit and draw type of kid.  Getting him to draw the pictures in his Main Lesson Book of the letters is stretching what he is willing to do.

I'm sensing that we're going to run into resistance.

I'm thinking of deviating from OM and instead using a more visual learning program, such as The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading or Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons.  I've already added to the math with a first grade Spectrum math workbook because he just wanted more...perhaps we'll have to just try different things and see what works.

One thing is for sure--we need to finish his scarf.  It's cold outside!