We’ve been slacking in our homeschool work the past two weeks!

So much has been going on. My oldest was very recently diagnosed with ADHD, and part of the deal is starting “504” or “IEP” paperwork. Due to living overseas with DH’s job, we need to start a documentation trail, should we need it in the future. Last week we spent two days dealing with a psychologist in the next town over – she met with me and then the next day did “formalized testing” with our oldest. Between that and other stuff that sprang up, we only got in one “real” day of school in last week.

And on Saturday, another very important family event happened. Daddy came home for good after a year in Afghanistan!

This week was busy week as well. Hubbie and I spent Monday going back to the psychologist to get the “results” of our oldest’s testing (Guess what? We have a bright, charming, precocious, talkative girl. Yeah, tell me something I didn’t already know.) Tuesday morning both myself and our youngest woke up sick as a dog, which means we spent an entire day going to doctors. Thursday I spent the entire day wrapping presents that needed to be mailed (I don’t know why I thought that would be a small project). So very little “real schoolwork” got done this week also.

Which means instead of being just behind, we are very behind our schedule. (We have some tight time constraints due to our move.) So, we’ll be doing a lot of school work this week and next in order to catch up. Thankfully, Daddy is now home and is a great help. He has really grown this past year to be very pro-homeschool and is eager to jump in and get involved.

In MFW work these past two weeks, we’ve been working on the letter “E” and the letter “K.” We also snuck in a trip to the local little zoo, which,by the way, does not have an elephant, penguin, kangaroo, or zebra! (Actually they do have baby kangaroos, but they weren’t out on Saturday.)

This week we are working on the letter E, for Elephant.

My oldest is doing fabulous at writing, when she remembers to be patient and take her time. And she is reading so well! Because she’s learned to “sound it out” and “blend,” she’s actually starting to figure out words on her own while we are out and about. In town she read “Stop” on a stop sign and “pull” on a door! Such little things, but so exciting to watch in my beginning reader. And, as part of this week’s lesson, she read her first little mini story!

We aren’t doing anything “science-related” yet with this unit. I’ve got a trip to the zoo planned soon, but I’m trying to figure out when we are going to fit it in.

In addition to the ballet classes both girls take, my oldest also started Upward Cheerleading this week! She is so excited about it, even though I am less than enthused that all of our games are scheduled at 8:00 am on Saturday mornings. I am not a morning person! Maybe Daddy will volunteer to take her to most of the games, and hopefully they will have lots of coffee available.

My youngest is about to start homeschooling with us for real. I gave our two-week notice at the preschool this week. We’re gonna miss our preschool, the girls had such a great time there. But, with Daddy finishing up his post overseas next week, there will be two parents home and it’s time to get back into “real life” again. And, she’s ready for it, too. She’s a little jealous that Big Sister gets so much time with Mommy. And I’m honestly looking forward to not having to do the drive back and forth twice a day.

I’ve been looking at the MFW preschool kit for our youngest, and I’m still on the fence whether or not I want to purchase it. Does anyone have an opinion out there?

In the meantime, I ordered two e-books, Preschool Activities in a Bag, (which are B1G1 until December 16th, by the way) and am planning to set these up for her. After reading several blog posts about this concept, I purchased a ton of stuff from the dollar store, and set up some bags to try it out. And she LOVED them. Really did. One bag was a bunch of assorted beads that she used tweezers and sorted into an ice-cube tray. She did that for a solid twenty minutes. Another was those fuzzy pom-poms with a measuring spoon. She got bored quickly building with the blocks, but when I gave her some small cups and had her sorting dry beans, she and Big Sister did that for thirty minutes, with only minimal bickering. I am loving this concept! I’m hoping I can get our local homeschool groups to do a swap with me on these.

Our field trip yesterday was going to a Christmas tree farm and picking out our Christmas tree! I thought we were going to have to cut it ourselves, but thankfully, they had several that were freshly cut, so we were able to grab a beautiful on and load it right up!

And tonight, the girls are going to ride in a float in the local Christmas parade! It’s going to be frightfully cold, but a ton of fun!