In a book about friction we found a snippet on black holes which got us thinking about time travel and the speed of light. That led us to talking about how massive our whole universe is and Isaac was excited about figuring out some math pertaining to it all.
I guess I once knew that if someone shined a light on the nearest star to earth, we wouldn't see it until more than 4 years later. It was still mind boggling to re-visit that fact. I love watching how Isaac's mind works. He has always been a fascinating guy. I was trying to impress him with how far away the stars are from earth and he was like, "Um, of course they are. Otherwise they would burn the earth up."
He is so funny. His mind is chock full of interesting facts.
Katie and I read lots of books. She is not as good of a reader as I thought. In fact, I think she is reading about the same as she was when she started Kindergarten. Most of what she has read to me during the year has been from books she brought home from the classroom. What I am finding is that she is an excellent memorizer and that makes her look like a great reader the second time through.
She can read fine. I am surprised at how much time it still takes her to sound out each word though.
Yesterday, I had to accomplish some of my own things like writing a story and buying milk and researching how to home school (this is why I wanted to wait two weeks). The kids had lots of free time to play. I think play is very healthy for young kids so I wasn't too worried about it.
At bedtime, Isaac said, "Mom, when are you going to start teaching me? I thought this was home school."
I explained to him that there are lots of ways to learn besides sitting at a desk while someone talks or doing worksheets. I told him I wanted him to give me input about what he would like home school to look like.
Worksheets.
That's right. Here I am a free-wheeling, hands-on kind of home school mom and my son wants worksheets.
That's O.K. It is one thing to say, "Kids learn through experiences. Kids are curious. Kids are natural seekers of knowledge." And, so on. But, it is an entirely different feeling when you un-enroll your kids from school and realize that everything rests squarely on your shoulders.
What if I forget to teach them something they need to know?
This morning, I printed off division worksheets that double as color by numbers and Isaac ate them up. He and Katie sat happily at the table for two hours working together.
Now we are headed to the Treehouse Children's Museum for a fun afternoon.
I hope I can live up to their expectations. I'm really enjoying the extra time with these two.
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