Wednesday ~ Another Great Day!

Another long day. Kalie was under the weather. She went to sleep late and woke up a few times last night so restful sleep did not come until late (or early this morning), which means morning came late also. I slept until 9:00. WOW! That is late for me as the cats usually get me up by 7:00. Kalie slept until almost noon.

When she woke up she was feeling better, but we still took it easy. Both of us stayed in our pj's until about 6:00. We did not have a day off from school, though. We had a very productive day.

She worked on her 4 current lapbooks. (4 at one time, we are crazy) 1. Books of the Bible (we are almost done constructing this one but we will continue to work on completing the "activities" for a long time. 2. Addition Facts (about halfway done). 3. Subtraction Facts (about halfway done). and 4. Valentine's Day (I hope we finish this one in time). She also wants to start the Little House in the Big Woods (we are waiting for the book to come in from another library branch) and a new one I found on Flat Stanley (we read this book last year when we created our "Flat Stacie" for Girl Scouts).

We also finished list #4 (out of 11) from the dolch words. She played 3 or 4 games by herself with the flashcards and I played a game with her. She did 3 math worksheets and we played a math card game. She choose 2 new animals for her Animal Notebook and started researching them. We also did 3 days of Moving Beyond the Page.

We showered at 6:00 and ran a few errands. We had to return movies to the video store, stop by the library, and get a few groceries. We came home about 8ish and made dinner. She is finally giving me a few moments of peace and watching Disney channel. LOL!

I am exhausted! Our school day lasted about 9 hours. This "child directed" learning is alot of work. BUT...she is learning so much more this way and is much happier. In November we would have struggled to do reading, math, science and social studies. The "school day would have been about 4 hours with 2 of that being a struggle/battle. Now we are doing 4 to 8 hours a day with very few struggles. It is a bit harder (really ALOT harder) for me though. I do not like having 5 or 6 or 12 projects going at one time. (But this is not about me.) I would like to start a lapbook or unit study and finish it before we move onto another but she enjoys doing a little bit of what ever strikes her every day. I have spent quite a few hours over the last week preping things for her. Like printing, laminating and cutting. She likes to cut but does not like to cut things out. Preparing the lapbook is my job. Her job is to color and create. LOL! She likes to find the information and tell me all about it. She does not like to write the information down. We are compromising and taking turns, She writes the short stuff and types the long stuff or I write the long stuff.

I am trying to figure out how I will "plan book" and "grade" this type of learning though. Does any one have any suggestions?

I hope this does not sound as if I am complaining. I am not. I would rather spend 4 hours "preparing" for her to learn and have her happily learn for 2 hours than go back to the way it was. In her mind lapbooking and project are not learning they are fun. A small step and huge leap in one. When she talked to Katie tonight the subject of school came up, she told Katie she was sick and did not do school today. When I talked to Katie we discussed everything that we (Kalie and I) had done for the day. Katie laughed and replied that Kalie thought she had the day off from school. I don't think that I will tell her it was a school day. LOL! Maybe we are on the right track to make learning fun again.