More Intentional...

I've come to realize that since Evie has been mobile I've been less intentional about the children.... especially with their learning. I've been abiding by the curriculum as opposed to using the curriculum to supplement their learning. I've been just surviving... and now, I need to get back to being intentional with them. Evie is proficient with the stairs now, and the house is as baby-proofed as it's going to be.

So with that said, here's what we've been doing this past week.

*History theme - Pioneers Go West by Covered Wagon
*Bible is a review week this week...
*Poetry study - "Written in March" by William Wordsworth
*In math we are back to adding double digits, but amazingly Jayden's picked that up since last time we were there...
*Storytime is "All of a Kind Family" by Sydney Taylor, which they absolutely LOVE because the family is the mom, dad, and 5 sisters, and the character trait we are studying is integrity.
*Jayden just finished up reading Animal Adventures and is moving on to The Bears On Hemlock Mountain... it looks scary and she's excited about that!

Part of my new-found intentional-ness is reading more classic literature to them... I've fallen away from that except for what is involved in school. So I'm using the book lists from AmblesideOnline Year 0 and working up from there. On the queue for this next week is

*Winnie-The-Pooh/The House at Pooh corner (AA Milne original version)
*The Little Engine That Could (Watty Piper)
*Make Way For Ducklings (Robert McCloskey)
*The Story of Little Babaji (Helen Bannerman)
*Brer Rabbit books (Joel Chandler Harris)
*Poems and Prayers for the Very Young (Martha Alexander)
*A Child's Garden of Verses (Robert Louis Stevenson)
*Aesop's Fables
*Mother Goose
*other classic children's poetry

In that intentional-ness is Charlotte Mason's "A Formidable List of Attainments for a Child of Six" that I now have hanging on the fridge to remind me :) I did this (without knowing) with Jayden, and I need to be sure to not leave the others out!

So this week we are working on learning "Clouds" by Christina G Rossetti

White sheep, white sheep
On a blue hill,
When the wind stops
You all stand still;
When the wind blows
You walk away slow,
White sheep, white sheep,
Where do you go?