Excited about reading, homeschooling and gardening
Ryan is at such a fun precipice, and soon we will not be able to spell in front of him either. Not nearly as early as Tim, but still early. I missed all the fun stuff with Tim, he just knew how to read. Watching Ryan is exciting, although I have forgotten the technical reading words I learned in college. He knows all of the letters, the sounds, some sight words, and is making up stories in picture books, and reading the ones he has memorized. He is on the cusp. I missed this with Tim, and watching Amelia, I may miss it with her to. Just like Tim, I swear she is saying letters, but that could be her older brother’s fault since that is his interest these days.
Speaking of reading we have not done much reading as of late with Tim. Need to fix that. Yes he is a voracious reader in his own right, but he is still six. We need to carve out some time to make sure we are still reading with him. Oh and we are working on math with Tim. I need to start my paperwork process on July 1. I am still on the fence to call him a kindergartener, a 1st grader, a 3rd or fourth grader. All options have their positives and negatives. I am looking forward to this adventure with him. We are going with a laidback eclectic approach. We are not making him do worksheets, or ’lecturing’, or anything for that matter. If he wants to or needs practice we are game. We are more allowing him to guide his schooling, and filling in the gaps to meet the state minimums. I’m excited that in one of our home school groups is a Dad that is a Prof. @ HVCC he teaches Astronomy and Biology. He offered for Tim to come ‘take his class’ anytime. After a couple of gatherings, he was like he knows more than the classes I teach. Which is cool or sad depending on the way you look at it. But my goal of his educational experience is to foster the love of learning, to seek out answers to questions, to explore what has not been done. If any of the kids ask to go to school we will let them. Now I need to get a play date organized to ‘ride the bus’. In my research it is the one thing that most home schoolers say they missed. I figure we can rent a school bus and go somewhere.
LOL I had not meant for this to be about home schooling, but it is where I went. I guess with a looming deadline on Tuesday it's on my mind.
No I will not teach him English. I suck at it, however I have a darling handsome and esteemed husband to help with English, and other stuff
Gardening
Ah how I love to get my hands in the dirt. We are hardcore gardening this year.
And I love it. It’s amazing how an hour of gardening can tweak my day in a good way. I love the work, I love the product. I wish I had realized this all these years. We have a jungle in one of the beds. We have over 50 potatoes that came up. Still not nearly enough to feed my potato loving family. We have over 50 tomato plants. The grape ones are turning red! We also found a hybrid called Amelia, had to buy it, hope it is a sweet and delicious as she is. We have so many different kinds I cannot wait for their bounty. We have pumpkins, and watermelon growing like weeds. Several lettuces, the cabbages are doing well, as well as the Brussels sprouts. The peas have been eaten twice by the ground hog, but are bouncing back. We’ve got one 4 inch zucchini, 6 or 8 little one inch cukes. Several squashes, yellow straight neck, yellow crookneck, patty pan, 3 winter squash varieties, Radishes, carrots, some soy beans, some random beans, green beans, sweet peppers, hot peppers, sweet potatoes, popcorn, several herbs, 4 mints, rhubarb
The only sight that is not doing well is the patch by the poison ivy, looks like only 4 of the 12 asparagus made it. None of the sunflowers made it, but I think they were all eaten by the ground hog or chippies.