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Homeschool in April

I have thinking a lot about what I should post this month.  I thought about posting and pretending that everything had gone according to plan.  I thought about posting and leaving out the slacker bits.  I also thought about not posting at all.

I decided that honesty was the best policy.

So here's the honest truth: I just didn't want to do it this month.  So I didn't.

We had an awesome one-week long unit to start the month.  Then we had a very, very long spring break.

Part of the problem was that my neighbor went on vacation.  And I went on vacation.  And there was some time in between when neither of us had a lot of gumption.  And since I didn't have any kids but my own to teach for most of the month, it was very easy for me to opt out.

This is worrisome.  I cannot let this kind of thing happen next year when Soren is doing first grade.

Don't you want to know what I was doing while the kids were running free range?  I was writing a novel.  It's pretty cool.  But I'm having a very hard time finding the balance I desperately need if this is going to continue.  Because I can't spend all day writing and admiring my writing.  If I do that, I won't have time for my regular household responsibilities, not to mention homeschool.

May is a new month.  And it's he last month of our homeschool year.  I am going to finish strong.

In Kindergarten

The Selfish Giant - I love this story by Oscar Wilde and I thought it would be perfect to prepare the kids for Easter.  I won't spoil it for you but I will say that it features all the right things for a Kindergarten story: lots of seasonal details, fantasy elements, and an overtly Christian allegory.  I paired this story with a fun circle game to celebrate springtime.  The kids took turns wearing a green cape and floral crown and dancing around our circle as the personification of springtime.  I made sure to invite all the little girls in our neighborhood for this unit, which was a fun change from our all-boy class.  For nursery rhymes I used "Mary, Mary Quite Contrary" and "Round and Round the Garden".  We also sang "For the Beauty of the Earth".  If I had been thinking ahead, we would have learned "Christ the Lord is Risen Today".


The Nest of Gold and Willie and the Oriole - I did do Kindergarten two other times this month and I chose a different story for each of those Circle Times.  Both stories were about birds (a robin and an oriole) making nests, which seemed appropriate for the season.  After telling the stories, I showed the boys pictures of the birds on the internet and we listened to their calls.  Soren was especially excited about the bird call recordings.  
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