It seems that school has kind of started for Sam and Abby even before Laurence and Susannah!! :) Or at least the planning of it has! I have been busy this week and last week with registering them for classes in and around the city, signing up for field trips, organizing coffee nights for homeschool Moms, attending planning meetings, drawing up schedules and putting together our curriculum/ calendar etc etc.....
We have committed to French club every week.
Abigail will be attending outdoor education classes at the Wilderness Centre. While she is there I will go for walks or geocaching with Sam and possibly Rosie (will check online if I can take Rosie there).
We are signed up for art classes.
We are signed up for science classes. We have also signed up for family membership of TWOS for the year as it worked out cheaper for the classes/ admission and means we can go there as often as we like - Sam LOVES the Discovery zone and could happily pass an entire day playing with the bricks and water there etc...and with the NEW kids area opening in December it will be even more reason to go there!!
We are hoping to go along to the homeschoolers free-swim sessions on Wednesday afternoons.
I am still hoping to get three of the children in to gymnastics but just can't afford to book it this month so will wait until next week and HOPE that Lloyd decides to do the right thing :(
This year my focus is on Sams reading. He is in Grade 1 this year....he has been doing a lot of spelling of simple words, but his reading needs to come on this year....he loves to be read to, but doesn't often sit still long enough to look at the page while I read - he is often colouring or building or fidgeting while I read....so I have some language arts books for him to go through....he is very interested so that will help :)
We are hoping to join in with a great new class in town called 'Bricks for Kidz' which is a new thing to Edmonton that uses Lego to build on all parts of the curriculum - it was designed by architects and engineers and can help with math, language arts, science etc etc....I think the kids will LOVE it :) The homeschool group is trying to organize a regular group with the company :)
We are also trying to find out about Sportball - haven't heard anything yet, and as our schedule fills up, the less likely I am to put the children in. Its basically one hour a week for 8 weeks and they are taught skills for one ball sport each week. So they get to try out 8 different ball sports over the two months. I'm not sure about it and its at the bottom of my list of priorities right now but we will see when we get the information/ confirmation of dates etc.
The children are looking forward to having 'poetry teas' every once in a while....which is an idea from a homeschooling website called Brave Writer Lifestyle where you set the table with proper tea cups and saucers and nice treats every so often and read/ write/ focus JUST on poetry. Sam especially loves his own little tea cup, so he is looking forward to it and I think it will be a nice thing to do through the winter on snowy days :)
I'm waiting to hear back from the City of Edmonton facilities about their homeschool classes and I might book a few of those...
Even with all of these classes, because most are spread out to once or twice a month (French club being the only weekly one) we will still have such flexibility to relax and catch up on things here at home - slow down and do lots of reading, working on our books, art and spelling etc at home....
I'm now running the Sherwood Park and Area Homeschoolers group :) If you'd like to join us and stay in touch about our coffee nights for parents, field trips, classes, get togethers....or just chat wit other homeschoolers then please contact me on Facebook. Thanks :) Jane Fernandez.
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