The little one starts school this week; I hope that everything works out well, and I still need to find a rain outfit and some new rain boots that are fairly environmentally friendly.  Tomorrow is cubby day followed by his first day on Wednesday.  I hope that we are able to get settled into the early morning routine easily.

Other than that, we were excited to complete the letter boxing program this year that is sponsored by our local library.  This is the first year we completed all 30 rubbings, and it was a very relaxed and enjoyable process.  We just need to make it to the library this week to drop off our sheet!

Next on our list is a series of geocaches in a neighboring town.  If we complete all of them and attend a local festival, we will get a geocaching coin, which I think would be a cool reward.  The kid is starting to get into geocaching, and I think it’s a great way to teach geography and navigational skills.

I’m sure I’ll have more to write tomorrow.  It’s time to get to sleep so that I can get up in the morning!

Outside of Waldorf, we are continuing our K12 subscription and have a few other online learning tools that we use.  We are taking a very relaxed approach, as I really don’t see the need to have school activities directly interfere with play – the kid is 5.  There’s no need for him to dread learning at such an early age!

We also did a Headsprout lesson – he is up to #34 and is doing well.  I am not sure what to think, as Arthur often doesn’t seem to be enthusiastic about Headsprout, but once he gets started he loves it.  We also work with Dreambox, and as a parent I am really happy with that program; Arthur enjoys it very much, and really does learn.

We napped for a part of the afternoon; I think Arthur was tired from the weekend, and I was mentally exhausted from being worried about the dog.  We’re taking it easy tonight, and hopefully tomorrow will be a good day!

We went to the dreaded Walmart for a train, and after much deliberation he picked out the only Talking Gordon. After getting home, it didn’t work… of course, that’s what I get for shopping there. After returning it, he chose to get Emily instead, and all was well.

In terms of school, the only thing we accomplished was finishing a lesson in science. I think that breaking this lesson in two really helped – it was just way too long for Arthur to digest anything.

Arthur napped after preschool on Thursday, and on Friday we made it through an episode of Headsprout. Because of the bad weather over the past couple of weeks, we also had errands to run both days after school, so the amount of time for formal lessons at home was limited.

Tentatively, I think that trying to do more online work Thursdays and Fridays until school is over with is the best idea. Working in short energy bursts would work better on these days, at least until the weather improves.

Other than Headsprout, there was nothing formal today. Arthur spent most of the day building new track layouts and trying to get trains up inclines. I pulled out the futon so that he could construct a layout that went up and onto the futon, which required the use of boxes, books, etc. Overall, despite being tired, it was still a very good day!

Today was a very productive day, partly because I made up my mind that it was going to be this way After having breakfast and putting together the new blue track set that we got off of Craiglist over the weekend (I happened to find the picture of the set that we got, and Arthur wanted to set it up just like the picture), we finished a Headsprout episode (#15). We placed the sticker on the progress chart, and counted to 15; what a sense of accomplishment!

Next we did some lessons from K12. Arthur really likes science, and we finished the lesson on muscles and the brain. There wasn’t much left to do, but I wanted to review the terms, and Arthur got to move around to show the relationship between moving around and your heart beating faster.

We moved on to math, and this is where I realized that I should have looked over the lesson beforehand. The material was really a review for him, and he got bored. I think that if I had just done the optional activity, which was a little more complex and fun, we would have done just fine. Now I know for next time!

We took a break, had a snack, and watched some Thomas the Train videos with blue track (he loves Accidents Happen, so I am making an “Accidents Happen” Squidoo lens that he can watch it whenever he likes).

After lunch and some more track building, we did some reading and discussing of Cinderella. I wasn’t sure if he would get into this story, being that it is a “girly” fairy tale, but he really seemed to take to the magic (probably a reflection of Waldorf) and we talked for a long time about how Cinderella was nice to her stepsisters even though they were mean to her. We drew the analogy that sometimes he needs to be nicer to Sunshine, even when she is “mean” (by knocking over toys, etc.) because she doesn’t know any better and has short legs. We also talked about how sometimes it is important to stick up for yourself, while other times it is best to try to be nice regardless.

There was lots more train track building and imaginative play. Today was very cold outside, so we didn’t go out, but it was still a great day!