Fish Fingers & Custard: The Challenge of Homeschooling

It was a beautiful, sunny day on Monday. Unfortunately, the baby (and our canning adventure) kept us up until around 5am Sunday night/Monday morning. So...I wasn't exactly in the perfect state of mind to begin something as challenging as teaching my extremely antsy daughter....

Alayna and our dog Mia relaxing before school.

So, despite the sleep deprivation, our homeschooling year started yesterday. It's already well into September. We really couldn't put it off any longer. My daughter is 5 years old, and we're doing a mixture of preschool and kindergarten this year. I take heart from the knowledge that this year doesn't really "matter"...that she doesn't even HAVE to start school yet. That if I really can't do this, I can send her to public kindergarten next year with no harm done (well, very little harm done ;-)

I had am image in my head of how it would go....

(The baby photo bombed the picture)

And the reality was NOTHING like the image I'd held in my head! haha!

I got frustrated, she got frustrated, we both cried, and I sent her to her room...twice!...all in the span of about two hours. I realized, finally, that I was expecting way too much of my young (very young maturity-wise) daughter who has NEVER had schooling of any kind before. It's like I expected her to know this stuff already. What the heck was I thinking? Obviously, I'm here teaching her for a reason....

So...after apologies were made, we ended the day on a good note. She had fun. Her take home? What she told Daddy as he tucked her into bed? That she had fun! Score one for Mommy!

Today went MUCH better than yesterday! We even got done early. I was much more easy-going, and because of that, she was much more willing to listen to me. We did a couple games, a couple worksheets, lots of coloring, and alphabet flash cards. Here's hoping the rest of the week goes so well!