Midweek Ramblings... Sorry I have been away for a few days. We have had quite a busy week and blogging time was non-existent. I am actually writing this after our date! Yes I said date, we went to a friend's house and only had one child, Sirah who in the sling is quite easy. It was nice to be out in a social setting together.

This week I made the decision that we are only going to focus on reading and narration for awhile, with math and art thrown in where appropriate. It seems that is the best fit for all members of our family. I started the letter themes kind of too fill in the gap of schooling while we were showing our house. But I have found it to be such a good fit that it is what we will use for awhile atleast - I think I would like to get through the whole alphabet before we stop so that will be awhile.

I have found my kids and I really enjoy picking a letter and then picking all the themes around that. Playing with the letter all week and discovering how interrelated everything actually is, learning different names for the same concept or object as it fits into multiple weeks. We are REALLY enjoying reading such a wide variety of books and covering so many topics and with such a loose structure. I do find it hard to record all that we do in a given day, though the books are a fair representation of the topics we choose to cover - we just typically go more in depth on each topic than I have time to write about. I also find this method very easy to teach at two different levels and love that we are exposing them to so many different concepts, ideas, people, and places - even if they seem old for them at the time, atleast they are creating mental placeholders they can fill the details in later.

The past two days reading list:

The Mean Hyena by Judy Sierra
Music From the Sky by Denise Gillard
Follow the Money by Loreen Leedy
Eye Wonder Mammals by Sarah Walker
Clickety Clack by Rob and Amy Spence (a hold out hiding in our library basket from last week)
Me on the Map by Joan Sweeney
My Map Book by Sara Fanelli
A Picture Book of Martin Lutehr King Jr
Marsupial Sue by John Lithgow
Young Mozart by Rachael Isadora

My Mother is Mine by Marion Dane Bauer
Is Your Mama a Llama by Deborah Guarino
Malls the Sound of M by Cynthia Klingel
Mona Lisa by Letizia Galli
From Metal to Music by Wendy Davis
Market Day by Lois Elhert
Mabel Dancing by Amy Hest
If You Give a Moose a Muffin by Laura Numeroff