The start of school

We'd been easing into school forever.  I finally decided to stop easing and just start going since all of Cairn's peers were gearing up to start school too.

I feel like I'm in constant struggle between keeping things planned/ structured but also child led/ unstructured.  Struggle also arises because Cairn wants to be in charge of everything from chores to weening Gauge (neither of which are going well right now).  

But already we've had a few precious moments that make homeschooling worth it.  And lucky you I caught a bit on video.

The first video is Cairn.  I told her we were going to practice writing in her brand new writing journal.  She ran off.  Gauge screamed.  And everything went on hold until he was taken care of... or so I thought.  When I finally came to the table Cairn was diligently working.  She had pulled out a Lisa Frank spiral she got for her birthday and was writing the alphabet in both upper and lower case.

Who cares if that wasn't exactly the assignment, right?  I love best that for letter Vv she wrote Yy then corrected herself when she got to Yy.

This next video is Cerise.  We had been working on sorting things by size so I cut out fish to introduce the <, >, = signs.  This was meant to be more geared toward Cairn, but she lost interest when Cerise "beat" her.  I wasn't even aware this was a competitive game!  Anyways, Cerise loves the fishy game and rolled and sorted the die perfectly several times... until the camera came out, but this way you get to see her correct her mistakes!