Day 7: 15minute timer

Today, I tried something different to see if it would help the girls stay focused with their work. I set a 15 minute timer. Maybe I should start by explaining that my girls have a checklist for each day (I will post this another day). The checklist is broken down into 15 areas that need to be completed each school day. Several of the areas need to be done with me, some need to just be checked by me and some are completely independent. I was finding that the girls were lingering in some of the more fun areas of work and then not quite getting through with the more important areas. With the timer, there was a set time at each area and this would allow us to finish our morning rotation in a timely manner. Most areas can be finished in one 15 minute time slot. I found today that Ladybug really needed 20 minutes to do all of her spelling but only needed 10 minutes to do her flashcards. So I just combined both activities together so she would stay on schedule. PF's work is more time consuming but she was also getting upset that she wasn't able to do each center. The timer allowed her to get to each center and during quiet time she finishes the work she wasn't able to complete. What I loved today was that PF got her math done in 15 minutes. She was starting to drag this subject out. Overall the timer worked well today. We finished our morning rotation by 11:30 which allowed for a nice late morning break before lunch. I am going to continue the timer next week before I make a final decision on whether it works the best for us or not.

 Dragonfly more and more each day wants to be treated like the big girls. When the big girls were writing in their journals she wanted to as well. She knows how to spell her name and she can sound out the first letter of each word. So her writing journal tends to be a lot of letters. She also likes for me to spell words for her and will write each letter as I say them. We are still working on her holding her pencil properly but this is lower on my priority list right now.

 I have a box with just items for Dragonfly. This week, I have peek-a-blocks and small books.

 In My Father's World today, we discussed globes and maps. To demonstrate what map makers have to do to flatten the earth for a wall map, we used an orange. First we cut four sections in the skin, then drew a few key points, and then peeled the orange.

We laid it flat and it was easy for the girls to see the gaps that are naturally created. They thought it was like a puzzle and tried to figure out the best way to squish it together to make a map.