Second Grade Thoughts

title: mama cat and her two babies

medium: chalk on blacktop

artist: Sunshine

I discussed our school year back in December, and there's not a lot to add to that post. We finished up our bookwork and second grade in June and have been enjoying a few weeks off. We'll be starting third grade in a week or two and I wanted to write down some thoughts before we hit the books again.

We had a laid back year for most of the year, though we did speed things up a bit this spring to get caught up and finish everything in time. I anticipated having to go with the flow and be flexible, so that wasn't unexpected. This coming year will be more structured so we should be able to include in our schedule some of the things that didn't happen this past year, like sewing, cooking, art projects, and field trips.

Cooking
It's hard for me to allow Sunshine to help in the kitchen because we're usually in a hurry and I don't want to stop and take the time to show her what to do. I need to work on scheduling things better so we have time for Sunshine to help and still get to where we need to go on time. Our ongoing food issues add to the problem, since she wants to learn how to bake and we are currently eating grain free. Small amounts of coconut flour are ok right now, though, so we can do some baking this year.

Sewing
We need a block of time in order to do some sewing, but we haven't managed to find that block of time. Projects that need longer chunks of time don't fit as well into our schedule, so having all morning or afternoon or even all day to work on a creative project will be much more effective than squeezing in 15 minutes here, 30 minutes there. That's just enough time to get the materials out and start, and then put it all away again.

Art Projects
Pretty much the same deal as with sewing projects- not enough time to sit down and get a project done. I had a list of projects for her to do, but I didn't have all the materials on hand, so they never happened.

Field Trips
This year we did take a pretty epic field trip to Boston, but we can't always take a week and a half to explore somewhere.

The Plan
Since we do school on a year round schedule, I've divided our year into 6 terms of 8 weeks each, plus 3 weeks off in July and an extra week off in December. Each 8 week term consists of 6 weeks of schoolwork and 2 weeks of vacation time. I'm hoping to keep to our schedule instead of taking off a day here, a day there, like we did this year. If so, I want to use our off weeks to do sewing projects, cooking projects, art projects, and field trips.

I have a book of sewing projects and as we work through them Sunshine will learn how to sew. I'll have her help me more in the kitchen. I have a list of art projects and I've purchased all the materials for them, so all we have to do is pull out the instructions and materials and get started. I haven't made a list yet, but I plan to, of historic locations (local and semi-local) to visit on field trips over the next two years. In history this year and next we're covering the Pilgrims all the way up to the Cold War and there's a lot of related sites we can visit to reinforce what we're learning.

In a week or so I'll talk more about our plans (books, classes, etc) for third grade.