Monday, September 08, 2003
Today was our first official day of homeschooling. I'm sure that seems really late for a lot of my friends whose kids have been in school since mid-August, but the kids here on post just started last Tuesday. I wanted to take a full two weeks to get settled in first.
We are trying as much as possible to use Montessori materials and methods. Both kids' teachers from their old school (and even some teachers who didn't have my kids in their classes) were so helpful to me before we left San Antonio. Thanks to all of them, Fred and I were able to make our own (inexpensive) versions of a number of Montessori materials.
We had a rather shaky start to our day today. Mike settled in quite nicely and concentrated on his math and German lessons. Poor Annabelle started working math problems using the Stamp Game (you can see computer versions of this and a few other Montessori products by clicking here), which was her #1 favorite math tool from last year. She got through one problem and then looked up at me. "The stamp game is nice and all," she said with a quivering chin, before breaking down crying: "But it's just not the same as in Miss Page's class!!! I miss Miss Page! I want to go back!!!!!" Ugh, I thought my heart would break. So instead of doing all the cool Montessori stuff that I had so carefully prepared, Annabelle spent the bulk of the morning doing miscellaneous other things that wouldn't make her remind her of Judson and make her homesick.
After lunch today, the kids and I took the streetcar downtown to the main post office to pick up the new modem that TKS sent me. Quite an adventure! We got sent around the side of the building where we wandered around a loading dock before we found a kindly maintenance man who took us through an enormous warehouse and into this eensy little office. Lo and behold, there was my modem (and it works, too, at least on the notebook computer!). Once I had my modem safe in hand, we spent a couple hours exploring our local shopping mall some more and then went a few stops further to find our local ice rink.
Miscellaneous note: I'll never forget the first time I saw a Mercedes garbage truck over here. Well, I had that same feeling today when I had the rare privilege of using a toilet made by Villeroy & Boch. I kept wondering if I could order one in their Manoir pattern to go with my china.
We are trying as much as possible to use Montessori materials and methods. Both kids' teachers from their old school (and even some teachers who didn't have my kids in their classes) were so helpful to me before we left San Antonio. Thanks to all of them, Fred and I were able to make our own (inexpensive) versions of a number of Montessori materials.
We had a rather shaky start to our day today. Mike settled in quite nicely and concentrated on his math and German lessons. Poor Annabelle started working math problems using the Stamp Game (you can see computer versions of this and a few other Montessori products by clicking here), which was her #1 favorite math tool from last year. She got through one problem and then looked up at me. "The stamp game is nice and all," she said with a quivering chin, before breaking down crying: "But it's just not the same as in Miss Page's class!!! I miss Miss Page! I want to go back!!!!!" Ugh, I thought my heart would break. So instead of doing all the cool Montessori stuff that I had so carefully prepared, Annabelle spent the bulk of the morning doing miscellaneous other things that wouldn't make her remind her of Judson and make her homesick.
After lunch today, the kids and I took the streetcar downtown to the main post office to pick up the new modem that TKS sent me. Quite an adventure! We got sent around the side of the building where we wandered around a loading dock before we found a kindly maintenance man who took us through an enormous warehouse and into this eensy little office. Lo and behold, there was my modem (and it works, too, at least on the notebook computer!). Once I had my modem safe in hand, we spent a couple hours exploring our local shopping mall some more and then went a few stops further to find our local ice rink.
Miscellaneous note: I'll never forget the first time I saw a Mercedes garbage truck over here. Well, I had that same feeling today when I had the rare privilege of using a toilet made by Villeroy & Boch. I kept wondering if I could order one in their Manoir pattern to go with my china.
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