Home School June Week 3

Due to the Bulgarian Adoption Reunion, our home school week was only three and a half instead of seven days long.  Hence, we did not cover as much material.  We did some math, ESOL, and sight words of which Ella was able to add seven more to her mastered repertoire.  We also continued with our book reports and summer journaling.

Our theme for the week was Our Street, Our Town and it was our most hands-on topic yet.  We spent some time walking our neighborhood and discussing concepts such as house numbers, fire hydrants, and street signs.  While in the car, we talked about highways, exit and entry ramps, stores, schools, churches, etc.

I was a bit impressed with Ella's quick understanding of maps.  Working on drawing a map of her room, I told her to pretend she's a bird in the sky and asked her how her room would look from that view.  "Like a big rectangle," Ella immediately answered and we went from there.

Even though it was not home school, Ella also learned a lot at the Bulgarian reunion, especially in the social emotional realm.  She made friends with several different children quickly, some older, some younger, some peers.  She learned their names, participated in new joint games like Four Square, did crafts, became very confident riding a scooter, etc.  Ella picked up many new words and phrases from the other kids.  She also appreciated seeing many children with limb and other differences and once again thinking about the idea that everyone is able in his or her own way.  Ella was brave and touched the animals at Parky's Farm (even the snake which scared her so) and did the bungy activity.  She was rather obedient during the entire reunion weekend and, given the amount of stimulation and "newness" she experienced, behaved very well.  I told her at the close of the weekend that I was proud of how she had handled her first event of this magnitude.