I have had a busy but good time with DD1/SIL/Gkids.
SIL actually left on Friday, traveled to help his parents with getting their home ready/in selling shape - will return on weekend after 2 weeks there. Then I will stay until first full day of dad being back before I leave. SIL is helping with the Need to get realtors in for advising/market analysis - patch roof versus new roof (most likely new roof will be the decision but need to have the work done). They have pricing on the two roof options. Get other repairs done and getting the house ready to list when they have their spot in AL near the other son.
The 5-month-old baby is easy, and she is with me until the spot in daycare opens up Sept 29 (DD1 returned to FT work Sept 2); the younger two Gkids (ages 2 and 4) go to daycare and the 6 and 7 YO go to same school together. DD1 leaves at 6:15 am M - F and does the two drop-offs, and the school is close to her work site. I pick up the daycare two mid-afternoon to avoid the traffic and also for them to have time at home w/o rush and stress. After I leave, DD1 will work out with SIL on various days of drop off and pick up by him. The school kids will logistically always be dropped off and picked up by DD1 unless she doesn’t go into work that day due to appointments or other non-regular things.
Evenings and weekends, the 2 and 4 YOs need the most oversight - especially the 2 YO.
I have been able to do a lot of extras with all of the kids - and the 6 and 7 YO are motivated to do the extra reading/vocabulary tasks and attentiveness with piano - because they like to play spider solitaire on my laptop. 10- or 15-minute reward (and I do often let them have a few more minutes to ‘win’ a game they are in). These two started keyboard group class after school one day a week with the school music teacher. Have been doing the same early reading activities with the 4-year-old that I did with the older two kids at that age.
The new school for 6 and 7 YO (prior was excellent private school there for 30 years and closed due to a series of ‘perfect storm’ happenings) is IMHO going to be just as excellent for them. ‘Old school’ actually worked a lot a grade ahead. GD1 had K and 1st there, while GS1 had 4K and K there. GD1 in first grade had used “Spelling Connections, Thinking, Phonics, Reading, Writing 2” by Zaner-Bloser (J Richard Gentry, PhD) last year. They had a lot of tear out sheets used from this soft-cover workbook. At the back of the book, they had high frequency writing words alphabetically, a 40-page dictionary, and a 10-page thesaurus. GD1 actually was doing some of the work in the book that she found challenging, and I questioned her on spelling on some of the high frequency words. I took a paper for her to write out the long, difficult to spell words. I just looked at the word list she wrote out and noticed “responsibilities’ was incorrectly copied - but wow on this word being a 2nd grade word. I’m sure it is a be able to read it and not necessarily be able to spell it, but GD1 likes a challenge. She is reading at 5th grade level based on end of school year standardized testing. Her school is using a different series of materials, and she is seeing much of her current schoolwork as ‘easy’, but she is liking her new school. I imagine the teacher(s) are making her day be interesting with learning activities.
GS1 is almost ‘caught up’ on the 20 ‘rapid word recognition charts’ (reading fluency practice) from kindergarten. This helps strengthen his reading – each chart has 6 words in various jumbled ways on each of the 5 rows (30 words on the page). He was checked off on 10 of the 20 charts at end of school in May. We have been taking small repetitive sessions on his recognition of these words since I arrived late August. Chart 20 is these 6 words “those, friend, does, school, church, thing”. We are through Chart 17, and he has been exposed to all the words through Chart 20. GS1 has an easy time with Math.
GS2 will go into 4K program at the new school Oct 1. He will get to be with ‘the big kids’ with the two littles being at daycare (Sept 29), and IMHO he will enjoy the school environment. GS2 starts at the new school Oct 1. Small class sizes with individualized attention, and they have ‘enrichment’ with home school kids on Tuesday and Friday. The newly opened school will get bigger fast IMHO. They just added another classroom last week – they are in a very nice office building which has a good layout for their learning environment. The school offered a guaranteed fee structure for 3 years. Some of the kids from the ‘old school’ moved over, and the GKids/parents know some of the home school kids that come for the enrichment schedule. Some parents dissatisfied with public or charter school with a parent working close to this new school will find this school very friendly with a parent being able to have lunch with their child for example, along with the positive learning environment.
DD1 seems to be getting more rest, especially ‘catch up’ on the weekend. I got a large takeout order Sunday on the way home from church, and DD1 was able to sit in her recliner and relax with the baby while I got the meal on the table.
Saturday for grocery stops (Costco and Trader Joe’s) DD1 took GD1 and GS1 while the younger 3 were home with me.
Soccer games start next weekend, along with religious education for the older 3 kids on Sunday. It will be an interesting time. We will be using both cars so I can take some kids home. 4, 6, and 7 YO on different teams with less activeness (practice and games) for the 4 YO.
Congratulations, travelnut!