I must start this post by stating that I was a nervous wreck about starting to home school Alona. I kept thinking, " I am SO not a teacher!! I need someone to tell me EXACTLY what to do. I have NO clue what I am doing". And I must say, all the above are true. However, after getting some wonderful advice from other Mama's who have walked in my shoes before me, and having dipped my little toes into the home schooling pond this week, I feel like I can actually handle this.
My biggest pieces of advice from my dear friends were to a) not stress out and b) go slow. There are SO many things that Alona needs to learn, and the wonderful thing is, we don't have to do it all in a day! We can build in activities and learning experiences for her in just about everything we do. Pretty much every single thing about her life now is new, which allows for plenty of hands on learning.
Our main 4 areas of learning for now are English, Math, Bible, and Health/Nutrition (not necessarily in that order). We have spent the most amount of time this week on English. Alona is doing a phenomenal job, and she is doing really well with her lessons. One of her biggest frustrations at the moment is pronunciation. Just as I can't roll my r's and say things correctly in Russian, she has a hard time with some sounds in the English language that are unfamiliar to her...such as the "wuh" sound and the "th" sounds. A sweet, sweet church friend who is a speech pathologist has offered to spend time with Alona in practicing some of these skills. Starting next week, Alona will also attend ESL classes at our church, as part of an international outreach group. There is a native russian speaker that attends these classes, and I am excited for Alona to get started there.
Getting a little help in her English studies from Avalea.....
and Adalaise:)
Ryan is our math man, and he printed off a TON of worksheets for Alona, so that he can assess where they need to begin their studies. After about 20 minutes of evaluation last night, Ryan decided that the place they needed to start was memorizing the times tables. Alona is able to answer most simple multiplication problems correctly, but the way she arrives at the answer is by counting, not multiplying. He is having her write out the tables up to 13, and then will have her memorize them. He plans to do some timed trials with her to keep track of her problem solving improvement. I am thankful that Ryan has taken charge of math because a mathematician, I certainly am not!
Alona is continuing with her bible lessons as well. As I mentioned in my prior post, I am having her read 2 chapters a day, underlining 3 verses that stand out to her in each chapter, and then having her write them down in her journal in both English and Russian. Eventually, I plan to have her memorize one verse in English a week.
Health/Nutrition is a whole new concept for Alona. At her school in Ukraine, she did have PE, but she readily admits that she hated to do the exercises. She said that the only way the teacher could get her to participate, was to reward her with sweets:) Last night, Ryan printed off an old school food pyramid to show Alona in general terms what you should eat each day. Our biggest issues at the moment are getting her to eat vegetables and drinking water. I really don't think she drank much of anything at the orphanage, and it wasn't uncommon for her to not order a drink when we ate out in Ukraine. She was totally blown away (and less than pleased) when we told her she was supposed to drink 8 glasses of water a day. We compromised and told her to start out with drinking 4 glasses of water a day, and we would work up to 8. I am pleased to say that she did achieve this goal today...hooray!! Baby steps, right?!?
Translating the servings into Russian
I would consider many things we do around here as home economics, and yesterday the girls and I baked White Chocolate Chip Brownies together. It was so fun to do this as a group activity with all of my little ones...not to mention that I am obsessed with pumpkin goodies in the fall! We also ventured to a little pumpkin patch not far from our house so that my 2 babies could pick out a pumpkin. We came home and arranged them (and some ginormous mums) on the front porch. I think decorating can count towards Home Ec, don't you?
Pumpkins!
Making our delicious pumpkin brownies
Alona has been a trooper, and tags along to just about anything Ryan and I do. It has been so cool to see her in social settings, and within this short 1 1/2 weeks, she has picked up on a ton of social cues. When someone introduces themselves, she will now respond with , "Alona. Nice to meet you". She seems more at ease every day in public, and everyone comments on how happy she seems. What a truly remarkable testament to the spirit and tenacity of our daughter. Ryan and I are truly humbled to have been given such an amazing gift of being able to parent Alona. We are just in awe of God's goodness in giving her to us, along with our precious 4 biological daughters.
Couldn't resist sharing this picture of my 3 middles:)
Shopping for scarecrows!
We have a busy few days up ahead (as always!), but I plan to post in the next couple of days or so about 3 extraordinary girls that captured my heart while in Ukraine, who are longing for a family of their own. Please check back for that soon!
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