Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Have we done it today, schedule chart

I got the feeling that with all the things that Anjali has to learn, in terms of formal instruction, she was getting rather overwhelmed. She kept saying things off the bat like

"I have this concert, and then piano concert and then Gita Jayanti concert and so many things!"
 
Added to it all was the fact that she had to keep up with her work - the reading and Math and logic activities. I was beginning to feel a little overwhelmed myself, and felt that some organization was needed.

I seriously considered doing workboxes, something that people have been raving about on the internet, but knew that it would take me a lot of discipline to get it up and running.

So this is what I came up with:
 Download: Schedule Chart

The idea is simple, I printed two copies, one for Anjali and one for Sophia, slipped them in clear pockets and taped them to the wall. The idea is that everyday they would put a dot against that activity that they have completed. Uncompleted activities would get priority for the next day. The goal is not to finish all the activities each day, but to make sure that there was a balance in the things we did.

It seemed to work well yesterday. I reached home at seven and husband brought the girls back from ballet at 8pm. I showed the girls the chart and how it worked. Anjali cottoned on immediately, and went to practice three pieces on the piano before putting a dot against music. Then Sophia sat at the piano and played "Beauty and the beast"

I asked the girls what they wanted to do for craft - bread baking, painting or collage. Anjali chose breadbaking. I already had dough in the bread machine, and while it was rising, we went through the reading lesson of the day and the Math Kumon book. While Anjali was doing the Kumon, Sophia did some of her own puzzles - sock matching on one of the puzzle books that we had gotten at popular last week.

We put a check against the reading and the math

The bread pinged and the girls helped me to oil the bread pan, spread flour on the board, put the dough on the board. Anjali helped me to cut the dough into 8 pieces and Sophia and Anjali both helped to roll and shape the buns. Then we brushed the buns with milk and set them to rise. i set the timer on the oven

Check Art and craft

"Anjali built a beautiful tower of blocks said husband. Does it count as art and craft or as engineering?"

"Science, I guess" I said, putting a check there as well.

We had done shlokas in the morning and so there was another check, and ballet counted as physical activity.

Puzzles remained unchecked. The girls even had time to play properly with the guinea pigs and Anjali helped me to cut the carrots, bell peppers and cucumbers into (totally unnecessary, but so so enjoyable neat circles and slices) for the guinea pigs. She then helped husband line the guinea pig cage with newspaper and crawled around in it saying "Give me vegetables!"

This morning, when she woke up, she looked at the chart and said "Mummy, yesterday we didnt do puzzles"

So we got out the puzzle book and worked on it while she had her breakfast. one check for Tuesday.


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