4 Weeks

We have completed our first four weeks of homeschooling. The time has gone quickly, especially since we still have some summer activities like swimming that have kept us busy. In the past 4 weeks, we have made an All About Me book, learned 4 Bible verses, talked about what history means and read about Creation, Adam and Eve, the Fall, Noah, the Tower of Babel, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph and Moses. We have learned a fun song about the continents that Elliott put to good use at the zoo to figure out where the animals live. We are about 3/4 of the way through the first grade box of Hooked on Phonics. We do a calendar and the weather every day, and I have also added storytime to our morning work. We checked out several books from the library and enjoy choosing one each day, and we started reading Charlotte's Web this week.

Elliott has daily handwriting or thinking worksheets and is doing some Montessori fine motor activities. Math is an interesting subject. After completing Unit 8 in our Math-U-See curriculum, I took another look at the book and noticed that there are only 30 units. We had been doing a week's worth of math work in one day! It was all review for Elliott at least, and we probably would have gone through it more quickly than the book suggests, but after I realized my mistake we were able to take a little break from the math curriculum and work on telling time.

Today we went for a hike at a nearby park and explored their Nature Center and pond. The kids were able to see tadpoles in action and even caught a large tadpole that still had a tail but also little legs. It tied in nicely to our lesson on frogs this week and happened completely by accident. I am sure we will be exploring more of the programs offered at the Nature Center. The guides there were extremely helpful and friendly.

I am now planning the next four weeks of our lessons. I have learned a lot in our journey so far. I feel like our curriculum has a few weaknesses, so I will add some activities to cover those. Our schedule is working pretty well. We do calendar, storytime, history and any science or art lessons in the morning. Then we cover phonics and math during Aaron's naptime. I still need to come up some activities for Aaron. So far we've had fun and learned a lot. I think that's all I could ask for the first 4 weeks!

Obsession

My children are obsessed with Star Wars. We have been playing it almost non-stop for several days. Elliott is Luke Skywalker, Aaron is Chewbacca, and I am Princess Leia. Still working on the braids.

This morning we made little miniature Star Wars puppets by printing out internet pictures of the characters and taping them to craft sticks. It's getting nerdier and nerdier around here. I am supposed to be making more characters right now. Shhhh - I had to blog this while E is cutting out the pictures. He's working on fine motor skills though, so I'm counting that as school. :)

You can see the puppets in our play-doh creation of, you guessed it, more Star Wars. Clockwise from the top is the Millenium Falcon (or Molivian Falcon as some members of our family call it), Luke's X-Wing, Luke's house, and Darth Vader's Tie Fighter (in black).

Elliott did say a few minutes ago, "Momma, you're the best!" That definitely makes it worth it.

Oh dear, he's getting the play-doh out. I better finish making my little Star Wars people on sticks!

Elliott's First Day of Kindergarten

Elliott started Kindergarten today! We had a fun time learning about Creation, History, Math, and Phonics. We also took pictures, measured and weighed Elliott and listed his favorite things. The boys really enjoyed singing and acting out a song about the continents. They got to hop and crawl and act like monkeys. It was perfect for them.

I still have to learn the best way to organize our learning time. We did part of our work this morning and then finished up with phonics and math while Aaron took a nap this afternoon. That seemed to work pretty well.

I asked Elliott what he thought about our day, and he said "good." I think that means it was a successful first day!