week 1

I can honestly say that I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE homeschooling! I know it's only been a week...but so far it's going great. With each day came more confidence, ease, and know how. Monday I felt like I was in a hurry and trying to live exactly to the schedule. Things seemed to be taking longer than they "should" (or so I thought). Tuesday I didn't look at the clock at all and ended much earlier..and it got better and better each day. I do follow the ORDER of the schedule, just not the times. Some things take longer and some are shorter, it just depends on the day. I feel like they learned SO much and it's only been a week!

I still don't have my math curriculum (because I changed it at the LAST minute) but I've been coming up with games and math activities. Cailey is really working hard on the nickel and dime...for some reason they are very confusing to her...both identifying them and their worth. We've played adding games with them, war, sorted, a dice game, and a few others. My favorite quote of the week came this morning. I said, "Cailey, you sure do seem to love math!" Her response was, "what is math?" I said, "every morning we do math first!" She said, "oh...I thought we were playing games and spending time together:)!!" I'm trying to make it 'fun' for them:). Braden's been making things with pattern blocks, learning the penny, playing war (learning about value), and my favorite was today. I have two foam dice with numbers 1-6. We rolled BOTH dice and had to add the numbers by making peg towers. To him we were 'trying to not let the tower fall down'! He didn't even know he was learning to add:).

In Science they learned ALL about Cheetah's! They can tell you a ton about them and loved studying them.

History was tricky for me on day one. We talked about Historians....with a 4 and 6 year old. They didn't really get it, but I went through it a BUNCH and by the end they understood. We also talked about families and timelines. They started learning about archaeologists and we got some fun books from the library on it. They LOVE the History library books! Today we made timelines of their lives that we'll continue each year until they are 10. They LOVED this project too! They had to figure out what year they were born and count up to ten years later. Then I gave them pictures of themselves at each age and they had to figure out where to put them. That was a hoot! Both of them mixed up a couple, but loved it. Then they helped come up with things that happened for each year. This stuff is right up my alley! I actually feel like a TEACHER again!

Kinsey has had some great learning time with me as well. She has built in time with me BY HERSELF two times during the day. The first time we read books..LOTS of books. I also go back and read the same ones later in the day and then Brian reads them to her at night. She is REALLY learning songs, rhymes, and books! She saw Five Little Monkey's Jumping On The Bed at the doctor's office on Wednesday and IMMEDIATELY started recited it! The second time with her is spent learning a preschool skill..colors, numbers, counting, turn taking, letters, etc.

Homeschooling has truly been a blessing to us and we are off to a great start!