Friday, August 27, 2010

One Week Down

We have completed our first week of school, successfully I might add! Here's a recap of our week:

~Sam is learning to sit and be schooled. This is a foreign concept to him. He is doing excellent. This has been a week of discovery for me. I have discovered that he knows so much more than we give him credit for (don't all parents). He is flying through what I thought would take us a semester. Sam also successfully memorized this weeks Bible verse. Hubs and I are kicking around the idea of going ahead and starting Kindergarten now.

~Makiah is doing review. After only being off for about five weeks we are revisiting multiplication tables and letter writing. She completed her 35th chapter book since the beginning of June. So proud of her. We hit on a series (American Girl Series) that she enjoys reading and it has just catapulted her into a love for reading! Thankfully! She is memorizing the books of the Bible and doing excellent on her Bible memory passages.

~Daniel has done better than I expected. He sits at the table with us and looks at his flash cards, colors, draws and plays with play doh. Occasionally he is a distraction, but he is two. It's practically his job to distract!! I also work with him on colors, shapes and counting.

~Science: our science experiment this week uses eggs. It is a seven day experiment and so we'll know our conclusion on Tuesday next week. They are loving looking at the eggs in the jar everyday and journaling the changes.

~Me: I still have all my hair and I can say what a great week!! I have already started my lesson plans for next week. I have also planned out our snacks and lunches on the calendar to help with grocery shopping tomorrow. Our theme this week was Rules, Rules, Rules. I did that to lay a good foundation of whats expected. The next two weeks will be Fruit of the Spirit. I am already getting the fruit ready to go.

I told Makiah a few weeks ago that this was going to be our best year yet of homeschooling and I intend on making that a reality! I am thankful for God's goodness and grace as we attempt to train up good, Godly, well educated children.

Monday, August 23, 2010

New School Year Begins!!

I know, its been a long time! I promised we did school, I just didn't blog about it. But here I am and ready to make a go at this year on the blogging!!

As every year of homeschooling, this year presents new challenges. Sam is four, he will be five in November. Technically not old enough to start Kindergarten. He is very, very smart but I have been a little concerned about his cooperation with sitting and learning. He proved me wrong today! So here's what we are doing:

Makiah~~She is starting fourth grade (we won't talk about how old that makes me feel) and she is excited to start this year. Her work load today was a lot of review. She has read 30 chapter books this summer (YAY!) and I am very proud of her for that. I'll post more about her work in a future post.

Sam~~We started his full curriculum today. I am using the preschool Brain Quest workbook and Brain Quest game. Today I wanted to really get a good feel for where we stand on number recognition, counting, letter recognition and comprehension of understanding directions. He ROCKED it. He recognized all the letters except he confused small case a, d and b. His number recognition is awesome! He did all of his workbook pages perfectly (even the ones I expected him to get a little confused on). Sam is also amazing at math. He can add and subtract very simple problems.

Daniel played at the table with us coloring, looking at his flash cards and looking at books. We had circle time that included a silly dance contest, we had morning devotions and we had a very successful first day!

Thursday, January 14, 2010

School Is In Session and My Blog is Suffering

~Laughing~

I am excited about the second quarter of school. I have a lot of activities planned that I think the kids will really enjoy. Next Monday is Martin Luther King Jr. day and we are going to do a lapbook this year! I am really excited about this project not only because Dr. King is a great man to study about, but because Makiah will get to make something that she can look back at later. I think it will be a nice change from a normal school day. We will study about him and then take the rest of the day off.

Makiah is doing really well in school, except for Math. It's not that she doesn't know the work, she doesn't like it. So we drag through Math, everyday. UGH! I am still trying to think up a fun way of doing math, but so far I haven't been successful.

Every two weeks we have a Bible passage that Makiah has to memorize. We are also working on a poem for memory, about penguins. Her favorite!

Well, for now that catches us up. I'll be back next week to post about MLK Day and pics of our projects!