Homeschool Begins!

Homeschooling is in full swing now and it could not be more fun!  Grace and I make a great team and her enthusiasm keeps me going.  

We start off the mornings with our "morning board".

It's a great start to our day.  We say a pledge to the bible, recite our memory verse, write and make the time on a foam clock, make the date with coins, write and color in the thermometer for inside and outside temperatures, explore the season and the weather and go over what day it is, what day it will be tomorrow and what day it was yesterday.  Calendar and time ideas are abstract concepts and it's clear that daily repetition is needed.

We think this is a katydid.  Although I didn't think they lived in our area.

Then I give Grace the option of starting with Language Arts or Math.  She usually picks Language Arts because she loves reading.  I love our math curriculum too.  It's called Early Bird--definitely not a traditional approach, which is wonderful.  After those lessons, we usually quit for a while.  She'll play with the twins or go outside.

A baby snail.

After lunch, the twins nap and we either play a game like Memory or Alphabet Bingo.  Today we decided to do a puzzle of the United States.  Yesterday we completed a Charley Harper art assignment.  Later next week, we'll start a science unit on adopting a tree.  

In October, Gracie will start two in-classroom classes at her charter school: a class on volcanoes (she's going to LOVE it!) and choir.  They are both on Tuesdays, so that will be our out-of-the-house day.  

The twins are awfully interested in what Big Sis is doing these days.  Sometimes they disrupt us, but mostly they just want to watch what we are doing.  There are some things Grace needs to concentrate on, but there are other things the twins can join in on and all three of them can learn together.  

As for me, I am finding that homeschooling is one of the greatest delights of being my children's mom.  I had some second thoughts early on, but it has become abundantly clear that this is what I was made to do.  It really is so fun to be doing this as a family.  The loudness, the messiness, the light bulbs going on here and there--it's such a blessing to be in the middle of it all!  The kids' joy really brings it all together for me too.  If they weren't having so much fun, I wouldn't be either.