Back to School, Fall 2012

 We actually started back to school several weeks ago.  I didn't say anything about it because I didn't want to make all those public schoolers jealous.  haha!

Here are our first day of homeschool pics from then.  We're using My Father's World this year, which is new to us.  David and Elizabeth will be doing some of Adventures in My Father's World together, while she also has the MFW First Grade.

And here we are on the first day of public school (today public schools in our area started).  We started our day by looking at all the BTS photos that people were posting on fb, then we prayed for all the students and teachers we know in public school.

 All my students in our classroom!

We do lots of reading and we have a timeline this year.  This is what Christopher Columbus' ship would have looked like if Elizabeth had been his sail designer!  haha!!

 Here's our puppets.  The boring one in the middle was made by Mom.  : )

I had to move the marker board calendar, because Sarah kept erasing it!  Beside it, we have our new spelling board!  I'm very excited about using All About Spelling this year with David.  And cool repurposing project? Oh yeah!  That spelling board was formerly the front of my dishwasher!! 

Back to School Fun: Spring 2012

We jumped right back into school as soon as the new year passed and we were all ready to get back into a normal swing of things!  We did some extra fun learning activities to get going.  Dot painting gave us the chance to work on patterns and following instruction.  I gave them a specific pattern to follow and after doing that, then they were allowed to exercise their creativity with the rest of their peacock.

I had planned a game of 10's Go Fish to refresh some math skills that might have been forgotten.  When I started shuffling the cards, I realized that my kids have never seen plain playing cards before!  So we played a simpler version to get used to the cards and and how to handle them.  I wish I had Grandma's card holders!  Guess I'll have to make my own.  This turned out to be a good counting review for Elizabeth anyway.

Another math game using dice & adding for David & Elizabeth to work on together.  I challenged David to a speed round later, which turned out quite exciting!  I was ahead by a long shot, then my dice would not cooperate and he pulled ahead for the win!

I love mixing learning with Christmas!  Found a great deal on the Crayola Activity Center that I'd been eyeing for a while anyway, with a coupon and a store sale the day after Thanksgiving!  Elizabeth loves it and is getting in some good handwriting review!

David's favorite subject is World History.  He is happy to be back in the world books.  Here he is marking the reign of Alexander the Great as we read about him.  It was a fun first week back to school and a good start to the Spring 2012 semester.  This week, perhaps we'll wear clothing for school instead of PJ's!

Back to School!

Seems like most of our home school friends started back to school a few weeks ago or today.  We actually started out slowly a few weeks ago also.  David is a first grader!  We started off with just a morning block for school and as we're able to increase his attention span, we'll add the afternoon block of subjects.

So far, David has memorized one new Bible verse,completed  chapter one in our astronomy book and started the notebook, made a "What is history" pocket, and done lots of review/practice in his weakest point - handwriting.

Astronaut David is part of his astronomy notebook!  Below is David's definition of ancient in his history pocket.

I find that having him write things that are interesting to him holds his attention much better than having him just practice-write the same letter over & over.

The devotional book we're using, Leading Little Ones to God, has been right on target to answer some of the questions David has been curious about (like why we can't see God).  We've also make it through 2 chapter books (Charlotte's Web and Mr. Popper's Penguins) and 3 other smaller books, reading aloud together.  Lots of Lego work helps him maintain focus, and build his hand strength and creativity.

I think we're going to have to make a trip to the library soon and our first field trip to the Science & History Museum is in the works.  We're going to take in a show at the planetarium while we're there.

Elizabeth has been right along side, doing her "school work" that she loves so much.  Today, she also started her dance class at The Little Gym.  She absolutely loved it!

Here they are twirling:

Rebekah has to be contained during our school block.  She's been the biggest challenge so far!

Hope everyone is enjoying their Back to School time!