Our First Week: A Review

 We successfully made it through our first week of school! Hurray!

First Day of Kindergarten

First Day of Preschool

We got off to a rough start on Tuesday.  A combination of a new schedule, tired little girls from a Labor Day celebration on Monday and just doing something we have never done before made everyone a little edgy.  Numerous times Banana Bear said, "That's not how we did it in 4K."  Thankfully, God gave me the grace and patience to make our school day and the rest of our week successful. 

We are starting each day with calendar time.  We review the date, the day of the week, we discuss yesterday, today and tomorrow, and also discuss the weather.  The girls each have a "Daily Learning Notebook." We use these to solidify what we discussed while at the calendar and work on some math skills.

Working on Daily Learning Notebook

 Our first ten days in school are a lot of review for Banana Bear.  We are reviewing the seven days of creation, our letters and numbers. 

Banana Bear reviewing her letters.

 To reduce the boredom factor, I reduced the time we spent reviewing letters and numbers since Banana Bear has known her letters and numbers for several years now.  Our review has consisted of playing memory and practicing writing.

Each day we have focused on a different day of creation.  Each day Banana Bear made a new page for her creation book. 

Making her First Day of Creation page.  She can't imagine light without the sunshine.

Every day we also made a creation number.  This seems to have really helped Banana Bear grasp what God created each day. 

 

Creation numbers

Since I have reduced the amount of time we are spending reviewing letters and numbers, we have been spending a lot of time working on crafts that focus on creation.  Crafts to Celebrate God's Creation is a great book that I got from the library, and Banana Bear and Princess have really enjoyed making crafts from it. 

Making a grass hat complete with bugs.

Princess's grass hat.

 Some of our time was spent just playing!  The kids have so much fun playing with blocks and puzzles, and it's a great way to practice colors and shapes without the kids really noticing that we are working on learning.

Lil' Man playing with puzzles. Or just working on making a mess!

Princess working on her manual dexterity and copying skills while playing with stringing beads.

The girls playing with blocks.

All in all, we had a really good week. Hopefully, this coming week is just as great! 

First Day Jitters

Tonight, I was sitting in the basement making sure everything was ready for our first day of school tomorrow, and I was hit with this immense sense of nervousness.  My stomach knotted up and I thought to myself, "What in the world am I doing?!" 

Thankfully, that question was answered with this small voice in my heart that said, "If God has lead you to it, he will lead you through it."  Immediately, the knot in my stomach started to subside. And while I am still nervous about the task we have undertaken it is good to know that God is here to lead our family through our homeschool adventure.  And while I'm sure that every day isn't going to be sunshine and roses, I am sure that He will guide us through. 

There will be learning and growing on this adventure, and not just by the kids.  I honestly think that part of the reason God called us to homeschooling is because he wants Cory and I to learn something about ourselves and parenting.  So, let the adventure begin...TOMORROW! :)