The Aday Academy

Week 8 - Letter H

2011-10-16T20:23:00.000-04:00

~Big E is 4 years old: Lil E is 28 months~

We had another good week this week. Though we have our moments, I am still amazed at how smoothly things are going!

Lil E's highlights for the week:

* H Coloring Page

* tracing a connecting line

* H House craft

* Lauri shape sorter

* H playdough shapes

* Tool vocabulary

* H/h hunt (She found all the H's on her own!)

* House shape craft

Big E's highlights for the week:

* reading a few new words

* practice writing O, G, Q, G

* Wrote and Spell his name by himself

* Wrote a paragraph about a memory inspired by a photograph

Fall activities: We worked a little bit out of a fall workbook my mother made for the children.

* Read a poem and colored some leaves

* Collected and pressed leaves

* Did some leaf rubbings

* Sorted and counted leaves

* Blew leaves across the table

* Went apple picking

* Painting Pumpkins

Favorite Moments:

* One of the fun things about homeschooling is the flexibility we can put into our day. Below is a picture representing that flexibility. Lil E decided that Mr. Bear should join our classroom that day. (Mr. Bear also had a seat at the table when it was table time.) You will also see Big E playing his bass while accompanying our music time for the day. So much fun!

Music Time with Mr. Bear

Big E's Writing Assignment:

"This picture was taken in the winter when we were shovelingsnow. We got snow as high as ourhouse. Shoveling the snow was hard. In this picture I didn’t have a shovel, butsometimes I helped Daddy shovel. In thispicture I’m following Daddy in the snow. I usually follow the path that Daddy makes because I can’t walk throughthe snow when it is deep. In thispicture Lil E is standing as well. She liked the snow. She couldn’twalk in the snow either."

Week 7 - Review

2011-10-09T17:58:00.001-04:00

According to the Sonlight curriculum, this week was to be a week of review, which worked out very well for us. This week turned out to be a crazy week with four out of our five mornings filled with either Dr.'s appointments or Bible Studies. Though Lil e didn't end up having much school, somehow we still maanged to complete all of Big E's school work.

Calendar Time

I am loving the flexibility of this curriculum. Though we didn't have Calendar Time each day we still managed to sneak in all of our "required" readings and handwriting and letter review practicing. I am looking forward to getting back to a "normal" schedule this coming week (hopefully). I am encouraged that we were still able to make progress in our schoolwork this past week despite our busyness. It gives me great hope that school will continue to progress well when our newest family member joins our family sometime soon.

Lil e showed no interest in school during our one "normal" day of school. I'm okay with that since she's still so young.

Learning how to put her shoes on

Big E's school highlights:

* Reviewed the letters F, B, M, T, R, and A

* focused on the /a/ sound

* did a little more reading: "am, bam, rat, bat, ram, mat, etc."

* reviewed writing letters C, U, and c

* practiced retelling stories, "The Tortoise and the Hare"

* practiced turning socks inside out

Sock Practice

Week 6 -Letter A

2011-10-01T20:29:00.000-04:00

~Big E is 4 years old: Lil E is 27 months~

I can hardly believe we are already six weeks into our new homeschooling plan. I am so thankful that it continues to go so smoothly.

Due to our non-school schedule, it seems we average only 3 days of school for Lil E. I'm choosing not to be discouraged by this because she is only 2 years old. Plus, this schedule will give us extra activities for the weeks of letter review. Any morning we are home we devote to schooling.

Lil E's highlights for the week:
* Aa letter sheet
* Aa tracing
* Apple dot painting
* fruit vocabulary
* Melissa and Doug Shape puzzle
* Counting Bears color sorting
* Shape identification

Dot painting the Aa sheet

Identifying shapes with magnetic pom poms

Color Sorting the Counting Bears

Letter Tracing (I'm amazed at how well she does with this)

Fruit Vocabulary Identification (see the video below for a taste of how this activity went)

Lil E's letter A crafts

Big E still manages to get a full 4 day week of homeschooling each week. On the mornings that we are not home we will use Lil E's nap time to do his copywork, handwriting practice, and creative writing exercises. On our busy days we still manage to fit in the book reading at various parts of the day. I love how flexible the Sonlight curriculum is!

Big E's highlights for the week:
* Counting practice with Counting Bears
* copywork with the words "at, fat, mat, rat." and his name
* reading the copywork words
* writing words from signs PULL, MEN, BUMP, and RR
* fishing for letters
* making words with sounds
* helping and participating in Lil E's school
* Creative Writing Assignment "The Day I was Two Inches Tall"

"I woke up one afternoon after naptime and found out that I was only two inches tall. I think I shrunk because I fell trying toreach something. I got out of bed bywalking to the corner and sliding down. It took me a long time to walk to the stairs because I was too small,like that big. After nap time I decidedto read some books. I read books byreading a book that was already opened, because I was too little to pick up anew book. Then I needed to go to the potty,so I used Elizabeth’s little potty. Ihad to jump to get to the top of the potty. After using the potty I had to use a big stool to reach the sink. I tried to see if I could pick myself with myarms up so I could get the water on."

Dot Painting Aa Page

Fishing for letters

Cutting Practice ( I love that Lil E wanted to watch)

A/a Hunt

Big E's Crafts

Life Skills:

This week I allowed them to make their own apple butter toast for lunch one day.

Favorite Moments:

One of my favorite moments this week included seeing the children excitedly run to their school drawers first thing in the morning, while still in PJ's, before breakfast. On two separate mornings they pulled an activity out and started working with them before we did anything else in the day. What a treat to see them enjoying "school".

Another favorite moment was anytime Big E helped Lil E with her school work. What a joy!

Pre-Breakfast color sort with Big E's Help

Big E Calling out Fruit for Lil E to find.

Real Homeschooling Moments:
As the above activity was failing miserably (and it was our 2nd attempt for the week) I thought I'd record the "real" homeschooling moment for all to see, lest someone thought that our days always went smoothly. Here Big E is trying to help Lil E do her activity and Lil E is clearly refusing to participate. That's pretty typical! HA! Such is life!

Week 5 - Letter R

2011-09-25T17:02:00.000-04:00

~Big E is 4 years old: Lil E is 27 months~

Though we only had 3 official days of school this week, we accomplished much. We managed to complete all of the Sonlight Curriculum once again. We even read ahead in some of the books! I guess that means Big E is enjoying the material.

Lil E continued with her material as well, but we only completed 3 days of activities. The last day she wasn't very interested in the activities, which is okay.

In our reading ahead, we read about bakers and then decided to bake our own bread together. It was really fun to do something so hands on immediately after reading about the topic.

Lil E's highlights included:
* Rainforest vocab matching
* connecting/tracing practice
* shape identification; star, heart, moon
* playdough R shapes
* rainbow coloring

Lil E's Work

Big E's highlights included:
* singing "The Farmer in the Dell"
* reading ahead in several of our books.
* completing much of our school reading while waiting at Drs. offices!
* coloring a rainbow by number
* rainbow pattern craft
* learning about the science behind rainbows
* copying our phone number
* handwriting practice U, V, W, X, t, and various lowercase words
* baking bread with Momma
* Writing out step by step instructions for a selected "hobby" or "skill"

Big E's Work

Can you see the Astronaut he drew in the right space shuttle?

"How to Buckle into a Car Seat"
1.      ObeyMomma and Daddy, and start buckling as soon as you get into the car.
2.      Sit down in your car seat.
3.   Find the center buckle between your legs, makesure you can reach it.
4.     Put your arms into the straps like you arewearing a life jacket.
5.     Place the metal buckle into the holes in thecenter buckle between your legs. Push alittle bit hard until you hear the click.
6.     Find the black plastic buckles on the straps andconnect them together.
7.     Ask Momma or Daddy to pull the strap at thebottom of the car seat to tighten it.
8.     Make sure the black plastic buckle is at yourchest.

Week 4 - Letter T

2011-09-19T22:10:00.000-04:00

What a fun letter! Multiple crafts were made this week, books were read, and fun was had. We are continuing to enjoy our homeschooling time together. Of course there are difficult days and moments, but it helps me to see their hearts and most of all, my heart.

Lil E's highlights for the week included:
* voluntarily tracing the letters on her letter page.
* identification of heart, circle, moon, and star shapes.
* identification of transportation vocabulary.
* participation in playdough letters.
* Kumon coloring.
* using a stick glue.
* tracing the letter T.
* being able to identify F, M, T, B based on phonics!
* finding T/t when requested.
* matching transportation shapes.
* cutting practice.

Lil E making "Tall Triangle Trees"

Lil E using foam blocks to identify specific form of transportation.

Traicing T's. Again... I'm amazed at what she is doing!

Lil E Finding the Captial T's. She could actually do it!

Big E's highlights for the week included:

* learning Yankee Doodle.

* practicing "story elaboration" with Daddy.

* eating T shaped toast for lunch.

* copying part of his address.

* train, tree, treasure box, and turtle crafts

* handwriting practice letters H, K L, v, w

* phonic letter identification Ff, Bb, Mm, Tt

* continued Sonlight Curriculum reading and activities.

Big E making "Tall Triangle Trees" He wanted his trunks to be tall.

Big E working on a page from "Developing the Early Learner" Vol. 1. He generally enjoys these activities.

Making paper plate turtles

The results of their crafting this week:

Big E's crafts for the week. We also make a train out of basic shapes and a treasure box.

Lil E's crafts

Week 3 - Letter M

2011-09-12T16:53:00.001-04:00

We had another great week of school, though it was a big more condenced than the previous weeks. I was out of town on Monday and we were busy with other activities on Friday. That being said, we still managed to complete all of the Sonlight curriculum scheduled for the week. Lil E just didn't get to do as many letter based activities and neither of them were able to do as many crafts or read as many extra books. I will save those activities for a review week.

Our Montessori activity for the week was to practice transferring rice from one container to another container with a spoon. We only practiced this one time, but I plan on bringing it back again sometime soon.

One of the fun activities this week was for Big E to write a story based on a picture. I helped him create the storyline by asking him a bunch of Who, What, When, etc. questions. I also had to help with some of the sentence structures, but all the ideas were his. The story that resulted from our efforts is below:

This morning one very encouraging thing happened, which the children were arguing. Big E recited last week's memory verses complete with hand motions to his sister. "God loves a cheerful giver." Despite the arguing, I was encouraged that he remembered the verse and was actually seeking to apply it (though a bit selfishly) to his life.

Robot Adam Finds aFamily

Once upon a time there was a boynamed Adam. Adam’s family was differentfrom other families because instead of having a brother or a sister, he had arobot. The robot’s name was Robot Adam. Adam’s family wasn’t sure were Robot Adam hadcome from. He just showed up at theirhouse one day looking for a friend. Though Robot Adam never talks they knew that he liked spending time withAdam’s family. Adam and Robot Adamplayed together often. Their favoritegames to play were cars on a car road mat and pretend fishing. One day Robot Adam gave Adam a card that said“Robot Loves U.” Adam gave Robot Adamand hug and said “I love you too.”

Lil E's work

Big E's Work

Rice Transfering

Happy Lil E doing school

Painting Moons

Not really painting moons... but enjoying painting just the same.

Week 2 - Letter B

2011-09-05T22:39:00.000-04:00

We had another great week of school. This week we focused on the letter B in addition to the Sonlight curriculum week 2 material. Both children seem to be enjoying the work and the structure. I am still learning about how to balance the two of them and how to best set up the day for success.

Big E and I continued to enjoy Sonlight's material. Even Lil E will sit and listen to the readings. I continue to appreciate the memory verses and character traits.

We started using a new to us handwriting curriculum. I finally settled on Handwriting Without Tears. So far I am very pleased with it. Big E seems to both enjoy it and work with it easily. I love their approach and its easy accessibility to left-handed children.

The Montessori skill for this week was to practice folding clothes. We really only worked on washcloths this week, but we will circle back to it another week.

Lil E's Work/Crafts

Big E's Work/Crafts

Playing with a Sequencing Chart from the Library

Playing with a Color and Shape Bingo Game from the Library

Week 1-Letter F

2011-08-31T21:16:00.001-04:00

We had a very successful first week with our new homeschooling schedule. Lil E adjusted much better than I anticipated. She joyfully went to her drawers to find her special activities. She even did better with them than I expected her to do. I think she likes doing "school" and being like her big brother.

Big E was very patient with her and enjoyed doing some of her activities himself. By having them do some of the same work it will help reinforce some of the concepts to Big E and serve as an example to Lil E about what to do. Big E really enjoyed the Sonlight Curriculum. He loved the books we read and did well with the K Readers.

There were many other unexpected successes, such as, they both enjoyed the crafts we had planned. Then there were the times when I needed to work with one separately from the other, and for the most part they were patient about that.

Below are a few pictures of our week:

Big E's Work

Lil E's Work

Doing the motions to our new memory verse

Dot Painting

Pre-K4 and Pre-K2 Preview

2011-08-31T20:53:00.000-04:00

Last week was our "official" start of the new school year. During the summer we continued with daily Calendar/Circle time and Big E worked through some Kumon books. We were all pretty excited to start our new curriculum.

Below is the plan for this year for both Big and Lil' E.

Our school corner

Schedule:
We don't start at a set time. We usually start after breakfast has been eaten and cleaned up, children and Momma are dressed, and I've had a chance to maybe get one "house blessing" (read chore) done in the morning. That being said, start time is usually around 9 or 9:30.

Calendar Time: We start each day with Calendar time. We discuss "today, tomorrow, yesterday", count the days of the month, make a note of the weather, and sing a few calendar songs.

Bible Time: We review our house rules as well as the memory verse and character trait of the week (from our curriculum). We then either review all the memory verses learned to date (about 20 or so) or we continue to review and learn additional catechism questions (from "My First Book of Questions and Answers" by Carine MacKenzie). Then we read a story from the Bible and sing a Bible song (again from our curriculum).

Workbox Time: Next we move onto our workboxes/drawers. Currently I have the children doing about 2 activities together and the rest separately.

Reading Time: This is a big bulk of the curriculum we chose for Big E this year. So far we are enjoying it. We all go to the living room, snuggle into each other on the couch and read.

Montessori Skills: Usually after reading, we head back to the "school room" to work on the Montessori skill for the week. I am using the book "Teach Me To Do It Myself" by Maja Pitamic as an activity/idea guide. I'm not sure how long this will last but I hope we can keep it up throughout the school year.

Field Trips: Starting last April, when possible, we reserved Fridays for "Friday Fun Days". We used those days to travel to fun "adventures" that might include a museum trip or a hike in the woods. I'm not sure how many of these we will be able to do once our church activities resume, but I'm hoping for a trip a month.

Lil' E's Curriculum:

We are starting a "Letter of the Week" program in workbox/drawer form as her introduction into homeschooling. Each week I have 3-4 crafts, several books, animals, and snacks selected that coordinated with the letter of the week. The bulk of our sit down "school" work comes from the blog http://www.1plus1plus1equals1.com under the section "Tot School Printables." Each day I also have a specific educational toy selected (and placed in her drawers) for us to work on together).

I made a spreadsheet for each letter which includes a list of all the ideas for each letter and a break down of which activities to use each day along with a supply list for each day. This has really helped with planning and preparation the night (and week) before. It has taken a fair amount of time to plan and prepare all the letters, but I think the system is working and making the setup simple and stress-free. I currently have the letters A-T planned. So, only 7 letters remaining to plan. I'm not quite sure what we will do when we finish the 26 letters. Maybe we will just repeat them all again.

I will introduce the letters in the same order they are being introduced in Big E's curriculum, so we can be working on the same letter together each week.

Big E's Curriculum:

We settled on using Sonlight's Pre-K4/5 with the K Readers. I want to use this year as a "trial" for homeschooling next year. Hopefully this will give us a taste of what "real" homeschooling will feel like and prepare him for whatever comes next year.

So far we are really happy with the program. We have enjoyed the reading. I appreciate the suggestions for memory verses, character qualities, and weekly Bible songs. The K Reader program so far is very doable. They are basically just introducing a letter a week along with some copy work. The copy work is a bit difficult for him since he hasn't had much practice writing on lined paper yet, but we are working on it. After week 10 I think he will start some basic reading skills. We will see how it goes.

For handwriting I chose Handwriting Without Tears "Letters and Numbers For Me". It is slightly non-traditional in its approach, but so far it is going very well. (Though we are only 3 days in). He is having fun with the material and I see the benefits of the program already. For supplementals, I plan on using several Kumon Workbooks. We have a lowercase, numbers, mazes, cutting, and coloring book we will rotate in every now and then.

This year Big E will be joining the children's choir at church. I am looking forward to this. It will be his first "formal" introduction to music. As a (former) musician I haven't wanted to push him in this area too hard so I have been hesitant to do much yet. Since he likes to sing a lot and frequently sings songs from church this little choir seems like the perfect opportunity for him.

So, that's the plan. We will see how it goes!

Pre-K 3 in Review

2011-08-30T16:32:00.003-04:00

We finished up the our Prek-K 3 material at the end of May. Overall I would say we had a very successful year, especially factoring in our move to MA.

Curriculum:

1. Letter of the Week: We loved the "Letter of the Week" from Confessions of a Homeschooler. I appreciate all the time and effort she put in to creating all the documents we used. The curriculum provided many opportunities for review of the skills being learned. It also provided a wide range of skills taught, from Letter formation, phonics (basic), counting skills, sequencing, and fine motor skills (cutting, lacing).

2. Pre-Writing: We continued to use the Kumon workbooks. We completed "Let's Sticker and Paste", "My First Book of Tracing", and "First Book of Uppercase Letters". We started " First book of Easy Mazes", "My Book of Numbers 1-30", "First Book of Lowercase Letters", "My Book of Coloring", and "My Book of Cutting."

3. Unit Study: My mother served as the curriculum creator for this part of our homeschooling. The units we studied were: "It's Falling", "Harvest Time", "Geography", "Mapping", and "Transportation." The material she created was wonderful and we enjoyed using it. However, I failed to follow through and provide her with material/themes to develop additional workbooks. her additional I failed to follow through well with this idea.

4. Arts/Crafts: This kind of fizzled once we moved. We didn't do much of it in the hotel and we didn't restart it in January. Big E wasn't too interested in crafting and I didn't want to push him too hard.

5. Reading: We read most of the books recommended by Sonlight PreK 3/4 but we didn't do many of suggested activities. I also continued to read some books from "Honey for a Child's Heart" by Gladys Hunt

6. Pre-Reading: We made it through the first 18-20 lessons of "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons". Though I know nothing about phonics or how to reach a child to read, I thought the material was set up well. He was capable but unfortunately Big E didn't seem interested so I decided not to push the issue with him.

7. Manners/Personal Care: We did not follow through his one at all! Oops!

8. Bible Time: We read through several children's Bibles this year, including "The Big Picture Bible" and "The Jesus Story Bible: Every Story Whispers His Name". Big E memorized at least 10 more Bible verses and continued to review the 10 we had previously learned. He also learned the 34 add catechism answers from "My 1st Book of Questions and Answers" by Carine MacKenzie (bringing his total up to 57).

So, that was our year in review. Big E seemed to enjoy himself and learn a lot. He is now much more confident with his counting and letter formation. He knows all his letters and the sounds they all make. Maybe more importantly he learned to submit to the "structure" and format.

Portable School

2011-08-30T15:58:00.000-04:00

It has been nearly a year since I last posted about our preschool homeschooling. The main reason for that is due to our recent move (now not so recent) to MA. Ten days after I last posted we received a job offer for a job in MA. The following month was spent packing and preparing for an undetermined amount of time living in a hotel.

We ended up living in a hotel suite, with two bedrooms, two bathrooms and a great room (including a dining and kitchen area) for about 7 weeks. Despite the limited space and unusual living circumstances we continued on with our home school preschool. I thought I'd share in this post the alterations we made to our schooling in case it might help anyone else in a similar situation.

Our "Everything" Room

Calendar Time:
Calendar time was transferred from a bulletin board to a regular yearly calendar. The calendar turned out to be a great way to record how many days we had school and what we studied each day.

Calendar Time

Workboxes:
Due to limited space, instead of workboxes we used a small expandable file folder. Each activity received its own file. This actually worked very well.

Portable Workboxes

Organizing Curriculum:
Since we wouldn't have access to a printer or laminator while in the hotel, I prepared enough school activities to get us from October through the month of December. I figured if we were still in a hotel at that point I could prepare materials over Christmas break. Thankfully we moved into our new home the first week of December, but I was thankful to have as much prepared ahead of time as I did. I organized all activities by letter in a crate file folder system.

School Files

Supplies:
Based on schedule and curriculum needs I assembled a box of additional school supplies to use while in the hotel. A plastic bin with lid served this purpose. Included in the box were: stamps, markers, crayons, glue, various manipulatives, some paints, and stickers.

School supplies

School Time:
We kept our schedule mostly the same as at home. Except we had breakfast every morning with Daddy downstairs at the hotel. After breakfast time we started school time. We continued with Calendar Time, Bible Time, and Music. Then we moved on to our activities. Most days once we were done with school we were leave the hotel room for a little while. We would either go shopping, find a playground, visit the library (since we couldn't check out books and our we brought a limited number of books with us to the hotel), and just in general get out and explore while the the cleaning ladies cleaned our room.

Big E doing school

So overall, our portable school was a success. The consistency of being able to continue with school from our home in FL, to the hotel, to our new home in MA helped the children transition smoothly. Had Big E been in a traditional preschool the transition could have been more difficult and upsetting to my creature of habit Big E.

Pre-K3

2010-09-05T20:05:00.002-04:00

Big E and I had a wonderful week together as we jumped into the world of preschool homeschooling. I think our first week went very well and I'm excited about what the coming weeks will hold for us.

Our Morning:
I allow the children to wake up on their own. We then get dressed and have breakfast. Whenever we are done and cleaned up we head to the living room for our "school" time. I don't concern myself with having an official "start time."

Calendar Time:
We start our time with "Calendar Time." We talk about the days of the week and the current date. E puts the date on the appropriate day on our calendar. We also talk about "Today, Tomorrow, Yesterday" and place cards in the appropriate spots. I plan on adding a section about the day's weather to this part of our time.

Bible Time:
I have the children sit in their own chairs. I insist on Big E sitting still during this time. I allow 'Lil E to move around since she is only 15 months old., though much of the time she does sit with us. We read one or more stories from one of our Bibles, review our house rules, review our memory verses, and review and learn new catechism questions. We are currently using "The Big Picture Story Bible" by David Helm. We work on one new memory verse a month that teach basic scriptural convictions. We are also using "My 1st Book of Questions and Answers" by Carine MacKenzie. Big E seems to really enjoy these catechism questions that are based on Westminster Shorter Catechism and has already learned the first 23 questions. After we go through these things we pray for our day together.

Music Time:
Right now all this consists of is singing 1 or 2 songs off of various christian children's CDs. This gives them the opportunity to wiggle, dance, and get some energy out before moving on to the next part of our school time. I eventually hope to start incorporating a monthly hymn into this time. I believe the hymns to be rich in good theology and I hope to teach them to our children at an early age so they can have these great truths embedded in their minds.

Workbox Time:
After music time Big E gets to select a drawer to work out of. We currently have a drawer file with 4 drawers in it. Each drawer contains a different activity each day. So, that makes 20 different activities in a given week. Sometimes he isn't interested in doing some of the activities. At this point, I'm okay with that, though eventually I will work towards making him complete each activity. This week I think he did 17/20 of the activities planned for him. I let him select the drawers in any order, except for the very first drawer of the week, which introduces the letter of the week.

Reading Time:
At anytime during our school time E can choose to read our special book for the day. I select one book to "feature" each day. I place it on top of the file drawers for him to see. Then, most days I have a planned extension activity based on the featured booked. For example, this week we read "If you give Mouse a Cookie" so we baked cookies together and ate them with milk through a straw. Later we read "If you give a Moose and Muffin" and made and ate muffins with jam. We also read "Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel" and boiled water in a teapot to watch the steam come out, then we drank tea together. We might not always do the extension activity, but I have them ready in case we need another activity for later in the day.

Tray Time:
After we have worked through all the drawers E may select a tray to work with. Some of the trays are more geared for 'Lil E and some are more geared for him. Some trays are designed so they can work together. Often they play with the trays at non-school times, which is fine. I generally try to allow only one tray out at a time... though that is difficult to enforce.

This week's trays included Autoblox cars, stackable plastic easter eggs, a mini foam building set, See and Spell puzzle, Lauri foam shapes and pegs, and a construction puzzle.

Curriculum:
1. Letter of the Week: I found this great free curriculum called "Letter of the Week" at confessionsofahomeschooler.blogspot.com . We use many of her ideas and printables for our letter themed activities.

2. Pre-Writing: We are also using several Kumon Workbooks. We are currently working on "Let's Sticker and Paste", "My First Book of Tracing", and "My First Book of Uppercase Letters". E really enjoys these. I have one of these books schedule for 3/5 days in the week.

3. Unit Study: This month we are working on learning "All About Me." This unit idea came from the "Hands on Homeschooling" PreK 3 curriculum. I adapted it for our needs and made a little booklet that we will work to fill out a little each week. This week we talked about how tall E is, how much he weighs, and what color his eyes and hair are. Then he drew a self portrait. I plan on to focus 1-2 drawers a week on the unit of the month. Next month we plan to focus on Fall/Harvest Season.

4. Arts/Crafts: I hope to have 1-2 "craft/art" projects a week so E can play with glue, paint, glitter, etc and get our house good and dirty:) This week we tried to glue macaroni to the Letter M. He wasn't thrilled with the project and only did a little, but that's okay.

5. Reading: I am loosely using the Sonlight Curriculum for our reading. I purchased their Pre-K 3/4 teacher's manual and use that as guide from finding good age appropriate books. They also include some fun extension activities in their manual. I am also using "Honey for a Child's Heart" by Gladys Hunt for book suggestions.

6. Pre-Reading: We are using "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons" by Siegfried Engelmann. I'm not forcing E to work on his reading skills, but he seems interested so we are gradually working through the book. We are only on lesson 12 but he seems to get great pleasure out of reading successfully. Some of the rhyming tasks are a little hard for him, and somedays the lessons are longer than his attention span, but he is learning and having fun so we will continue wit this for a little while. I leave the book on top of the file drawers as well. Some days he requests to do the lessons, some days we incorporate this time into our reading time, and some days we don't do it at all.

Planning:
I have the entire year loosely planned out so I know for the most part which unit studies we will focus on each month. I have some of the letters of the week scheduled as well, but the order in which they come could still change. I also have a Manners/Personal Care goal for each month, ex. pick out clothes and put them on my himself. Having this general schedule will help me plan ahead for the unit studies that will require more pre-planning. It will also help make sure I am teaching him more of the basic skills.

I also have an excel file outlining the activities for each drawer each day, and for each day's featured book. It takes a little bit of time to plan it out, but it helps me know which activities to prep, and what supplies I will need for each week. I am trying to stay 3-4 weeks planned and prepared ahead of our current week. Hopefully this will eliminate the stress of preparation.

So far, only one week in I am pleased with our plan. Big E has enjoyed our school time, 'Lil E is adjusting to the routine, and the preparation time each night has been minimal. I have really enjoyed spending this intentional time with my children and having more structure to our day. It is fun to watch them learn with such joy and energy.

Tot School

2010-09-05T20:05:00.001-04:00

~'Lil E is 15 months old~

Starting this week Tot School will now focus on 'Lil E. This week was a transition week for us. Big E's "school" was in full swing. 'Lil E joined us for Calendar, Bible, and Music time. Then we would either play with her first or we did our school while she played "quietly." Sometimes she was very interested in Big E's activities. She even crawled up into his chair while he was trying to trace something. This week played some fun games, some on her own, some with Big E.

This game was of her own creation. She found the popsicle makers in the cabinets and practiced putting the tops in the holes.

We practiced putting the shapes on the pegs. I wasn't sure if she could manipulate something so small, but she got a few on!

Macaroni fun. Big E was supposed to be gluing macaroni onto a M shape. So I gave her some macaroni and a few cups to play with. For a while she put macaroni and and out of the cups and practiced pouring with the cups. Eventually it became a big mess so we all had the opportunity to practice our cleaning up skills.

Playing with macaroni and boxes together.

I found these wonderful foam blocks in the $1 bin at Target a month ago. I set out the blocks and 3 plastic cups for her to play/explore with. I sorted them by color and shape for her and helped show her how to build towers and walls and such out of them. 'Lil E mostly just tried to eat them, but she enjoyed playing with them and knocking down my towers.

More in/out practicing, with foam cubes.

Zebra Stripe Cookie Recipe

2010-06-04T19:22:00.000-04:00

Ingredients:
3 C all-purpose flour
1 C granulated sugar
2/3 C powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/4 C margarine or butter, softened
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 egg
1/4 C cocoa

Directions:
1. Mix flour, sugars, vanilla, margarine, salt and egg until dough forms. Divide dough into halves. Mix cocoa into 1 half. Pat or roll each half into a 9 inch square. Cut each square into three 3-inch strips. Cut strips crosswise into halves.

2. Lift 1 brown strip half with large metal spatula onto plastic wrap. Top with 1 white strip half; press firmly. Top with remaining 10 brown and white strip halves, alternating colors and pressing firmly to form into a bar, about 4.5 inches long, 3 inches wide and about 3 inches high. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate until chilled, 1-2 hours.

3. Heat oven to 375 degrees. Cut bar crosswise into about eighteen 1/4-inch slices; cut each slice crosswise into halves. Place on an ungreased cookie sheet.

4. Bake cookies until edges begin to brown, 8-10 minutes. Makes 36 cookies.

Tot School- Letter Z

2010-05-31T21:18:00.003-04:00

~E is 36 months old~

The Letter Z

This week we focused on the last letter of the alphabet. There could have been so much more we could have done, but I guess we were either busy again or he was happy playing independently so he didn't need as much direction.

Finding Z stickers

Making Zebra Cookies

Completed Zebra Cookies

Making Zucchini Bread

Learning how to use a Zipper

Reading books about zoos, zebras, and Zaccheus (another E picture)

Confessions of a Homeschooler Printables

Playing Zebra Dominos

Stickers on Zebras

Spelling Zebra

Roll a Zebra

Zebra Puzzle (E took the picture)

Misc.

Pre-Writing Practice

Lacing Beads and sorting colors.

Free/Imagination Play. He built a car (see the plate as a steering wheel). He could make up his mind if he was driving the "big truck" or the "blue car", but he was going to the library. (The library books are under the seat.)

Tiny Tot School

'Lil E worked on this Melissa and Doug toy. She couldn't quite get them on the pegs, but she was trying.

Tot School - Letter Y

2010-05-23T21:59:00.000-04:00

~E is 36 months old~

The Letter Y

We spent this week focused on the letter Y.

Finding Yellow Things... He loved this activity, I'm not sure why we didn't do something like it earlier.

Confessions of a Homeschooler Printables

Counting, using clothespins

Coloring by numbers

Shape Sorting

Cutting

Stickers

Misc. Activities

Preschool Workbooks.... see the car he drew on his paper?

Truck Puzzle

Nuts and Bolts

Filling a Spice Bottle with toothpicks

Shape Puzzles

Tiny Tot School

Learning about Shapes from big brother

Fill and Spill homemade bottle with clothespins

Playing with tissues... also known as gettingin trouble.

Tot School - X

2010-05-16T20:19:00.001-04:00

~E is 35 months old~

The Letter X

This past week we explored the letter X.

Eating an X cookie

Putting x stickers on the x page

Finding Xs

Confessions of a Homeschooler Printables
The following activities all come from "Confessions of a Homeschooler." What a great resource this website is!

Gluing

Color Matching Puzzles

Shape Matching Puzzles

Shape Sorting

Patterns

X Puzzle

Misc. Activities

Memory

Tot School - Letter W

2010-05-09T21:30:00.000-04:00

~E is 35 months old~

We had a great "W" week. I tried to bring more structure to our day and to our "school" time this week. E seemed to enjoy the greater structure. I am still researching other ideas about how to bring more of a routine to our "school" time. Not having a background in early childhood education means that I have much to learn. However, I am thankful for friends and various blogs that are teaching me how to do all of this!

Art/Craft Time

Painting a Watermelon on coffee filters

Gluing "seeds" (black beans) on our watermelon

The completed project

Tot Trays

Bottlecap names

More Bottlecap names. This time he wanted to make a circle out of the names and put the letters in the circle.

Sticker Puzzle. This was a Highlights Promotional mailing.

Putting W stickers on our W page

Playing with Water and a medicine dropper

Playing in a Worship Band

Circling the Ws. He did these really quickly.

Confessions of Homeschooler Printables

I have recently found Confessions of Homeschooler and her wonderful printables. E thoroughly enjoyed all of the sheets I printed out for him. I hope to use them again this week.

Gluing Poms on W

Sorting Big and Little Ws

Tracing... E hasn't done a lot of this kind of work yet. He seemed to enjoy it.

Watermelon Shape Puzzles

Watermelon Counting Puzzle

Watermelon Size Sorting

Tiny Tot School

'Lil e will be 12 months old in a few weeks. As I have had more concentrated time with E lately and 'Lil e has been growing more active I have had to start preparing alternative activities for her while working with E. Sometimes it been a good distraction for her, sometimes it has not worked.

Playing with Bottlecaps, In and Out of Bag

More Bottle Caps, In and Out Container

Experimenting with Ice and Water... she did NOT like the cold of the ice

I tried this puzzle with her. She liked eating the pieces.

Playing with Blocks, In and Out, Stacking. She actually helped clean up her toy! That was a first.

Tot School - Letter V

2010-05-02T17:44:00.000-04:00

~E is 35 months old~

We didn't have much school this week because we had Grammie and Papaw visit us.

Each week I make a sheet featuring the letter of the week and objects that start with that letter. We usually then hunt for the appropriate letter on several alphabet sticker pages. It looks like I took this picture before we played with the stickers.

Our only craft for the week was to make a violet out of popsicle sticks. It was E's idea to place the ball in the center.

Tot School - Letter U

2010-04-25T22:17:00.002-04:00

~E is 35 months~

Letter U

We made Umbrellas with coffee filters. We colored them with markers then soaked them in water so the ink would bleed and hopefully make a pretty design.

The finally project was really all my work. I tried to convince him to draw the handles, which he did on the far left umbrella. He also contributed the person on the left who are standing Under the Umbrellas.

We traced utensils and made him a place mat out of it by covering it in contact paper.

Then we practiced setting the table.

Alphabet puzzle

Geomags

Tiny Tot Activities

Lil e really enjoyed playing with these Geomags.

Tot School - The Letter T

2010-04-17T22:53:00.000-04:00

~ E is 35 months old~

We had a great week of learning this week. It was so nice to feel more on top of things for a change. I think E enjoyed having more focused time with me and enjoyed most of the activities.

"T" Activities
Not pictured are reading "The Little Engine that Could" and making pillow trains. We also explored movement and following directions through a game with train colors. I held up flags (colored paper) that directed him what to do; Red for stop, White for Go, and Green for slow. He really enjoyed this game.

Making a turtle out of a coffee filter

Making a treasure box.

Making Triangle Trees

Tea Party

Bible Lesson

Coloring Page about Jesus teaching the disciples where to fish

Fishing Like the Disciples

Other Activities

Legos

Playing Bass Drum while watching Colonial Williamsburg's Fife and Drums

Playing Memory from the May High Five magazine

Montessori

Pouring Beans

Pouring Rice

Pouring Water.
We used Blue and Yellow food coloring so we could explore color combinations.

Tot School - The Letter R and S

2010-04-11T15:17:00.001-04:00

~ E is 35 months old~

We are back! Yeah! We went on three trips in the span of a month. All the packing, unpacking, and adjusting to being home threw me off and unable to put much energy into Tot School this past month. We had a great week this week working on the letter S. I've included a few updates/pictures from when we worked on R a few weeks ago. We actually worked on S for several weeks in between trips and again with real focus this past week.

Not pictured are the videos we watched about snakes and seals and the books we read about snakes and sharks.

Coloring S and stars

Using Scissors... practicing cutting on a line

Shoes and Socks, we talked about and practiced putting on his shoes by himself

Sliding... he loves slides

Using a screwdriving, helping Daddy

Steering Wheel...he insists on "two hands"

Seesaw with Daddy

Swing... helping sister swing

Stickers... placing them inside the S

This is from our R week... he drew a rainbow on his own... unprompted :)

Painting a Snowman... it quickly turned into a blizzard instead of a snowman, but he started out with the S idea.

Sand table

Rainbow, we practiced patterns and color recognition with this activity.

Tot School - The Letter O and Q

2010-02-24T16:23:00.000-05:00

~E is 33 month old~

We've had a busy couple of week here so our Tot School time has been minimal to say the least. We did manage to do some work on our letters though, but that was about it. I haven't even managed to take many pictures lately. Hopefully we will do better in the coming weeks.

O Activities
In addition to the activities we have pictures of we talked about on and off and watched videos of owls and octopi. We also did a few other orange painting activities.

Gluing Cherrios in an "O"

Stamping Orange O's

We also watched Quail videos and talked about being "quiet" and "quick".

Making a paper quilt.

Completed project

Painting with Q-tips

More Q-tip painting

Additional Acitivities

Making letters out of popsicle sticks

Doing our new $1 ABC puzzle from Target. They had several different kinds in the dollar section so I snagged all 4. He loves doing puzzles. I thought it would be too hard for him, but with a little help he did great.

Pretend play. Here he had put "Teddy Bear" to bed to take a nap and then he decided to join him. They taking their "nap" on the coffee table. I enjoy watching E begin to have imagination play.

We focused one week on the story of the Good Samaritan. Teddy Bear and his friends re-enacted the story for us. Then we gave Teddy Bear a bandaid so he would feel better :)

Tot School - The Letter N

2010-02-07T20:30:00.000-05:00

~E is 31 months~

We spent this week on the letter N. Cute story, on the way to church my husband and I were talking and wondering about what the pastor was going to preach on this week. E answered from the back and said "This week talk about letter N." Too sweet :) We didn't get as much done this week because we were busy with other things. This coming week will be even busier, but we will keep doing what we can do.

Painting Noodles for our Noodle Necklace

Dirty hands. We then practiced washing our hands in the sink, Montessori style.

Making our noodle necklaces.

Reading books... a new one from the $1 bin at Target.

Playing Piano :)

Helping with the chores. Dusting all the flat surfaces he could reach.

E was on a gluing kick one day... so we glued numbers to the letter N.

Then we made a nest.

...with eggs and everything.

Gluing Noodles.

It was E's idea to glue the noodles on in different ways.

Tot School - The Letter M

2010-01-31T22:16:00.000-05:00

~E is 31 months old~

We based our activities this week around the letter M. Of course I had several non-M activities around to play with as well, but he didn't choose those. As usual we watched some videos about M animals... monkeys and manatees. We also read several manatee books.

We put Money into E and e's piggy banks. We talked about how God is the true owner of our money and that He wants us to make wise decisions about how we spend and save our money. The piggy banks are collecting coins for their college savings accounts. Every penny counts right!

Gluing marshmellows in the shape of an M from No Time for Flashcards. E loved it!

He enjoyed it so much he wanted to do it again, so we did and we added a moon the second time.

E has really been into painting lately, so here we made a moon and stars.

More M painting.

Here he is tracing his hand. His own idea.

This week we worked on learning how to fold laundry. He loves it and is now able to help fold e's cloth diapers.

Shape, size and color sorting

We worked on brushing our teeth at the sink in the bathroom.

More writing. He was able to draw an H! Then he turned it into a ladder. He spends much of his self-entertained time writing.

Apprentice in training, e was doing "pre-tot-school" one afternoon while I was cooking dinner. Here she is experimenting with a a cup and ice cubes.

Playing together.

Tot School - The Letter L

2010-01-24T21:44:00.001-05:00

~E is 32 months old ~

We had a great week this week. We focused on the letter L but of course did many other activities as well. Included in our activities were watching videos of lions and leopards.

Our L craft... making a ladder.

Completed project. He glued all but 2 of the ladder rungs himself.

While he was playing on his own he said "Momma... look L." We played with Legos at bunch this week.

Lacing

He really enjoyed his new lowercase alphabet puzzle. Thank you Dollar Store!

While playing with the new puzzle, on his own he ran for his fire truck and matched it with the little f. Way to g E!

Spelling family names

Our Montessori activity for the week...learning how to brush his teeth. He was enthralled with this activity. He "practiced" for about an hour straight.

Our Bible lesson for the week was the story of John the Baptist and Jesus' baptism. Daddy made E this fun little puzzle for him. He loved it.

Tot School- J and K

2010-01-17T22:25:00.000-05:00

~E is 32 months old~

This week was our first full week back at Tot School. (We did some learning last week but it wasn't enough to post about, so I'll include it in this post.) We were very busy and did lots of fun learning. We tried to play catch up on several of the letters we had started but not completed over the weeks surrounding Christmas. We ended up talking about I, J, and K.

Playing with his new Automoblox cars. He is really enjoying these :) He likes to create extra long cars.

Putting K stickers on our "K" paper.

We have decided to supplement the material E is learning at CBS with activities at home. This week we talked about how Jesus grew bigger and bigger and had to learn lots of things just like Ephraim did. One of our activities (in addition to reading the story in several different Bibles) was to put stickers on a yard stick to indicate Ephraim's height when he was born, at 6 months, 12 months, 18 months, and at 2 years old.

I recently bought a wonderful book called "Teach My To Do It Myself" that lists numerous Montessori-type activities to teach children. This week we started with learning how to wash his hands by himself. I demonstrated the method first and then he had the chance to try.

He did pretty good with the activity though sometimes he got a little too carried away with the soap. And sometimes he wanted to put his hands right back into the water before rubbing his hands with the soap, but he's learning.

Playing "Go Fish"... or rather, matching.

Making Jewelry for "J" with beeds.

We made kites with a potato stamper and painted clouds for "K."

We painted with food colored ice cubes. This wasn't a great success because his fingers were getting too cold, but we tried.

We used "Hotch Potch" letter cards from Colonial Williamsburg and tried to copy for the shapes and forms with our CW doll. Here he is doing the letter "L." We even tried to make T,Y, I, B, K, and R with our own bodies.

Playing with legos. We made houses, garages, airplanes, trees, and towers.

Drawing with chalk

Learning how to draw a person. (The faint green on the left his his man.)

Reading Recommendations

2010-01-01T20:11:00.002-05:00

I just finished reading a little booklet called "Motherhood: Hope for Discouraged Moms" by Brenda Payne. Only 30 pages long and a quick read, "Motherhood" encourages mothers to view their trials as sanctification opportunities, to confess their sins, to rely on Christ for strength, and to truly view their children as a "reward from him" (Ps. 127:3). Payne lovingly points the reader to Scriptures pertaining to the Sovereignty, Goodness, Forgiveness, Redemption, Grace, and Strength of God. She reminds the reader that a personal relationship with Jesus Christ is "the single most important factor in your mothering."

I wouldn't describe myself as being "discouraged" but there are certainly times as a mother of two little children when I grow weary. I often lack wisdom about how to handle discipline issues and sometimes question parenting decisions we have made. I tend to grow weary at being exposed to my own sin and at being exposed to the sin of my children. Reading this book is like sitting down with a wise godly woman who has experienced more of life than myself. After reading this book I am encouraged to continue pressing on and to not grow weary. I know that God is faithful in every situation, whether big or small.

I am thankful for this little booklet. I'm sure I will be turning to it many times in the future.

Hidden Words

2009-12-27T20:55:00.000-05:00

This post is a little late, but I still want to post it for my own records. As a refresher for our goals and purposes see our previous post of Hidden Words.

The second Scriptural Conviction we want to teach our children is "My purpose in life is to seek God with my whole heart and to build my goals around His priorities. For the month of November we focused on this principle with the use of Matt. 6:33. Ephraim memorized "Give God first place in my life." Again I made a pictogram page where each word received a picture. I also made up some hand motions. He is now able to "read" the page and sometimes tell it to us without looking at the page. We used this verse many times throughout the month as we taught him about making hard choices to obey God instead of doing what we want to do.

We emphasized this truth in the following ways:
1. We praised E for doing something like obeying Momma, helping Momma, and helping Momma or helping his baby sister. We would say "Way to God E, that was putting God first by _______."

2. We also reinforced this lesson during times of discipline by asking him if he made a decision for God or for himself. Then we would ask him how he could have given God first place in his life.

3. We were busy in December making cookies and food for other people. We talked about how we were using our time to help other people and that helping other people is a way that we can "Give God first place in our life."

4. When going to Bible Study or Church we talked about how making the time to go study the Bible is a way that we can "Give God first place in our life."

Again, we will continue to reinforce this principle with E on a daily basis as we daily review his memory verse. We pray that E will grow to be a man to truly puts God first in every aspect of his life.

I know these lessons seem a little abstract for a 2.5 year old but it truly is amazing how much he is soaking up. He will often reference these verses on his own when we are talking about other things.

Tot School- Advent

2009-12-27T20:33:00.000-05:00

~E is 31 months old~

The entire month of December we have focused our Bible lesson and Tot School time on preparing for Jesus' Birthday.

I divided the nativity story into 25 days with a coloring page. We would review days we had already done and talking about the new page each morning during breakfast. Then after breakfast E would usually work on coloring his page. Sometimes it took several days for a page to be colored.

We also did a Jesse Tree activity each day. A Jesse Tree uses daily Scripture readings through the month of december from from creation to the birth of Jesus with the goal of better understanding the person of Jesus. The devotion and pictures we used came from here . We didn't turn them into ornaments, but instead plan on turning them into a home made flap book. I'll post pictures when completed.

We reinforced the lessons being taught to E in his Bible Class through Community Bible Study. We hung the pictures on the fridge and continued to sing the song he learned in Bible Class. It was quite a catchy tune and he would reference it as we talked about the Nativity story. One night we even heard him singing it to himself when he was supposed to be going to sleep.

We decorated the tree and the house for Jesus' Birthday and talked about how Jesus was the best gift ever given. "Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!" 2 Cor. 9:15

We made a birthday cake for Jesus and sang him Happy Birthday on Christmas Day.

We set up a nativity set that my grandfather made. We didn't put Jesus in the manger until Christmas morning. This is the picture of Ephraim placing him in the "manger bed."

This next picture really makes me smile. Here E is moving Mary close to baby Jesus so she coul "watch baby."

Then Christmas morning after breakfast and before opening presents Daddy read the Christmas story using the coloring pages we had worked on all month

While Daddy read we illustrated the story using the nativity set.

It was a great Christmas this year. I think it might be the only Christmas we will have where in E's mind it really was innocently all about Jesus' Birthday. Today he came and asked me if we could "do more celebrate Jesus' birthday." I told him that every day could be a celebration of Jesus' birthday because Jesus was the best gift ever given. Then I explained that we can celebrate by loving God, by obeying Him, and by loving other people.

December has been a very sweet month for us.

Tot School- December

2009-12-25T22:32:00.000-05:00

~E is 31 months old~

We haven't been as structured this month about our tot school time (not that we are structured normally). However, we did have a few moments of fun learning together.

Making shapes with bears

Making patterns wtih bears with Daddy

Playdough

Computer time with Momma playing on Zoodles.com

Outside play

Shape Stacking

Letter work on the fridge

Writing

Tot School -The Letter I

2009-12-25T22:12:00.000-05:00

~ E is 31 months old~

We spent several weeks slowly working on the letter I. We have been very busy working on preparing for Jesus' birthday instead. However, we did manage to do these things for this letter.

Playing with Instruments

We talked mostly about instruments and then he "practiced" playing them.

Playing violin

Playing sticks

Playing Fife

Playing drums

"Teaching Piano" as he calls it.

Making an igloo

This is a perfect example of a failed project. I was very excited about this project because he loves glueing. However, he had different ideas. All he wanted to do was cut paper. Oh well, we might try again or maybe not. There will be other failed projects along the way.

Writing Practice

2009-12-11T21:24:00.000-05:00

This is how E spent most of his day. He literally spent about 3-4 hours writting his "abc's" and "numbers." How fun! What a sweetie :)

Tot School - The Letter H

2009-11-14T21:24:00.000-05:00

~E is 30 months old~

This post is actually for last week. We were so busy this week we didn't do much other than read lots of books and talk about fire engines. Last week was based on the the letter "H." We read books about Hippos and Horses. We also watched videos of horses. We also colored our "H" themed coloring page. (We do that for each letter we work on.) As usual we read lots and lots of books. Our favorites these days are anything to do with fire engines and the "See with Me Bible."

Other activities include:

Making a craft to match the lessons at Sunday school. Here he is gluing pom poms onto a fish shape. I instructed him to keep the balls inside the fish... and he actually did it!

We worked on our shapes and had some more gluing fun to turn the shapes into "H" houses.

Cutting with scissors. He's getting better at that as well.

Sorting colors into groups. Yet another gluing activity.

Finding different letters. "H" in this picture.

Measuring Mimi's foot. Everything he measured that day was "2", except for e who was "6".

Reading "David and Goliath" with Mimi

Hidden Words

2009-11-01T22:12:00.000-05:00

The Scriptures tell us that Timothy was taught the Scriptures from infancy (2 Tim. 3:15) by his grandmother Louis and mother Eunise (2 Tim 1:5).  These passages emphasize the importance of training our children to know the Bible in hopes that they will come to love God, love His Word, and therefore live according to His Word.

This past month I thought we would try to begin to teach E the first of ten major Scriptural convictions we desire him to fully understand before he leaves our home. We will try to spend a month on each conviction and repeat those teachings for the rest of his years with us. The first one was "The Bible is the inspired Word of God and the final authority for my life." We focused on 2 Tim. 3:16. I made up a little pictogram of the first half of that passage in hopes that the pictures would help him memorize it. (I'd post the pictures here, but I don't know how to post a file to blogs yet.) I also made up a few hand motions to go with it.  He was actually able to learn it!  He can now remember and say "The Bible is God-breathed".

We have been emphasizing this truth in two ways.
1. We ask him if the story/book we are about to read is true. We are trying to help him understand that the Bible is God-breathed and therefore completely true and reliable.  So many of the Bible stories do sound unbelievable and we to make sure that he knows that though the stories of the Bible sometimes sound as fanciful as make-believe stories, that God's stories really happened to real people.

2. When teaching and correcting E we have been telling him that God told us what is right and what is wrong and that since God knows what is best for us we should obey Him..

We started working on a verse to go along with this Sunday morning "Bible class". He is starting to be able "read" and say that one if he looks at the pictures I made for him. I plan on starting the next topic this week.

What joy it brings my heart to know that E is begining to hide God's Word in his heart. Our prayer is that in doing so he will be convicted of the sin in his life, understand his need for a Savior, believe in Jesus Christ as his Savior, and grow in Christ-likeness (Ps. 119:11).

Tot School - The Letter G

2009-11-01T19:42:00.000-05:00

~E is 29 months old~

We had a mostly G-themed Tot School this week. After having several weeks off from Tot School, it was fun to get back into the game this week. Not pictured are looking at giraffe videos and reading "Goodnight Moon." We might do more G activities this coming week. We will see.

Playing with color cards. At first we tried to find the green cards. Eventually he had fun shooting them off the table. Sometimes he told me which color he was shooting off.

Nuts and Screw set

Creation Investigation is a suggested activity to enhance his sunday school class. Here we investigated the differnece between sand, dirt, and grass.

Painting G's with Green paint

He enjoyed painting so much we painted this giraffe as well.

Counting golf balls. We placed golf balls on the corresponding numbered plates. This game lasted all of 60 sec. Then he put balls on all the plates. Then we just rolled them around.

Playing with blocks, finding letters

Sharing toys with his sister.

And I couldn't resist sharing this one......

Prepping the next one for tot school. Little e loves reading this black and white book.

Tot School - The Letter F

2009-10-10T21:36:00.000-04:00

~E is 29 months~

Our activities this week surrounded the letter F. We had a very busy week with a very special visit with a wonderful friend. I think we will stick with F again next week as well.

We watched nature videos on frogs and fish on National Geographic's website.

We we read many books on Fish. Including "Rainbow Fish 1, 2, 3" by Marcus Pfister and "Ten little Fish" by Audrey and Bruce Wood

We played matching farm animals.

Then he found his horse and cow and "matched" them to the pictures.

We played with the farm itself.

We went fishing for letters with his "Auntie".

We went to Fire Station 10 for Fire Station Community Day. He wasn't too thrilled about the whole thing when we were there, but when we came home he kept talking about it.

We read Fireman and Fire Engine books.

We also went fishing in this sensory box.

Tot School - The Letter P

2009-10-04T20:49:00.000-04:00

~E is 28 months old~

For our "P" sponsored week we:

Played with purple play-doh. This activity continued to be a hit.

Played Puzzle... many times.

Played a new fishing puzzle:

Sorted Pink and Purple Color Cards while outside

Painting Outside

Playing at the Park
(I'm not sure if you can tell, but he is holding a wooden penguin. That penguin went everywhere with him that day)

Learned Practical Skills:

Mowing the Grass

Cleaning toilets

Washing Cars

Tot School- The Letter P

2009-09-27T15:10:00.002-04:00

~E is 28 months old~

This week we focused on the letter P. We read the following great books on Penguins, Puffins and Polar Bears that we checked out from the libarary. (We had another good book on penguins but I can't find it right now)

We watched internet videos on National Geographic about Penguins, Porcupines, Puffins, and Polar Bears. (Who knew there were so many animals that started with a "P"!)

We played with a stuffed penguin. It was actually one of my toys. The poor feet are about to fall off!

We painted.

Played with homemade playdough.

Made mini-pizzas for lunch.

We also made letters out of toothpicks. Here is is making a P.

Our non-P activities included two versions of fill-and-spill(Those are very tiring games for Momma... because it means we have lots of pieces to pick up), reading lots of books, counting bears, and outdoor play.

I think we will focus on P again this week because there is much more we could do.

New Blog

2009-09-26T17:33:00.000-04:00

I thought it would be a good idea to separate our "school" blog from our family blog.

More than anything we desire our children to come to know Jesus as their Lord and Savior. We know that their salvation will only be the result of God's gracious work in their hearts. We hope that we will be able to teach them by example the difference that the gospel makes in our own lives so that the gospel will be attractive to them. We hope that we will be able to teach them to love learning so that they will become lifetime learners of God's Word. Though those are the long terms desires we know that foundations for the enjoyment of learning must be laid early. During these early education years we hope only to convey to our children that learning is and can be fun.

I hope to use this blog to document our attempts to educate our children. Hopefully this blog will provide a source of accountability for me and of encouragement to others. We are just at the beginning of this adventure and have no idea what we are doing. I don't even pretend to know how to teach children, much less young children. I look forward to learning from those around me and sharing any ideas learned with others.

Thanks for following along with us!

Tot School - The Letter A

2009-09-20T19:28:00.003-04:00

~E is 28 months old~

This week's activities were mostly sponsored by the letter A. I didn't take many pictures to document our week. However, our activities included coloring our A paper, watching anteater and ant videos from www.naturefootage.com/ . We also read several books on Alligators, one non-fiction and 2 fiction. We also made and ate apple bread.

Here we practiced making the letters A and E out of popsicle sticks. This activity was a big hit!

Snack: Ants on a log. He ate the raisins first. Took one bite of the celery then scooped the peanut butter out with his finger. So much for eating the celery.

Here he is tracing letters.