Shhh! School has Started!

Since I made the decision to home school I have been doing a little practice teaching.  We have been working our way through the Scripture Alphabet series with Impress Your Kids and have really enjoyed it.  We save this for the end of our day, just before prayers and bedtime.  It helps the children settle down and also gives us some time to learn letters and do some crafting.

Cohen hard at work tracing letters.  I was shocked when he asked to copy what he traced on the lines below.  I love that homeschooling encourages children to take initiative and to extend their learning.

All of the children are present during these activities.   As a teacher I learned that I could expose students to subjects, topics etc... that were a little above them.  I just have to remember not to require that they demonstrate everything they are being exposed to.  We printed the letter L and searched for it on our letter bin.  Searching is a really important early skill.  Students need it to help them recognize letters as they are reading.  Here is a site that has some good activities that help with searching.  Not all the activities help with searching but most of it is useful.

This activity was great.  The children practiced important skills such as searching, printing, cutting and gluing. 

Today we were working on the letter L.  Since Impress Your Kids did not have a verse for this one, we found "Look to me and be saved..." Isaiah 45:22.  Impress Your Kids made lions out of paper plates.   I didn't have any on hand so we used paper bags.  The kids loved it.  This activity helped improve their fine motor skills and was lots of fun.  My son came up with the idea of using round stickers for eyes and putting dots in them.   I love these moments where we can just share ideas and work together.

There he is again - shirtless-boy! He gets something out of our time together.

I have been trying to home school as informally as possible.  Since my sons are high energy I keep things flowing without abrupt beginnings and endings.  We brought out the sorting toys and sorted together on the family room carpet.  I thought we were done but my son continued exploring.  He started to make patterns with the sorting toys and soon we were back to sorting with other attributes.  Through homeschooling my kids don't realize that they are "in school".  The learning is just woven into our daily lives.

I am thankful for the opportunity to home school and hope I can do it for as long as I need to!