back to school….

This week I started all the other kids into our homeschool routine. Gotta admit that it isn’t easy to pull yourself out of the “hazy, lazy days of summer” mentality. But, wow…it really has been a great week! I made a lot of changes this year and it seems that these changes are proving to be successful ones! We are just easing into it, and getting used to a schedule again. God is so good, because each year he has renewed our family’s vision and desire to homeschool, and he has given my children and excitement for it that has been priceless. Just last night, Isabella said, “mommy,I’ve really loved doing school with you this week!” That blessed my heart!

Each morning we start the day off with school on our “family room floor” with the Breakfast Board! Perhaps this is the “kindergarten teacher in me” coming out. All I know is that I found a practical way to combine all our everyday basic memory learning into one easy place! Basically the breakfast board is a foldable display board that serves, in one compact (easy to store) place, to keep the week’s memory verses, the week’s current poem (which Isabella likes to put to music each day and sing to us), calendar, 100 chart, money bag that we add a penny to each day and trade out for larger coins, it has a 0ne’s and ten’s chart for putting a straw in each day (Helaina and Ashton like to do this part), a place for time and temperature. Plus, it has a blank outline of America to practice those state and capitals each morning! This way we have a habitual way to start our morning off together and to wake up our brains with learning and reviewing while we spread all out on the floor warm and cozy! Ashton has been right along side us with his “own” pencil box and notebook. He is getting a kick out of calling me “teacher mommy”. I have even caught Ashton and Helaina “playing school” with the “breakfast board” as I teach the olders :-)….of course, Helaina is always the teacher to Ashy.She won’t have it any other way!

We kicked off the day with talking about what a “biography” is. I had each of them take a lunch bag and fill it with items that described who they were. Right away, each of them ran up to their room to start to fill their bag! They used this to get pretty creative. Helaina even tried to put her hamster in her bag!! Isabella packed her “baby” that she’s had since she was a 4 month old and she packed other items like horses and her favorite book(she had the right idea). Ethan packed one thing: his webkinz toy! LOL! Ashton just went to the train table and packed about 20 cars! He had the right idea, he does love cars! We had a lot of fun doing this, and on top of it all, each of them learned that a Biography teaches you about a real person just as their bags did!

We are reading about Columbus as we are doing Heart of Dakota’s “Beyond Little Hearts for His Glory” for Ethan’s curriculum, and with all the kids joining in for the History Read aloud time. Isabella is also doing “Homeschool in the Wood’s” Time Traveler CD’s for her American History (all 4) as her spine. We will be posting lots of pics of her projects in the future….so, keep posted! We are excited to being diving into American History and one of our goals is to have all the states and capitals memorized!
My Ethan was super proud of his “interactive map” of Columbus’ voyage. The boats actually move! He even “interacted” with it during their Columbus movie. He was amazed to find out that the Santa Maria actually sank in the Caribbean and they had to take only two boats back to Europe. His enthusiasm is so precious and so awesome to be a part of and to be able to witness first hand!