Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Time for School!

Two days down, 178 more to go.  The school year has begun and we are off to a great start!  Yesterday as school buses roared through the neighborhood, we quietly began our morning playing with Legos and sipping on banana oat smoothies.  Aaaahhhhh...the life of a homeschooler!  It was an exciting day and I had two very excited children in the house.  Annabelle couldn't wait to start pre-K.  Jacob couldn't wait to show her the ropes.

Yum!

Hello 2nd grade!

Can Ariel come to Pre-K too?
 I can't believe we're entering our fourth year of homeschooling!  Fourth??  Wow!  There was once a time when I never even imagined homeschooling.  Now I can't imagine NOT doing it.  I feel so blessed to be able to spend this time with my children and know without a doubt that this is what God has called me to do at this time.

Even though this is our fourth year, I still feel like a beginner.  Each year is different from the last.  I am still discovering what works and what doesn't.  Trial and error.   Pre-K with Annabelle is going to look a bit different than it did with Jacob.  Like Jacob, Annabelle loves school and wants to do school related activities all day long.  She wants to practice her handwriting, do her math, draw, make crafts, make more crafts, and...make even more crafts.  Seriously, just give this girl some paper, scissors and a bottle of glue and she'll be good for hours.  Jacob has never much cared for crafts.  He never even cared for coloring.  I remember him doing a math assignment one day where the instructions were to color in a certain number of boxes.  He drew a straight line through the boxes with a green crayon.  I told him he was supposed to color in the boxes.  He responded, "I did."

So, for Annabelle, I'm incorporating more arts and crafts into her day -- more drawing, more coloring, more cutting and lots of glue sticks.

Jacob has a big year ahead of him, too!  He'll be learning multiplication this year, among other things, but I think he is most excited about learning how to write in cursive.  He's loving it so far!  He loves his workbook and genuinely tries to write as neatly as he can.  This makes me very happy as perfect penmanship has not exactly been at the top of his priority list.  And yesterday, as we worked through his first multiplication lesson, I was able to see the fruit of three years of CC.  He's memorized the skip counting charts through the 15s (as well as squares and cubes).  As a result of all this skip counting, multiplication immediately clicked with him.  The lightbulb switched on and I was truly amazed.  I wish I had learned to skip count like that in elementary school!

Today was our first day back to CC and Annabelle's first day being in a CC class.  She had tons of fun and her tutor said she did great!

No more nursery for me!

Here I go again!

 

Jacob had a great first day as well.  He said he really enjoyed giving his presentation...on Legos. What else is there to talk about on the first day?  :-)

It's going to be an exciting year for all of us!  Can't wait to see what God has in store!

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