Homeschooling

It is with great pleasure that I announce that we have a new READER in
the house!! Miss Miriam has join the ranks of the literate. She read
her very first book last night. Yes, it was one of those Bob Books for
beginning readers, but she was so incredibly proud of herself. She was
actually jumping up and down and yelling. So cute. We are so proud of
her!

As I talked about in this post, I've been homeschooling Miriam for
preschool. Actually, she is doing a Kindergarten curriculum from My
Father's World spaced out a bit. Well it has been going really well for
us for the most part. I don't make Miriam do school if she really
doesn't want to on a certain day. After all, she is just 4 1/2. She was on
"strike" for most of December, but then today she was asking to do
school again, so I think she is ready for the holidays to be over. :)

So far this fall we have covered 7 different letters in units. We've
done "S" Sun, "M" Moon, "L" Leaf, "A" Apple, "N" Nest, "T" Turtle, and 
"U" Us (human body/senses). Up next is "D" Dinosaur! The activities
have been fun, and for the most part the lessons have been easy for
Miriam. In the phonics lessons, she has just been started on reading
three letter words, which she loves. The handwriting part is the thing
that gets us, but I figure she is just 4 1/2 and has tons of time to
learn to make a perfect letter. :)

Here is a picture from "N" Nest. We made a "nest" out of pillows and the kids were the baby birds. LOL

Well, we have completed our first full month of homeschooling for this school year. :)

Even though Miriam is only 4, I decided to start her in a kindergarten curriculum since she is starting to read already. I felt like if we go slow she can handle it. So far it looks like I was right.  I decided to use the My Father's World From A to Z which is the kindergarten level for My Father's World (MFW) curriculum. I am very excited with how MFW has everything set up. It's easy for me the teacher. It's interesting for the kids. It is a mixer of a number of different styles of homeschooling all of which I really like. It is 100% Biblical world view. They even teach Creation Science!  

Anyway, we spent the first 2 weeks on a unit about the days of Creation. The last two weeks we have been working on unit 1 which is the letter "S" and a study of the sun. We didn't do all the activities they suggested but we did go out an play with our shadows. We even outlined them and watched how they changed over time. The kids loved that. (See picture below.)

Some people have already ask me, "How do you homeschool Miriam with two other little kids??"  Well it really isn't hard. The lessons are short, only take 30-40 minutes a day total. Evan often joins us for the lesson. I don't require that he does but when he does, I focus on letter recognition, learning colors, shapes, and counting for him. So I focus the easy preschool stuff to Evan, and the harder stuff to Miriam. When he doesn't want to do school, he plays quietly or he does Starfall on the computer. Evan LOOOVESS to do "ABC's" on the computer. (See picture.) Now Katie is bit trickier cause lit' Miss isn't missing anything! LOL Usually though I can convince her to sit in a chair and "color" or  put the crayons in and out of her bag. After awhile of that, she comes and sits in my lap as we finish up. It's really not bad at all.

As I mentioned, I am slowing the program down a little since Miriam is a year younger then expected. Each unit is designed to be 6 days. But I decided to make it into 10 days or 2 weeks.  So we do Lesson 1 on Monday. Lesson 2 on Tuesday.  Wednesday is storytime at the library and we do a worksheet or catch up if needed. Thursday is Lesson 3. And Friday we do Lesson 6 which is actually reading a book and doing activities around it.  Then the second Monday is Lesson 4. The second Tuesday is Lesson 5. Wednesday is library again.  Second Thursday is Lesson 6 again but with a different book (they give you 2-3 options each unit).  Then the second Friday we can catch up anything we need too or do other worksheets or games.  So far, so good! I may speed things up though as Miriam gets better at stuff and more used to the routine. We will see! Tomorrow we start the "M"/moon unit. Should be fun!

It snowed today!! It snowed today!! Yay!! Yay!!
Appropriately enough we are reading/using "The Snowy Day" for preschool this week. SO today we read two books about snowy days and talked about them. THEN we put on all our snow stuff and out we went!! Aunt Jen was over, and we built a cute little snowwoman. Miriam had a BLAST running around kicking snow and throwing snow "piles" (they weren't really snowballs!) Evan had fun for awhile, but then he was at the wrong end of a snowball, and it was over. Poor guy would take one look at snow in someone's hand and run to Momma. He wanted "Up!! DONE!!! Hooouuuseee!" Hot coco cheered him right up, thought!! :)

Well, today was the first day of preschool for Miriam and Evan.  They both did well.  Miriam's teacher reported that she didn't want to participate in coloring, but otherwise joined in all structured activities. Evan did VERY well with coloring and listening to the stories.  Their teacher is so proud of them! :)

For those who are curious, I'm using the Before Five in A Row book.  I've also found some really great activities and lapbook ideas at the Homeschool Share website.