Pre-School 3: 1st Semester Wrap UP

I'm quickly discovering that homeschooling equals not a lot of free time for Mommas.  It's been busy enough that I'm thinking starting this blog might have been over ambitious of me.   I guess it's ok... even if there's just an update a month or less it will be nice to have a place to share when the mood and some spare time strike.

We started this semester sending Lucy to a Mother's Day Out program as well as working with her at home but it became apparent that sending her off was more work than it was worth so we stopped sending her in favor of some more dedicated time to teach at home.   The original intent behind MDO was for me to get some one on one time with Jenna after she was born and for Lucy to spend time with friends.  Well, Jenna now enjoys being with her sister so much that sending Lucy away is actually less fun than having them both play together and as far as Lucy having friends her age to play with, well, there's no lack of that even without MDO.  I find myself cutting back on her social schedule 'cause it gets out of control quickly.

Here are a few things I have learned about myself, about Lucy, our family and our homeschooling style so far:

- We do our best work very early in the morning even before breakfast or teeth brushing.  The girls are up before 7am and Lucy wakes up asking for school.  By 9am we've done all the "official" work I had planned so the rest of the day is spent just reinforcing concepts as they come up.

- I am more flexible than I've ever given myself credit for.

- Lucy is what I call an academic child.  She loves letters, numbers, puzzles, math problems, tracing, worksheets.  She doesn't seem to get enough of it.  When told she can pick out ANY toy she wants at Toys'RUs (by grandparents) she picks out a letter/phonics learning toy. She spends her playtime pretending to be a teacher and teaching her sister that "A is for Apple" and "B for ball".  We hear her through the monitor at night spelling and sounding out words... "S T O P spells STOP, C A T spells CAT" and on and on she goes.  She seems to always have pencil and paper in hand just in case there's a list that needs to get "written".   I hear these traits are prevalent among girls... I need to ask my Mommy friends who have boys about that.

- I was under the impression I needed to create this quiet/focused learning time for Lucy and it was stressing me out 'cause with a baby around there's never silence in our house.  Well, I think it all works out in their advantage.  I have noticed how she has developed focus and is able to concentrate even if the house is falling apart around her.  I have heard that is a skill harder to develop for only children (since there's never siblings distracting them)

- We are not very disciplined about checking out books from the library.  I have it in my calendar for every Tuesday morning but something always comes up.  It seems I'm often rushing to get the books called for in the curriculum SO I'm thinking that starting in Kindergarden we would benefit from one of the more expensive curriculums that come with all the books (like Sonlight) as opposed to the less expensive ones that call for library resources (like My Father's World).  I suppose I can still use MFW and just buy the list of books.  Either way, I like the idea of building our own library here for the kids to have access to and eliminating the stress surrounding library trips.  It will be nice to go in for fun and not just for school work purposes.

- Jim likes to be more involved in the homeschooling process than I thought he would want to.  We normally discuss what the plan is for the week.  He reviews or talks to her about concepts at night and if there's a special craft that we need help with we wait for the weekend or have him prep it for us.  I like that it is a family effort.

- My organizing and planning nature lends itself very well for homeschooling.  I feel like I'm putting my gifting to good use, like I was made for this purpose.  I went into to it fully expecting that I would dread it some days but that hasn't been the case and I'm thankful for it.

- I was told a while back that one of the perks of homeschooling is this great hunger for learning that it awakens in the parents themselves and it's been true in our case.  We've read more in the last few months than we've probably read since we had Lucy.  It's been fun getting reacquainted with that intellectual side of us.  Something about seeing those little faces learn something new that makes you want to go through the process yourself. 

Here are some pics from the last few months that I haven't had a chance to post:

This is her AWANA book with her cute little picture in front.

She gets a sticker and both my signature and her AWANA's teacher signature when she memorizes her weekly verse

M is for Map.  This was a fun exercise.  We hid a treasure box filled with goodies and gave her a Map to find it.  Years of watching Dora the Explorer prepared her for that moment.

 

N is for Nest.

Tracing focus...

This cupcake worksheet is a favorite.  She loves to draw the candles!

Weather concepts... it cracks me up how she concluded you could fly a kite in both windy and sunny conditions...

Counting Fun...

Our writing queen!

Her little desk area...

It's fun to spell when the letters are sparkly ;)

Advent calendars and signs make for great learning tools!