My Blog is Fake

My blog is fake. Haha! Well, not really, but sort of. As I was about to begin this post, I was thinking that I wanted to stress again that this blog is only meant to share ideas and encourage. I've said before that you only see what I want you to see, and you don't see all the bad stuff. But before I started in on this post, I checked some of my favorite homeschool blogs by other Christian women. Ironically, one of my favorite blogs had the same thought as me, but I couldn't have said it better, so go check out her post "Oh Get Real" http://teachthemdiligently-amanda.blogspot.com/2012/08/oh-get-real.html

With that being said...here are some things I want you to see ;) Maybe I'll actually take some pictures of the tantrums some day....Some these ideas came from MFW, some my own, some from specific sites which will be shared. I like to keep my posts and comments as short and sweet as possible because #1 Who has the time to read it?! #2 Who has the time to write it?! and #3 You can easily skim my blog for ideas!




Painting our suns



Eli was proud



He was singing and jabbering while he worked
 

Cooking the Spaghetti Noodles for Noodle Art

 

Rinse and Drain



Making a sun because our unit is the Sun

 

S is for Sun

We sat grapes out in the sun to see what would happen

We made raisins!

 

Planting our beans and resting them in sunlight and darkness

 

A few days later...

 

We have leaves!

The ones in the dark not so fair.

Eli likes to play on Starfall.com

He plays I Spy and Blues Clues games as well.
I love how he's resting his leg here.

Before we start each unit, we do a Mystery Bag.
We were studying the Letter S and the Sun.
To reinforce beginning sounds, I just have the boys gather all the
items out of the bag and guess which letter we'll be studying.
Example: scissors, spoon, sock = the Letter S.
 

Sometimes Isaac likes to revisit activities from last year.
Like stringing Cheerios.

These letter tile printables came from prekinders.com
These are really too easy for Isaac at this point,
but still fun.

Lego Time is good for fine motor skills, spacial reasoning,
a change of pace, and just plain fun!

 When Isaac studies a Bible person

we add it under our alphabet strip.

Sometimes we just sit and try to think of

"A" Bible names, "B" Bible names, etc.

 



Handwriting without Tears Stamp n See and
playdoh is always fun for forming letters.
Sometimes we roll our letter dice and practice the letter rolled.
These activities are geared towards having fun
(basically a break, change of pace for Isaac)
and learning letters for Eli.



This is my file system for Eli's activities

 I first saw this file system idea over at my friend's page at www.whyamysmiles.com. I just took it a step further and put pictures, typed descriptions, and color coded labels. I have separate files for example: letter recognition, letter formation, letter sound activities. This helps me keep all my supplies and ideas organized so I dont' forget them! I might find a cool activity on pinterest or another homeschool site, and I put it in the file. Some of these activities work for Isaac too, but they are mainly preschool stuff. I try to rotate through the cards to keep things varied.

 

I plan on incorporating the Workbox idea soon. I think Isaac needs to see what activities are planned for the day and see an end to them so he knows what is expected. I want him to become more independent as well and less spoonfed. I want to be able to spend more time with Eli, too.



What Is Really Important

I want to encourage those out there, that for whatever reason, don't feel competent. I recently found out that one of my dear friends has breast cancer. She is homeschooling her daughter, but is going to have alot on her plate this year with surgery, chemo, etc. So far, she has decided that cancer is not going to get in the way of keeping her daughter at home. Sometimes homeschooling is LIFE and LIFE is homeschooling. Why are we wanting our children home? Mainly for spiritual reasons. What better way to turn something scary into something good by teaching our children through this experience? As friends, several of us homeschool and some do not, but we are all working together to help her with whatever needs there may be. Our children are going to learn the value of helping one another in tough times, caring, listening, fixing meals, praying....realizing that is OKAY to drop everything...even academics...temporarily, to focus on what is really important. And I don't think you can get a better lesson than that.