First Day of School

Rewinding a bit to get caught up on our home-education activities.  Here's K and T on the first day of school.  We started on Sept. 9 this year.  Hard to believe they are now in 3rd grade and kindegarten!

Sadly, T was not very thrilled about becoming a bona fide student.   The last couple years he's been happy to tag along with the fun activities in K's FIAR rows, then drop out and play with his toys when he's no longer interested.  That worked just fine for him, thank you very much, and please don't give him actual "work" that he must sit down and do!  I think he looked at the work K is doing and thought he would have to do work at that level, too.  Now that we have a few weeks under our belts, I think he's seeing that kindergarten work is really not that hard and that there is a sense of accomplishment that comes with learning new skills.

For curriculum this year we are doing pretty close to what we have done, with a few changes.  Five in a Row continues to be our main focus.  I love how it covers so many topics.  It's interesting that we have been rowing long enough that now that I often find myself referencing something we learned about in earlier rows. 

Bible time:  this year we are using Telling God's Story, Year 1.  This curriculum introduces children to the stories in the Bible through storytelling and hands-on activities. Something I especially appreciate is that it also has a well-written section to give the teacher insight to the weekly story.  The kids have been enjoying this curriculum and they look forward to the activities.  An example of one week's activities: for the story of The Lost Sheep, we made cinnamon roll sheep, built a play-doh sheepfold, and played a find the lost sheep game.  The curriculum is good about providing historical and cultural context as well as spiritual insight.  The only downside is that we just don't have time to complete all the activities it suggests!

K's other subjects:
A Beka Language Arts
A Beka Spelling
Reading Comprehension (she is loving her current reading book, Treat Shop)
Singapore Math
Writing With Ease, year 3. 

T's other subjects:
Singapore Math  (He is doing well with this; the workbook pages are simple and nicely laid out.)
Reading: Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons.  (This is an interesting approach to teaching reading-- uses the Distar Method.  At first, T kind of rebelled against these lessons-- he didn't understand the point of all the rhyming/phonemic activities, and writing letters is difficult for him.  Lately, there is a lot more reading actual words and sentences. He's proud when he figures them out.  His control over the pencil is improving also, which cuts down on the frustration level.)

Though this homeschooling Mama must confess it's been a stretch to go from one student to two very different students plus a baby, the year is off to a good start.

I will do my best to get our first row of the year posted tomorrow!