This year has been a new journey for our family in that I added a new student to our home school- CJ. At first I must admit that I was a little anxious about how I would homeschool two children and care for three other little ones. God has been so wonderful in continually teaching me to trust Him. It has all worked out perfectly! Having two students has been so fun! I tried my best to document some of our activities and units, so the following is a glimpse into our first half of the school year.
Here they are on our first day of school- BA is in 1st grade and CJ is in pre-k. Brotherly love :)
These are dirt cake cupcakes. We made these when we studied worms and other things that live underground.
One of the fabulous things about having school at home is that you can include everyone in the activities or lessons that are appropriate. While teaching number concepts and counting we used the M&M counting book. I highly recommend it! You get to eat your "manipulatives" after the lesson!
While studying classification we sorted rocks by color, shape, and size. They also had their first lesson on fossils!
We learned about seeds and how they grow into plants. It by far was one of the funnest projects. We planted about a dozen lima bean plants. Every day they dug up one plant and observed and sketched how the seed grew into a plant.
Here the boys are drawing the tree rings in their science journals.
While learning the letter 'G' we made 'G' cookies.
Here the three oldest kiddos are attempting to make a 'J.'
I love the look of concentration on CJ's face. I am thankful we are at home and able to choose not to do much "seatwork." It's my philosophy to only do what's necessary to achieve the skill being taught. I am so thankful our boys are able to actively learn day in and day out. I love seeing the looks on their eager faces when new topics are being taught.
BA working hard on some math.
Hands on school- We let the boys stay up election night to learn about the process of how our country elects a president. They kept score by dry erase board and we also colored in a map of the USA which showed either a Democrat or Republican win for each state. While awaiting reports of each state they enjoyed playing card games.
Miss EE helping us with our classification and graphing lessons. Each child got a box of animal cookies. We counted them, sorted them, and graphed the results. (And of course we ate those too!)
My two silliest kids showing off the rainbows we made when studying how rainbows are made.
BA and CJ had such a blast letting their snowflakes fall. I had no idea what fun it would be for them. We made these when learning about how snowflakes are formed.
There are so many things that we have learned (and I do mean 'we' because many topics I must also learn as I teach them), and I look forward to another fun semester beginning in January. I cannot say enough what a joy and privilege it is to teach my children. I am also very thankful for such a biblically sound curriculum that I highly recommend to any other home school parent-
My Father's World. Their mission statement says it all-"Raising up generations of families who see the world through God's eyes and live according to that knowledge." This is our prayer for our family- that we raise our kids to know him and to live in a way that reflects that. Please pray for us as we strive to honor God in our school.
