Fabulous Fridays

I love, love, love, love having all my babies on home on Fridays - no preschool, no co-ops, usually nowhere to go - it really is Fabulous.  We don't set our alarms and it is a very relaxed school day - but it is a school day none the less.  This afternoon after lunch as we were awaiting for everyone to finish eating :-) I decided to have the kids play a little alphabet bingo and take turn being the callers - we even used marshmallows on a few rounds for our bingo markers.  The kids really enjoyed it - especially when they got to be the "caller."  It is so joyful to hear the littler ones calling out their letters and giving out examples of how they each sound and we even tossed in a little spelling for my newest reader.

It was a Fabulous Friday!!

We are reading...

What did I just say - YEP  you read it right we have a new reader in our house!!  Sweet Luke read his first book last week and what a privilege it was to be sitting right  next to him as he read it.

We are using All About Reading for our reading curriculum as well as BOB books.  I love both of these curriculums and will switch back and forth from week to week to keep things fresh for my Lukester!!  One of the things I love about this curriculum is the hands on with letters.  We have letter tiles that we use and build word with and practice sounds out.  It is very hands on and I think makes a huge difference in how we approach learning to read.

Nathan is also doing a good bit of reading with Konos - he is on his second book this year.  He is currently reading Toothpaste Millionaire.

We also read a chapter out of a book everyday during/after lunch.  This is one of my favorite parts of our day as everyone is home and we all sit together for lunch and finish up with a little reading.  We just finished up reading How to Eat Fried Worms.  I think everyone enjoyed it.

Right now we are reading My Father's Dragon.  Not sure what we plan to read next but you can be sure we will be reading!!

“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go.” ~ Dr. Suess

homeschool grace...

Inevitably some days I know I will wonder - what in the world am I doing - and will I have taught them enough - will they love to learn.  When I do - I want to come back to this day and remember this.

Ethan (at the dinner table on a Saturday night) -  "Mom! We forgot to do homeschool!!"

No Ebear we didn't it's Saturday - but I sure am glad you love it!!  Thank you Heavenly Father for such a sweet glimpse of YOUR grace. 

KONOS

What is KONOS?  Konos is what I would call a homeschool co-op so to speak.  Its a class that meets once a week - Nathan is going on Tuesdays when several other of his church friends are going and it works out very nicely for car pooling purposes as well.  They meet from 9am to 2:45pm.   In this co-op they are covering grammar, literature, writing, and some science and social studies.  I told a friend of mine it reminds me of college - where you go to class once a week and get all your assignments and turn them in the next week when you go back to class.  That is basically what it is - someone has written out what I need to cover with him and I do it.  I LOVE it and so does Nathan!!  They even send you home with a pacer sheet so I know what to cover on what days - now of course I can deviate and make up my own pacer as long as we do the the work that was asked of us.  If something is to hard or I don't think Nathan is ready for it - I get to determine what is best for him in that situation.  If I want to cover more in one subject than I do.  That is one of the things I love about KONOS - it is a partnership in education but ultimately I am still homeschooling him and as his mama I know best.   We cover Math on our own and I have chosen to use Teaching Textbooks - it is computer based and we both love it.  It's only been one week but I foresee sticking with it.  Here is Nathan hard at work on vocabulary.  He will say to me in the afternoons - I am so glad we homeschool - if I were in a school building I would still be working.  Yes son - you would.  Thankful you are home to enjoy your siblings, be a boy and explore the world.

First week - DONE

We survived our first week of homeschool even with daddy being out of town.  The kids all had a great first week.  Ethan and Linnea settled into preschool nicely, Nathan loves KONOS and being home and Luke and Abbie got lots of one on one mommy time.  One of the pieces of curriculum I am using is called FIAR - Five in a Row.  Basically we are taking a piece of literature - and reading it everyday five days in a row.  From that one book we can cover reading, writing, math, art, music, social studies and science if we wanted to.  I don't take it to every subject but I do read it every day and we do something with what we have read.  This week we rowed Lentil.  

I wasn't really sure how this little story was going to go over.  The illustrations were in black and white and there were a lot of details in the story.  It turned out to be great!!!  Lentil is a little boy who wants to sing but can't so he buys a harmonica and he and his harmonica playing end up saving the day in the story.  Since I used to be a music teacher - guess what I happened to have around the house - yep - a few harmonicas.  So everyday when I read it with Luke and Abbie they each got to play along with the harmonica.  One part of the story involves ice cream cones - so guess what we had for snack one day.  The author Robert Mcloskey used chrarcoal sticks to do his illustrations - so one day we had an art project where we drew with charcoal sticks.  Even though Luke and Abbie are the only two home every single day - all the kids get to listen in on Friday and its a fun treat.  

It is sooo important to read to your children and it is such a privilege to be able to read.  Hoping to instill in them a love for reading like their mama has.  Next week we are "rowing" Madeline. 

First Day of School

Everyone was up and ready this morning bright and early.  On Tuesdays I have 3 peeps who have to be in their respective places by 9 am and I had decided awhile ago that I really wanted us to have our Bible time as well as morning work time together before anyone had to be anywhere - while we have been practicing this today we actually got it accomplished.  Yay!!! Yay for first day pics and being together!!

First to be dropped off were the littles.  I LOVE these sweet little peeps and I am so thankful for our sweet preschool.  All my babies have attended here - sending the last two has been bittersweet.  We love Ms. Leigh and Ms. Rene.  

After dropping off the littles - then we took Nathan over to KONOS - his homeschool coop that meets on Tuesdays.  He had such a great day and I am so thankful he has this opportunity as well.

And my sweet bundles who are home everyday with mama learning til our hearts our content.  We had a great morning with our FIAR book Lentil, along with some reading, writing and arithmetic.   I am so thankful God has given us this opportunity.  Looking forward to a great year!!

a little preview

We haven't officially started school yet - but we have been doing a little bit in the mornings just to help get us started in a routine.  For the last month or so I have been doing a Bible devotion at breakfast every morning and then at lunch I would read a chapter of a book.  This week I just added some morning work and we started a new book at lunch.  Here we are getting our morning work on.  I love how Linnea looks as if she can read following right along.  Once we start our first day I will post about what our morning work is made up of.  This was what we began reading at lunch today ...thankfully it is not what we ate :-)