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.