Living and Learning

I can hardly believe that it has already been a month since my last post. As promised previously--yet, arriving in a less timely fashion than I intended--here are some pictures of Brinley that I took during her first couple of weeks of school. I know that the idea of homeschooling is foreign that many of you so hopefully these pictures will give you a better idea of what our days and her schooling consists of. As I mentioned in my previous post, I am using curricula from Homeschool Creations, 1+1+1=1 and Confessions of a Homeschooler.
I initially thought that we would school all five days during the week. However, in order to ease both Brinley and myself into the schooling atmosphere I've decided to school 3 mornings per week--Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. That leaves a couple of mornings for us to concentrate on 'life skills' as I like to call them--grocery shopping, errand runs, baking, visits to the park, traveling, etc. Also, you'll probably notice from the pictures below that I try to move her around throughout the morning. I *try* not to keep her in the same spot for two activities in a row, but sometimes it just can't be helped. We do go over our morning board (explained more below) in the floor, but then I might move her to the table to to a writing or coloring activity, then back to the floor for a more hands-on activity and then to her white board to end things for the day.

Brinley's First Day of School Tuesday, September 6, 2011

(Please excuse the bruise in the middle of her forehead...she and her push-buggy and a run-in with each other the day before.)

To begin each morning we go to our morning board and go over things like the weather, the day of the week as well as the date, what season we are in, our memory verse that is based on whatever letter of the alphabet we are studying that week as well as the Pledge of Allegiance.

'A' is for apple tree. Brinley coloring an apple tree and tracing letter 'A'.

It was her idea that the tree had both red AND green apples.

Brinley working a letter 'A' lacing card. These are made by printing out a large letter on cardstock, laminating it and using a hole-punch to create the holes.

All done!

Next activity was to put together a 6-piece puzzle. This was a puzzle that I printed out on cardstock, laminated and then cut into separate pieces. The recommended was to start with six, but Brinley breezed through that just by reading the sentence that was on it and putting it in order by that. So, I guess from here on out I'll be cutting them into 9 pieces or maybe even 12 to be more of a challenge for her.

The last activity for her first day was to match colored magnets to each of the the white circles on the picture.

To start off on Wednesday, Brinley worked on a cutting practice worksheet.

Next she used Do-A-Dot markers to stamp an uppercase and a lowercase letter 'A'.

All done!

Matching the number card to the number of apple seeds on the apple pictures.

Lastly, she used an extra-large thumbtack--under careful supervision--to poke holes along the lines of an uppercase and lowercase letter 'A'.

All done!

On Thursday, she matched apple halves of the same color.

All done!

Next, she did some writing practice. Again, these are pages that I print out on cardstock, laminate and then she practices with a dry erase marker. It is a little more work for me initially than just printing on pieces of paper, but I like that she can re-do the sheets as many times as she wants without having to waste an abundance of paper.

Lastly, she put apples of various sizes in order from smallest to largest.

The following Tuesday, Brinley started the day by matching lower and uppercase apples with those on the apple tree.

Then she found and circles the letter 'A's' in short stories.

Wednesday, Brinley laced an apple. I couldn't find the extra shoestring that we used the week before so I just grabbed a hair ribbon from her bathroom drawer.

To end our letter 'A' lessons, Brinley and I baked an apple pie that had a top crust made of letter 'A's'. (I'm sure some of you saw a mobile picture of it that I posted on Facebook and few weeks ago.) In closing, I hope you enjoyed the pictures of Brinley and they were able to give you a better idea of what our school mornings are like. I initially went into homeschooling thinking I would be one of those blogging moms that takes pictures of nearly every lesson, but I've found that's just not us. The camera just seems to be to big of a distraction for the both of us in more way than one. As you can imagine, we have been using a lot of cardstock, laminating pouches and ink. And, my evenings usually consist of prepping materials (making lesson plans, printing, laminating, cutting, etc.) for the next week (thus my lack of blogging this fall). I'll be the first to admit that it is not the most interesting way to spend my evenings, but seeing the way Brinley's face lights up when she understands a concept completely makes up for any time, money and work that goes into her lessons.