Playtime Learning at its Finest!

Here's a picture of this afternoon's playtime activity.  He built it entirely himself (except when a piece or two needed a little persuasion) while consulting the diagram.  What a great unplanned, child-oriented lesson in map/diagram reading skills!

"A Child's Prayer" by M. Bentham-Edwards

I've been working on gathering resources for our Beatitudes unit for July (details to be posted soon!) and came across this amazing little poem:

"A Child's Prayer"

God make my life a little light, 

   Within the world to glow;

A tiny flame that burneth bright

   Wherever I may go.

God make my life a little flower, 

   That giveth joy to all,

Content to bloom in native bower,

   Although its place be small.

God make my life a little song,

   That comforteth the sad;

That helpeth others to be strong,

   And makes the singer glad.

God make my life a little staff,

   Whereon the weak may rest,

That so what health and strength I have

   May serve my neighbors best.

First Day of School!

It's finally here!  Talk about one excited little boy.  You would think it was his birthday by the constant queries of, "Is it time yet?" Wow!!  We went through 2 lessons (the equivalent of 2 weeks, but they're easy review of things he already knew, so it didn't take long). Here are a few pictures of our morning.

I've chosen to try out the Math-U-See program, since it's hands-on based.  Ethan seems to have a natural gift in math, so I think just about anything I chose to use would be a success, but I'm trying to think long-term and what might be best for Katie's personality.  With the DVD and blocks, she can be included in the activities and learn little bits even now as she plays.  Hopefully that will help her (currently) easily frustrated little mind when it's her turn.  It's a little thing, but I also like that the texts don't have grade levels posted on them, so Ethan won't have a clue if he's ahead someday in Math.

Ethan with his math book and Katie with her tracing book.

Watching Mr. Demme, the Math-U-See instructor, on DVD.  

Counting blocks...

Of course, Katie's not to be left out of this adventure, so we worked on drawing lines.  We have a  looooong ways to go!

Fun building with the Math-U-See blocks after Math was officially over.  Happy entertainment means Mommy can blog in peace!

Journaling

I mentioned that we're starting school after we get back from campmeeting, but that's not completely accurate.  I thought it would be fun for Ethan to keep a journal for our family vacation a couple of weeks ago.  He really enjoyed it and we saw a lot of improvement from the beginning of our trip to the end.  After the third day of, "We woke up.  We had breakfast.  We played..." we had a little chat with him about what makes a good journal entry - variation!  What did you do that was different from all the routine?  What was exciting?  Give details.  That really helped him broaden his horizons, and by the end of the week he was pretty good at adding his own details without us prodding him along with questions.  Here's a sampling of the beginning of the journal versus the end.

Beginnings

Ethan has been begging to start "school," so my question on whether to do kindergarten with him or wait for official homeschooling to start in first grade has been decided.  We're jumping in this year!  We've talked of creating a blog to record our schooling adventures, so might as well start this at the beginning as well.

We're headed for campmeeting tomorrow and Ethan is holding me to my promise to start school as soon as we get back, so we're doing a bit of a nontraditional school year.  Since I teach music two afternoons a week during the school year, I figure this gives us more flexibility to relax when things get hectic.  That, and he sees the bins of "Math-U-See" blocks on the top shelf in the play room and he's chomping at the bit to get to play with them!

Let our homeschooling adventure begin...