Friday, August 31, 2012

Our First Week of School!!!

We had an AWESOME first week of school!!  Our year has gotten off to a great start!  Seth is reading and writing like a champ!!  Aaron has been so excited to be doing school and Alyssa, for the most part, has been  with the program.

Here are some pictures from our 1st week!

Alyssa and Aaron at our "Letter of the Week" spot.

 Aaron and Alyssa coloring on white paper with a a white crayon.  They were a bit confused that you couldn't see what you were drawing - LOL!!
 But they were excited when the brushed black paint over it how all of a sudden their drawings appeared.
 Aaron and Alyssa working on their workbooks.
 Aaron and Alyssa finding their letter As.
 In bible this week we were focusing on the importance of a name.  On Thursday we used foam stickers to put our name on a piece of construction paper and then we used alphabet stamps to stamp our names all over the paper.  They had so much fun doing this!










 On Friday we had our first science day.  We are doing the Magic School Bus kits with a friend.  Today we worked on the Magic School Bus Microscope Lab.  Here is the table set up with the microscope and their clipboards with their data notebooks ready to start.
 Here are all the stuff we were going to use to do our experiements.
 Here is a close up of all the different liquids and salt, and sugar.  We looked at 6 different liquids, salt, sugar, and 6 different types of papers.  (of course I didn't get any pictures of them actually doing the experiment because I was too busy making slides and setting the microscopes...oh well)
The other experiment we did was explore with a magnifying glass.  I sent them outside for this one.  They were suppose to view 6 different items with their magnifying glass and draw what they saw.   I did get pictures of this one :-)





Seth did well in his first week of spelling!!  He did well in all of his writing exercises and began his 1st reader in the Pathways 2nd grade set and read like a champ!!

It sure was an awesome start to our new school year!!

Until next time,
Kellie

Monday, August 27, 2012

First Day of School - well, sort of...

Well, we had our first day of school today, well...., sort of...  LOL!!!  Since we homeschool we did something different - why not!?!?!

We started the morning off with orientation in the classroom.  Alyssa slept in (and we GLADLY let her sleep) so it was just the boys.  I went over with them how our schedule is going to work and showed them all of their new books and stuff.

We did our first worksheet for our calendar journal.


I introduced Aaron to his number of the day page.  I came back over a few minutes later and HE HAD WRITTEN HIS NAME!!!  The only letter I have ever seen this boy write was an A and look at his paper - HE WROTE HIS NAME!!  This totally made my day!!!  He was so proud of himself as well!!


The boys were super excited about their busy boxes (a box of different activities that they can do during their assigned busy box time...which are times when I am needing to focus on another child).  They asked if they could work on some stuff from their busy boxes so I gave them a little while to do so!!  :-)

That was all we did in the classroom!!  After that we went and picked up some friends to go meet some other friends at a park in Corsicana that had a really cool splash pad!!!  (of course they had some cool playgrounds as well...we are definitely going to have to go back and play on those!)  It poured down rain on us all the way there (I mean like can't see the road in front of you poured) but was not raining when we got there.  Rain did come about 30 minutes later but the kids didn't care (they were already wet) and there was no lightning, and there was a covered area for the moms...so we just kept playing!!  They had a ball!!  Funnest 1st day of school yet!!














Tomorrow we really start school - LOL!!!  I am SO READY!!  BRING IT ON!!!

Until next time,
Kellie

First of School Pictures

Hey yall!!  Remember this post (click here) from last year when we took school pics and the kids answered a survey?!?!

Well, I am doing that every year and today we did it for this year!!  I thought I would share the pics with you.  Click on the picture to see the full-size image if you are having trouble reading the text!  :-)





Thursday, August 23, 2012

Ready to Start our 2012-2013 Year!!

It has been one busy summer around here!!  We have vacationed, done VBS, got Alyssa potty trained (FINALLY!!), I got LASIK and can see now without glasses, and we have played with friends!!  I have also been involved with the planning of our upcoming semester of co-op classes!!  I am teaching 2 classes this semester and am on the planning committee! We have been super busy!!

I am so glad though that it is finally time for school to start!!  I am ready to get the kids back into a structured routine.  They are excited about starting a new school year too!

I think I have a schedule mapped out that will work for us!  I am so ready to give it a try!!

Monday morning we are going to do our first of the year school pictures and we are going to talk through our schedule.  Then we are headed out to a fun "unfirst day of school" gathering with friends at a splash pad!!  The kids know that we are going somewhere...they just don't know where :-)

Then on Tuesday morning we will go into the classroom and get down to business!!

I thought today I would share some pictures of the schoolroom.  I have done a lot of rearranging this Summer so it's almost like having a new schoolroom!  :-)

Here is the view from looking in the front door.  You can see that the desks are in a u-shape sort of set up.  We will see if this works well for us.
 This is at the front looking to the left.  This is our art and game table.  On the shelf behind the table are all our art supplies and flashcards, dice, etc...  On the wall next to the flag I will have a Pledge of Allegiance poster (it just hasn't arrived  yet)!  I am SO EXCITED about teaching Seth early American History this year!  

Here you can see the new bench I made (from an idea on Pinterest).  And you can see Aaron and Alyssa's letter of the week chart.  They will sit on that bench for their Letter of the Week and Little Hands to Heaven time.  During reading corner and bible time all kids will sit on the bench facing the back wall.  I also have a puppet stage that I will set up in that corner as I need it and they can all sit on the bench to watch the puppet shows!

Here is a close up of the bench.  Each side of the bench has 3 cubby boxes.  I have them labeled with what the boxes contain.  (They contain stuff for Little Hands to Heaven/Letter of the Week, Alyssa's busy box and toy box, Seth's busy box, Aaron's busy box, and our literature books that we will be reading during reading corner.)
 Here is our United States Map that I found on pinterest and printed it out.  As we learn each state we will color it in.  Seth is super excited about this!  (sorry the lighting in the room did not let me get a good picture of it)
 Here is a view of my desk area.  You can see at the right edge of the picture my "pouch" to hold my dry erase markers and erasers (close-up below).

Here is a close up of the pouch for my dry erase supplies.  I am so excited about this!!  (yeah I know it doesn't much to thrill me!)  You can also see above it a few of the pieces of our American History timeline.  I changed it up a bit from the MFW one.  Instead of Seth coloring these and adding them as we go I went ahead and found colored clip art to work for each piece and printed and laminated them and put up the entire timeline above the white board.  We will refer to it as we are doing our lessons!

Here is another view on my desk.  I still have a major project I want to do...you see what my laptop is sitting on...an empty diaper box!!  It really helps to put the laptop at eye level...but I need something besides a diaper box.  I am hoping that either my hubby, father or father-in-law can build me something since they are all master woodworkers :-)  Just waiting to see who will volunteer first!

Here is the view on the other side of the doors.  You can see our bookcase that holds our books and games.  I made a Browie Points board (from Pinterest of course).  Every time I receive a compliment from someone in public on my children's good behavior they will earn a "brownie".  When the pan is full with the 8 "brownies" I will bake a REAL pan of brownies for them to enjoy!   Oh and those are Seth and Aaron's "nap work" bags hanging on the hooks.  We are going to use our bags we got from Homeschool Day at the zoo to keep their 'nap work' books in.

Oh and I found these pics on the camera and had to share.  I took these the other day and wanted to do a blog post...but didn't get around to it.  We now have an IPAD designated for the school room.  I got a super duty case for it to hopefully keep it safe.  Alyssa tested it out for me the other day while I was working on stuff.
 I think she likes it!!! (love that face!!!!)

Well!  Pray for us as we start next week!!  I am hoping and praying for a FABULOUS first week back to school!!

Until Next time,
Kellie