The boys' first week of homeschool (and what mommy learned)

Day 1: When dealing with this age (at least my kids anyway), it is much more beneficial to have a routine instead of a schedule.  Fortunately, I received this advice before I made their lesson plans and instead of saying "at 10:00 we are going to do ___, and at 10:45 we are going to do ___", I planned our days out by saying "first we are going to have our bible story, memory verse and prayer.  Then we will go over the calendar, weather, clock and songs.  Next we will start on phonics and our letter of the week.  Then we will have art time, etc...etc...

I love this flexibility so much more than being controlled by a clock.  Our activities can take as long or be as short as they need to be.  Instead of having time tell me when to move on, I can focus on the boys and let them tell me when we need to move on or take a break.  I realize that some days we may be done with school by noon and other days we may need a lot more breaks and not be done until nap time or after. 

Flexibility.  It's a necessity.

Today I also learned the importance of having "art time" in our garage whenever possible.  The boys worked with a lot of glue and glitter today and I am so thankful that I made the decision to do this in the garage! Otherwise, we would have had glue and glitter from one corner of the house to the other.

Day 2: On Tuesday we had to make an unexpected trip to Oklahoma City. I couldn't stand the thought of not having school on only our second day so we decided to have a little field trip.  Yep, a field trip on the second day of school! Gotta love homeschool, right?!? So we took the boys to the Science Museum/planetarium.  I was surprised at all the activities they had just for my boys' age. They really enjoyed most of it and so did Jordan and I.   

Day 3: On Wednesday, I learned that it is not always necessary or beneficial to start schooling early in the morning. Sure, as our kids get older, they will need to know that they are expected to go to bed at a decent time knowing that they have to wake up for school.  I think it is important for kids/teens to be prepared for the real world and it's demands, deadlines and so forth.  But right now, it is still summer and the boys are still so little.  To me, it's equally important to enjoy the "long days" of summer and prolong bedtime a little.  Plus, we were all so wore out from Tuesday's adventurous day and I let Josiah sleep until 10 am.  I do not think it would have been beneficial at all to wake that sleeping bear and expect him to go right into school work.  Instead we started after lunch and he did great!

Again, flexibility is key.  Especially at this age!

Day 4: It's okay to accept help! Jordan offered to take Eli to the office with him for a couple of hours while I focused all my attention on Josiah.  At first, I wanted to say no because I wanted Eli to be just as much a part of our homeschool day as Josiah. But then I remembered that he is only two and at that age, sometimes it's just more beneficial to let them just play, play, play and throw in some very short lessons every now and then.  So I let Eli go with daddy and Josiah and I got a lot accomplished during our one-on-one time.  This won't always be possible so I might as well accept the help while it's there. : )

Snack Time=Eli's favorite time of the day!

Day 5: Each week we will be focusing on a new letter, number, color, shape, and memory verse.  Repetition is key at this age...especially for Josiah with his learning disability so this really works well for him.  However, instead of moving on to our new letter, number, color, shape, etc this week, I think we will repeat what we learned this week just with different activities and worksheets.  I just don't feel like he "got it" enough to move on.  Plus, it was our first week so I need to allow some time for him to adjust and understand what mommy is expecting of him.  But all in all, he did really well and I am looking forward to our second week of homeschool!