Slow Start

I can't seem to get it together enough this week to blog much. It's not as though there haven't been things to share, but it has.... well, it's been a long week. For a number of reasons. However, I thought I'd share some homeschool updates just to at least get a new post up. :-)

I wasn't originally going to start school until after Labor Day (you know - like it USED to be), but for some reasons that actually don't apply any more, I thought it might be good for us to start early. So we did, but I didn't want to go from zero to 60 because none of us have had any experience doing this!

So, this week, we have had Bible time each day. We read a story from the Bible, Poodle answers some questions about what we just read and then she colors a workbook sheet that relates to what we just read. So far, it has been working pretty well. We did the Creation story two days in a row so that she could get the order of Creation in her memory banks a little more completely.
Yay!
I know I'll continue to tweak the methods as I figure out what works. For example, I can see how Friday would be a good day to review everything we read earlier in the week. But I didn't think of that until after we got thru today.

Okay, so we have begun to establish this school'ish routine. Next week, we're going to add reading time to the day's activities. Using Five In A Row, we'll read a good children's book each day for five days, and we'll focus on a different part of the story each day. History, geography, language arts, etc.

I think the next week, we'll add some phonics/reading/writing work. Then the next week, we'll add some math work. I hate for it to seem as though I think Math is least important, but we already "play math" right now when she feels like it. I'm sort of holding back on it so that she's (hopefully) more anxious to get to do it every day.

So, by the time we get to that magic "first Monday after Labor Day", kindergarten won't be akin to sugar shock for us all. At least, that's my hope.


For all of you who have given me so many wonderful comments and expressions of support, I can't tell you how much I appreciate you and value you for it. When my MIL told me that she was "excited about the homeschooling", I just wanted to jump around and do a crazy Poodle dance! Thank you all for the encouragement!!!