Highlights of our First Week of School!

JR drawing shapes in shaving cream.

JR and Dad building a geoboard.

This week my main goal was to ease into our new routine.  We begin each day with breakfast and Curious George.  Hey, you can learn a lot from that little monkey!  After the usual morning stuff (getting dressed, brushing teeth, making bed, ect.) we do a few morning chores and get started with our Calender Time.  The kids have caught on quickly to this because it's similar to what they have done in school.  JR loves to use the pointer and EM really enjoys "making the date" with coins.

In Math this week JR learned about circles, rectangles, and squares.  I really wasn't if he was picking up what I was putting down, as my husband would say.  After a slightly rough day on Thursday we sat down for dinner and he held up his tortilla chip.  (Yes, he had chips for dinner -  I said it was a rough day.)  He asked me what shape it was and if we could count the sides and corners.  This homeschooling mama's heart soared!

EM quickly breezed through the first chapter of her Math book.  Thursday I chose to skip a few repetitive exercises because she seemed bored with the review.  She is SO smart!  I had an idea, but WOW!  I can't wait to see how much she learns this year going at her pace.

EM also practiced the first 26 phonograms and segmenting words in All About Spelling.  She also read a beginning reader library book several times and really got a boost of confidence as it came to her more easily the more she read it.

We had LOTS of outdoor fun this week as the weather has been soooo beautiful!  It seems all of the critters are coming out and enjoying the cooler weather too!

EM has been keeping a log of the cool things she finds in nature by sketching them in her Nature Notebook.

One morning we woke up to a praying mantis warming up on our porch light.   What a fun opportunity to learn about mantids that we would have missed completely if we were rushing to school!  Did you know after they are born they sometimes eat their siblings as a first meal?  The kiddos thought that was especially funny.

EM decided this week she was ready to ride her bike without training wheels, so she did!  This was one of those milestones that remind me how quickly she is growing up.  Every morning this week since then EM has woken me up, bright and early, fully dressed, asking if she could go outside and ride her bike.  Can we at least have coffee first, please?

LD is also working on his motor skills.  The whole family has been on "Crawl Watch" anxiously awaiting those first momentous crawls.  What will he go for?  This morning we thought maybe the cat would be his first target!

He has also been working on cutting FOUR top teeth!  Needless to say, he hasn't been at his best.  We did a little happy dance for him this evening when we saw the front two have broken through!  I sure will miss those gummy smiles though.

Josh had the day off today so we decided to head over to the Will County Fair.  We were able to get up close and personal with cows, sheep, goats, pigs, and hand sanitizer.

And of course since we were at a fair we *had* to partake in the American pastime of consuming fried goodness and treats served on a stick!

I'm looking forward to next week and beginning our Adventures!