The months have passed quickly and before we knew it two days ago was our start day for school. Lyla was pretty excited and I was nervous!! It has taken a ton of prepping and printing to get things ready. I was originally going to start watching some kids from the end of August until next year. In the end, Lyla was not listening as well and concentrating. My main goal is to homeschool and be successful. I chose not to watch the children in hopes it will help Lyla stay on track more this year. The first day of school was supposed to start the 3rd of September as the other kids in town. I am watching the one child the first two weeks until the new babysitter can watch him. I am so thankful that she was a friend and understanding of our situation. I just want the best for my daughters.
I still have to rearrange her schedule around since I had the start day the 3rd. Which we are still going to be working on small items just not going in deep like I was planning. So maybe its a good thing. We can start slow and easy and then work out a schedule that works for both of us.
The weekend of Labor Day, Tony and I went on a little hike near some railroad tracks and found a monarch caterpillar! I just knew it was a sign that we were going to have a great start for school. I have now made this week learning all about the life cycle of the butterfly.
I didn’t have a lot of information so I went straight to pinterest and found some great ideas! Also, I had joined a website called teachers pay teachers. It really has some great items for free as well as ones you pay for. Sign up its free!
Starting out, we made a caterpillar craft! The kids enjoyed decorating that page for the caterpillar to live on. Even Tenley joined by sitting on the table and observing and drawing on her own paper.
That night we worked on labeling a worksheet of each stage of the butterfly. She did really well writing each word. We have lots of practice to do but I have hopes she will be a pro! These work sheets I had gotten off the Teachers pay Teachers site. At the bottom of the page it gives this link.
That was all we could accomplish during the day. It was pretty late in the afternoon and I had to run to the post office and make dinner. We decided we were going to work a little more after dinner time. She was pretty excited to work again on things!!
At a rummage sale this summer, I had found these great wooden shapes for sewing. She absolutely loves it! I think it was her favorite part. She was a pro at it!!
The first week of school I had scheduled the letter I. Our first theme I wanted to use was ice cream to make it an easy fun start. So, I had prepped and made a few construction paper ice cream cones to match lower case and upper case letters. She did pretty good. There were a few she got stumped on but once she realized that another letter looked better there she figured it out. (The popsicle sticks were to keep them from blowing off the table- we had our fan on)
I had her do some pattern matching which she had fun and I didn’t realize I may have to find her a few more activities. She is so quick with these. I will have to find more challenging items.
I took simple empty jello cups (thanks mom!) punched circles from a Pepsi cardboard box and wrote numbers on the circles and put them in the bottom. She then took the sticks and put the correct number in each one. I then mixed them up and had her redo it with the blocks color coordinating. She did really well. We have 1-4 down for sure!
We worked then on a worksheet where she drew the stages of the butterfly.
I am pretty excited with how school has been going for us!! I hope everyone had a wonderful start to school.
I have been praying a lot lately to help us stay on track this year!! I am very thankful she loves to learn new things. She is pretty excited. Hoping to post weekly about what we have been learning!
WiscoMom 