Homeschool Happenings

Well if you weren't aware yet, we have chosen to home school Evie for kindergarten this year.  We chose the co-op preschool last year, but everyone decided to do public for kindergarten.  We didn't feel that was right for Evie.  Besides, this way Joseph is learning ahead of schedule and Evie doesn't have the issue of changing schools since we know she'd only get this year in the Sumter, SC district anyway.

Our schooling is pretty straight forward and honestly, like preschool, it's kind of hard to mess up unless you just don't do it.  I have a lot of help with websites that I belong to and workbooks from regular bookstores.  Barnes and Noble has made me a part of their educator's club with accompanying discount and my in-laws are both teachers so they're always on the lookout.  I also decided that if anything ever happened and I had to go home Evie and the other kids would end up in the local school district at our permanent address.  With that in mind, I looked into their grade requirements and found that they are really good and follow the principals I wanted to teach my kids.  So after some liaising with the school district and some help online, I found a fantastic and workable set of standards to be working toward with her.  I'm super excited about it.

To give you some examples of my favorite lessons we've done, I decided to record how some of them went.  Normally, we study our ABC's, our numbers 1-10 and 1- whatever Evie is on, sing some action songs to get out the wiggles, go over our school rules, practice their articles of faith (we're working toward a Chuck E. Cheese party), and then have our lesson of some kind.  Examples of regular lessons include Math: grouping and less/more than, Geography: compass rose and our neighborhood, Reading: ABC's and Poem/Nursery Rhymes, etc.  I am sometimes really proud of my lessons because of how they turned out and how they stuck with the kids.  Here are some of them!


This was a geography lesson.  I found it online.  We decided to finger paint the world.  It helped that we have a very large wall map to copy for them.  We work with it every now and then.

 This time I was brave and did a messy lesson!

 Evie was so careful: I was super surprised!  

Past experience did not prepare me for "careful Evie"

Joseph, I was totally prepared for the messiness! 

they worked so hard and did such a great job!  I was so proud!

didn't they turn out great!? 

The next lesson that I was really excited about was the lesson on the human body.  The idea was to help them understand all the body parts and to notice the difference between heights and the types of clothing boys and girls wear.  We had so much fun tracing the bodies and then coloring their clothes.

this is Joseph's picture.  he had so much fun coloring himself. 

He wasn't wearing pants this day so...body had no pants.

This was Evie's representation of herself.  She really likes colors of clothes.  We did have to have a discussion about modest clothing this day.  She tried to draw herself with a belly shirt.  We adjusted it so that we could hang it in the house.  It was a good opportunity to teach some good principals as well as to educate her in health class.

The last lesson I've been excited about happened a while later.  This one we had recently completed school rules.  (I know-why not earlier?)  Then to reinforce the second rule: to follow directions, we did some fun things.  

First, we did our normal opening exercises, then we read about pirates because we chose to do a treasure hunt with certain movements that they had to perform to get to each clue.  It turned out so well.  The treasure ended up being in a box that grama and grampa sent for Valentine's day.  It was so cute.  They continue to talk about it several weeks later.  That's how you know it was a good lesson!

they tore into the box.  it was super cute! 

they loved that the "treasure" was from grama and grampa. 

they loved the fact that each kid got their own special treat bag. 

 this included the box of treasure, the pirate books, 

and the clues we used to find our treasure.

So those are some of the more fun lessons we've done so far this year.  Our regular lessons are fun too, but not out of the ordinary.  They are the more regular draw a picture, repeat a sound, practice the principal, etc.  It's great and the kids do such a good job.  I've learned so much about my kids and how they learn and acquire new information.  I have so enjoyed this experience.  It's a bit nerve wracking to have such a big responsibility on top of a big responsibility (raising kids), but I pray a lot so Heavenly Father is a huge part of how I do what I do.  Thank goodness!