Today was a VERY exciting day for us! Our VERY first day of homeschooling!
The girls have been counting down for days, and as the hours quickly approached before bed last night, they were coming unglued! They had a hard time going to sleep last night due to excitement, and quite honestly, so did I! I kept repeating things over and over in my head, making sure that I had everything prepared that I needed, and going over any last minute plans... I finally had to concentrate on NOT thinking! Must sleep! :)
It's funny, Chloe kept saying how shy and nervous she was going to be, thinking of me as her teacher. So the first thing I did this morning was smile and say, "Good morning class!" They both giggled, and Chloe said "Oh no!" Of course after just a few minutes of getting into our bible lesson, she was just fine. As I knew she would be!
For those of you interested in what we will be doing on an average day, I thought I would give you a general idea!
We start each morning out with prayer and our bible lesson. For the first 9 or 10 weeks of the year we are studying stewardship. Today we learned, "What is a Steward?" Over the next few weeks we will be learning what that means to God, how we are to be stewards for Him, and charting how well we do personally in those areas of time, treasure and talent. I think it's going to be great!
Grammar: We are using curriculum called "Easy Grammar". I have to be honest, teaching this subject scares me to death! But... with lots of prayer and study myself (and the help of my DH) I am determined that not only will my girls learn but I will too! I am so excited with how smart I am going to become through all of this! ;)
Math: The girls are both using "Math U See". Jay and I were both very impressed with the quality of teaching segments that come on DVD. This program uses manipulative's, that reminded me of Montessori which Kenzie attended for a couple years. The girls did they're first lesson today, and they loved it! Hopefully that remains true in the weeks to come!
Science: Mckenzie is going to do 7th and 8th grade science with a curriculum called "The Rainbow" It's a serious two year study that comes with all the lab equipment one needs to do at home! I was excited about that. As I've read over the first couple of lessons, I found that the text is written in a fun way that kids are "supposed" to enjoy. I look forward to seeing how much Kenzie will enjoy science this year.
Spelling and Penmanship: 3rd grade is the year that our public schools teach our children cursive. Kenzie learned cursive in 3rd grade, then was never required to use it again. She had forgotten how to write in cursive last year when I brought it up. I was really disappointed with this! Anyway, she has quickly regained her knowledge, and a couple days of each week we are going to work on penmanship. Chloe will be learning cursive over the next couple months, and is very excited to do so!
Spelling is also something we do weekly.
History/Social Studies: The first 10 or 11 weeks of our school year we are doing a unit study on Africa. It's pretty exciting for us, due to our family missionary ties in different countries of Africa! It's a very fun, lively course. Lots of projects and reports while studying different countries and topics like Islam (Which I thought was wonderful! What is Islam that we hear so much about today, and what does the Bible say about it?) Showing the girls strong biblical truths rebutting the religion... I think this will be a wonderful study, for all of us!
Starting in November, when our Africa unit is over, we will start studying Early American History. This is a curriculum that uses real books, instead of a Text book, so we will be doing lots of reading and journaling. This is a broad based study, so the girls and I can do it together, with their assignments geared toward their own age level. I am really looking forward to this as well!
I am sure their will be a lot of other things that pop up along the way, but this is a brief overview of the things we will be doing every day!
It's funny, Chloe kept saying how shy and nervous she was going to be, thinking of me as her teacher. So the first thing I did this morning was smile and say, "Good morning class!" They both giggled, and Chloe said "Oh no!" Of course after just a few minutes of getting into our bible lesson, she was just fine. As I knew she would be!
For those of you interested in what we will be doing on an average day, I thought I would give you a general idea!
We start each morning out with prayer and our bible lesson. For the first 9 or 10 weeks of the year we are studying stewardship. Today we learned, "What is a Steward?" Over the next few weeks we will be learning what that means to God, how we are to be stewards for Him, and charting how well we do personally in those areas of time, treasure and talent. I think it's going to be great!
Grammar: We are using curriculum called "Easy Grammar". I have to be honest, teaching this subject scares me to death! But... with lots of prayer and study myself (and the help of my DH) I am determined that not only will my girls learn but I will too! I am so excited with how smart I am going to become through all of this! ;)
Math: The girls are both using "Math U See". Jay and I were both very impressed with the quality of teaching segments that come on DVD. This program uses manipulative's, that reminded me of Montessori which Kenzie attended for a couple years. The girls did they're first lesson today, and they loved it! Hopefully that remains true in the weeks to come!
Science: Mckenzie is going to do 7th and 8th grade science with a curriculum called "The Rainbow" It's a serious two year study that comes with all the lab equipment one needs to do at home! I was excited about that. As I've read over the first couple of lessons, I found that the text is written in a fun way that kids are "supposed" to enjoy. I look forward to seeing how much Kenzie will enjoy science this year.
Spelling and Penmanship: 3rd grade is the year that our public schools teach our children cursive. Kenzie learned cursive in 3rd grade, then was never required to use it again. She had forgotten how to write in cursive last year when I brought it up. I was really disappointed with this! Anyway, she has quickly regained her knowledge, and a couple days of each week we are going to work on penmanship. Chloe will be learning cursive over the next couple months, and is very excited to do so!
Spelling is also something we do weekly.
History/Social Studies: The first 10 or 11 weeks of our school year we are doing a unit study on Africa. It's pretty exciting for us, due to our family missionary ties in different countries of Africa! It's a very fun, lively course. Lots of projects and reports while studying different countries and topics like Islam (Which I thought was wonderful! What is Islam that we hear so much about today, and what does the Bible say about it?) Showing the girls strong biblical truths rebutting the religion... I think this will be a wonderful study, for all of us!
Starting in November, when our Africa unit is over, we will start studying Early American History. This is a curriculum that uses real books, instead of a Text book, so we will be doing lots of reading and journaling. This is a broad based study, so the girls and I can do it together, with their assignments geared toward their own age level. I am really looking forward to this as well!
I am sure their will be a lot of other things that pop up along the way, but this is a brief overview of the things we will be doing every day!
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