Our First Week!

This first week was a blur. I thought I was better prepared for Grace's first week. It is such a learning curve for us as I am trying to see what activities Grace likes to do, how she learns best and what works best for our family. I had everything seemingly planned out, but a dear woman at our church gave me a book called, "The Homegrown Preschooler." by Kathy Lee and Lesli Richards. I loved this book and read it in one day. It is every thing I wanted for preschool. I would recommend this to anyone wanting to do homeschool preschool. I actually would recommend this to anyone with young toddlers at home. It is a play based preschool. (No, I am not paid to endorse this book. I just love it and would tell everyone to get it. Go ahead, right now!) Preschoolers are being pushed from a younger age to have all this knowledge. Kids need to play. That other stuff (academia) will come later. They need basic life skills. What I loved most is this book has a checklist and all sorts of activities listed inside which fit under each category. It has a list for daily, weekly and once a week. Honestly, it is helping bring me down to reality and making this simpler on me. I felt so much pressure as I was planning and all the stuff for Grace's school and thinking about all the goals she needed to meet. I am not nearly as overwhelmed. I am going to let her be little and enjoy and have fun with this season. Well, that was a tangent. Back to our first week. Grace worked hard and kept asking what her next task was. She is excited and wants to do school everyday. We are limiting it so she has special set time just focused on her, so she knows and differentiates that from her regular day.

We try to start with circle time. We sing songs, have Bible Story time and read books related to the theme. This week Eden was able to join in circle time one day and that was just a joy for Grace. 

Circle time before Eden was distracted. 

We worked on letter art, math skills, gross motor and fine motor.

Her letter M's done with her left hand. 

More 'M' practice

 We used M & M's to reinforce her letter of the week and have a fun math lesson. 

Blue had the most. 

Her guess was Green would have the most. 

Enjoying the fruit of her labor.
(She did share with her sister.)

Eden was upset that she
 couldn't eat Grace's class work. 

There was other activities we did this week like a few sensory boxes,  she beaded a bracelet and a neckless and she did some art and little activities.  I am hoping to be more organized this upcoming week. She also starts gymnastics Wednesday. We have a lot going on this week. Here is to week 2! 

Grace's First Day

 

    The whole first day was planned. I had told Grace we were going to start Monday. As it just so happened there was a wrench thrown in our plans. That is life I guess.   I wanted to push it off till the next day so I can start with the fun breakfast I had planned and get her dressed super cute for her picture and so on. She was pretty disappointed. I decided the breakfast and my other expectations were not that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things. We put Eden down for a nap and I gave Grace all her school supplies. She was pretty excited. She kept saying this is awesome! ha. After that we went outside to go take her first ever school picture.

Going through all her supplies

Her first ever school picture! (tear)

     We did a few little projects. I had her draw in her journal and dictate to me what she drew. The theme was, 'what do you want to be when you grow up?'. She wants to be a construction worker and build her own tower. :) She also added some leaves to her leaf collection book.  We did her hand prints and worked a little on learning the letter M. We practiced some circle time with listening and singing songs, but Sadie kept trying to sit on G's floor pillow. She had G and I laughing. It was a short and sweet day. Not what I envisioned, but she was over the moon about it.  We are both excited for this school year and what we will be learning. Here are a few pictures from our day and here is to our first week!

A small glimpse into her journal.

Her leaf book. 

Her hand prints. 

Her traced and hand painted hand print
she cut it out and taped it by herself. 

To New Beginnings

     We are a family of 4, well, 5 if you include our precious pup Sadie. Our household includes, my husband Josh, me the wife/SAHM Amanda and our girls Grace (four) and Eden (21 months). A lot of new things have taken place this year! We moved to Orange County 6 1/2 months ago. I know it's not cross country or anything. It's just that my husband, Josh, had been commuting for 6 years so we finally made the move from the I.E. It was hard. We went from seeing family multiple times a week to a few times a month. We are only about an hour away, but that traffic on the 91 stinks! We left our church, where Josh had gone with his family since he was 7 or 8 and I had attended there since 2006! We love and miss our church family there. We have been going to our new church now for about 6 months and it has really made the O.C. feel more like home. (Do people even call it that? The O.C.?) Though I'm not quite certain I will ever fit in down here, I do love it. Weird, I know.
     Our other new thing is Homeschool.  Josh and I pretty much decided before we had children that we wanted to homeschool. This week we started preschool with Grace (Ahhhh, time goes by so fast!) My sis Christy called me and asked if we were going to CHEA and if we we're starting pre-K with Grace. Josh and I talked about it and decided that would be a good idea, especially if Kindergarden becomes mandatory next year, so she wouldn't be thrown off with going from nothing to 5 days strait curriculum. Christy talked with me for 3 hours one day sharing what she does and gave me so many ideas. I also consulted with a few other homeschool moms I knew.  They all imparted such wonderful wisdom to me. Giving me books, worksheets, & helpful hints. They all had their own distinct way of how they homeschool and I can't wait to see what really works best for our family and hopefully find our groove.  I have been researching since July different preschool methods, curriculum, lesson plans and activities. We were even debating  on a Christian preschool that a family from our church sends their kids to for one day a week or just all at home. We decided to do it all at home.  We will be doing field trips with homeschool families from our church.  We will also be doing monthly co-ops with Grace's cousin Selah. Writing this down is my attempt to help keep myself accountable. To share with friends and family what we are doing. To hear from others what they are doing. To keep track of G's development throughout the year. I can't believe the time has come.  As you may have noticed I am not a strong writer. I hope to grow and develop in that. What my husband doesn't know is I am about to ask him to edit my entries. Here is to new beginnings!