Homeschool Digest #1

Nyla is reading!

Naomi is continuing to learn her letters. Letting her just play with them seems to help her.

Hello out there, it's been forever since we've blogged! I have tons of ideas rolling around in my head but alas I'm busy and never sit down to blog. 

This is our first official year of homeschooling and things are going about as I expected. It's taken us some time to get adjusted to sitting down and "doing" school. I expect things to continue to evolve and change every few weeks. Thankfully, I feel equipped to handle the changes that come our way. Since the girls are constantly growing and changing I have to be ready to embrace our changing days. And with a toddler underfoot, things are always interesting! 

As we find our groove the most important subjects I want covered daily are Bible/character study, math, reading and writing. I feel accomplished when we get those items done. We have numerous reading times throughout the day. We are not a TV watching family so reading and crafting just come natural to us. 

Speaking of crafts, I'm not overly crafty but the girls sure do enjoying hands-on activities each day. Thank goodness for Pinterest in finding EASY crafts. I like the type of crafts that I can just look at the picture and figure it out myself. I don't want to make time for reading a detailed instruction guide on how to do a 10 minute craft. We do more in-depth crafts occasionally but I want simple. We try and color once a week, but also use scissors, glue, watercolors and oil pastels. I always have googly eyes, construction paper and other crafty items on hand for the girls to choose. 

Busy girl toddler keeps things interesting. She's been walking about 3 weeks.

Naomi in her eagle mask.

   

Nyla in her eagle mask.

We enjoy staying home most days but we take a field trip every 2 to 3 weeks or so, more when the weather is nice. A few weeks ago we visited Priddy Farms pumpkin patch. We were there a couple hours and had a great time.

Field trip to Priddy Farms.

It's fun to watch our girls develop into their own person with each passing month. Naomi (our #2 girl) NEVER walks anywhere. She likes to dash, jump, twirl, tip toe, run, skip, prance, etc everywhere. I'm not sure she knows how to just walk. :) 

She enjoys flipping through books constantly. She has a BIG imagination and is constantly talking and figuring out life. She is full of questions, funny answers and sayings. This girl LOVES life! I hope she keeps that wonder of it all.

My ultimate book lover, Naomi!

Little Miss Muffet and spider craft with a proud Naomi. 

Nyla (our #1 girl) really enjoys writing. She's been able to write her name since she was 3 years old. She just figured it out on her own. I made letters and books available but she learned letter recognition pretty much on her own. She's VERY independent and wants to figure things out on her own. But she's not stubborn and will ask for help if she needs it, thankfully. She is constantly coloring and drawing pictures for people. I think Daniel comes home and always has something she's drawn him that day. She's taking an art class in a local homeschool enrichment program and she's really enjoying it. She comes home each Tuesday and draws for me what she learned in art that morning. She says she'll be able to bring her portfolio home before Christmas. I sure hope so because I'm ready to see what she's learned.

Nyla loves to write!

Natalie (our #3) girl is a budding toddler. She's been walking about 3 weeks and she is EVERYWHERE! She practically got up one day and walked across rooms, like she's known what she's doing all along. She enjoys playing outside with her sisters, she's saying a dozen or so words, enjoys flipping through books, stealing the big girls toys, coloring (I'm going to have to watch her and walls, I do believe), helping the girls with their puzzles and carrying her lovey around. Thankfully, she's an excellent sleeper (except when teething), a great eater and a fun girl. She is constantly smiling and we can tell her wheels are always turning in her little mind. She is such a ham and walks around just giggling about nothing, at least it's nothing to us. She's been the missing piece in our little family.

We're raising another bookworm!

Natalie enjoys writing on our chalkboard in the kitchen, just like her big sisters.

After our corn maze field trip with one of our homeschool groups, we checked out a local pumpkin patch.

So, that's a wrap up of the last few months. I hope to update more than every 4 months. :)

Gratituesday: My Little Hostess

It brings my heart great joy to see Nyla feed and love on her baby dolls just as we do in our home when we invite others to join us. I'm praying I can continue to teach her the life skill of opening her home and hosting fellowships. It's such a great way to get to know others. It's such a great way to tell others about the love of Jesus and to love them for who they are.

Below are a couple of pictures of her playing hostess. Her great-grandmother's tea set is now in possession by my mom so it gets played with each time we go out for a visit. Nyla decided, on her own, to pull up the baby dolls to the coffee table, using various forms of seating. A high chair, a rocking chair, a couple of scooters were used. A good hostess uses what's available and makes it work! Am I right? She didn't want to exclude any dolls, so she grabbed what seating she had. She set the table before them and played tea party. Be still my heart. What a blessing it was to watch her do this all on her own. She went to my mom and asked for a couple animal crackers because, "they need something to eat." 

She provided a time of fellowship for her friends and what a time they had!

Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it." Proverbs 22: 6 (KJV)


This post is linked to this week's Gratituesday post at Heavenly Homemakers. Check out her blog for other great Gratituesday's posts.

Our School/Playroom 2013

Since our girls are only 3 and 21 months, our room is more of a playroom than a school room. And that's a good thing! 

In March, we moved into a bigger home and we are blessed to have a separate room for our playroom/school room. Yes, the toys still get taken into all the rooms downstairs but they are mostly contained in the playroom. This is good for my sanity!

You can see how we use our room in this picture, toys!

When you walk in, to the left, this is what you see. I just moved our shelving units together so all our "stuff" can be right next to one another. The white mesh shelves I've had for a long time. In our old house they were split into 6 and 6 and placed in our closets for storage. Now, they hold out of rotation books and toys, as well as in rotation toys, which is what the majority of the boxes are. I recently labeled them all so I know where everything goes. The boxes hold dress up shoes, jewelry, dress-up clothes, blocks, musical instruments, hats, birthday hats and CD's. The buckets on top are from the Dollar Tree and hold craft supplies, play doh and play doh toys and flash cards. The big metal shelf in the corner I bought at Target after we moved in. It holds (from top to bottom) extra craft supplies, the girls "work boxes" (these hold coloring books, basic art supplies, books, paper, workbooks; stuff to keep them busy for awhile) and our craft organizer, puzzles, our farm and animals and our doll house and basket of books in rotation.
To the right is the table and chairs the girls sit at. Above that is the calendar I just got done making. It's so cute and I love it. It's helping Nyla with what day of the month and day of the week it is. I know this will come into play more as the years go by.

This wall holds our US map and our twine with clips to hold the girls artwork. The top is Nyla's area and the bottom is Naomi's. I recently cleaned this off and we're starting over. :)

If you keep moving to the right you'll find the girls kitchen/food prep area. I think this area gets the most use right now; they love to cook!
The chalkboard above is where I write our Bible verse for the week.

And that's our playroom. There's not a whole lot going on as I've taken a lot of stuff off the walls and cleaned our the toys recently. It was too much and driving this minimalist crazy! Plus, I want to make more room to play "school" with the girls, which they love. It'll be fun to see how our room changes shape over the coming years!

Thanks for stopping by!!!

-Ginny

This post is linked to iHomeschool Network for the "School Room Week." Stop by and visit other bloggers rooms!