First week of Homeschool wrapped up!!!

I'm flying high.

We finished our official first week of homeschool this week and what a blessing.

Seriously. What a blessing.

The boys and I are just having such a great time together. Ashton is picking up on his handwriting so well, and Ethan is just flying thru his math and reading lessons. He is eager each day to read me some books (to get to play football, but hey, whatever it takes for him to be EAGER about reading I'll take!)

We wake up, eat our breakfasts, get our morning chores done without feeling so stressed to get out of the house on time so that they aren't late for the first bell at regular school. Preston even made the comment to me today "How does it feel to not be so rushed in the morning???"...which I replied..."AWESOME"!

We start school at 9:00am. We jump right into our bible time, science, social studies, rhymes in motion and dramatic play, all while in the playroom. Ashton is sometimes found sitting upside down on his head on the couch and Ethan particularly likes to curl up next to me, touching me in some capacity.

We then make it into the classroom for our handwriting exercises. We start our math lessons out together (going over our daily shape, date, counting drills) and then Ashton is then allowed to go take a break. He prefers to play with some type of car in the playroom while Ethan and I dive into his math lesson. Right now the lessons haven't been too taxing for him, so we're able to do at least 2 lessons per day. Once he is done, he gets a break and Ashton then comes in to do his lesson. Once he completes it he can resume his quite playing while Ethan and I regroup to do our REading Lesson. We are using REading Made Easy and he is doing GREAT. After that we read one of our Burgess Books (right now we are on REddy Fox) about character/quality traits. It's a fun way to learn these subjects thru the main character in the book. Reddy is a boastful fox that is often getting into trouble. We read one chapter each day and the boys usually can't wait until the next day to hear more.

We sometimes will do an art project somewhere in there as well, depending on the subject/day/etc...

Then school is over.

Ethan usually wants to play his football video game so we get out three reading books for him to read to me. He's doing really good and I'm super proud of him. I've decided to not even start Ashton on any type of reading program until after the New Year. I figure by then I'll be done with Ethan's reading lessons and he'll go into another phonics program which will give me more time to devote to Ashton. Plus, Ashton is still on the young side and not quite ready for formal phonics training.

We are usually done by 11:30. How cool is that? That leaves us the rest of the day to follow our other interests, more reading, playing, gardening, swimming, errands and doctors appointments. I'm so digging this schedule. This is exactly what I was looking for.

After the hectic-ness of last year at TFA I really just wanted to S-L-O-W down. I felt like our life was going by at the speed of light with no hand brake lever to pull it to a stop. What we are experiencing now is much more peaceful and stressfree. The kids still have TIME to be kids now.