This is the Day that the Lord has Made

We survived our first day of homeschooling today.  

It was a fun day. We started out with a picture so that the girls can look back and see themselves at the end of the year and reflect on how much they’ve changed. They woke up very excited.

 

 

After breakfast and some pictures, we started out with Bible and prayer time. For parts of our Bible time we’re using a book that was a gift from a friend entitled, “The Life of Christ” by John McArthur. The book is a collection of scriptures that capture the life of Christ in chronological order beginning with the Creation of Man. Scriptures from throughout the Bible are organized in a way that you’re able to read complete themes on certain topics (e.g., creation, the fall of man, etc.) using scriptures that span from the Old Testament to the New Testament.

After prayer and Bible time, they both worked in their handwriting books. Lea will be learning cursive writing this year and Love will continue to just brush up and refine her cursive writing.

I introduced “copy work” which is a technique presented through the Charlotte Mason philosophy of teaching where “copying good work encourages good writing”. The notion is that if a person copies the work of writing that is not just editorially sound, but full of meaning and fruitful context then they will adopt the sound principles that are gained from copying good writing. With copywork you can copy any sort of writing – Bible Verses/passages, poetry, literature, etc.

The time seemed to fly by as the girls wanted to take their time and be neat as they wrote and I tried not to hurry them along. Before we paused for lunch we did an hour or so of math, reviewing the areas where they left off in 1^st and 3^rd grade. While I worked with one individually, the other read a “Life of Fred” math book. The Life of Fred math books are literary books that teach the reader varying math concepts through storytelling. He’s an interesting little guy that will have you laughing. It’s always nice to have a little comic relief when you’re learning math.  

After Math we had some lunch and then had our time of reading and comprehension. Some of the time was spent with me reading out loud to the girls (“we’re reading the 2nd book in the Little House series) so that they can hear the expression and proper pronunciation as I read. And, after our together time of reading they each have their own books where they can do their own reading and afterwards, they each presented their understanding of what was read. Love of course didn’t disappoint us as she reenacted the 1^st chapter of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”.

By the time we got through reading and comprehension it was nearing 1 p.m. and I thought we’d finish for the day, but we squeezed in our spelling time with the “Sequential Spelling” curriculum and the girls ended the day writing in their journals about their first day of school. With this particular curriculum the student learns foundational root words and with each lesson the consecutive words that they learn builds off of the root word.

I had to shoo them outside after we were done. Love wanted to drill a little more on her times tables. Geez.. I hope this “problem” continues. I decided to save our history lesson for tomorrow. It was after all the first day of school (Love reminded me the week before we started, "Mom, you know that in school you don't do anything the first week, right?" I had to inform her real quick that this was not her typical school setting =)

Overall, it was a blessed day. It still seems surreal that I’m at home and not at work today. To just walk in the room and see them curled up on the couch reading and writing just warmed my heart. It’s a feeling that no amount of money could ever provide. I’ve experienced that feeling of enjoyment from giving to people in the workplace, but when its your kids its just priceless because its something that I hope they will never, ever forget. And, just maybe they’ll be inspired to give this same gift of “mom at home” to their own children one day.

 

 

1 school day down…. 1 hundred... seventy.... uhm.... who's counting.... yet?!?!?

(ask me again later if I've started counting =)