My Newest Venture

In an effort to put more structure, productivity and learning into our days I have embarked on a new and might I add, very fulfilling adventure. I am attempting to try my hand at some make shift homeschooling. Albeit it is on the preschool level and I figure it is best to start small and with baby steps, this way I can figure out if I am really cut out for it down the line when she is older and ready to be challenged even more. I am not really using any structured curriculum at this point, I am mainly pulling from my job experience and my education (I knew that college degree in child development would come in handy!). I have also found several websites that I am incorporating various ideas from and molding them all together to form my own impromptu lessons. I have found Starfall to be a very helpful website, some of the site is geared more for older kids, but like I said, I am picking and choosing. I have also found some great Christian home school stuff, so we are trying to incorporate some Bible lessons/verses daily. Sophie loves to read her Bible and we have found that she is also retaining so much info from Sunday school so I thought this would be a great add on to what she is learning at church.

Right now my plan is to work on a letter a week, so right now we are on A, we have started by creating an alphabet book, she had so much fun coloring, gluing and cutting (Mama helped with the cutting) and I was really impressed with her gluing abilities! All the while creating the "A" page we talked about the letter A what sound it made and what things started with the letter A. I was blown away at how much she really seemed to enjoy it all and at the end of the day when Neal came home she was able to share with him some of what she learned. I certainly don't spend all day "teaching" Sophie, of course I see everything as a teaching experience whether it is intentional or not, but my new concentrated efforts of teaching last anywhere from 15-30 minutes (or however long she can focus!), and then sporadically throughout the rest of the day we will talk about and incorporate what we worked on that morning.

I have also implemented Quiet Time bins for times when I need to get things done, i.e. cook dinner or get a shower and don't need her underfoot. Each bin is labeled Monday through Friday and has toys/activities in them that are to be used on a specific day and during a Quiet Time (or Mama needs a time out) moment only that way if the bins are only pulled out at a certain time on each day they stay fun, new, and alluring. The various bins contain coloring books and crayons, a magnetic dress up doll, Little Einstein figures, My Little Pony, Stringing Beads (for hand eye coordination and fine motor skills), stickers, clothes pins with yogurt containers (clipping the pins onto the containers is good for the fine motor and practice for holding a pencil), measuring cups, number identification/counting cards, a blank notepad and crayons, each bin also contains a couple of books that she has not seen in a while so that should excite her!

I am really excited about all this mostly because Sophie seems to be excited too, but also because as I mentioned it gives a little structure to our morning and day and I am not constantly wondering what we are going to do to fill our time. I will keep you posted on how it all goes!

The front cover still needs her name and some of her own personal flair added, but this is a start!