As of now, we don’t really have a set schedule of what we are doing. We are still figuring all that out and I am letting Little Bug take the lead. In our current daily schedule, there are two times we can work on our homeschool activities: when Sweet Pea is doing her Room Time and the hour before Little Bug’s naptime when Sweet Pea is already down for her nap. Little Bug is usually doing Room Time at the same time Sweet Pea is, but I may shave off 20-30 minutes of Little Bug’s Room Time 1-2 times a week in order to fit in another teaching block with her.

Like I already said, we are slowly starting everything. I knew jumping into everything all at once would overwhelm us all. So, during our first week we just focused on establishing our Morning Bible Time, Calendar Time, some Hands-On Thinking Skills fun, a little bit of Saxon Math K, Mudpies to Magnets and, of course, lots of reading books and crafty-things.

Here is a peek into Tuesday through Friday:

~Tuesday~

This picture cracks me up! It’s blurry but oh well. Tuesday started with a little dance party. I turned on the song that went along with our little Creation story and both girls started dancing. Sweet Pea is hilarious with that baby bottle hanging out of her mouth. It’s for the baby dolls but she has recently started carrying it everywhere with her.

After we listened to the song about five times Little Bug sat with me in her bean bag chair in the playroom and we read the story together. Sweet Pea did her own thing playing in the playroom which was fine by me! I’d love for her to join us and listen to the stories, and I know she will in a matter of months most likely, but for peace-sake, if she would rather play during Bible time I am not going to insist she sit with us to read the Bible stories. This was a very sweet time for us all. Little Bug’s attitude was a night and day difference and my hope for a wonderful homeschool year with my girls was redeemed!

Later that morning we went to Grams and Gramps’ house for our first Science experiment from Mudpies to Magnets.

It involved dirt (Little Bug was thrilled about this, haha!!) and sand, mason jars, water and two funnels. The experiment was to see if the water moved through the dirt or sand fastest.

Both girls were very much into this as I knew they would be.

~Wednesday~

Wednesday morning’s Bible story was read on Little Bug’s bed because the Bible we were reading from was in her bedroom. Both girls cuddled up with me on her bed and we read the story together. The Bible we read from was the toddler Bible. I am glad I decided to add this Bible into our Bible curriculum because Sweet Pea enjoyed reading this one with us!

After we finished the story we went to the kitchen to do our A to Z Bible Nugget page. It was a coloring page but I knew my girl would much rather paint the page so we pulled out our paints.

Sweet Pea wanted to paint too so I drew a sun, moon and stars on a paper for her and gave her yellow paint and she had a ball!!

Once Sweet Pea was in bed, Little Bug and I did our afternoon activities. We started by just reading some books together.

Then we did an activity in the Hands-On Thinking Skills. Little Bug likes to tell me to look away and then she does the activity and then tells me to look at her work when she is finished. She is loving the linking cubes! When I ask her which manipulatives she wants to use that day, it is always “linking cubes”.

This was her activity for that day. She made the shape at the top. Then she had to make the shape on the bottom that did not match the shape up top.

After we were finished with that, Little Bug totally made up this next activity on her own! She went to the math manipulatives drawer and pulled out the geoboard. We started making shapes and ended up with this sailboat!

Then Little Bug said she wanted to make a sailboat with paper. So we got out the paper and she told me what shapes we needed to draw to make a sailboat. She didn’t want to cut them out so I did and then she glued them on the paper. She got out the leftover rhinestones from her birthday party and glued some on the paper to make “sparkly” water.

~Thursday~

Thursday morning for our Bible time we listened to another song and read the story that went along with it.

Then we played with our What God Made Playbook (with puzzle pieces).

We read the book and put the puzzle pieces in as we read. Both girls really enjoyed this!

Then we again went to Grams and Gramp’s house for another science experiment using a pitcher of water, baking soda, vinegar and raisins.

The girls poured in the vinegar and baking soda and then the raisins and then we observed to see what would happen! There is an acid base reaction that creates carbon dioxide. First thing we noticed was bubbles formed on the raisins at the bottom of the pitcher. Then, the raisins rose to the top! When the bubbles popped, the raisin would sink back to the bottom.

As you can tell, they were both really into this as well!

~Friday~

I am planning to “do school” only four days a week, leaving one day for playdates, special outings (like the library), field trips and whatever else may come our way.

Friday morning we read the Creation story from Little Bug’s big girl Bible and then we left for a playdate! Sweet Pea had spent the night at Gram’s and Gramp’s house because she had a runny nose and I wasn’t exactly sure what was going on with her. So this day ended up being a special day for just Mommy and Little Bug. It was good for both of us.

After our playdate I surprised her and took her to Chick Fil A. We ate lunch together and she wanted to sit at a table for two. Then I let her play in the playground and she, of course, made a friend. The entire time we were eating she was scoping out the play area and giving me reports on whether there were friends for her to play with in there or not.

I got a call from the library that our Ready-Made preschool books had arrived, so I decided we’d run a few errands. We went to the library to get our books and then we went to the “indoor zoo” (AKA PetSmart) to get food for Pup. Little Bug loves to look at all the animals in there and was begging me to buy her a fish for a pet “because they are very quiet”.

We came home in time to do a Saxon Math K lesson on pictographs. Little Bug enjoyed this lesson tremendously and even told me so. That did my heart so good.

I explained that we were going to make a pictograph of the people who live in our house. I asked her who lives in our house and when she would name someone I would ask her if they are a girl or boy. She used the smiley stickers to make the pictograph.

Then I asked her: How many boys? How many girls? Do we have more girls or boys? How many more boys would we need to have the same number of girls and boys? She knew all the answers.

After the math lesson it was time to read books and take a nap!

And that was week 1! Overall, our first week was awesome! I am loving our morning Bible times. It is a great way to start the day with my girls. The only thing we haven’t gotten into yet is the Ready-Made Preschool and our first week with that will be the week of Labor Day. But everything else, just one week in, seems to be a pretty good fit for Little Bug for this year. I am not 100% sure that we will keep Saxon K in our curriculum for this year for various reasons. Only time will tell.

After a rough start, I am ending week 1 greatly encouraged and excited for the year ahead! And, just for the record, week two is going well, too! No more ‘yellow school bus fantacies’ since Day 1, so I’d say that’s pretty good.

- Elaine