Around here...

We've been enjoying hanging out at home and working on little projects.

Luke loves to have "some work" to do while Sean does his table work.  

Sorting Cuisinaire rods by color on place mat. 

Sean is steadily working through his Explode the Code book.  

Luke wanted more work, so he practices tracing.

And the brothers have built a town.  The poor town is repeatedly hit by a tornado.

Here's a cutie playing with his treasury basket. 

I am determined to get some good shots of all 3... mommy will jump out with the camera anytime!

Our first day back to school

Today I decided to just jump right back into some more intentional schooling.  I have a particular rhythm in mind for each day that goes something like this:

Breakfast pretty soon after waking. 

 We lit a candle for each of the boys so they could enjoy it and then blow them out when breakfast was finished (the best part, right?).

We did morning chores.  No pics of this because I was holding Eli.  They just cleared their dishes, made beds, got dressed and brushed teeth.  I am going to make some chore cards soon.  It will be part of an art project for Sean.

Next, we had circle time.  We worked on calendar recognition, read the Bible story and listened to the verse of the week song. I might beef it up later, but for now simple is nice.

Play time with blocks, cars and magnets.  Sean made a "tornado" out of the magnets that ate the blocks.  Luke pretty much just tried to destroy everything.

Because Luke was having a few melt-downs I put him in bed at 11:00.  I flip-flopped our Sonlight story time and reading/writing.  We started Explode the Code and Sean did the pre-test (very well, I might add!).

Then you-know-who came out ready to "be done fussing." 

Sean read a story from his reader.

Then he practiced writing some of the key words from the story (on a sweet, new wipey board).

Luke practiced writing and chewing the eraser off the pencil.  He sat in my lap the other half of the time... no pics available of that cuteness.

They went outside to play on the patio while I made lunch.  They ate while I fed Eli.  How does he always wake up right when I get the food on the table...?

Luke goes down for a nap (again).  Sean plays while I work on laundry and other miscellany. 

We sat on the couch and did our Sonlight reading.  A little about Roman dress and homes.  Some poems... and that was it.  Not too much on the schedule today.

I had to take Eli to the doctor so Jeff came home early from work.  He took the boys outside and they played with ice that we had frozen in various containers last night.  When I got home with Eli they were still playing outside... beautiful weather right now!

We ate a quick dinner (Jeff made eggs and toast).  They went back out and played right up until bath time.  Then we cleaned up toys in the living room.  I may or may not have snuck in a mommy chore.  Ahhh... the days where vacuuming is fun for them.

Then, off to bed for my busy boys. 



Glimpse of schooling

I am desperately trying to get some schooling in this summer before Eli comes.  Apparently the summer is not the easiest time to start for us!  Oh, well... doing the best we can.  I'd  rather it be enjoyable for us all, rather than stress getting a checklist done.

Here we read a little about the Egyptians.  Sean made sugar cube pyramids.  Luke just stacked his.  Suprisingly, no cubes were ingested durig the crafting of this project.

After reading a poem about a brother, we made a family tree.  I went through a box of random photos and got shots of all the family I could.  I held up each picure and asked Sean whose side of the family it goes on- mommy's or daddy's.  It was interesting to see him try to figure it out and ask questions.

We picked up our produce from the CSA after lunch. Sean helped me go through the cherries and pick out the bad ones.  I'm thinking of making some homemade pop tarts with cherry filling... we'll see!

And this is what transpires after I tell him to get his pencil box so we can do our reading/writing.  I just sat and watched for a while as he made his little boy sound effects with the erasers and had imaginary battles.  It was too cute.  We did not get to the reading/writing portion of the day.  I'm okay with that.

I am still so excited about doing this with the boys and getting these glimspes into their day that I might otherwise miss.

Lazy days...

There are days we just bundle up and hang out in front of the fire watching movies and playing-

trains, tractors, blocks.

And some seats in the living room are more interesting than others...

Potty training day attempt #1.  Until he burned his little rear on the space heater. 

I think we'll be waiting for warmer weather.

A New Day

This will be late in terms of time of year, but I thought it an appropriate way to start the new blog.  We "started" school this year in September.  I was really hesitant to commit to a specific curriculum.  I instead decided to take this year really laid back and see how the flow might go for us.  I am convinced that the delayed learning approach is healthy (waiting to start formal schooling until the child is older).  So, I figured there was not much to loose by testing the water this year.
I did know that I was interested in Teaching Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons.  So, when I found it for $1.00 at the thrift store- I was super excited!  Sean was pretty eager to start so we went for it.

For the sake of posterity I wanted to put up some pictures of the day.  It started as usual with some playing.

Lunch time.

While Luke was napping we started the reading lesson and letter project.

 

                     

So proud of his work.

Then more play time. 

Here's a shot of our nature table:

These shots were all from a few months ago.  Since then we have done more, figured out about our style and are looking forward to being even more intentional with our learning.