September

We closed the book on August last week. Truthfully, I was already mentally checked out of the summer business a few weeks ago. Ready for fall. A fresh start to routines and cooler temperatures.

End of August pictures





Watching Ashton and Josie ride bikes while finishing his lunch


Josie wanted her hair cut







One of the last swims of the season






purple carebear truly goes everywhere these days



Playing in the sprinkler at moo's

We started school on Tuesday!


It has been a lot of fun teaching them this week. Josie has been practicing writing her name, colors, shapes and writing the beginning letters of the alphabet. She also sits in and listens to a lot of her brother's studies.


Ashton's studies this week have gone something like this: 

-Reading a few pages each morning in his Bible story book
-He listens to his musical cd that helps with memorization of verses that were taught in his Bible lesson
-I lay Liam down for his nap
-Math: Counting and writing numbers 1-10, determining left and right, up and down.
-History/Geography: dinosaurs, the study of people and how they lived long ago
-Read-Alouds (which is why we chose the curriculum we use! it encourages LOTS of reading): Two chapters in The Boxcar Children along with reading a poem each day from one of our poetry books (The Llama who had no pajama and Mother Goose). Answering questions about each.
-Phonics/spelling- The letter Ff, telling stories, reading old fairy tales and classic stories, picture book storytelling
Handwriting: How to hold a pencil properly, practicing letters in Handwriting Without Tears 
Creative Expression: Time to himself to create whatever he pleases with scraps of paper, glue, scissors etc, writing his own stories.
Science: Learning the continents, the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, the four seasons, what the earth is made of (we boiled an egg to have a visual of each part), the world rotates, the hemispheres
-Miscellaneous: Filling out our own blank calendar to learn days of the week, special events and holidays.  I also give him freedom to choose what else he'd like to learn. So far, we have read about tools and space. He has some computer time on pbskids.org.

(He also has health, music, art and gym).

Every day, we work together as a family (Liam too) as we do our chores. For instance, Liam loves to help take the clothes out of the dryer and put them in the basket as Ashton and Josie help me fold. I think this family stuff is the most important of all. 

Learning together, playing together, working together, loving, growing. We are a team. A very close one. It's awesome.

After our studies, they've ridden bikes to the playground


I have no idea what tomorrow holds. All I know is that today is wonderful. I am trusting this beginning and whatever it may lead to. 


I love that they can continue to be together. Just like always.




Liam enjoys sitting in and listening to the studies as well
Nature walks




Josie found an Io Moth caterpillar on Wednesday. They have bright stinging spines. Truly amazing creature. We used a shovel to pick it up.


She (assuming it's a "she" from our research), has made a cocoon in her new home. We are excited to see what happens next! :) If my findings are correct, we won't see a moth emege until June! For now, she sits warmly next to our kitchen window.


We read an old fable in our Language and Thinking book about The Crow and the Pitcher. The crow was very thirsty on a hot summer day and found a pitcher. His beak was not long enough to reach the water in the bottom. So he flew to get a pebble and dropped it into the water. Each time he dropped a pebble, the water rose a little higher until he could reach it with his bill. Moral of the story? Never give up.

We had to fill almost the entire bucket with stones until it reached the top!




Hot from all the walking, they jumped in the pool with the clothes they currently had on. (-shirts).


Yesterday afternoon, we joined a huge group of other homeschoolers for a park picnic and nature walk.


The kids gathered leaves, rocks, flowers and various other kinds of plants from the walk


Upon leaving,
Ashton: EVERYONE is my best friend at that park!




We ended up finishing our books this morning from all of our findings this week (made from a brown paper lunch bag).




Our favorite poem of the week:


Hello and good-by, friends.
xoxo.
Jessie

Comments

Laura said…
I'm really glad you got to go to the home-schooler picnic! That's really cool :) You're doing a great job teacher-mama :)
Anonymous said…
great pics
Amy said…
Looks like your September is off to a great start! You are doing a great job. On Sunday Ashton told me his favorite thing from school was "doing projects".

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