Teaching letter sounds

A game that has proven effective in teaching my oldest two children letter sounds has been "hide it" (I got the idea from a home school blog on family forum). The object of the game is to find a hidden object that starts with whatever letter the parent has called out. For example (if you've hidden a ball, bat, car, and doll) you would say, find the object that starts with the letter "D" and whoever brings the doll gets a point. Whoever has the most points at the end of the game wins! Although, the game seems fun it has really helped the children recognize letter sounds.

Unique place for shapes

This activity wasn't quite for my homeschooler but it was excellent for my preschoolers. What better way to teach a 20 something month old child her shapes than carving a pumpkin?

Counting with leaves

I'll be the first to admit that not only is homeschooling beneficial to the child but it also gives the parent a second shot at childhood (maybe not but after you get over the initial stress of wanting everything to be perfect, it can become a stress reliever)…….I do have my own paint set and pack of crayons though! Teaching a child in kindergarten and keeping the attention of the preschoolers has proven difficult at times but it has also given me the opportunity to be as creative as possible. The fall has brought with it many "creative" learning opportunities that have been fun and educational for each of the children.

Fun with leaves- (math)

1. The children and I gathered as many fallen leaves of different colors that we could find. We bought them inside and put them into piles by color. After all of the leaves were in a pile I explained the rule of addition and made math problems for my kindergartener. Ex. One red leaf + One yellow leaf= 2 leaves
   
2. (For the preschooler) Simply counting the leaves proved to be fun and educational for my preschoolers
   

Fun with leaves- (art)

1. After we were done with math we used our leaves to make art. Here is a picture of our "leaf" art:

How we document

Currently i am not using a curriculum. I have found that i'm leaning more towards a mixture of the eclectic and traditional methods of homeschooling. I make my lesson plans based on this knowledge and we use workbooks for subjects such as reading and math. For documentation of our lessons, I have a three ring binder and each Sunday I plan out the lessons for that particular week and update it in excel. Here's a look at our "documentation" book:

It's official

I'm late in starting a blog as we officially became a homeschooled family in september but as most sahm/homeschooled parents know, time is something that you just don't have in the beginning! Our journey has been exciting so far and i feel great knowing that my child is recieving an adequate education in the comfort of his own home! There were so many things that led to me choosing homeschool but mainly that i'd wanted to homeschool from the start but tried traditional school because my husband was against homeschool (which he now loves since i had to just go with my gut after our son's school had a "lockdown"). My advice for any family who is considering homeschool as an option would be to just go for it! It never hurts to try and only YOU know what's truly best for your child. My husband was against it in the beginning because he felt as if i was keeping our son from the social benefits of school but he now realizes that our child is still a social butterfly even without traditional school (although i still have him involved in extracurricular activities) and homeschool has helped to get my younger children more involved in academics. It has been a blessing thus far and i expect it to continue to be! This blog will be used for support purposes for families hoping to homeschool or that are homeschooling and also as a source of educational ideas that i have tried with my children. Please enjoy reading and stop by as often as you'd like!