First Week of School!

     In the previous post, I outlined our plan for homeschooling this year. Now I just want to share with you some of the highlights from our first week of school. First, we started Monday with a very special first day of school breakfast: banana splits!

Chaeli with her banana split. We held off on her First Day outfit until after the ice cream!

Chaeli really thought this was a great treat, but after taking a few bites, she said, "Mommy, this is really yummy, but what do we eat on the second day of school?" Haha. Funny girl. Had to explain that the second day goes back to normal stuff. After breakfast, she put on her First Day of School outfit that I made for her, and we got our day started.       

Calendar Time

Notebook for the year

     This week's book is Runaway Bunny by Margaret Wise Brown. We have it in the basket behind Chaeli with the rest of our read alouds for the week. I remember reading this sweet book when I was a child; in fact, thanks to my parents for sending it to me, we used the very same copy this week!

We have done some fun activities with this book this week including making some delicious carrot muffins, making a bunny mask craft, comparing illustration styles in the book, dramatic play with bunny puppets, and making Bb bean pictures. Below are a few pictures of our Runaway Bunny activities.

Making a shape book. Look at that concentration!

Coloring the bunny mask. We also had to laminate it for her.

Little bunnies playing outside.

Art time!

Comparison project with pen and ink/color painting.

Storytelling with bunny puppets.

Bb with beans

A picture like the one at the end of the book.

     I also want to share a few random pictures of our other activities over the week, some really cute ones of Chloe too.

     I hope you have enjoyed a look at our first week of school! Next, we'll be enjoying Good Night, Moon, and a whole host of moon activities to go with it! Check back sometime and see what we are learning at our house!

     This past week marked a big moment in the McGilvray home--our first week of homeschooling! With Chaeli turning four this fall, we decided it was time to start pre-K with her. So I researched and prayed and planned and prayed and prepared and prayed some more....are you noticing a pattern here? It is my heart's desire to keep God at the center of our homeschooling years, to not just train my children to succeed academically, but to train them to be faithful Christians, to reach as many souls as possible, and to someday find a home in heaven with God. Chloe is, of course, very young to be doing school, so she just tags along where she can, and otherwise plays nearby while we work. 

     Our curriculum this year consists of Bible, phonics, handwriting, math, and Before Five in a Row (BFIAR). For Bible, we are keeping it simple. We start our school day each morning after breakfast with Bible Time. We go over the basics, like the Books of the Old and New Testaments, study that week's memory verse (this week, John 14:15), and read a Psalm. Then we sing a few of their favorite Bible songs, and read a Bible story, straight from the Bible. We started doing this several months ago, and this week, we are reading about Elijah and the confrontation with the prophets of Baal on Mt. Carmel. Chaeli has been playing "Elijah" all week. She just loves when God sends down the fire and it consumes the water, sacrifice, altar, and all. After the story, we end with a prayer. 

Chaeli pointing to days of Creation as we sang the song.

After Bible time, we head to our story area for calendar, phonics, and stories. For our calendar, I found this terrific free printable calendar notebook set at Mama's Learning Corner that we just love. It includes sheets for the weather, the date, how the student is feeling each day, and several more. For phonics, we are using The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading. I like it because it is very simple and straightforward, while providing an excellent foundation in phonics.

We then usually have a little handwriting practice, and proceed to Before Five in a Row. In case you aren't familiar with how BFIAR/FIAR works, I'll sum it up for you. The curriculum includes lessons for one week for each of 26 books. Each week, you focus on one of the books by reading it every day together and doing activities that highlight different elements of the book, much like a unit study. I also find several "read-along" books that compliment the main book and use those for our naptime/bedtime reading for the week. 

I am using this book along with many great ideas and printables found online--please visit my Pinterest homeschool board to take a look. I am amazed at the number of wonderfully generous people who share their creativity and hard work with the rest of us. After a full morning of learning, we take about an hour outside for playtime, then it's lunch and nap. After nap, we do our math and usually one more activity, then back outside/free play the rest of the afternoon. I am so excited about all of our materials and all the fun activities we'll share this year and the memories we will be creating! Feel free to stop on by anytime and share this journey with us!

The Big Red Barn Project!

Many of you know that I started doing a simple literature-based curriculum with Chaeli this year, and this is one of our first projects. We have been reading Baby Danced the Polka, The Big Red Barn, Elmo Visits the Farm, Old MacDonald Had a Farm, and other books relating to farms in general, with Baby Dance the Polka as our main book the last two weeks. Along with our reading, we have been making farm animals, visiting the farm animals at the zoo, building a little "farm" in the sandbox, and making animal sounds. Then I had a flash of inspiration. What could be more fun than a big barn we could play in and display our animals? And, looking in my recycling pile I found this big box that Chaeli's sandbox came from. Perfect! It started out like this:

Then, Chaeli, Ryleah, and I began to paint it read. We painted, and painted, and painted.

Until at last it was red all over. After letting it dry, I got some white paint and added the traditional barn trim to the door area and cut the door openings:

Garrett had the wonderful idea of using on command hooks to secure it to the wall so that it would not fall over on the girls. I added our animals, and here is what we ended up with:

Now we are having hours of imaginative fun for the low, low price of $4.00 for the barn red paint! The girls have been making up new games to play in the barn all morning and just having a ball. Best of all, when it tears up or we are tired of it, I can simply cart it out to the recycling bin! Hope you enjoyed our little project and maybe get some inspiration for some fun for the kids in your life!

Up, up, and away!

So I launch myself into the blogosphere, partially at the suggestion of my sister, who has taken one of my favorite things for her tittle! But, thankfully, I have a two year old, and inspiration is never lacking. Lately, she is obsessed with the Little Teapot song--we sing it everywhere, shower, store, potty, church (uh oh!), car, you get the picture. And I am reminded of when we moved into our house last year, and everything was a mess of boxes, paper, and randomness. Chaeli, being her mother's daughter, sat down calmly in the midst of it all, carefully laid out her tea party, and proceeded to entertain her guests (a stuffed puppy and me) with great dignity and elegance. Thus, I'm a Little Teapot blog is born!