Homeschooling Fun!

We are well into our school year.  Well, I never know when we really start or when we really stop, but I do know that we learn a lot, we read a lot, and we play a lot!

The kids love to "pretend" when we have school time.  In a weird way, it is exhausting to pretend to be their teacher.  I try to play along as much as I can though.

Getting ready for geography

Nate even gets involved and tries to answer questions.

Every day, we have to have presentations.  I don't think they understand that this is one reason we go to CC every week.  But, it's fun for them, so we roll with it.

We are listening to a history series called Story of the World.  We have three of the books, and only one set of audio CDs.  The audio CDs work the best.  We listen while we are in the car.  Nicole is an auditory learner, so she really enjoys listening.  I have learned more history in the past 6 months that I believe I learned in all of my years of school.  None of it made much sense until I've started to learn it chronologically.  Amazing!

A non-homeschooling friend of mine asked me the other day "how do you do it?"  She is finding her 5 year old daughter to be highly unmotivated in kindergarten.  I have the opposite problem (but it's not a problem).  My kids love to learn, and it is exciting watching them.  I told my friend that they don't really know any different.  I can turn anything into a learning experience.  My kids love to read nonfiction, educational books, even when they are playing, they are usually playing pretend school, or adventuring, which means reading books written for adults.

Yep, that's Nicole, with a whole table full of books about crocodiles and alligators. She brings them out before breakfast and sits and reads them.  Some are children's books, others are naturalist books written for someone on a trail or with a keen interest in animals or plants.  Up until this summer, she was not interested in reading at all, now, she reads all the time.

I love that Nicole is reading to Hannah.

She'll occasionally pick up a fictional book (right now she is slowly making her way through Black Beauty and a couple of others), but she mostly wants to read about animals.  That's fine with me...either way she is reading!

We built a castle a few weeks ago out of boxes.  That was a fun project.  Of course, the kids slept in there that night (and Nicole has a flashlight so she can read!)

We have enjoyed our first 4 weeks with a Classical Conversations group.  I feel like the families are getting to know one another.  I am still praying there will be a strong bond formed where these families can come together and support one another.

Lunch with part of our group

Oh, and this was a food chain diagram they drew last week.

Nicole's food chain.  Starts with trees.  Giraffe eats the leaves, lion eats the giraffe, bacteria decompose the dead lion.