We will not be able to start homeschool until I leave my job.  That puts our scheduled official start for May 2016.   Until then, I’ve been happily experimenting during weekends, vacations and random days off.  Today is Cesar Chavez Day, and that means no work!  It’s a great day for homeschool practice!  Goose had school, but Bunny and I stayed home.  I usually set aside a pile of worksheets and have one or two planned activities for about an hour of school.  Please don’t think we actually get through all that.  I find that we can cover about three to four things in an hour, and switching up the type keeps away school fatigue.

We started with foreign language.  I’m going to enjoy the moment while you think I diligently teach my children a different language…. Ok, finished?  She watched Pocoyo in Italian on YouTube for twenty minutes.  I sit with her for some of it, and I repeat the words.  She likes to repeat with me and that works.  I’m not fluent in the language, so I don’t really want to try and speak with her.  I speak broken Italian, and mostly in the present tense.  It has served me pretty well, but we are aiming for fluency.  I have high hopes for the girls and at some point, my mother (who is fluent) will be joining us for lessons.  In the meantime, I plan to stick with books and streaming!  It seems to be working, because I heard her practicing Italian later in the day.

After that I set her up outside for some painting.  I needed some time for my own chores, so I put the tarp down to cut down on the clean up.   She enjoys mixing her own colors, and I like to call this  art and ‘pre science.’  We ended up with about 8 different colors, all of which somehow turned grey!  She happily pretended to write and make shapes.  Some of my favorites were the hexatangle and the dual heart square.

After that, she asked for abacus work and we did some counting.  I tried to show her adding, but I think we’re going to stick with simple number games for awhile.  I found some very nice small dry erase boards at the supermarket the other day.  They have come in handy! They are magnetic, so I have visions of stowing them on the walls!  I let her pick the first number and I pick the second.  She really enjoys counting, so I am taking advantage of this time.  I really enjoy using the abacus for counting and for early math.  Goose is using it for addition.

I tried to steer her towards some worksheets, but it did not take.  After Math work, we did some geography.  For geography, I have two books: Children Just Like Me and National Geographic Kids: Beginner’s World Atlas, some maps, and a globe.  Today we used the two pages of Children Just Like Me, which just has a bunch of pictures of kids from around the world.  We used that and a globe to find out where these kids lived.  Bunny knows her continents, so I would have her find the continent and then I helped her find the country.  We found about six kids.

Our last activity was a game.  I’m a big fan of finishing with a game.  Most games are just easy ways to sneak in learning.  She chose Monopoly Jr and won!  The board games are great for practice with following direction and counting skills.

Overall it was a successful homeschool day!  We did just enough to keep her interest up and we covered a lot of ground. I’m really looking forward to May!