FourHodges: Official 1st Day of Homeschooling

After a lot of thought and research we decided to homeschool Elliot. We are not sheltering him, he will not be unsocialized, and he will certainly not miss out on typical activities that a school age child would be involved in. Here in Texas, there is a huge homeschool support system. We are members of a homeschool association that has activities and classes for the kids and meets at least once a week. We also have the opportunity to join the Co-op that meets once a week for classes. There is also a homeschool school store 10 minutes from us that has a huge variety of curriculum and various other tools to help a homeschool family to succeed. We will be attending the Homeschool Conference at the end of this month that is very informative on every aspect of homeschooling.

Today was the official first day of us homeschooling as well as Elliot's first day of Kindergarten! Can you believe he is a kindergartner already! Why in July you ask? Because I would much rather have the flexibility through out the year for sick days, and to be able to take off in the spring and fall when the weather is nice and not 100 degrees. We are doing 3 days a week until the first of August and then I plan on doing 4 days a week, and if needed 5 days. I read somewhere that for every hour in a typical classroom setting equals ten minutes one on one, so it doesn't take a full day to finish one day of school work.

This morning we started out with saying the Pledge of Allegiance, learning a virtue "being diligent", and then calendar time. During calendar time we also chart the weather and a few other activities. Next, we learned a new verse in the bible, read a devotion and said a prayer. That was a good start to the morning! We then learned about what history is in the "History for Little Pilgrims" and a little about science from "The World God Made". We worked on fine motor skills (including handwriting) and math, which we have top of the line curriculum for as well. For story time I read a chapter from the book "Adventures of Reddy Fox". The lesson that Reddy Fox learned was to overcome his fear. We then said some rhymes and listened to music as well. We do not have our phonics and reading program yet (will be getting it this week), but I am not concerned since Elliot is already advanced in this area.
We will alternate what we do from day to day, some days we have art, dramatic play, and thinking games in the schedule.
Was it easy? Not today, but I'm praying it will get easier. Lillian is teething and was not a happy girl this morning. Every thing I tried to give her would only keep her occupied for just a short time. I will have to adjust a few things Wednesday in hopes that she will be a little happier. In hindsight and some advise taken from fellow homeschooling moms, maybe I'll break up the day so we can do more of the reading in the afternoon during her nap time. We will make it work! On the other hand, Elliot really enjoyed learning today and he appreciated the fact that when we were done and he got to go out in the backyard and look for frogs!!!