Day one...

Well it's 2pm & school work's been finished for a while.

One of the things that drew me to home schooling was that the children have so much more time for free play. I feel it is such an important way for them to learn. Now with the twins being that much older I'm finding all 4 are going & playing imaginary games together - they keep occupied for ages!!!

So how did today go...well besides myself being tired, Elijah being grouchy & some of the work I had set being too easy/hard....well good!

I'm not normally going to bore you with a day-by-day account of what we get up to (not that I have time, even if it was exciting), but I really wanted to get today's down so we can remember our first day - & probably laugh at how dodgy it was in a few years time!!!

Our schoolroom isn't ready, so we're starting off at the table!
Anyway...

Today we started with Devotions (this is such a positive to home schooling/Christian schooling - this is incorporated into their day!). We are starting with creation because our term topic is plants. We started with Day One & so I blindfolded them at one end of the house & let them find their way back to the table.

Only one casualty with Zai hitting a door frame quite hard with his forehead. Ellie ran into the wall at the end of the hallway, but no injuries (thankfully!!). They're both very glad God created light!

"Amazingly" Jud had no trouble walking to the table - love that little eye peeking there! -LOL


Our memory verse for this week is Gen 1:1 - "In the beginning God created the heavens & the earth." - easy enough for even the twins to remember bits & pieces of!

For Maths Zai did a "alien detective" book where you have to get the correct answer to the maths problems to continue with the story - I found it here. Ellie also did a basic worksheet I found - it was about number recognition & counting - this was too easy for her - will have to try harder tomorrow!


English & Social Studies were just sheets I found on different websites (it's amazing what's out there!). Zai's English one was too easy - I'll be glad once we have the workbooks at their own levels!!

In science we used a kit to make this (thanks Aunty C!!):

For Word building Zai did some spelling words & we discussed ending in le or el (all his words for this week end in these - I have a game for Friday that incorporates this). He also did a find a word!

Ellie - I'm working on her phonics & I bought her back to "a" because she knows the sound "a" as in apple, however I introduced "a" as in alien & "a" as in armadillo - she grasped the concept well & then did some practice handwriting sheets & identification in sentences etc. I'll continue this tomorrow!

Our family reading book at the moment is "Where lions roar at night" by Rose Boom - this is a fantastic book about a family in NZ who live on land & it's about the adventures the children have (it is a true story!). It's a very hard book to put down - we never read just one chapter! We read 2 chapters this morning!

Picture taken from here!

I also read some other simpler books to Ellie & the twins while Zai was finishing his work.

Both Ellie & Zai told news - the favourite part of their day at normal school so I couldn't' leave it out!

Ellie then went on reading eggs (a wonderful program that both Zai & Ellie love) while Zai read "Big Red Hen" to me. This was a completely new book & he read it really well & very fluently.

My feelings: I'll be glad when the workbooks come so I don't have to try & find work at the correct level, however other than that I loved it!

Now off to Ellie's ballet lesson - the boys & I'll visit the library which is located just down from it during her lesson time.