First day of school 2012

This is my second year of homeschooling.  This year I have a second grader, kindergartner and 3 year old preschooler.  We will see how that goes.

I am still trying to decide if I want to keep the soon to be three year old at home while we homeschool.  Since I work at the afterschool program I get daycare for free, and I could take him in the mornings.  However, he is almost 3, and he is growing up so fast! He is my last "baby". So I really want him home with me.  I guess I can send him if there are days we are doing activities that would be easier without him, but again, he won't be three forever. This is my favorite age....yes I am babbling!

Ok, so back to our "first day of school".  I have been planning in my head and on Pinterest all summer. I still don't have our school room the way I want, but I was able to organize it this weekend.  I got everything ready for the first day.  I was so excited about JoAnna starting Kindergarten, if I had to be a teacher it would definitely be kindergarten!!!  I had so many fun things planned I wasn't sure if we would be able to fit them in one day.  Again another advantage of homeschooling, if we don't finish it in one day we can always pick up where we left off. 

Jacob's planning was much easier.  He is in second grade and for the most part its all business.  Not sure how I feel about that.  I feel I don't make his schooling fun enough.  I see teachers blog about the stuff they do in their classrooms and it's so creative and fun.  I want to try to do more fun things with him this year and less "work".  Does that make sense??

So here is our first day of school in pictures, hope you enjoy. Most of these ideas came from Pinterest, and I WILL post links to them once I find them all again!

JoAnna's first day of Kindergarten

This will be JoAnna's first year to homeschool.  Last year I sent her to preschool at the daycare.  It was my first year to homeschool and thought it would give me time to get into a routine.  Since I work at the afterschool program I get daycare for free, so I chose to send her to preschool.  Although she never arrived until her class was done with seat work, so poor thing didn't get much schooling at all last year. 

Jacob's first day of second grade

Jacob did great in first grade.  He is very easy to teach, although at times he can be very wiggly and talkative.  He learns fast and was easy to teach.

Jace's first day of 3 year old preschool at home

 Jace had his first day of 3 year old preschool last week at the daycare-but I didn't get a picture of that-shame on me.  I haven't decided for sure if I will keep him home everyday to homeschool with us.  I get daycare free so I could send him to preschool but I just miss him so much.  He is almost three and growing up so fast.

JoAnna mathing her uppercase letters to her lowercase letters.  She did very well at this.  We only have a few letters to work on.

Still working on the uppercase and lowercase letters.  These are only A-D.  Again she did well but she did have a little help since the pictures match as well.

Jacob working on his spelling words. 

JoAnna writting her letters A-E.

Jacob working on his Wordly Wise.  He was not thrilled.  This is new to us this year and I think it'll be great for him. 

JoAnna writting her numbers.  She was to roll the dice and then trace the number she rolled.  It's actually a game for multiple players but it worked well for her.  She counted the dots and then traced the correct number. 

Still working on the Wordly Wise

Jace playing with the tinker toys.  He stayed busy today, not so much on the school stuff as much as just getting into everything he could.

JoAnna starting on her tear paper apple. This took much longer than I had anticipated.  She wasn't happy that she could only use red on her "a". 

I was able to pull his tooth in between lessons.  this tooth has been hiding behind his front grown up tooth for a while.  I finally was able to pull it today!!! Guess we will get a visit from the tooth fairy tonight.

Jace working on his tear paper apple.  This is the most he worked on it, I ended up doing most of it.

Here is Jace putting on his one and only paper.

JoAnna still working on her tear paper apple.  She enjoyed this activity but again it seemed to take forever.

Jace working on writting his letters...yeah right.

Here is what he was really doing.  It's a start.

Almost done with that tear paper apple!!

Here is Jace's picture he drew on the dry erase board.  He wanted to take it to CC to show her. 

Here is JoAnna working on her playdough numbers and letters.  She was very excited to play with playdough and she did a great job. 

Jace playing with playdough.

Jacob working on his second grade math.  We actually started on second grade math at the end of last year.  He seems to be ahead of the book but I know there are some key things in the lessons that he needs to know and learn so we continue with this curriculum.

Jace and JoAnna playing with the sensory box.  It is filled with rice and objects staring with the letters A-E, the letters we are working on this week.  JoAnna knows all her upper case letters so we are reviewing them one a day.  Jace will need more work on his letters.

Close up of our sensory box.

Our story today was a  biography.  We discussed the difference between biography and autobiography.  Jacob was to pick five items that represented himself.  From left to right: 1.  a "good job" ribbon he made me this morning. He chose this because it has green on it-green is his favorite color.  2: a drawing pad, because he loves to draw.  3. A dice because he loves to play board games.  4. A golf ball because he loves to play sports.  5. Wii remote because he loves to play the Wii

Matching numbers to groups of objects.  She did this quick.

Jacob playing an Even-Odd dice game.  We had to choose if we were even or odd.  I was odd, he was even.  Then we took turns rolling the dice.  If you were odd and rolled an odd number you wrote it on the bottom rung of your ladder.  The first person to reach the treehouse was the winner.

JoAnna working on patters.  She really liked this box.  I took pictures this weekend and printed them out.  She had to pick a card and then match the patter. Found this on Pinterest with Mr. Potato Head http://pinterest.com/pin/89157267593621711/

"Star Friends" Jacob had to roll three dice, add the sums and mark off the correct sum on the star.  It also has Star Wars people at the bottom. Another cute idea from Pinterest!!

Jace playing with his flashlight.  He was tired and cranky at this point.

A little bubble fun after school.  We put a blanket on the floor so it would not get slippery.  They had a great time playing in the bubbles, which gave me a few minutes to get lunch ready.