The Seven days of Creation (Part 1)

This week I have been teaching Elisha about Creation. We have focused on the first 5 days so far this week. During our morning walks there have been lots of  talking about all the stuff we see that God has  made. In the car there as has been a few little songs and fingerplays that teach us about God's creation (for some reason he responds better to learning some songs in the car).

ABC Jesus Loves Me curriculum has offered a lot of different helpful resources and a great guideline for making lesson plans. Here are some activities we were able to do courtesy of ABC Jesus Loves Me:

These are color sheets explaining what was made on those days (ie. the 2nd day, the 3rd day).

These are just a few objectives for the week.

Our memory verse for this week. As the weeks go on and we get new verses, we just add them to the binder ring.

The days of creation, each card has a number up to 7, and on each number is an illustration of what was created on that day.

A story wheel that shows pictures chronologically of what God created as you turn the wheel. 

I happen to have a Meliss and Doug Complete-The-Picture Pad that had this scene in it and I instructed Elisha to draw fishes in the water and birds in they sky (its kind of hard to see what he drew).

Here are some other things we worked on:

Another Melissa and Doug page: drawing sea animals.

Doing our online Calendar activity.

Elisha helped in kitchen to make s'more cookies.

Elisha coloring a "My Family" picture.

Elisha was so proud of himself for making the letter, "H" with his snack.

Before I end this post I just have to share that some days I don't feel like I'm making any difference at all, and then BAM!--Elisha shows me that he IS getting it. For instance I thought Elisha's least favorite activity is singing/fingerplays. Then 1) I realized that it works better to go over those things while on a car ride and 2) sometimes I hear him singing part of the songs when he doesn't think I'm paying attention. One of our songs this week was Genesis 1:1 and I heard him singing "Genesis 1:1 " over and over again while doing free play earlier this afternoon. Also I let him play on his dry erase board almost every afternoon and I've discovered that one of his favorite things to do is practice some letters:

It's all these moments that just confirm that I'm doing the right thing, helps me to discover his learning styles and it pushes me to keep doing more. :)

A Day In The Life

SO...this is my FIRST post on my new "family life" blog! I'm really excited about using this blog to document our family and homeschooling stuff. To kick it off, I figured I would share kind of a typical day around here --all the crazy and all the bliss! :)

After breakfast and taking Matt to work, we usually start our day off with some exercise. I walk and Elisha usually rides his bike around the block for about thirty minutes. My sister comes every morning to walk with us too. I figure at LEAST two things are great about a morning walk: 1) it helps Elisha get a few of his wiggles out and 2) I'm teaching him to take care of his body, his temple.

 

After our morning walk, we come inside and do a calendar activity and talk bout what day it is. Starfall.com has an awesome calendar activity that we use. It's an online interactive calendar and goes over the days of the week, which day it is, the month, date and year as well.  After our Calendar activity we pray about our day and for people we know. Then we move on to the Bible story that we are studying that week. This week we are talking about the seven days of creation. I try to find a fingerplay/poem/song to teach him each week as well and that follows our Bible story. Then I ask him questions about what we read.

Next, after some sit down activities, Elisha is usually ready for some moving around and free play. So I let him play for awhile while I catch up on laundry, dishes, light housework (and sometimes he ends up helping with dusting or "helping fold laundry").

Lunch comes after free play and cleaning. Then if he doesn't nap (he usually doesn't) we do quiet activities. We go over our number and letter of the week. I do a little rhyme for number and letter formation and he works on practicing tracing the number and letter. I usually have some object lesson to demonstrate the use of that letter and/or number to help him make a connection as well. We read our book of the week together. Then I have a drawing or painting activity planned for him. After he finishes drawing or painting we play a game of matching, lacing cards, play dough etc.

I try to find some color games for him to play too. Our colors of the week this week are blue, black and white. Today I had him take a flashlight and shine it on all the things that he could find that are blue-- he loved it! We do color activity sheets as well.

The rest of the day is pretty much free play. I often try to make the most of every learning moment that I can. I'm learning that homeschooling is more than just setting aside time for school at home, but more making home school. I'm constantly trying to make our home a learning environment which means free play is still learning time, especially at his age--playing IS learning. 

Our weekly schedule kind of goes like this:

Monday: Library Day- pick out our books of the week, lesson plan, play games, etc.

Tues, Wed, Thurs: carry out lesson plans, more structured learning. (Wed- Library story hour in the a.m.)

Fri- Special activity day (field trip somewhere, pumpkin patch, nature walk, etc) or free day (lots of free play, deep cleaning for me, etc).

Weekend- Family time

And of course I'm flexible with our time, but I try to be a consistent. I follow the ABC Jesus Loves Me preschool Bible curriculum (which is FREE by the way for home use and is SUPER helpful.) basically as a  guideline and supplement with my own resources and stuff I read about or find on Pinterest. So far Elisha loves it and is having fun and so am I.