First Day of Homeschool!

Today has been an exciting day!  

Rainbow officially started 1st Grade today and Ladybug started Pre-Preschool!  Haha!

We have decided to homeschool year-round, as its the best option for our family.

Here's how our day went:

The girls' celebratory breakfast of champions...

I have chosen the My Father's World curriculum to use in our home.  

Rainbow is using MFW 1st Grade.  Ladybug is sitting in on some of Rainbow's lessons, such as Bible/History, Science, during read-aloud time, and when we're using Math manipulatives.  This absolutely helps.

Some of you may remember when I did the Desk Makeover (DIY Old School Desk Makeover) for Rainbow.  She does use it for her independent work.  We mostly stay at the kitchen table when working together, and the first few weeks of this curriculum are especially hands-on.

After breakfast, we gather in the living room for 2-3 songs or 15 minutes of worship.  I found this sets the tone for the day, adjusting everyone's attitudes and getting us ready to learn.  My go-to is Pandora radio on the T.V. 

Bible/History:

  This year, we are starting our day out on the couch.  Ahhhh....the beauty of homeschool.  Haha!  Anyways, Bible and History is integrated together in the 1st grade.  I love this because it's going to give the girls a strong biblical foundation.  Today, we used the teacher's manual, The Bible, and a globe for our lesson.  We will be doing a historical timeline later on, and I've already found and printed the "scroll" paper we're using for it.  You can see it in the photo below.  You can download it for FREE by visiting this website:  http://www.thegoodthebadandthetruth.com/mfw-first-grade-first-six-weeks/

Math:

  Next, we do Math.  I decided that we'd get math out of the way before the other subjects since they have the most brain-power first thing in the morning.  Math starts out everyday with the calendar.  I use a printable calendar for the month and have Rainbow tell me the month, day of the month, and day of the week.  Then we look outside to see what the weather is like and what temperature it is.  Rainbow notates these on her calendar on the correct day.  

Afterwards, we do the number of the day activity.  Obviously, today was Number 1.  There are about 5 activities that center around the number of the day.  It includes things such as asking Rainbow to bring me __ amount of an object, putting __ coins in the coin cup, putting __ beans in a bean cup, adding the number of the day to her hundred's chart, etc.  While I did these daily activities with Rainbow, Ladybug was coloring a printable for the number 1.  I found it here:  http://www.mrprintables.com/number-coloring-pages.html

MFW 1st grade also includes a Math workbook, but it is not utilized in Week 1.  Instead, it suggests you allow the child to have free creative time with the pattern blocks.  This worked out great today because I let both of the girls use them and Ladybug was possibly more occupied by them.  Rainbow originally sorted them into shape and color, but later began to build animals and such.  

English/Language Arts:

Ladybug was so quietly entertained by the pattern blocks, I let her continue using them while I did Rainbow's English/L.A. lesson with her.  

The first two weeks of MFW 1st Grade English/L.A. is more of a Kindergarten review.  It covers the 26 letters of the alphabet, goes over vowel sounds, and uses phonetic blending.  Today's lesson included a full page of handwriting A,B, and C in uppercase and lowercase for the first section.  The second section included the short a sound and phonetic blending.  Rainbow didn't struggle in the least, and it was a breath of fresh air seeing all her Kindergarten work paying off.  

These first two weeks also includes a project where Rainbow will be making an Alphabet Scroll, like the scrolls The Bible were written on. She completed letters A,B, and C today.

After Rainbow finished her lesson, I sent her to the living room to work some addition and subraction math puzzles. This was to give her a "brain-break" while I worked with Ladybug on her short lesson.  Since she will be doing HIPPY in the fall, I bought a few preschool workbooks from the Dollar Tree and tore out the worksheets.  Writing the letter A was a tad difficult, but she took it like a champ!  It made Ladybug feel like a big girl and she loved it.

Science:

MFW 1st grade uses 3 different Usborne books for Science.  Monday and Wednesday, you read the assigned pages and do the activities listed with each lesson.  Friday is exploration day and it really solidifies the science topics covered during the week.  Today, Rainbow and Ladybug curled up with me on the couch while we did our lesson.  We covered worms, snails, moles, and ants in the book, "Things Outdoors".  Our activity was to go outside and look for worms and other critters under leaf litter or any cool, dark places.

Art:

We didn't do art today because it's interchangeable with Science.  Art is done on Tuesday and Thursday.  When you purchase MFW 1st grade in the deluxe package, you get this art program.  It's a combination of lessons for Drawing with Children, with the Enjoying Art Together set.  Enjoying Art Together is a set of 20 full-color famous works of art on card stock, with all the work's information and discussion questions on the back.  Before we began using the curriculum, I laminated each one of these to ensure durability.  I'm VERY excited about the program!  It's more about introducing them to famous art, and less about factual memorization at this age.

Read Aloud:

While we were still on the couch from finishing up our science today, we moved right into our read-aloud time.  MFW 1st grade deluxe package comes with a book called "Honey for a Child's Heart", which includes lists of classical and living books that are considered to be the best books to introduce to your child.  MFW suggests 15 minutes of read-aloud time EVERY DAY.  I love it.  The books we chose today were "I Love You, Little One" by Nancy Tafuri, and "The Tale of Benjamin Bunny" by Beatrix Potter.  

This concluded the "official" homeschool day.  However, the girls played this "Rhyming Words Puzzle Pairs" matching game while I fixed lunch.  I'm pretty sure it was gifted to one of the girls at Christmas, but you can find it here:  http://www.amazon.com/Eeboo-Rhyming-Words-Puzzle-Pairs/dp/B000J3AO90

After lunch, the girls had some free play for about an hour and a half.  Then we did some worship before it was time for naps.  

Overall, we had an incredible first day!