School has started

My baby has officially started Kindergarten. We have been going for two weeks now. We decided to use  K12 this year. I had several reasons. The first being that it is free! I thought I would sign up and check it out to see if I even liked the curriculum. Honestly thought I'd only do it for a short time and probably not like it. Now that it is here I LOVE it. I like that I know we are on track and that my kiddo is getting as much (and more) than what he'd be getting if he went to public school. Plus, it is all planned out for me. There are lots of fun books, crafts, and activities. Also, did I mention it was FREE!

We have had one day where he didn't want to be home schooled, but it is more and more evident every day that this is the right decision for our family right now. While my little dude is thriving (in my personal opinion) academically it is more than evident he is not able to sit and focus for long periods of time. A classroom at this point would be very hard for him (and his teacher).

So, if I am not on here quite as much lately you know we are just getting our routine figured out. The one thing I will say about K12 is that it is time consuming. We like it lots though and I think we will at least use it the rest of the year.

Teaching tots

The other day while I was at Target I saw a pack of craft pom poms in the dollar spot. I had seen some other people online in the blog world using these for different projects and I thought they may be good to have on hand. I bought each boy a pencil box to hold his school supplies. When I got to Levi's I had nothing to put in because he can't have free access to scissors, glue, or crayons. So, I put the pack of pom poms in with an old tick tack toe board from the dollar spot as well.

I gave the box today to Levi while the other boys were working on their table work. I added a cup from an IKEA stacking set.

This has been a fun morning for little man. He has filled the cup dumped it into his box. Dumped the balls on the floor and "cleaned up".  We named the colors. We counted. These little dollar deals may have just provided lots of learning and distraction for my toddler who wants to be involved.

I will continue to look for objects around the house that will keep Levi busy and learning while we are doing school each morning. Any one else have any free or inexpensive ideas for toddler learning?

Book It

Did you have Book It when you were a kid. We did. I loved reading to get free pizza. (Even then I loved free stuff). Did you know that as a homeschooler you can enroll in Book It too. I was so excited about this. Just go to this site and enroll. It only takes a minute and you are all ready to go. Hurry, and sign up soon though because it takes a few weeks to get to you.

Free Math program

If you are looking for some enrichment for the summer Moneysavingmom.com has a post on how to get Funnix math for free. Hurry since this deal only lasts through June 24.

Getting organized...again

This week is the home school conference that I have been super excited about. I have been trying to prepare to make sure that I get the most out of my time there. Dan and I have been looking at which sessions we want to check out. We have our hotel room booked, and grandma is coming to watch the boys (woo hoo time with my man!) I am working on my final shopping list for the exhibit hall.

I am also working on getting my act together in our school area. If you have been reading for any amount of time you will know I organize, rearrange, and declutter our overflowing basement all the time. Now that we are officially going to be starting Kindergarten I feel like I really need to have the school side in serious shape.

We are using these side tables from IKEA as desks for the moment. We will hopefully be using some desks I had as a kid soon. For now it keeps them each happy and gives them their own work space.

These are our work bags. I am using the workboxes model, but we are going to start by using these hanging bags. For us this saves space since ours is so limited.

I have my Kindergarten My Father's World broken into weeks. Each week has a file folder that I can keep books, lap books and other activities in as I come across them.

Then I have a binder which holds all our worksheets. Each week is labeled and during my prep I will pull the week's sheets out and put them in each day's folders.

I am looking forward to getting all our curriculum figured out for this year, but it is fun trying to figure out what works best with what we have for now.

My Father's world Day 1

Today we stayed home so I decided to go ahead and start the creation lessons for My Father's World.

Today we talked about day 1 of creation and that God created day and night. This week (and maybe some of next week) we will be learning what God created each day and making a book about it. Also, we have numbers that they are cutting out and gluing on a poster. To teach what was created each day.

Cutting is a skill we aren't great at because I don't love giving them scissors. That is something I am working on getting over.

After our Bible story every one worked on coloring a picture for the book they are making. They are really working hard to color in the lines. This is a big deal for my boys. Especially since we have some focusing issues.

All in all today went well. I will be working over the next few weeks to tweak a schedule and fit in all we are hoping to do each day. I'm hoping to have all our work done by lunch so we have our afternoons free. We will see what happens. :)

Just another day

Our Tuesdays are typically pretty busy. We have Tuesday school  and then plan a play date. We have House Church Tuesday nights and so in there some where there is making food for dinner and getting naps and cleaning done.

Today, however, Asher woke up and said he didn't feel good. I didn't think much of it, but I have been feeling somewhat rundown myself so the idea of skipping school sounded ok to me. Asher crawled in bed with me and we rested until he sat up and yelled "I need the puke pot". Then he threw up in my bed. Yep, gross.

After throwing up two more times he was parked on the couch in front of Franklin.

Well, that led to laundry. Since I am way behind anyhow I went to switch loads. Only to realize our dryer isn't working...again. The machine is really old and it may be time just to give in and get a new one. The nice thing is Dan had more overtime last two weeks than normal so we may have a little extra toward the really big purchase.  :( YAY for an emergency fund. For the moment my drying rack is working over time.

Even though we missed Tuesday school Isaac is still getting his school in today. He had his morning folder work and then we are starting working on creation from my father's world.  He is getting so big!

Then there is little man who is the tornado today. He is pulling toys out and dumping like crazy. NOT mommy's favorite thing. But he is cute while he does it.

So that is our morning so far. It can only go up from here, right? :)