Good day

Today has been a pretty good day. Especially in Homeschooling. A lot of the time since we started homeschooling, I've worried that we weren't learning enough, doing enough or that the kids were really learning at all. I really think it stems from the fact that I feel this is such a hugely important task to undertake and it kind of scares me. Last week we studied bees and I felt like we really did learn a lot. Way more than I ever did about bees. I find myself learning so much along with the kids. Today was good because we introduced fractions to Noah and I was able to spend quality one on one time explaining them, drawing them on the white board, having him do his workbook on them and then we reinforced them with a cool maniupulative thing I got at Wal-Mart on clearance. It has several circles each divided up differently (they're plastic) and a book with a dry erase marker. It was just so nice to be able to know for sure he was getting it and that he wasn't just sitting amongst a class of 20 with 1/20th (fraction added for humor!!) of the teacher's attention. Plus Abby is really advancing in her Math skills (she's about to start adding) and she's starting to know all her sounds and her sight words. Today I gave her a sentence to read that contained sight words and she knew it. I think she was excited to be able to read. We went to the Library today too. I go pretty much every week now and stock up on books dealing with whatever subject we're studying at the time. I also found Bob books, which some of you may already know and it's basically very simple books with just a few words that get progressivly more in depth and difficult. They are for teaching to read. I got her the first four today. We also went to storytime at the library where they read lots of books about fall, pumpkins and leaves. They then did a few simple songs and a craft. They made a wreath with fall leaves and a ribbon on it. I thought since it said it was open to all ages, that maybe I'd found another homeschooler there with older kids, but not today. We were the oldest ones and the other were around 3, with one maybe Abby's age!! The kids had fun though and we'll definitely go again, gotta love free fun!!! Well I decided to order even more curriculum, because I felt like the one area we were lacking was in Bible. The Bible and Christian beliefs are scattered throughout our workbooks and our unit studies, but I really wanted the kids to learn the actual stories of the Bible more in depth and learn some they hadn't heard before, so I ordered that and it should be here this week. I remember at the homeschool convention that nearly every speaker warned us that we would worry about homeschooling on some level a lot, and now I understand why. I am loving it though, although it's hard to get up and get it going every morning!! I love how much the kids are learning already (and myself) and that I have them here where I know they're only getting good influences, and awesome teaching!!! SM