That left me lost with this blog, if I read for inspiration, then I too shall be inspiring and encouraging others. I feel nothing like that, nor worthy of that. I'm just an upper 20's gal, trying to swim my way through life, getting through each day through prayer because I stumble more than I do good. I have two little girls, with a little BOY on the way. But as I pluck through this life, through conversations with others, they find something fascinating, oh, you had a home birth? Oh, you garden? Oh you can your own food? (eh, I don't, my husband does, I'm the grouchy assistant) Oh, you are homeschooling? Oh, you teach piano? So I slowly gravitate back to this little blog, maybe, just maybe, something inspiring can come out of it to bless someone else. If not, a way to document our family's journey, something to look back on our triumphs or more likely, our failures and how we learned from it.
Our garden this year has had its' ups and downs. For how much we planted, we should have yielded a LOT more. BUT, we've canned more beans this year than we did last year, so that's a plus. Our tomatoes weren't what we expected (not as big) but were bountiful. We couldn't keep up with the processing so our freezer is full of them, ready to be turned into spaghetti sauce. We enjoy supporting our local apple orchard and did our first batch of apple pie filling tonight. We've probably got 3 more batches to do, also apple sauce and apple butter.
So the one thing I really wanted to write about, was our homeschooling adventure so far. My oldest is 3, almost 4. So we are doing a basic preschool curriculum. Do you need to school preschool? Absolutely not. Read books, incorporate school in your every day life. However, my not so little, little girl really strives on structure. I teach at a Homeschool Academy on Mondays, she's in the nursery and calls it "School" so she's excited about doing school at home. We've been doing Heart of Dakota's Little Hands to Heaven. It's for ages 2-5. I've absolutely loved it so far. (umm yeah, we started about a month ago, then took off for 2 1/2 weeks for travels, family, appointments and just back into it) She loves Bible stories, and that's basically the core of this. Using Bible stories to teach other concepts. She's working on the A sound, we have a chant about all the A animals that God made. We do small art projects, very active, read out of a kids Bible, etc. It works really well for HER. Here she is today, slithering her "A"naconda (her toy snakes) on a giant A I taped on the carpet. Tomorrow she will be gluing cheerios in the shape of an A on a piece of paper.
A lot of this you could get off of Pinterest, I'm sure, but I'm not on there. I know there are programs/educational games on the internet for this age. 1) Our internet is horrible. 2) I just have a personal conviction about her education being solely in front of a screen. If you know her, you know that she gets sucked into screen time and like turns everything else off, a bit freaky.
With that, we are supplementing with Rod and Staff's A, B, C, D workbooks for 3-4 year olds for fine motor skills, which my chica lacks. We are working on pencil holding, coloring, and eventually cutting. (umm yeah you should see her cut, it would entertain you)
With Heart of Dakota's program, we are done with that in about 20 minutes. With other supplements I'm using and library book reading, about 40 minutes or so. Now she's my oldest, I do this while the "baby" naps, and I can spend this 1:1 time with her. When my two oldest are "bigger" I don't see being able to spend this much time of preschool with #3, but the basic Heart of Dakota program and sitting in watching the bigs, they soak up so much.
Tonight we started something new. I bought the Read and See Bible from a used curriculum sale. It's basically Bible Stories with a DVD that goes along with that. It was 30 minutes before bedtime for the little one, the girls were cranky, so I popped the DVD in for the first time. It goes over the Bible from beginning to end, tells a short Bible story, then a fun song after it. The girls loved it. They watched about 25 minutes of it, then bed time routines went very smoothly. I may skip the book part (we have lotsa Children's Bibles) and do 20 minutes or so of the DVD before bed.
So all in all, it's going well. I just need to be more structured in my day to get the most of the time we have for household chores, kitchen stuff, education, and playing.
