Friday, November 23, 2012

My Favorite Moments...

When I am lucky I have my camera and capture some of the everyday moments that make homeschooling such a gift.
Any morning that big brother decides to fix omelets, his specialty, for all of us kills 45 minutes but means I don't have to cook. Plus, he really is good at it and gets our days off to a yummy, protein filled start!
On the best of days we have a family quiet reading time. I love to see what and where they choose to read.
Jackson chose an army book right next to our nonfiction shelf- his favorite.
Sissy chose to read in the twins new tent at the top of their bunk bed. Another Junie B book :)
Jackson is trying Teaching Textbooks for math this year. (We really like it so far!) It reads the problems out loud. Will is usually playing nearby and will say "the answer". He's pretty confident that he is always right.  Then Jackson will type in the answer he has figured out and it says, "Great job! Exactly right!" and Will thinks his answer was right. He has no humility whatsoever and always says, "I told you so."  It is so cute and I love how Jackson humors him.  I have to say I'm VERY impressed by how much the twins learn by just being in the room playing while I teach the older kids.  Several times I will have read a history lesson aloud and ask a question only to have the big kids stare at me clueless and Wesley chime in with the answer. I'm really hoping this is all giving them a leg up on learning once they are formally in school! I'll take all the help I can get teaching!
We are gently starting some sight words. We started with like and see. I had him circle all the sees and x-out all the likes. VERY simple but VERY effective!
My ipad is indispensable when it's school time. I'm starting to work with the boys one-on-one as we go through their Singapore K and Reading Readiness workbooks.  Often, while I work on one I let the other play learning games on the ipad. Our absolute favorite is Team Umizoomi. I'm amazed at how many math skills they are learning from this game. I love watching how into it they are!
In homeschooling as in all life, the simple moments are the best!