Homeschooling

We are three weeks into the school year and starting to get a routine. I realize how much I have underestimated my children's abilities! We've had our challenging moments but we have also learned so much! It's been a joy to see the lightbulb go on and to realize how much arts and crafts motivate the boys. Here are some things that have helped our schooling efforts so far:

- Working together to list the different tasks we need to complete on the white board and erasing them as we go - they like to see the progress and they take personal responsibility to make sure the list is completed.
- Planning a fun school activity (usually art related) that we will do at the end of our other work. This is amazingly motivational.
- Using a variety of resources including books, cds, and computer. I love that it keeps them interested.

We school for maybe 2 - 2 1/2 hours and usually have a break with a snack and some time for free play. Overall things are getting easier - I was ready to give up in the beginning. :) I've found that Titus does best being included in whatever we are doing. He is welcome to play in the area with toys and I've tried planning special activities for him but really he just wants to try what we are doing. And it mostly works.

Here are a few pictures of the past few weeks with some explanation:

We studied the country of Afghanistan and made flags, listened to music, identified and colored Afghanistan on maps, made two traditional foods, read books and wrote the capital and country. We spent time talking about the political and religious climate of the country and we prayed for the country and for our troops there. I liked that this activity included art, home ec, music, writing, cultural studies and geography. We all had such a great time and look forward to many more country studies.

We studied the Crusades in history and made shields - they loved this activity and carefully studied the shield pictures from our books.