School Snapshots

Here's a peek of some things we've been doing in school.

Ray continues to enjoy "Little Stories for Little Folks" from Catholic Heritage Curriculum. He read this story - 144 words - straight through for me and we both were so happy and proud!

We followed up our habitat study by learning about food chains, herbivores and carnivores, and animals that are now extinct. We've been reading lots of dinosaur books. I surprised the boys with dinosaur fossil kits (from Dollar Tree). We had a great (and messy) time chipping away the stone/dirt and finding tiny dinosaur bones.

During Ray's early morning alone time (before the rest of us get up), he's been making what he calls "One-sticker Holiness Pictures." So sweet!

 "Chores" are now part of each day's school checklist. We have been teaching the boys to do more around the house. This has been so helpful for me. AND, they are loving it. They couldn't believe it when I let them help me scrub the tub. They were awesome scum-busters! It's crazy the things that can make a mom proud and happy!

 (I acutally edited out some of the yucky grout around our tub in this picture! ;) I wish I could take care of it that easily in real life!)

Jon was home on Monday (Labor Day) and so I put him to work helping with school. He worked with the boys on a clock game.

Geography puzzles

 Our resident "weather man!" How about that uniform.... and the boots?!? Homeschooling at it's finest!

This morning we practiced counting by two's with this "shoe" game. It was a fun and ACTIVE Math activity.

(I got those number pads from Oriental Trading this summer. They are great. We've set up lots of hopscotch games and marching games. So many uses for them! I wish I had found them a few years ago.)

Art --- We're learning about the color wheel. We did some painting with primary colors as well as some color mixing.

Adam's Math book featured an ice cream sundae activity in which we had to count and add several toppings to our ice cream. Yummy fun!

And so we're off to a good start. We've been enjoying a mix of "table work" and fun activities. We're beginning to find a rhythm to our days, including afternoon quiet time in our rooms (for mommy too!) and no TV or electronic games until after 3:00. Hooray for homeschooling!