Although I’ve always known we’d be on the path to homeschooling, this year we really got down to business and made a commitment to this way of life. Our kids Luca (age 7), Rose (age 5) and Remi (age 2) explore life and learn every day through reading, imagination, play, and time spent together and with our community. We are documenting our experience here. Enjoy!
September:
Our Weekly Chalkboard : Every week I write our plan for the week. The kids often enjoy adding in their own ideas and following along as the week goes by.
A few of the books we’ve enjoyed this month: Island of the Blue Dolphin (Luca and Rose documented this one in their journals), the vintage set Childcraft Children’s Encyclopedia (which we had when we were young and are still so great!), Little House on the Prairie books (theses are so wonderful, peaceful and beautifully illustrated) and Home Grown (for mama!)
Homemaking : Rose helping with pie baking and Remi helping with the tomato sauce process. Measuring, math and homemaking skills abundant. The kids also really enjoyed making lavender sachets. Drawing our their patterns, pinning, cutting, sewing and filling with lavender.
Art and Crafting : Luca and Rose loved creating these masks from the Childcraft Encyclopedias. A few of Rosie and Luca’s drawings, including Rose’s own design of her birthday cake!
Journaling : The kids and I really enjoy a practice called “Document Each Day”. We draw a simple picture of something from our day, maybe it is something that just happened, maybe a favorite memory from the morning, or even a feeling in the moment and what we see. I usually put a little text with it to further remember that moment and what was going on.
Luca was really enjoying creating shields in his journal this week
St. Peters : Remi is attending a pre-school at a local church around the corner from us. He goes two mornings a week and this really helps me be more present on those mornings with the older two kids. Here he is on his first morning. He loves it to say the least!
Letter Writing : We have a box just for letter writing. We try and write a letter and post it every week. Sometimes the letter is to Grandmama and Grandpapa in KS, sometimes it is to their cousins in CO and KS, sometimes it is to a friend in town (which we’ll hand deliver). Sometimes it is a “Bon Voyage” letter to Meme and Grandpa Bill to go with them on their travels to Ireland and Hungary!
Nature Time : This month we worked on gathering and preparing a box of nature findings for our Nature Pal Exchange. We were paired with a family from Saskatoon and really enjoyed gathering finds along the beach, in the park and especially in our favorite place: Peters Woods. The kids loved using the guidebook as we walked the trails and later used it to identify and label our findings.
Outings : We have a wonderful Homeschooler’s Library Hour every week. We also get out to our beach at least weekly!
