"School" Day 1

OK -  I feel a little guilty even calling it school.  I know there are no Charlotte Mason police out there that are going to come give me a ticket because I'm doing "formal" lessons with my almost 5 year old.  In fact, I think Charlotte would be fine with it to tell you the truth.  Carter has been writing some letters on his own and asking me to help and I have noticed he is writing some very wrong.  So I figure if he wants to learn how to write, I should teach him the right way, right?

So anyhow - I thought I'd share about how our week has gone.  I'm going to divide it up into the different days so you can see what we did.  I'm also going to share some pictures of our space as I love looking at others school areas, so might as well show you mine.

****Warning*****  If you are like me (or my friend Leanne :) and feel you can't do anything unless you can do it the "right" way then do NOT think that you can't do these lessons unless you have everything perfect.  I've been collecting for the past year - Dollar Tree, dollar spot at Target, library sales, etc.  If you want to start teaching your kids - just start.

You can get everything perfect later - or never.  What matters is you are learning along with your children, spending quality time with them, teaching them about character, showing them God.

Most of this is from Carisa's 1+1+1=1 site.  It is great and free.  I've joined the members only part for $10 so I can access the powerpoint presentations she has made for each letter.  We'll use those at the end of the week for fun.

So - DAY 1

Put up our calendar day, sing our days of the week song and put up our weather.  Caleb does this with us and we usually read a Bible Story as well.  I forgot to pray though - oops!

Here is what I put up for the letter of the week.  I had a piece of poster board laminated and put some Dollar Tree border around it like a mini bulletin board and we have been using it for our weather.  I then taped up a sheet protector for our verse, the letter card, sight word card and number card underneath.  I taped up a sheet protector beside it to put our "ways to apply the verse" sheet.  I read the verse to the boys several times and then read the ways "I can let my light shine" sheet - being a first born child, Carter liked this application "rule like" part.  Then we looked at the letter, word and number.  Next we read the story out of the "ABC Verses" book by Susan Hunt.  At this point Caleb kind of lost interest and wandered away to play, which was fine.

Since we had swimming lessons this morning we just did the push pin activity from Confessions of a Homeschooler.  I think next letter I'll just do the Dot Letters from her site.

That was it for today.  Simple and sweet.  What I didn't expect was for the verse and heart part to end up being such a focus - him to get the whole "light" thing.  We talked about it through out the day and practice our verse at each meal (I am using this system from Simply Charlotte Mason).  If he started fighting with Caleb or not being kind, I would just remind him to let his light shine.  It seemed to have an impact on him and by the end of the day I noticed him self-correcting.  We went outside that evening to play since it was actually below 100 degrees for once!  At one point Carter went in to get his water and came out with my water bottle.  He gave it to me and said he thought I might be thirsty.  I thanked him and told him how kind that was of him.  Then at bed time I once again praised him for being thoughtful and bringing me my water.  

He said, "Mommy, I was letting my light shine."

Yes, I teared up.

That reminded me to sing "This Little Light of Mine" and we talked about what the song meant by not letting Satan blow out our light.  The next day while watching Veggie Tales "Fibberaloo" which is the story of the Good Samaritan, I asked Carter if the mayor was letting his light shine.  

He said, "No, he was letting Satan blow it out."

At this point this "curriculum" has become more about God forming Carter's heart than about learning handwriting.  

And I'm pretty okay with that.