Awana Cubbies!

Awana Cubbies began at our church tonight! Yay! Our daughter loves going to Awana, memorizing Scripture verses, singing songs with other Cubbies, and being loved on by other people who love the Lord.

It's important to hide God's Word in our hearts and Cubbies is a great way to hold us a parents accountable to helping our child memorize Scripture as well as giving our type A child a tangible reward for her hard work throughout the week with patches and stickers.

Since we aren't in a formal educational setting, it's my goal to provide as many opportunities as I can to provide good places for our children to make friends, learn new skills, and be exposed to people with whom they can learn new things. I feel that if my children aren't "socialized" (such a relative term anyway) it's my failure to incorporate that into the structure of our day. There are so many ways for children to be exposed to other people! We are blessed to be apart of a Mother's Morning Out, a MOPS group, Awana, a homeschool group, 2 dance classes a week, and other playgroups with our fabulous new friends here in our new home. Actually, we are out and about with things to do 6 out of 7 days a week and it feels like such a good balance to have things to do both here at home and out in the community. I haven't been apart of the MOMS Club, but I hear they do fun things together, too. Just last night, I saw on Craigslist a Mom/educator who was wanting to form a Montessori play group for those who do Montessori homeschooling. There is stuff to be a part of everywhere, just look around.

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Color Wheel: Second Period Lesson

Continuing from yesterday, we filled in the color wheel in order of primary, secondary, and tertiary colors. She felt a lot more confident today.







We arranged these laminated cards in order of the color wheel. The cards were mixed in a stack so she had to compare and contrast colors and put them in correct order.








We then categorized them this way. She definitely feels more comfortable with the vocabulary and all three categories after doing these last two exercises.

Next, we will do watercolor, play dough, and paint mixing experiments so she can visually see how they all connect together.

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What Should I Teach My Child?

Ever wonder what kinds of skills your child should know/learn and at what age? After scouring the internet, it seems to me that most lists are really vague. I'm sure there are tons of lists out there, but I really find Montessori For Everyone's Comprehensive Lists really helpful. There are lists for Toddlers all they way through 12th grade. I like to use them as a detailed skilled outline and add extra things to the list like character and spiritual development. That's the beauty of homeschooling, you can tailor the curriculum to how you wish according to what fits best for your family and the needs of your child.

Also, M4E has free downloads every month and month-by-month Teacher Workplans for grades 1-4 that are FREE.

Getting organized

This year I'm determined to make the most use of our time and get organized. What did I ever do without my iPhone, seriously?! This is how I've organized my schedule. How have you other Mom's planned your day when you incorporate daily activities? For me, I feel freedom in a calendar as it allows me to rest knowing everything will get done in it's own time and not freak when things do not go according to plan. It's easy to make adjustments. I like it to be flexible and not rigid. You?


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Color Wheel

Today we introduced the color wheel and it's terms- primary, secondary and tertiary colors and their corresponding names. Crayola crayons have all of their colors labeled correctly with the color chart so we were able to read the colors on the chart and double check the color on the crayon label. We will continue to work on names and colors and add food coloring experiments and watercolor paints to the mix to see how primary colors make secondary colors and so on in the future.


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