Homeschool Update

Well, we are about 3/4 of the way through our first homeschool year!  We aren't that far along in our lessons, but since there are no requirements for kindergarten I'm just going with the flow and trying not to stress out about it.

Homeschooling (like many other things in life) has been good and bad, fun and hard.  There are parts of it that we have loved and parts that have been really challenging for our family.  Is it going to work for us after this year?  I'm not sure.  Really just about anything is an option at this point.  And maybe that's just how it's going to be...each year figuring out what our options are and what is going to work best for that year, for each child, and for our family as a whole.  I don't know yet what next year will hold...gosh, I'm not even sure exactly where we will be living...so I'm trying to just focus on finishing this year!

Most of our focus this year has been on reading...reading some great books out loud and also teaching Lily to read.  I really had my doubts and fears in the beginning about my ability to teach Lily to read and her ability to learn this skill from me.  And truth be told we both struggled a bit in the beginning.  Parts of it just weren't clicking for her and she just wasn't making the connections.  But thanks to some reassurance from my girlfriends and a determination to just take it slow and easy we have turned a corner.  I dare say that Lily is reading!!!  We are almost halfway through the reading curriculum we are using (Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons) and Lily is doing great!  We have a long way to go of course...but to listen to Lily read simple stories and to see how excited she is of her accomplishment is pretty amazing!  I am so very proud of her for working to hard at this and giving it her best each day!

And there have been lots of other fun things we have been doing in school at home and with our homeschool group (which we love).  I haven't taken very many pictures and the ones I do have aren't all that amazing...I guess I was focused on other things at the time...but here's a glimpse into just a few of the things we have done...

This fall when my parents were visiting my mom taught some of the kids in our homeschool group how to make soap! One of the boys said it was the coolest thing he has ever done...way to go mom!  

We visited Old Fort Western and learned about daily life in the mid to late 1700's. Eli making cinnamon sugar. Lily learning to tighten and make a rope bed.  

At our homeschool group learning to paint like Michelangelo! At home painting A Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh  

Building the temple for our Bible lesson. A few books from one morning. Our homeschool group visiting the Paige Home Farm Museum on the University of Maine campus.

Learning to make felt balls.

   

Jackson Pollock splatter painting!