The first post: What we did today

"Where to start?" is running through my mind as I try to decide on my first post for this blog. There are lots of resources and ideas I want to share but maybe just sharing what we did today would be a good start.

Each day in our homeschooling life often starts with the competing needs of teaching my two older girls and occupying my young adventurer who is not quite three yet.

I have in the past few months decided to be more intentional in organising activities for him but truth be told, I haven't quite got to the point where we have a regular time together. There is the ideal plan and then there is reality! Focused playtime tends to just happens in the midst of the day when I can catch time with him, usually when the girls are working independently or involved in other lessons like piano or Mandarin (which I don't teach).

So what did our morning look like?

We woke up, stumbled half asleep to breakfast and then eventually, after chores were done, we congregated on the sofa for devotions. During this time, adventure-man insisted very loudly and persistently that he wanted the  "boogie worship". So, in tried and tested fashion, the loudest got his way. We played his favourite rowdy worship song (which we all love!) and danced around the living room while he used our big footstool as a trampoline shouting triumphantly at appropriate intervals. The only problem being that when we wanted to quiet down and start our devotions, he continued to insist on "boogie worship" and a large amount of my time was spent explaining why we need to be quiet and read our bibles together. By this time, my two older girls were  rapidly slipping into a state of sluggish stupefaction. ( Sigh. This was not how I pictured it would be when I first started homeschooling - but to be fair, this is not every day - we do have good days too!).We did eventually get to our devotions after concerted efforts to distract him with his trains.

It is a Monday morning and I actually had a weekend to dream up some ideas - so what you see following is a pretty productive day on our part in terms of play and learning.

I have been slowly working through the alphabet with him over the last few months. We started by reading Letterland stories and using their flashcards to familiarise him with the letters. It worked well with my two girls when they were in their nursery schools (long before we started homeschooling) and I decided to give it a go with him.

He loves the flashcards and we play lots of games with them - his current favourite game is one where I lay a variety of  cards out at the end of the room and we have to race to get the right one. He feels very sorry for mummy who never seems to win! ;) 

So this week we are up to LETTER N. All the printables I used here were from Confessions of a Homeschooler.

Adventure-man started off with sticking "N for Noodles" on our letter Ns and then proceeded to dump glitter all over it. And why not!

He then sorted out Big N's and little n's in this activity.

And He used Do A Dot paint for this.

He practiced his fine motor skills sticking straws into small holes punched into a cereal box. (I got this idea from some of the Tot School blogs - sorry I can't remember where.) And he matched the number of beads to the numbers in his trays with some help from me.

The other things he got to do today were:

  Tossing bean bags onto numbers called out by me.                  

                               Playing with coloured ice (A BIG HIT!)
                                                      
I got these ideas out of The Toddlers Busy Book.

The rest of the day was taken up with general play with trains, reading before nap times, going to the playground and yes, (head hung in shame) watching some TV. It was a happy day.

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