We started Homeschooling

our munchkin Monday. I was excited, yet anxious. She is very intelligent but quite the emotional child. She can get upset if she doesn't know the answer sometimes. I prayed it would go smoothly and jumped in holding my breath. She did WONDERFUL! I can't tell you how excited I am. And the best part is she loves it. Today was our 3rd day and so far she counts to 30, spells her name, recognizes numbers 1-4, recognizes all of her letters and can tell me their sounds except C, E, J, L, P, U, V, and Y, knows all of her colors, knows all of her shapes but sometimes forgets rectangle, can write her name, recognizes when words rhyme, and knows the first three days of Creation. 8))) She is working on her memory verse for this week which is, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. " Genesis 1:1. She is having so much fun and I LOVE watching her learn more everyday. When we are done she wants to keep going. Next week we are going to start adding in science experiments and more educational art. Tonight (yeah, we did school after supper and her bath tonight) when she counted to 30 I praised her for doing such a good job. She pointed to the number chart and wanted to do it. I asked her what she wanted to do. Her reply? "I want to count the total." She then proceeded to count all of the numbers from top to bottom in order. I am a proud Mama to say the least.
Moving on, I decided that we would add in Science next week and do lots of science experiments/observations as our "curriculum".  We have an outdoor toy box that does not have a lid...soooo it filled up with water from this monsoon season we have been having. With the rain came little tadpoles...tons of them...in our toy box. First science experiment? The life cycle of a frog. I researched on the computer and asked on Facebook and learned from both sources that in captivity a tadpole can survive on boiled lettuce (becomes it has the same texture as algae to them) and/or fish feed. We are going to catch a tadpole and bring him in the house...feed him goldfish feed and watch him grow into a frog. Madison is so excited. Uncle Wes drew us a picture of the frog in each stage of it's life to make a poster so we can identify each stage as it occurs. Anyone want to take a guess as to what we named our tadpole??!! Kermit!
We do puzzles, read TONS of books, count everything we see, watch educational movies like Leap Frog movies, etc. for extra learning. I will post the videos she loves tomorrow. Madison's aunt is a teacher so her gifts for Christmas and her birthday are usually fun but educational as well. These videos are one of those gifts. Thanks Aunt Jennifer!
I would also like to add that one of the many reasons we love homeschool so far is that there is no need to freak out when we are doing school at 6:30 and one of us is in our pajamas. As long as it gets done, when doesn't matter. I love that. We prefer to do our art and science experiments in the day and our "bookwork" at night. So far. 8)
Thanks for listening to me ramble on about how proud I am of my daughter's progress! I am hoping to start blogging about our homeschool days (experiments, cooking projects, crafts, etc.). Have a good night and be blessed!
Stephanie