Our first year of Pre-K is completed!

HJ proudly displays her first graduation certificate! She did it! She has come a long way in our first year of homeschooling. Okay, so if you are really paying attention, we didn't exactly take a full school year to do the activities. She was doing so well, that we doubled up on our time with her and completed things in about 2/3 of the time. Now when our DS LA starts to do the same curriculum, we may take things a little slower with him. A lot really depends on the child and what they are truly capable of doing. So with that in mind, my wife and I have decided to start today with HJ's kindergarten program. Now comes the really fun stuff of trying to add in math, reading, science, language arts including a handwriting program, and lots of reading. This next year we will again continue using Sonlight Curriculum. Some of the fun books we will read include a lot of Dr. Sues books, House at Pooh Corner, Cappybobby, Wizard of Oz, and lots of others.

For a complete look at the material we will be using, follow the link to the Sonlight Core C page.
http://www.sonlight.com/cp-c.html Here you will find helpful info on the types of books and programs we will follow. We are kind of using the Core ultra program with some modifications. Basically we chose a few different programs like the math (Horizons) and handwriting (Righting for a Reason) versus the ones that were offered.

On a different note about our son, he continues to amaze us! He has come a long way already since he birth. His speech is progressing wonderfully! However don't try to call him anything but his real name. If we try to say he is "silly" or a "monkey" his response is, "No, I'm just Lukie!" Boy does he get emphatic about it too. He has taken to his real name and nothing else will do. He is also Mr. "I do it myself" stubbornness. I'm not sure where he gets it from, perhaps Papa Bohrer? Or maybe it really is a combination of his parents, but I'll never really admit to it. Well, that's about it from the Eagle's nest for now. And thanks to my sis-in-law for the idea of the background. They have a neat giraffe on their blog. Have a great day and blessings.

Doubling up the days...

Well, after doing almost a week and a half of our Core B program, we have decided that our dd could handle a little more challenges, so we are going to do two days of school according to the curriculum for each day we do school. So far we are keeping to M-F schedules, but we will see how it goes.

This morning, Daddy Eagle and dc were out playing in the grass. It was a wonderful time to let the kids explore. I caught a lightning bug and gave it to HJ. She thought it was the neatest thing to see one up close. I showed her where the light came from and she was looking very intently at it. But once it took off she was pretty shocked, almost scared even. Then we looked at all the crickets we have in our backyard. I have never seen so many in all my life! They were jumping all over the yard. HJ and LA really enjoyed watching them. HJ even had one sitting in her hand for a little while. Then they started looking for the ants. WHO needs public school when God has provided an unexpected "science" lesson just by being outside. Isn't this the way school should be? HJ is enjoying the readings. Today we read a story called "Tiger eats a Monkey" At first HJ was afraid for the cute monkeys on the page. But as we read the story, the tiger was tricked into eating a horrible disgusting fruit from a tanamark (sp?) tree and the monkey was saved. She was listening very intently to the story. Mama Eagle has been doing great with keeping HJ on task with the workbook portions and we are both sharing in the stories. I think we are going to really enjoy teaching our kids.

Well, goodnight for now from the Aerie! John