Homeschool Begins!

Well, we had our first wek of homeschool this past week. We started off with a light load for week one, just to get me into the swing of things. Oh, did I say me? I mean the kids! The kids! No, really, we all needed a good “practice week” before we hit it longer and tougher for the rest of the year. Here’s a little summary of how it went.

We all sat down to the table with our baskets containing this week’s work… Kindergarten for little Iron Man, preschool papers for little Hulk, and teacher guides for me. We calmly and quietly opened to the first page and began with a prayer, a Bible story, a song, and then the activity in the book. Everyone followed directions and no one complained or disobeyed.
And then I woke up.

It was Monday morning and time to start the real day! Monday was nothing like my dream day, nor was any other day of the whole week. But we had a blast learning together. I love working with the kids both together and separately as we try to all educate each other. I’ve been pretty honest from the beginning with many people, admitting that homeschool isn’t something I ever really desired but would attempt out of necessity (since private school is in the multiple thousands here). I feel God had definitely changed my heart about that as that monumental “First Day of Kindergarten” approached. I began to get eager not only to teach but to prepare, to organize, and to predict their little reactions to every lesson. And this week was no different. As the week went on, I stayed motivated and I think we all learned a lot from each other. Here are a few pictures from some of our favorite parts of the week!

Preschool Curriculum revolves around letter of the week, and we chose the letter based on the handwriting curriculum, so our first letter is L.


I told him to make an "L" out of play-doh. He quickly did this (note the knife stabbed into the dough) and then just played for a while. Hard to argue... it DOES look like an L, just not what I was expecting. Of course this kid never does what I'm expecting!

We played "Simon Says" during math time because we were studying about right and left.

Here they both have their left arms up correctly...

And here one of them is clearly wrong, but it's just so cute! Right? We had so much fun! They took turns calling it, too, but the first words to me were always "Simon Says put down your camera."

More things that start with L and some arts and crafts projects using the very limited supplies I've been able to find here in Cambodia. We're getting by...

Cutting practice.

And he said this was his favorite thing we did all week. It's a lesson out of his math book. When I asked why it was his favorite he said "just because it is." We'll have to work on communication at school, I guess.

All in all it was a good week. Here are some silly faces with our L crafts.

It was a fun week. It was a long week and we all got a little sick, too, but we had a great time.

Short summary of the week: It was great, and we can't wait until next week.

I can't believe I ever doubted whether this was right or not. AGAIN... God knew what was best for my family. Why do I have to keep getting reminders of that?!?!

We are thinking of all our friends who are starting now at their own schools (public, private, and home) all over the USA. We miss you. And dear Moms who are crying as they walk away to their first day of school, know this... it's going to be okay for you, too. God knows what is best for your family just like ours! He knows.