Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Hannah's Story

Hannah wrote her first journal entry! I did help quite a bit, by spelling words for her and helping her put her thoughts into sentences. I also helped her out a little with the letters "e" and "s" by putting a few dots on the paper to guide her writing, but other than that, she did this all by herself. Isn't her handwriting improving tremendously? I think she is just about ready to begin the handwriting curriculum I bought. I still may save it until school officially begins in the fall, though.

Hannah just loves dandelions! We had hundreds of them, mostly white seeds, in our yard the other day. She ran around blowing on them for quite a while. Then, she tried to pollinate the remaining yellow flowers to make more seeds for another day. It's a shame Daddy had to mow that night, as our lawn was beginning to look like an untended meadow... However, I think we have more dandelions than grass, so I'm sure they will be back in no time!

Friday, May 9, 2008

Begging to Learn?

"Please, Mama! Please can we do Kindergarten today!" Hannah begged as I finished typing an email this morning. She even voluntarily cleaned up the living room to make space for our school table! I am so glad that my children love to learn. Hannah, especially, gets so excited when she discovers something new.

Today, we spent about an hour on reading and 30 minutes on math. Hannah read an entire book with no help today, and she easily answered comprehension questions as well. She also practiced reading and writing three-digit numbers and recognizing number words up to ten. I cannot believe that she has nearly finished our Kindergarten reading curriculum already. By fall, she should be ready to begin first grade!

Though we focused mostly on the basics today, Hannah still didn't want to stop. I had to convince her to help me clean up so she could eat lunch before naptime. I hope that she always has such a burning desire to learn! Today, she reminded me why homeschooling is such a rewarding "job."

Thursday, May 1, 2008

Field Trips

Today began with a field trip to our local fire station. The firemen were wonderful! The kids got to see a fireman in full gear, meet Smokey the Bear, hear the sirens, and watch a video on fire safety. Hannah impressed me with how much she remembered from our fire safety lesson a couple months ago. I think she impressed the firemen too. She announced to them at the end that she wants to be a fireman when she grows up! Even Becca had a blast. She screamed excitedly when one of the fire engines drove up to the station while we were there. "Ruck! Ruck! Ruck!" she squealed over and over, pointing to the truck.

When we returned home, we ate a quick lunch, put Becca to bed, and dashed back outside to enjoy the beautiful spring day. After playing "Sharks and Minnows" with the soccer balls for a while, the kids began exploring the yard. We have an abundant crop of dandelions this year, which delights the kids. They cannot resist the cheery yellow blooms for long and usually come inside with yellow noses after picking and sniffing handfuls of the "weeds."

We had some visitors to our yard today, allowing us to have another impromptu "field trip," right in our own back yard. The bees and butterflies busily moved from flower to flower enjoying the dandelions as much as the kids! First, we talked about the bright colors of the flowers and how they attract bees and butterflies. Then, we discussed how bees' and butterflies' mouths are shaped like straws and how they slurp nectar from the flowers just like the kids slurp their milk from their cups. But Hannah became most excited when we learned about pollen.

I showed her the pollen, which had rubbed off the flowers onto her hands and nose, and I told her that the pollen sticks to bees and butterflies too and ends up falling off into other flowers. I explained that when pollen from one flower goes into another flower, then that flower can make seeds or fruit. We cannot have apples or peaches or any other food that contains seeds if some person or animal does not pollinate the flowers.

Well, Hannah loved this idea! She spent the rest of the time we were outside pretending that her hand was a bee. She rubbed her fingers in flower after flower, spreading the pollen around the yard. A few short moments in a field of dandelions taught her more about bees and flowers than she could have learned from an extensive lesson indoors using worksheets and pictures. She even created her own manipulative! Of course, I probably should have taught her to pollinate something other than weeds... but in a few days, at least we'll have a fresh crop of dandelion seeds to explore!

Where homeschooling is just a small part of becoming life-long learners.