We are officially...

Homeschoolers!  

This is our first official week of homeschooling and it has been so much fun!  I was a bit nervous about how we would manage to get everything done and keep Reagan entertained and keep up with the rest of life but it has been really natural so far.  

For those of you who keep up with this kind of stuff, we are using the Sonlight kindergarten curriculum with a little bit of Abeka for phonics.  I really like how everything is paced out for each day.  So much of her learning at this age is focused on exposure rather than mastery anyway so it's like we get to introduce a bunch of really fun concepts that open up doors for continued learning.  For example, just in this first week, we have read about creation, dinosaurs, the Earth, sun, hemispheres and seasons, tadpoles and frogs, and the way the earliest people lived and made food.  There are also learning elements that are structured into every day.  These include a Bible story, work on our alphabet memory verse for the week (this week it was Romans 3:23 A is for All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God), poetry, read-a-louds to her and her reading to me.  We also have math and phonics workbooks too.     

I know it's only our first week but so far it has been a great way to spend intentional time together and I love seeing Rylie get excited about learning.  Even Toby got to take on the first science lesson since we started on Monday, the 4th of July.  

The day our curriculum box came in the mail... a big day for any homeschooling family!

 Rylie on her first day of kindergarten.  She got herself dressed (and accessorized) for the day before I could even get upstairs :)

 Learning about the Earth

 Learning about the way the sun shines on the Earth.  When Toby asked Rylie what would happen if the Earth didn't move and the sun stayed in one spot, Rylie appropriately answered by telling him, "it would make that place really hot.  You know, like Texas Daddy."  She also liked using the flashlight to demonstrate how Aunt Holly gets the sun first on the East coast, then we get to wake up and have breakfast and finally the Earth rotates enough so that our Grandmas and Grandpas and Aunts and Uncles get the sun in San Diego.   

 Toby even topped his lesson off with a hands on visual.  When knew you could use a hard boiled egg to show what the layers of the earth are like.  There is the crust (shell), mantle (white) and core (yolk).  The only bummer with this experiment is that the egg didn't go into the Easter egg dye like Reagan wanted it too.     

A little painting project.  Rylie painted a picture for each season and Reagan took it upon herself to test the strength of the paper by applying as much paint as she possibly could.