03 October 2009

The Beginning of School Year 2009


I know, I am a bit late with an update about the start of the school year. Unlike these overzealous educational institutions; we start school after Labor Day and end before Memorial Day. In our defense, however, we do not cancel school days on a whim or have these so-called half days that are so very common. It really is quite rough being so strict on such a long summer vacation that sometimes we intermix learning with fun. Living in our family everyday becomes an opportunity to learn something and in the past Sandi and Jed have come over to do a science lesson with the boys. Here they are focusing intently on every word of the instruction from the teacher. Even Caleb loves being a part of these lessons with the "big" boys.


Our curriculum is very relaxed and comfortable. After all, Elijah is in Kindergarten which really isn't much different than a regular day as a preschooler. Our schedule this year focuses on reading and mathematics. We do a math lesson in the morning, maybe a little logic activity, and phonics review. Then after I put Drew and Caleb down for their afternoon naps Elijah will do his reading lesson with me, and then we do some reading comprehension. We started our reading comp out this year by reading the boxcar children, and now we are working on the little Pilgrim's Progress that Jed gave Eli for his birthday. The boys love reading about the adventures of little Christian.



One other aspect of our education this year was going to be learning the computer. With the purchase of a new system (finally) I thought that maybe I should invest in a good K level computer program. Alas, my search was time consuming, unfruitful, and unnecessary. As it turns out Elijah discovered the Photobooth application and has learned to use the keyboard and mouse trackpad fairly well. I may invest in a game for him later on in life, but right now I think that the drawing and photobooth apps will suffice. My goal here was to get him efficient enough to run a foreign language program, and considering his parentage, I doubt he will have trouble understanding anything harder than clicking a program icon.

Here are a few samples of Eli's artwork with the help of photobooth:




2 comments:

Grace to You said...

Ooh, I LOVE that last photo! :)

Amanda said...

I think your way of education is far better than the "schooling" that goes on in Marxist, humanistic public institutions! You're kids are smart already and I can't wait to watch them grow and learn- together!! : )
I think the first photobooth pic of Eli is hilarious!! And I agree with Sandi- I love the last photo!