Back to School

This week has been long but fulfilling at the same time. Monday was Philip's first day of Kindergarten! It wasn't as much of a milestone as for families who send their little ones into the "real world" of public school as we were together all day, but it did help me realize my children are growing and changing more everyday. We began the morning with prayer, a hymn, calendar time and pledges. I decided that we'll say our pledges (to the American flag, the Christian flag, and the Bible) only on Mondays to keep it from becoming too repetitive.

This year, I am not using a integrated curriculum but subjects from different publishers. For writing and reading, we're using the American Language Series workbooks I purchased at Children's Books (a fabulous local home school supply warehouse!). They are colorfully illustrated workbooks which focus on phonics and handwriting. There is also a little reader which accompanies it. Philip has proudly been reading a one-page story (4-6 lines) each day. It's exciting to see him growing in his reading skills without feeling overwhelmed by tackling a whole book. The one problem with this series is that the phonics lesson is 5 pages long (most of which involved him 'x'-ing off the pictures which start with the designated sounds) and the handwriting lesson being a front and back page of copying letter combinations. All week (as we do this each day), I've been trying to run phonics and handwriting back to back, getting it all done in a solid hour. As the week went on and Philip got S-L-O-W-E-R each day with it and after talking to a friend who is a kindergarten teacher about the attention span of average 5-year-olds, I've decided to split these lessons up next week with some form of physical activity.


On Tuesdays and Thursdays, we have science which is coming from an Usborne Books Science Activities book. Tuesday we learned some properities of water (i.e. how water takes the form of its container, how it only flows down, how it doesn't change quantity between different shaped containers) and on Thursday we discovered which items float and which things sink. Science is Philip's favorite subject right now as it's all hands on.



We're also studying math using a great program called Math-U-See. There's a workbook but also a DVD with 5 minute lesson introductions and manipulative blocks which are a hit since Philip is a lego fanatic. For history, I found a great program called "History for Little Pilgrims". There's a text book, instruction book and coloring book. The best thing is that it focuses on history from the point of how God's Kingdom has grown through time. The keypoint for this first week was teaching the student that Jesus Christ is the central figure in ALL OF HISTORY! Everything prior to Jesus' birth looked forward to Him and everything since is reflective of His life. What a great truth to begin planting in a 5-year-old mind.

We'll begin attending Bible Study Fellowship later in September. It's a complex Bible study for me, but also the children's program is designed in such a way to teach the little ones the same content in a fashion suited for them. This year we will study through the book of Isaiah. Can't say that I can think of any other children's program which teaches Isaiah. It's surely to be a great experience for all of us.

I pray now for stamina to keep us motivated through the school year. There is much work ahead but much fun too. We'll throw in some field trips and with the school year also comes a renewed love of Saturday mornings and snuggling with Daddy!