Schooling Begins! (glup?)

This month as a family of four we've (thank heaven!) begun to get into a daily/weekly routine. Naps and meal times are predictable and with everyone able to get 6hrs or more sleep per night there is more cheerfulness! Yay! However there is also more energy - on Eva's part that is. She's looking for interaction and participation in everything I'm doing, which is good, but exhausting. So, I've laid out a day-plan for her and I and part of that is starting.... gulp... schooling.

Sure, she's only three, but like all my friends are doing it! Plus she's been asking and asking.... since all of her friends are doing it. Darn peer-pressure finally cracked me. No, not really. I've known that she has been itching for more than coloring and paint and next year I'll really want to be teaching her something, so this year is all about establishing the routine of school each day. And of course she's loving it. I bought her a new set of markers and a pre-k book from Wally-world to get us going.

Last week we studied the color blue, squares, baby animals, and circles!

I gave E a sticker pad and told her to find all the circles she could on the first floor. She was delighted.

Next we did some combined science and art (I think those two will be going together a lot for us) and made bird feeders with toilet paper tubes covered in peanut butter and seeds. The birds attacked those things!

We also discovered how ants work to find food for their colonies. We made a toxic mixture of 1 part honey and one part Borax and fed it to some scouts who had wandered into our kitchen. In a few hours they had brought the whole nest to come eat the delicious "sickness soup" that we had made. (Haven't seen them again since...works every time either with peanut butter or honey.)

My girl's favorite subject is definately math. (oh boy) She asks for more everyday and never gets any of it wrong. Any ideas, ladies, on how to encourage her? I'm so scared of math. : )

First time writing her name, we haven't worked on this, she just decided to give it a try. Go, girly!

Studying together.

So after a few weeks of schooling each day I have to say it ain't so bad, and of course E's super into it. I think I'll even enjoy doing more with her as we go along. The one thing that kinda makes me nervous is how much she's eating up math. She begs for more numbers, counting, and adding (yep, she can!). 

School and I didn't get along much when I was growing up. Though I got good-ish grades and my mom (bless her heart) was a good teacher, I cheated and skipped and skimmed and generally wasn't a faithful student. As a result, I'm not sure what the Korean War was or when WWI happened or what a square root is or how to do long division or how rain is formed or what a conjunction is and the greater gator gives me a panic attack. (seriously, i saw him the other day - freaked me out.) Someone was joking about the "American-Canadian War" last week and I didn't know to laugh - my grasp of American history is so slim that I actually believed that war existed. But I'm making this about me, aren't I?

Eva is so excited to learn and that has changed my view of teaching at home. Her desire to figure things out, put things together, and devour every library book encourages me. I'll just learn everything again (or for the first time) with her and later Dre for as long as we home-school them. Adam is also planning to take on a few subjects with them - especially as they get older, so that encourages me too. It'll be a family-affair just like it was for my family growing up. And who knows? Maybe I'll even get over my fear of the Gator. (but not likely.)