School Is in Session

Since the boys were a little upset that Amelia headed off to school on the school bus without them, I decided to capitalize on the situation.

Her first day of kindergarten was our first day of "school," too.

I'm not a teacher or any kind of expert in education, but I know that my boys will need to know shapes, colors, numbers and letters, as well as how to cut and glue in order to be ready for kindergarten. And I intend to send them to preschool the year before they head off to kindergarten, but that will be two years from now. In the meantime, they are interested in school and really want to do projects like they've seen Amelia bring home.

So, here we go. Mama's School is in session. I figure I can't screw this up too badly, since I'm pretty competent when it comes to the alphabet, numbers, shapes and colors, and I yield a mean pair of blunt-tipped scissors if I do say so myself. And luckily there are a million resources online that come from people who are educators or homeschoolers with some experience under their belts.

Our school sessions are short, about 10-15 minutes, though they can continue the day's activity longer if they want. My goals are to make it fun, to help them make some projects they can proudly show off to Daddy, and to take advantage of their desire to learn like Amelia.

Amelia's had three days of school, and so have we. We're working on the letter 'A' and circles this week. Here are some of our efforts so far, along with the books we've been reading in keeping with the 'A' theme.

 "Up, Up, Up! It's Apple Picking Time" and "Alligator Boy" with matching crafts. The apple cores are made out of white paper plates and the letter 'A' alligators are made out of foam sheets.

I've got a book titled, "Lots of Dots," for tomorrow's session, and we'll be having an active lesson where the boys will need to go around the house and find me things shaped like a circle.

So far school has been great. Yes, it's a little work for me to prepare something, but I do get to be a bit creative, which I like. And the boys are enjoying it, and are so proud of their "projects."

Now if I could just figure out how to keep them from eating the glue.

© Trippin' Mama 2011