Getting Through Our First Day

A Breakdown of Our First Day

Eli and I had an absolutely wonderful first day of school. He was so excited to learn, and I was so excited to work with him. I'm excited to share all that we did!

8:30am - 9:00am Breakfast and Devotion Time

I'm not even going to pretend that this wasn't one of my favorite parts of our day. We listened to some soft worship music while we ate breakfast, and I began reading a book that I have been meaning to get to. It was the sweetest thing hearing Eli singing and relaxing with momma while we got into the right spirits for our day.

9:00am - 9:45am Prayer, Pledge of Allegiance, Memory Verse, Letter Review, Song Time

This part of the day didn't take the full hour that I scheduled for, but Eli needed small breaks between tasks so the extra 15 minutes was good for a stretch break. I also was able to give him the pre-assessment I created to see where we stood with his learning.

The memory verse we worked on today was 1 John 4:19. "We love because God first loved us." I was so surprised with how quickly Eli picked up the verse, and after repeating it a few times he did really well with reciting it. The picture prompts helped with his memorization. 

Click here to view or print the memory verse: 1 John 4:19 

9:45am - 10:00am Pre-Assessment

The pre-assessment that I created was a bit thorough, but I wanted to be sure that I assessed Eli's knowledge up to this point. The results of the assessment also gave me some insight into what we need to focus on during our daily work. We had to take a short break  about halfway through and at the end of the assessment, but he did really well with listening and giving me answers.

Click here to view or print the pre-assessment: PreAssessment

10:00am - 10:10am Letter Introduction

I told Eli that this week we would be working on the letters P and L this week. For the letter introduction I used the letter songs from Have Fun Teaching. Eli is familiar with these songs, and they really keep his attention. We watched each letter song then talked about words that began with each letter.

Click the links to hear the songs:  Letter P   and    Letter L

10:10am - 10:30am Lacing Card

This was Eli's first time working on an activity like this. He got a bit frustrated at first, but I was impressed with how he worked through it and completed the entire pumpkin! It was so cute watching his little fingers work through getting the yarn in the holes!

10:30am - 10:45am Prewriting

I found the cutest little pumpkin prewriting activity on 3Dinosaurs that was perfect for what I planned on doing with Eli. I did the first one so that Eli could see how I went from pumpkin to pumpkin, then he did the rest. With this activity we really worked on holding the pencil the correct way and using pressure while writing. He enjoyed this activity a lot!

Click here to view the prewriting activity from 3Dinosaurs: Pumpkin

10:30am - 10:45am Number Identification

After giving Eli the pre-assessment, I realized that his number identification skills weren't as polished as his counting skills. I decided that I would focus more on recognizing numbers with him and less on counting. We decided that the number 7 would be our focus for the week. We watched a Sesame Street song all about the number 7, then we looked at our number cards and counted 7 pumpkins. Once we finished our number work, we took another wiggle break.

Here are the links to my favorite wiggle break songs:

Dancing Robots

Shake Out Your Sillies

Boom Chicka Boom

10:45 - 11:00am Theme Coloring

Eli loves to color, so I know he was excited when I told him we would be coloring next. I found this color by letter sheet on A Teaching Mommy, and it fit perfectly with our theme. We also were able to make a connection with our letter identification of uppercase and lowercase P's. With this activity we focused again on holding the crayons correctly and using pressure while coloring.

Here is a link to the coloring sheet: Pumpkin Coloring

11:00am - 11:15am Letter Collage

Since we only had 15 minutes to work on our letter collage, we made one for the letter P. Before completing the collage, we had another discussion about things that begin with the letter p. I then let Eli decorate the page, and I labeled each item he put on his collage.

11:15 - 11:30am Counting with Beads

Because I decided that we would need to focus more on number identification rather than counting, we altered this activity a bit. I still used the beads on a pipe cleaner for Eli to slide and count, but after he counted them I had him choose which number matched the number of beads on the pipe cleaner. We used number cards to choose the number we needed. After completing our number work, we took another wiggle break.

11:45 - 12:00am Theme Reading with Mom

Eli was getting antsy at this point, so I decided to push the theme reading back to after nap time. We read Five Little Pumpkins by Dan Yaccarino. It's a super cute story, and we were able to discuss how the number of pumpkins kept getting smaller. 

My Thoughts:

Overall we had an awesome day, and I was very happy with how well Eli did. The scheduling worked out really well and allowed for the breaks that Eli needed between activities! We cannot wait for Wednesday! 

Until then - 

Getting Ready to Homeschool Part 3

What Do I Need? (continued)

After organizing and setting out the plans for our homeschooling year, I was able to move on to the FUN stuff: buying supplies! I'm pretty sure that a prerequisite for being a teacher is that you must have a ridiculous obsession with school supplies. I meet that prerequisite and then some! School supplies are some of my favorite things in the world. 

So to get back on topic, now that I had my list of goals and my schedule put together, I was able to buy and organize the supplies needed to accomplish our daily work. I was very blessed with this aspect of my planning because I had many things that I accumulated through prior teaching, but there were some things that I still purchased that were more developmentally appropriate for my little man.

Here is a list of the supplies I made for the year:

Click here to view and print the full supply list: Supply List

I know this looks like a ton of stuff, and it can be overwhelming in the beginning, but you have to pace yourself. Remember you don't have to buy everything all at once. There are many people on craigslist who have supplies for great prices. You can also look at local garage sales for hidden finds.

I'm not very picky with what brand or type of supplies that I use, but there are some things that I feel are much better quality that are worth the difference in price. Overall, I try to be as budget wise as possible.

Take a look at some of our supplies! As I get everything organized and in picture-worthy order, I will post with pictures and details!

So let me know: What are your favorite supplies, and what do you absolutely need to get through your homeschooling day?

Getting Ready to Homeschool Part 2

What Do I Need?

With teaching and learning there comes a need for supplies, organization, curriculum, goals, etc. After coming up with my schedule, I decided that I would create a scope and sequence of the themes and goals for the year. This takes a lot of preparation and planning in the beginning, but it will pay off when you are doing your weekly planning.

To come up with this scope and sequence I looked at what goals I wanted my 3 year old to reach, and I thought about how I wanted to achieve these goals in the long run. Many states have a website for their Department of Education that includes standards or goals by age or grade level. 

Because I live in Texas, this is where I found my information: Texas Standards for Pre-Kindergarten. I began on page 51 with the Language and Communication Domain. Now I know these standards are for the pre-kindergarten level, but I know my son and I was able to modify the goals for him accordingly. You can always adjust and remove things depending on how well your child does with them. You must remember that if you hold high expectations for your children, they will more than likely achieve those high expectations.

In an attempt to organize and keep track of our progress, I created a checklist of the goals we will be working on. As I feel Eli has mastered these goals, I will place a sticker on the checklist. This will be a great way for us to celebrate together and to keep organized! 

Take a look at the checklist:

Click here to view and print the full checklist: Learning Goal Checklist

After deciding which goals I wanted to focus on, I came up with weekly themes to go along with the goals I was teaching. This was more of a preference thing for me to make my art, coloring, and lesson activities more fun and visual for my son.

Here are the themes I chose for each week along with an overview of what we'll work on daily: 

Click here to view all of the themes by week: Themes by Week

This was probably the most time consuming part of my preparation efforts, but it will be well worth it in the end. 

Stay tuned for some more preparation and organization suggestions!

Until then - 

Getting Ready to Homeschool Part 1

I don't know exactly how to put this into words, but I am SO excited to begin this homeschooling journey with my son. We are always taking opportunities to make "teachable moments" with him, but I am definitely ready to have an organized schedule and goals for his learning.


My little one is a natural-born learner. He is always asking questions about EVERYTHING, and I love this about him. He's my little star student! 

I've decided to document this experience with him because I want to be able to look back and relish in our achievements and learn from our setbacks. I hope that the information that I share with you will also give you some hope and ideas for creating your own homeschooling experience with your little ones and for sharing in genuine learning as their teacher.

Where to Begin?

When I finally decided to get the ball rolling on this homeschooling adventure, I had a bit of a struggle with deciding how I wanted to organize this experience. I wanted to ensure that this process was as easy as possible so that it would be enjoyable for me. I forgot to mention that I am currently 25 weeks pregnant, so this definitely has to be as stress-free as possible; and though I'm used to lesson planning, scheduling, and organizing as a teacher, I wanted this to be more than that for me.

After blog hopping and doing a bit of homeschooling research, I finally decided that the first thing I would do is come up with a schedule for my son. Now you have to remember that as children get older, they are more able to handle longer activities and learning periods. Because my son is 3, I had to focus more on quality learning in short periods with a schedule that wasn't completely unachievable. I also have the advantage of bringing him with me to church on Tuesdays and Thursdays for interaction with other 3 year olds and learning about the Bible.

This is what I've come up with overall:

Click here to view the Weekly Schedule.

I know this looks like a lot, and if you are unprepared it definitely can be. In my next few posts I will continue to explain the steps I took to organize myself to get ready for our weekly learning, but here is a quick breakdown of how I organized my schedule. Each time slot is an overarching goal that I hope for my son to master by the end of our "school year."

Until then -