letters and numbers

Lately I've been giving home schooling a lot of thought. I know, right? Gasp! Choke! Heart palpitations! CPR! Weirdos!

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But what I see in youth group with kids "these days" is a little unnerving, as a Christian and as a mom. And that's just what I see at youth group. I'm not in school anymore. If I saw terrible things when I was in school 15 yrs ago, then it's bound to have gotten worse. So anyway, that's where I'm at. Well, there's more reasoning and we're not through deciding, but we're definitely seriously thinking about it.

So I've decided to get my feet wet and TRY to do learning stuff with Noah. At first it was difficult to get him to pay attention, and it still is, but he's getting better. Now he expects it and looks forward to it. He watches Sesame Street and then afterwards we "color." He turns off the tv and announces, "Color?" Coloring includes going over the letter and number of the day by drawing pictures of them. And since he loves Thomas the Train so much, I use this ABC book we keep checking out from the library (I really need to buy our own...). Then I attempt to draw whatever is on the page for the letter of the day.

Here are some examples. You can see the book at the top.

Here is "B" for Bertie the Bus and the flash cards for Barn and Ball.

Here is "D," for Diesel, Duck and Dog.

Every couple weeks we have a play date with the Jensens - Karla and Allen. Karla home schools and they just started last year. I went the first time to observe and now we pretty much just hang out so I don't get in their way. Noah has a lot of fun there with Grant's Thomas trains.

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Grant, Evie, Savannah, Karla.

Karla listening to her husband expound on how much farming he has to do.

I tell you what. These kids LOVE love love Evie.

PS Sorry it's been so long since I've posted. I've been working on my RN continuing education credits during nap times and that doesn't leave me with much other time. I have to complete 20 hrs of ed before I can renew my license, since I'm not working right now. Only 3 days and 6 hours to go though! It's been good to re-learn things and to come to realize that I haven't forgotten everything I learned in school. Motherhood hasn't driven it all from my mind...yet.