Day 1 of homeschooling

This week we officially started homeschooling our daughters. Our months of research and planning are finally being put into practice. Here is an overview of how Day 1 went:

We began the day with morning prayers. The girls love "reading" out of their own siddurim. 'A' repeats the morning blessings after me as we act them out as best we can. Hoping to eventually make a poster with images for each blessing.

We then reviewed the Hebrew letter of the day and added it to our kitchen wall.

During breakfast, the girls played with personalized photo popsicle stick puzzles. Instructions here: http://impressyourkids.org/fathers-day-craft/

'S' lost interest quickly, so I improvised and gave her a snack cup and some packing peanuts. She loved filling and pouring until she discovered that smashing the foam was much more entertaining. 

  

There happened to be a thunderstorm that day which made for a perfect teachable moment. We discussed rain and the water cycle. When the sun came out, we went for a walk and took note of all the puddles we saw. We talked about what will happen to the puddles under the hot sun. We then went home to watch some you tube videos on the water cycle : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gY9HG8zUgOE

 Then it was some time for 'A' to do some independent work, while I gave 'S' some individual attention. 

'A' used these dot art templates to spell out her name: http://totschool.shannons.org/?p=2112

'S' and I went to work on her motor skills.  She was busy scooping up plastic ice cubes with a spoon and placing them into an ice tray and playing with Melissa and Doug's pound and roll toy. 

http://www.melissaanddoug.com/pound-and-roll-tower-learning-game?utm_source=google&utm_medium=shopping&utm_campaign=googleshopping&os=googleshopping&m=677&c=0&o=googleshopping

Finally, nap time rolled around and the girls went to sleep super easily. This gave me some time to clean up, cook, and get ready to go to work. 

When I got home, 'A' did a counting activity with paper clips while 'S' played with play-dough. 

The counting activity doubles as a fine motor task by clipping the clips on the index card. You can also up the ante by matching the clips to the cards by color and number.

These play dough templates can be found here: http://planetoftheapels.blogspot.com/2011/09/busy-bag-swap-day-5-playdough-mats_05.html 

The girls then got together to fill up some bottles with little building blocks (beads would have been better, but I didn't have any). We compared the  sounds the two bottles made when we shook them.

 Some banging and mess making ensued:

 'A' closed her day with some Hebrew letter tracing. She then placed them in an envelope in our home made mailbox for Daddy to see when he got home.

 Tracings can be found here: http://www.hebrew4christians.com/Grammar/Unit_One/Homeschool/homeschool.html

Finally, it was bedtime. Dad read some Hebrew fairy tales to 'A' while I read rhyming books to 'S'.

Day 1 was a success. 

Sneak peak at Day 2: The day included gardening with Grandma, learning about what plants need to grow and playing with moon sand and moon dough.