Something New--Gotta Start Somewhere

A while ago, Thomas and I talked about homeschooling Isaiah.  I'm very excited about helping Isaiah learn, but I didn't really know how to start.  I recently found this blog by a homeschool mother starting preschool with her second son.  Her older son named it "Tot School" and that's what she's been calling it ever since.  I've picked up some tips from her and others, and I decided to start a Tot School of our own.  So any of you homeschoolers out there that have great ideas for little ones, please share them with me!

Well, this was my first week to begin "official" activities for Tot School.  We started very simply so as not to overwhelm Isaiah or me!

We worked on the numbers 1 and 2, but I think next week we'll just focus on one number.  (Any advice here would be greatly appreciated!)  I drew some 1's and 2's for Isaiah to color with his markers.  And I decided to try to kill 2 birds with 1 stone, so we did some Tot School while we did therapy.  I think Isaiah enjoyed coloring.  He did well repeating the numbers, and he even handed me the 1 and 2 from our little wooden puzzle when asked for them.  I don't know how long it stuck, though, because later in the day he didn't do as well for Daddy, but we'll keep on working.

Tuesday we had a special treat.  We were invited to join a couple other kids and their moms for some music time!  Isaiah loves, loves, loves music and being with other kids, so it was perfect!  We sang lots of songs about being thankful and got to act like monkeys, bears and crocodiles--tons of fun!  Thank you to Mrs. O'Byrne for including us.  

This picture isn't of the actual music time, just the silliness afterwards as we were preparing to leave.

I don't have a picture of the next two activities, but we also worked on colors, and read tons and tons of books identifying objects and naming colors.

I have a medium-sized beach ball with the color stripes.  I wrote the names of the colors on each strip. We played catch (also working on his coordination!), and I named the colors and had him repeat them when we touched the stripes on the ball.  He did very well with this and enjoyed playing, too.  This idea is not original to me, but I'm afraid I can't remember where I first heard it in order to give credit.

And then we did a little PE on Friday. :)  Ok, this might be stretching it, but we sure did enjoy playing in our nearby park!  Isaiah loves being flung around in his sled!  I managed to catch him right after a really good pull and sling in this photo!

We're working on finding more physical activities that Isaiah can do on his own, or at least more on his own (I'm definitely still supervising!).  Sliding has become a favorite!  (I'm sorry, but for some reason this picture just will not rotate!  I've tried rotating it several times with no success.  This was the only one in the roll that wouldn't work--I don't know!)

I think our first week of Tot School went pretty well, overall.  We'll keep on trucking!

If you're also homeschooling a little one and would like some ideas, check out the other Tot Schoolers here.