7 Things That Happened the First Week of Preschool Homeschool

We have come through on our first week of preschool homeschool! Here is what I learned from my first week on the other side of the table.

1. John had the idea that school was something you have to go to.

I can't really blame him for thinking that. We talk about his little friends being at school for the day so we have to wait to play until they get home.

But we could spend most of our morning doing crafts, reading, and talking about the saint/virtue/scripture verse we're working on and John would be asking at lunch when we were going to school. Oui.

I think that might have been why he kept insisting that the supplies we were getting for his school were for his "afterschool". I'm about 90% sure he gets the concept a little better now close to a week in.

2. John will do ANYTHING if it is something he can show off to his sister.

He was dedicated to making sure those almonds all lined up for the little "a". I thought he wasn't going to be into this until we got to letter F with the feathers.

Therese is very obliging with her pointing and baby oohing and ahhing.

3. Things will always get busier outside whenever you commit to something inside

It's good to be busy! I've spent a lot of the summer longing to be busy, for somewhere to be, things to be working towards. But it seems to be a law that once things get a little more demanding at home, great opportunities start appearing elsewhere.

4. Don't try to bring messy supplies outside the house

Yesterday we attempted to do some of John's school activities while I was in a meeting at the parish. It would have gone fine had the meeting not been a lot longer than I expected, and if I hadn't included something I eventually needed to confiscate (glue, not glue sticks, glue.) He got most of a nearly full bottle of glue onto a single piece of construction paper. I really should have taken a picture, but I was a little distracted trying to keep the massive amount of glue from running everywhere.

Lesson learned: only bring things that are unlikely to be a problem.

5. Opportunities for tying in themes abound!

I just never paid attention to have much I could really do on a letter theme! For letter A week we have: made applesauce, did counting with apples, decorated an A with almonds, made a letter A collage, learned about St. Anthony, made an ant craft and found a SWARM of ants at the park (that was weird).

Today we will be writing letters to his aunts (so watch the mail sisters who are reading this) and going to an A's baseball game.

6. The bible stories are actually sinking in and helping

I've been reading one of the bible stories a day from our children's bible.

We have this one.

The stories will vary in length depending on how long it needs to be. Sometimes it about a page of reading sometimes it's three. John seems to be getting better at the "sitting and listening" skills partly from the variability of time from day to day.

He also seems to be recognizing certain stories now. We're still in Genesis (it's a long book y'all!) but Noah and the Ark is the current top choice, with creation next (and I'm pretty sure that's because our bible has a little picture of dinosaurs in the creation story illustration.)

7. It is probably easier if I was not also sleep training the baby

She CAN sleep in her bed, she doesn't sleep well on me anymore, and she NEEDS the nap, but somehow those factors do not equal sound sleep in her bed for naps.

We've been getting a lot of this:

Cutely evading sleep before she melts down in an hour.It is SO HARD not to let on how cute she is at those times!

So far it has been very successful for nighttime sleeping! The kids moved into the same room together and it is going well with Therese. John has been getting a lot of practice with his whisper shouts for mom requests. Like that was somehow going to make things go his way.

Caveat: she slept until 2:30 (from noon!) in her bed yesterday and I had to get her up to make it to a meeting. I pretty much never have anything planned at a time like that so I felt so bad. Poor little one was like "why are you doing this to me?!"