I am a little late in posting this but I will try to remember what we did last week.
Starting with day 1.
It was a special school day for us because Oliver's little buddy Elijah came to share school time with us. He is very close in age to Oliver and they enjoy playing together whenever we do get together. His mom is thinking about starting a school time with him as well, so to encourage her and to do something different in our routine we started the week together :).
It's quite a bit different preparing for 2 kids as opposed to only Oliver. I really didn't fret about how it would go, I just made sure I was ready with activities for the both of them. Because Oliver has been doing school for a little while now he knew what to expect. Elijah was new to it but I think he enjoyed participating in the activities and seeing how we did our routine things. I know his mama was encouraged to be able to start something on her own (she told me as much) after our day was over. I am so glad for this. I think it's a wonderful blessing to be able to sit and teach your little ones. I know we already do day in and day out just by being mom's. But investing the time into schooling is so fulfilling. I know that she will reap so many rewards just by watching her little guy learn, and get excited about new things that they cover in their schooling. It's a special time (even if it is only 30-60 minutes) each day that is set apart for just the two of you. There may be interruptions from other children, but the focus is still there and I know that Oliver knows this too. When he learns something or figures out how to do a new skill I am quick to heap lots of praise on him and he just beams. I love seeing his little face light up in understanding over something. Praise, praise, praise! I don't think you can over-praise your children. I am learning this in my daily walk just as a mom. I think this can go along in life too. Praising others when you see something that merits it. Praising my husband, praising my God, praising friends. Encouragement goes so much farther than we think it does.
Okay, so to our schooling.
We started the day going through our routine together. Prayer, weather, calendar time, song about days of week, and pledge of allegiance. Elijah enjoyed it all, and participated quite well, even doing the weather card. We moved onto our Bible story, Noah's Ark. I read through the story in Oliver's children's Bible. To help keep them focused, I pulled out our toy ark we have and let them participate in putting all the animals into the boat with Noah and his wife. They thoroughly enjoyed this part. It was hard to wind it down back to the story!
After our story and ark time, we went ahead and started our craft to go with the story. I had drawn out rainbow templates for them to fill in with paint dots. It was a little slow going as Oliver was not very excited about sharing the paint dots. But we finally had them equally fill in their rainbows (and once they got going they did a fabulous job) and then moved onto glueing down clouds.
After the rainbow, they moved to Oliver's little table to work on their names. I had drawn their names with boxes under each letter and taped the papers down to metal cookie pans. I had some scrabble letters with magnets on them that were stuck down on top and they sorted through and placed the letters on corresponding letters in their names. They both did a great job at this. I kept this activity for Oliver to keep practicing on all week.
After names, we moved onto an activity of choice. Since I had one set of each thing, I pulled out counting lady bugs and color finding. Elijah chose color finding, and Oliver chose counting.
I have to say that they did not sit quietly and do these activities independently. They are 3 years old. This photo was the moment of stillness before they both gave up on counting/color finding and decided to run around and play. And that was the end of school time!
It was a great experience and I know Oliver loved having his buddy there. We hope to do this again often. I'm excited about it and may even branch into inviting a few more buddies. We'll see how it goes!
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