Beginning Learning

Last week, we started working on some pre-learning exercises that I think will greatly improve our success this fall with our official homeschool program.

I picked up the scissors on the left at Hobby Lobby and got the others from Amazon. I wasn't sure what would be the most successful for the boys, and right now they prefer the ones from Hobby Lobby. They got another pair with their Kiwi Crate, but those were too advanced in my opinion for little men that want to stick their fingers & toes in the scissors.

I  got these books from Amazon as well, they say they are for ages 2 and up... They are great! The series also has a book on learning to fold paper and one for stickers & pasting. They also have follow up books that we will likely use as well. All this leading up in a natural progression to other learning skills like tracing and then on to the higher level books for learning different concepts.

Here is Tyler's first shot with his scissors... he did REALLY well, but then went off the grid and started shredding the poor dog. If I could harness his power and mind for "good" rather than "mischief" -- he would be amazing! HAHA! Really, he just wanted to cut in the same spots over and over again - but overall, he seems to enjoy cutting in general.

James' first attempts were not as successful, mainly because he doesn't want my help. He just wants to get it done and move on to the next thing -- playing with his vacuum. I'm not sure how things will go with homeschooling him this year, we may have lots of pictures of Tyler and I doing activities and him off on the distance doing something else.

The boy with the aforementioned vacuum obsession... this is the handheld vacuum we use for cleaning up messes in our kitchen after meals... they also have two toy vacuums... as well as using my vacuum too. 

 Another picture of Tyler working on his poor dog... since this day, he has now shredded a cat and a tiger to go along with his dog.

Coloring did go better for James - he loved putting the ketchup on the omelet as the first lesson instructed. We didn't get quite as excited about lesson two, but timing is everything with him. When the options are going outside to play or working on a coloring project... you know what will win out every time. I think we may be afternoon schoolers for a while -- because it's too hot for them to go out after about 10AM these days, but it takes us some time to recover from the emotions that go along with having to come inside.

Tyler working on putting his ketchup - you can tell this is serious business to him... just about the only time he slows down. You can see his sweaty head in this picture from running around like a crazy person, oh and the knocked over chair in the background... nice.

Our finished coloring projects - they did really well staying within the designated coloring area. I was pretty proud of that. I'll take my small victories where I can get them!

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