Make Something Every Day - Day One

Esme and I have decided to make or bake something every day from now til Christmas.  We have so many projects in the works, we want to get some done.  We want to make some Christmas presents and decorations too!  We decided to make my mother-in-law a book for Christmas.  Here is the title:

My mother-in-law is hard to find the perfect present for, so we wanted to give her something really special.  She got two new kittens this year that Esme adores so we thought this would work.  We've been talking about it for a few days and filling out our ideas, so tonight we sat down together and wrote the text.  I printed it with spacing so that over the next few days Esme will be able to complete the illustrations.  It's a lot of drawing for her - there are ten pages.  

We also started reading this advent book my mom sent to Esme.  We will have a Bible quote and little reading every day.  Today's is Luke 2:8 - "In that region there were shepherds."

Getting Back in the Homeschooling Game

1. Finishing the essay - Esme has been working on an essay about our Brownie trip to New York for what seems like forever. She has a writing folder to help her stay organized, but this morning she couldn't find a couple pages of the rough draft. O..M..G. I did not kill her though, I just insisted she find it, which she eventually did.

2. I have to mail our assessment/intention letter today - I combined them into one long letter this year, and it makes more sense to me that way.

3. Staying organized is a challenge for ALL of the members of our family - I have to sort a huge pile of independent work for her into categories, folders, etc.

4. We are going to our first 4H meeting today - not an official meeting, but a picnic to meet the other people she'll be working with this year. The theme of this group is Science, which is her very favorite subject.

5. We are going to give her a year to really challenge herself and grow this year - if she was in public school she would be in *third grade,* which is the first really challenging year for many kids.

Writing Projects

We had a big snow day this week! Esme did get most of the day off from lessons, since her dad had to spend most of his day shoveling. I also got the day off from kindergarten.

Esme is starting a new big writing project and given the choice to write about anything she wanted, she decided to write about Barbies. She is writing about playing with them, playing with them with friends, and collecting them. Meanwhile she's gotten in several hours of playtime with the kids next door - luckily she's not trying to call it research.

There are so many great Fall homeschooling opportunities! It has turned into one of my favorite seasons since I've been a mother. We went to the Big E, apple and raspberry picking, to the pumpkin patch, a corn maze, a pumpkin festival, we designed and built a Halloween costume together, carved our jack-o-lantern, made pumpkin cream pie, trick-or-treated, etc. And as homeschoolers, we try to make each activity educational, from talking about the life cycle of plants, and to life skills like cooking and using landmarks to find your way.

Esme just finished her first long writing project using the complete writing process, from brainstorming to publishing. She wrote about The Big E and did a wonderful job. I would definitely say it was strong third grade work. She's also been plugging along in Math - she has a lot to do this year, so she and Ethan are working hard to stay on task and even get a bit ahead.

We're very proud of our girl!

Nature Journal

We've started a nature journal with Esme. For now she's dictating what she wants to say and copying it into her journal to record her thoughts, but we're hoping that as her writing and spelling improve she'll be able to do more on her own.