His Turn

In exactly 25 minutes, we will officially finish our first week as a public school family.

I can't wait to pick her up and have her all to myself for a couple of days.  It's been an emotional week.  The first two days were tough for all of us, but I'm beyond thrilled to report that it all did a total 180 on Wednesday and the child is loving her school now.  I'm giving it another week or two before I give you the total run down on what it's been like to transition from homeschool to public school, but so far it's been a wonderful move for our crew.

I miss Josie like crazy during the day, but it means I'm getting a whole lot of face time with Gabe.

Which is something I've never really had.  This boy is funny and turning into such a human.  I'm loving that we have this time before he starts school in the Fall.

Speaking of, I'm also glad we have this time because, now that we know he'll be going to kindergarten, we've got some work to do to get ready. 

I started his 4th year with a list of things I wanted him to know before he turned 5.

It was a mild list compared to a lot of homeschoolers with kids his age, but if I'd learned anything from Josie it was that when they are ready, they learn it fast.  But now that he's going to school in the Fall, I knew I needed to be a bit more proactive about getting him what he needs to succeed.

Like being able to write his name.  Which he learned in all of 5 minutes once I sat down and actually showed him how to do it.

I'm still using (and loving) Mother Goose Time.

This month's box is all about dinosaurs, so right up Gabe's alley.  I did a Dino Unit with Josie back when she was in preschool, so I'm pulling out all of our books and activities from then as well.

This week, Gabe learned to write his name, figured out AB and ABC patterns, played a few games, did a few crafts, and mastered 10 letter flowers.  Pretty good week in my book!

can't handle the tongue.

These are the monthly letter flowers that come in each box.

We get three new letters (and some sight words) each month.  So far, I haven't done much with them.  Now that we are getting more consistent with preschool, I am using them as glorified flashcards.  I started by laying out four at a time and calling out a letter for him to "pick" for me.  Once he learned those four, I added another one.  Today he got the 12 I have correct, so next week I'll add January's 3 letters.

I'm super excited to really use these units as they are meant to be used now that he's getting all my teaching time to himself.

You can read my full Mother Goose Time review here.