First Day of School

I'm so excited to homeschool, but I've always been intimidated by the idea of tackling these early childhood years. I sort of just want to skip to calculus with the boys. :)

But, I have determined to start an easy, fun regimen with the boys this year. Preschool, if you will.

The first day of school (2 weeks ago now), we started by decorating these little apples with cut up construction paper and glue.

They both loved it, and it was just what my oldest needed to get a little excited about homeschool. That, by the way, is one of my goals for the year: For my 4-yr. old to have good feelings about homeschool. So far, it's going well. :)

Other goals for my oldest:

1. Identify all capital and lowercase letters
2. Fluently recite short vowel sounds and basic sounds for all consonants
3. Blend letter sounds to form words
4. "Read" numbers 1-20, and order them correctly.
5. Recite questions and answers to the first 20 questions in the Kids' Shorter Catechism.

Goals for my 3-yr. old (oops! ALMOST 3-yr. old):

1. To have fun and learn as much as he wants to alongside his older brother. :)

We are working on shapes and colors and fine motor skills... but I've found most of that comes with time anyway.

Goals for me:

Oh, my...

1. To provide a learning environment that is stimulating. :) That's general, but I'll figure out the specifics as I go. Right now, I'm trying to just be flexible and offer a variety of activities and mediums as I teach a lot of similar concepts.

Pray for me. :) I'm excited.

PS-I'm not using a purchased curriculum. I'm finding stuff online or making my own stuff as I continually review my goal and objectives. I'll share valuable resources as I go.

Are any of you readers interested in my homeschooling journey? :)

The idea for the apple craft was found here:

Back to School Scissor Skills

The printable I used is here:

Apple Printable