Fun in the Month of May

The month of May was a lot of fun! A preschool graduation, completion of Kindergarten, strawberry picking, and a trip to the beach!

We were so proud of Levi when he graduated from preschool! We will miss Mrs. Larisa as she taught both Wyatt and Levi for their preschool year. Here is my handsome graduate!

There were only 3 boys in his class and according to Levi, they always chased the girls on the playground!

Here is Wyatt playing soccer w/ his cousin in their grandparents' backyard at the beach.

Levi is playing croquet with his cousin during our beach trip over Memorial Day weekend.

No trip to the OBX is complete without a picture of Levi kicking the waves!

Wyatt is now 4 feet tall! We love the Hall Family Farm and go there every year to pick the sweetest strawberries ever!

Levi is just a few inches short of being 4 feet tall.

Fun on the hayride at the strawberry farm.

Levi loves to pick things out of the garden so much, that he even helped his friend fill up his basket after he had finished his own.

Wyatt being silly in the strawberry fields.

The fun duck "races" at the strawberry farm.

Levi loves to feed the animals anytime there is a festival in downtown Waxhaw. He only let this little baby goat eat from his cup. Any other animal that tried to get some food from him, went hungry until they found someone else's cup!

Enjoying special treats of ice cream and cotton candy after getting a spider face paint!

When we went to the beach over Memorial Day weekend, Levi was very serious about his "hunting for wood". Some kids collect shells at the beach, but my son, looks for large pieces of driftwood or firewood! He is very strong...strong willed and just strong physically too!

He loves to run along the base of the dunes and sometimes tries to sneak up and climb the dunes!

One night Grandpa Haines took the grandkids for ice cream down the street...they all wanted to ride in his truck cab!

Playing baseball on the beach with cousins!

My little buddy!

We are praying for Grandpa Haines!

Got out the slip and slide for some fun after school was done! I put some dish soap on it to make it more slippery and what I thought would be more fun, but they both complained when they got all "bubble-ly" down their pants!

We Are Always Learning!

This post has pictures from our day to day life in the month of February. We are just getting into homeschooling and LOVE it! There are so many things that we do everyday that is really part of "homeschooling", but we don't even label it that as it is just part of our everyday fun and conversation!

One day I found the boys at their little table w/ pencils and paper just "writing". (Wyatt was probably instructing Levi in letter formation or math! ha!) See pictures below.

 

The picture below shows the Valentine's Day goodies that Levi brought to preschool. He helped me make strawberry cake mix cookies into heart shapes w/ icing and sprinkles! And he wanted to bring his teacher flowers too! We also made another Pinterest inspired "craft" to give each of his classmates in-lieu of valentine's day cards. It was a glow stick w/ a cute message on card stock hole-punched for the glow stick to fit in.

Most of the month of February, you would find our family at the Marvin Ridge Highschool's gym for the JV and Varsity boys basketball games coached by Adam. The boys learn a lot about basketball (of course) and math while at the games. The "math" part comes in when they are looking at the scoreboard and figuring out by how much we are ahead or behind, and also the point value of the shot that was just made! Wyatt is very, very in-tune w/ this and often "teaches" Levi.

And some days we just have "fitness" or "gym" class inside and play a round of tennis on the Wii! Homeschooling is great! :-)

The next two pictures are the boys painting some wooden "crafts" from The Home Depot. They love to paint!

And then we have some "life-lessons" as well...every boy needs to learn how to shave, right? Don't worry it's play shaving cream and a play razor as well. They want to be like their  Daddy!

And you can't forget learning about hunting your own food to provide for your family! Levi is our resident hunter! He loves to pretend hunt and carry up huge sticks that are the various prey that he caught that day...whether is be a bear, a deer, or a moose! He can often be seen wearing his play bow and arrow set as shown in the pictures below!

Homeschool "Socialization" and Field Trips

Some people wonder how our kids will be "socialized" since we homeschool. I'm not wondering or worrying about it all! The boys are with friends their own age and older and even adults all the time! Between Sunday School, church, church events, park playdates, and field trips (yes, homeschoolers can go on those too!), we have many opportunities to learn about how to act and react in social situations. I'm not trying to start a interweb discussion, but just simply cataloging our activities for memories sake and family enjoyment! :-)

In September, we walked to our local park (maybe a mile or 2 from our house) with a 2 other homeschool families. While we walked, we did a scavenger hunt. As the kids looked for and marked off things like: stop signs, birds, squirrels, trees, and flowers, we were able to even get in a little bit of education as well. One of the best things is when you realize that through everday talk, you are really teaching your kids... and that my friends, is one part of homeschooling--a very, very easy part! Just walking, and talking and observing and commenting on what you see is imparting knowledge to their little minds! So great! So easy!

And here's some real-life "teaching"...Daddy showing the boys how to shoot a bb gun! Milk Jug Targets. Red Neck Homeschooling.

Then in October we went to a local farm with 3 other homeschool families and joined an even larger group for a "field trip" and tour of the farm. Aw Shucks is a farm in Monroe, NC. It's lots of fun and very hands-on! The farmers told us all about how the corn goes from the ground to the grocery store. They even got to pick a pumpkin and take a hay ride! And no trip to the farm is complete without some running and jumping on hay bales and a grain bin slide! And my sports-loving boys were in their element tossing a football through a tire!

1st Day of School

3 weeks ago, we had our first day of school!! The boys were both very excited! Wyatt is so happy to "finally" be in Kindergarten, and Levi was excited to go to preschool!
I am homeschooling Wyatt using the following curriculum:
Abeka K5Phonics
Abeka K5Handwriting curriculum
Abeka 1st Grade Math
Abeka Community Helpers
Abeka God's World
Positive Action K5 Bible Curriculum

Levi is going to a preschool program 3 hrs/day 3 days a week at a church just 5 miles away from our house. Wyatt went there last year for pre-k and we were very pleased. They use the Abeka K4 Phonics and Handwriting as well. He has the same wonderful teacher that Wyatt had last year.
All summer long Levi kept insisting in a very grumpy voice and attitude that he was "not going to preschool". He would even say, "Mommy don't sign me up for preschool b/c I'm not going". I was very surprised at this b/c all last year he was very interested in what Wyatt had done at preschool and would talk about it all the time with great curiosity and an almost-longing desire to be there with Wyatt.
Once he realized that Wyatt would not be in the same preschool next year with him, I think he was scared/nervous to go there by himself. I just talked about it w/ excitement and encouragement even though he was clearly telling me that he did not want to go. In my head, I knew that we, as the parents, were going to have him go where we decided and he would not make the decision for us. I prayed for his attitude, and I showed him love, and continued to talk excitedly about it. The night of orientation and "meet the teacher and classmates", he did not put up a fight at all, but when we had to leave his room for a parent meeting, he did cry and pull on Adam's leg asking him not to go. I had to leave first so I didn't start crying too or give in and stay with him. But we did it, we left. He stayed. 30 minutes later, after our parent meeting was over, we came to pick him up and he was smiling! Every night since then, Levi asks, "Do I get to go to preschool tomorrow?" He LOVES it! One time he even told me, "I just had to go that first meeting and then I was ok" :-) such a grown up little boy! sniff, sniff! ;-(
Wyatt and I do his Kindergarten work while Levi is at preschool on MWF. And on Tu/Thurs, Levi joins us for our K5 Bible Curriculum. That system has been working just great for us. Wyatt is already reading and writing, so most of the things that the curriculum has set forth to teach are really just review for him. Wyatt loves math and has for quite awhile. In order to teach him something new in regards to Math, I had to put him up into the 1st grade math book. He is doing just fine with that level and seems to be ready for multiplication already. He loves doing speed tests with addition and subtraction. With his competitive nature, I know he would LOVE a game of "Around the World" w/ flashcards in a class full of students!! But I do not feel like he is "missing out" by not being in public school. Both Adam and I are confident in our decision to keep them home schooled for the younger years and take it a year at a time! Below are some pictures we captured on the first day of school to have as memories as they get bigger and older!