Where Have We Been?

Aside from frigid temperatures, snow drifts taller than Tank, and by comparison, slightly larger than Turbo, I kid you not, we have done some school!

Turbo seems to be enjoying his Handwriting Without Tears, and is now beginning to identify sight words. He is attempting to read SPOT books, but I suspect memorization rather than actual reading, but I am not complaining as this is the start of reading. His letter and number formation is coming a long nicely as well.

He continues to be excited to do mazes and connect the dots. I seem to be going through those things like water! I suspect by the end of the month, I will be doing some more printing/shopping for these kinds of activities. He mainly does these while I am cooking dinner. Which leads me to another thing. Our afternoons. These seem to be chaotic the minute they both wake up from their naps. From then until baths are drawn, I grow 2 gray hairs everyday if they are not plucked out by the sheer madness. I have offered a few PLANS, which all have come to ruin, each in their own right. But as the snow is falling out my window, I sit here sipping my cold coffee, amongst school papers, books, and crayons, I am bound and determine to make a PLAN for the afternoons while Tank sleeps and Turbo works his magic fingers at the keyboard for the next 30 minutes.

TOT SCHOOL:
I have been reviewing some of my toddler books that I used in Children's Ministry lately, and I realize that Tank is growing up way to fast for me to keep up. So part of my afternoon PLAN will consist of TOT SCHOOL for him. By taping down paper to the table and offering him some crayons, I would like to encourage him to scribble while his brother works on mazes or connect the dots. I would also like to implement a story time after wakeup, rather than them hit the ground and start running. We do storytime 2x a day, but those are mainly at sleep times. I believe this may facilitate a "GREEN" environment for him to stay at that level of activity. As for Tank, he will just eat the books, but I'm sure will come to realize that there is more to life than eating one of these days!

I was also blessed with a sweet friend who offered me much of her homeschooling curriculum that I am just ecstatic about! Although most of it is above where Turbo is at, I am confident that we could begin this stuff in the fall when he begins to attend H.O.P.E. and we are "FULL ON" Kindergarten mode. Although I suspect that he may begin 1st grade work somewhere in mid-year.