I’ve had several fun moments with our children during the past two months that I can’t wait to share with you so let’s dive in!
In the month of March we only had a couple of weeks of school and then took a nice, LLLOOOOONNNNGGGG Spring break for the latter part of the month. I always use the month of March as our review and catch up month so we can move forward with a clean slate after our break. During this time we complete any projects we’ve missed, I skipped due to lack of time, or that have been started but not finished. We also review concepts with all of our children (students) and use this as a preliminary assessment. I use these results to determine if our arrows are ready to move forward or if subjects (TEKS for our oldest and milestones for our preschoolers) need to be retaught or practiced for the remainder of the year. So far, so good and our children are enjoying the curriculum.
At the end of March and in early April we took two field trips to local zoos for their homeschool day. The videos (vlogs) showing these fun family moments can be found above and below this blog paragraph. If you need more information about how to create, locate, and find out about field trips for homeschool students then you can check out my blog post via this wonderful hyperlink.
In April I always ramp things up with our preschoolers and use this time to establish our early summer routine which includes a short, twenty minute school day three times a week. We will continue our weekly story time at the library, weekly water play, and weekly messy art but on the days we don’t have “school” the younger children have personal ABC Mouse accounts that I do with each of them and every child is encouraged to read and play often. We are continuing the ‘ABC, What Shall I Be’ program via schoolhouseteachers.com and the children are enjoying dressing up and using their imagination to become firefighters, doctors, horse trainers, bakers, astronauts, etc. Our local library and hoopla have also been also been a great source for finding books and movies for each career we learned about. Of course I’ve included a myriad of alphabet and shapes games as well as opportunities to practice writing. Bam Bam and Princess have been enjoying preschool this year.
Be sure to watch the video below to get a closer look at the things we’ve enjoyed during April.
I was able to have a mother and son day with our oldest, Bear during which we discussed his current and future homeschool goals. He has started a research paper on Primates and after a couple of weeks of research and prewriting, he has already started his rough draft. I am so excited to watch this process and I can’t wait to see him conquer his first four page research paper. Bear also had several review opportunities over the past two months that he has enjoyed. For each review I also had him assist in writing the blog post and editing the video footage if we decided to record one. His most recent project participation involved the Creating A Masterpiece online art classes and you can read that review and watch the video via this artistic hyperlink.
All in all the past two months have been awesome. Even on the “bad days” (we all have them) I am grateful to be at home and to have a daily opportunity to sharpen our arrows. You can also see more of homeschool at our house, field trips, library visits, etc. via @teamkempacademy on Instagram. I decided to create the new account because I was following so many makeup, homeschool, blogger, planner accounts on one Instagram that my feed was too saturated. Now, when I need homeschool inspiration, I can go to one place and get some encouragement.
We will be finishing up our school year within the first two or three weeks of May, take a three week break, and then begin our three day summer enrichment program. I will tell you all about that in the next homeschool wrap-up post. Until then you can find additional homeschool and motherhood encouragement videos via this YouTube playlist.
Make this week joyful,
Ta’Neisha K.
Marriage, Motherhood, & Homeschool 