Heart of Homeschool

I really struggle when my kids are sick. Between the throwing up, runny noses, and the late nights because they can’t sleep I just about lose my mind. This year has already proven challenging in this regard. My preschooler catches every germ he has contact with…. Thank you covid for delaying my son’s immune system. 🤪 Just this week he got another round of croup. That being the case I didn’t have him do any school. While he was resting I made sure to keep up with the most basic bookwork for my Kindergartener. She of course never gets sick 😆 I share all this just as a remind to be patient with yourself and your kids. As homeschool moms sometimes it can be easy to forget that if your kids were in public school they would have sick days too. 

 Tip # 2 is as simple as adjust as needed. I’m a perfectionist through and through and sometimes (90% of the time) I’m my own problem. Homeschooling isn’t going to be perfect. It is going to be messy! We have a quote that my Kindergartener and I memorized at the beginning of the year. “Mistakes are proof I’m trying” It was easy at first to see how that applies to my Kindergartener but recently I found how that applies to me as the teacher. So keep trying, learn from your mistakes and let them make you a better teacher. 

 Our butterflies have been in their chrysalis for 3 days. We transferred the chrysalises to the butterfly home so that they are ready to emerge from their chrysalises as beautiful butterflies.

Another Kindergarten Social Studies standard is helping kids learn about family relationships. Family history and relationships is a core value for my family. That being said I put in a lot of effort into this lesson/craft.  We rolled out our big roll of paper again and cut a big piece. The night before I had gone on family search and gather pictures of my Kindergartener’s grandparents and great grandparents. On our big paper we drew a big tree. We then started at the trunk and put her picture and then her parents, grandparents, and great grandparents.

Homeschooling a Preschooler and a Kindergartner at the same time has been one of the most challenging factors thus far for me. Now I know there are a ton of moms out there that do more than two kids so please leave comments about what you do to help all of us grow together. Here are a few things I have learned that help in my home. My Preschooler wants to be involved no matter what we are doing so I have learned that I have to plan ahead a little better and either have an activity for him to do next to us at the table or find a way to simplify the lesson for him.   Another thing that has worked for us is letting my Kindergartener be the teacher. It makes my Preschooler more excited about learning and helps my Kindergartener review concepts she has already learned.  The last thing that has worked for us but that is still a work in progress is raising our hands. This is an important skill that sometimes gets overlooked in homeschooling. Teaching kids to raise their hands he...

 One of the Social Studies standards for Kindergarten is learning needs vs wants. It is a simple concept to teach. What things do we need to stay alive versus what are nice things to have but that we don't need.  The activity I chose to do with this standard is the following. I cut a big piece of paper from our roll of paper. (Side note: buy a roll of paper for project and crafts, I ordered a roll of white paper for fairly cheap on Amazon) Then I gave my kindergartener a few kid magazines (The Friend) we had laying around the house. We opened up the magazines and she looked for pictures of food, toys, water, etc. She cut out the images she wanted. I wrote on the big piece of paper needs vs wants. My Kindergartener then took the images she cut out and glued them to either needs or wants. Such a simple idea but we had a lot of fun talking about what needs we have and what is really just a want.  Here are some of the cute things that came from my discussion with my Kindergar...