Week 3 {9/20-9/24}

Well, this week was a bit of a challenge as I was fighting a head cold ALL week! (As was Cole!) So, needless to say, most days this week we did an abbreviated version! The beginning of the week, my throat hurt to even talk, so we did the Bible Story and Questions, and that was the extent of it.

This week Bible Stories were: A Wife for Issac, Jacob and Esau, Esau Sells his Birthright, and Issac does not fight. One of the activities we did was about reminding us that we can pray for anything at anytime. We made Praying Hands journals, and Hayley wrote the names of all of us on the pages.

Some of the Language Skills we learned were: Sequencing (which I had just picked up a card game for that same thing the Saturday before at a Mom 2 Mom sale!! Bonus!), and Mazes. For Math we talked about ordinal numbers, and many and few.

Our Character Trait was courage and the Bible Memory Verse was Psalm 56:3 When I am afraid, I will trust in you.




Our God's World Theme was about Fall.We talked about the signs of fall (which unfortunately have already started here in MI!), leaves, what animals do in the fall, and on Friday we took a trip to the Cider Mill as our Field Trip.

Pictures from Dominoes Farm

Week 2 {9/13 - 9/17}

Well, our second week of homeschooling went just as well as the first. We are all enjoying it and having fun while learning! What could be better!

Our Bible Stories we talked about this week were; The Flood, The Tower of Babel, Abraham's Journey, and Issac's Birth.

Our God's World theme for the week was Farming. We talked all about farms, animals, and crops. On Friday we took a "field trip" to Dominoe's Petting Farm and checked out all the animals and the girls got to feed them carrots. We also went on a hayride.

For language we went over Opposites, Rhyming, and Sequencing. Our Math topics were Counting, Parts of a Whole, and Smallest to Largest. We also gave skipping a go for Phys. Ed., but don't think we are quite there yet. Whew!

Our Character trait this week was Contentment and our Bible verse was Psalm 23:1; The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

Butter!!!

Ok, so I really just need to post this (outside of my weekly update) because I am still excited about this! We MADE butter! How cool is that? I think it is pretty cool. This week our God's World theme is Farming. One of the activities was making butter. You put Heavy Whipping Cream in a jar and shake for about 6 - 7 minutes and it turns into butter. Seriously! And it was Good!!! I was really excited and said to Hayley, "I never did that before" and she even more excited than I replied, "Either did I!" Loving Learning with them!!

Week 1 {9/7 - 9/10}

Our first week of homeschooling could not have gone any better! The girls did a fantastic job with everything, and we just had such a good week overall. I really think it just improved us getting along, me spending so much concentrated time with them not be distracted by other things. Our first week we talked about Creation, Adam and Eve, and Noah and the Ark. Hayley really payed attention to the stories and was able to answer most of the questions I aksed. Alyssa answered them with the same answers Hayley gave!

Our God's World Theme for the week was "The Sky" and I picked that b/c I thought it correlated well with the Creation theme. So we talked about the Sun, the Earth, the Moon and the Stars.

For the language parts this week they were to learn to spell their name, which Hayley already knew and then also know their phone number and address. I thought it would take more than the week, but Hayley already has both of those memorized. Alyssa, knows our street name, city and state... but for 2 1/2 I think that is a pretty good start for her!

They also both memorized their Bible verse for the week: John 15:12 My command is this, Love each other as I have loved you.



Like I said, I really don't think I could have asked for a better first week. I was having a lot of doubts before we started, but needless to say, really felt affirmed in our decision to really give this a try afterwards. Here's praying for an awesome year!

Our 2010 - 2011 Curriculum

For this school year, I found a Christian Pre-school Curriculum that I thought was very structured, yet simple enough for me to tackle in my first official year of homeschooling. I had done some with Hayley last year, but that was more with writing and learning numbers. Bright Beginnings is an actual curriculum that has an outline for everyday.

Here is Amazon's Editorial Review:

Bright Beginnings is a user-friendly, all-inclusive curriculum that allows busy parents to provide their child with the many benefits of an early education at home. This two-volume set includes 36 weeks of complete lesson plans. The only materials needed are a Bible, household supplies, and some optional library books. This program is designed for four- to six-year-olds and is flexible enough to be used in any home under any schedule. Bright Beginnings helps children grasp important concepts and skills such as letters, shapes, numbers, colors, gross and fine motor coordination, listening, visual discrimination, classifying, and much more. Character training and Bible knowledge is interwoven throughout the curriculum, creating a balanced perspective both academically and spiritually.
Subjects include:
• Bible
• Language Skills
• Math
• Character Development
• Health, Safety and Manners
• Memory Verse
• God’s World
• Physical Education
• Art, Snacks and Music

Bright Beginnings also includes 33 worksheets and A through Z flashcards. Best of all, in this uncertain would, you can feel confident that your child is getting a well-rounded, Christian-based head start! If you are looking for one book that has it all, this is it!

You can also check out the website at http://www.bright-beginnings.net/index.html

One thing that I liked was that even though it is structured, it is flexible. The God's World section is a weekly theme topic, and you basically just pick what theme you want to do what week. Everything is outlined for the days, but you choose when you do that topic. I like that.

What is {Gerwing}ology ?

{Gerwing}ology - is the art and science of homeschooling Hayley, Alyssa, and Cole.

Ok, so I have to first confess... I stole my idea for the name. Our MOPS theme for the year is Momology (the art and science of mothering). I thought it was catchy, so I stole it. There you have it. I did try and come up with a name to go more along the lines of our family blog, but was having a hard time coming up with another "G" word. I was looking to call this 'G3" - Growing Gerwings (Blank) and that is why this is now {Gerwing}ology... I could not figure out another G word that would work to go along with it.

My hopes with this blog, is to just chronicle our weeks with what we are doing and learning.

Thanks for checking in on us!