Supplementary School

I've never thought of myself as a home-schooler, but I do recognize that I am the first and most influential teacher in my children's lives. I'm all for social interaction and discipline that a formal school setting provides for children. Besides that, the free time it gives me, even as a stay at home mom, is invaluable. Free-time...I hate that term. I prefer to call it me-time. I also realize that there are many families out there that home school, and it works for them....and works well. As I tell my kids, different families have different rules. "Traditional" schooling works for our family. The kids love it. I enjoy my me-time, even if it is spent doing laundry and making beds, I will always make time to read a book, ride my bike, go to the gym, something for me. That being said, I do what I can while my kids are at home to stimulate their love for school. Whether its helping with their workbooks, playing board and card games, reading, or working on art projects, we try to build on their formal education. Today's art project began with the start of the NFL football season. We collected toilet paper rolls, colored and cut out templates from the here on the Internet, and glued together mini football players to decorate our mantle until we break out the Halloween decorations. Of course, they wanted to make their players exactly like moms and both boys did a great job. Check out their masterpieces here....

We are still working on saying goodbye to the STL Rams, and hello to the AZ Cardinals. :)

I also decided to make a matching game for Caleb using the letters of the alphabet. He still gets many of them confused and I'm hoping the new game helps with that. Of course Noah, my little perfectionist, couldn't keep away from the game very long! More posts to come on my ideas and activities used in our at-home Supplementary School!