School Photos!

We did it. We started school this year and are in the swing of things.  Though obviously with the lack of blogging, I've been a bit busy.  Tej is well into her first grade year and doing really beautifully.  Ari just started her first week of preschool this week.  Hallelujah!  That's what I have to say about that.  We've been plugging away since mid-August (man alive, we started early!) and Ari has been in the mix although now not so much since she's at preschool three days a week.  It's a welcome "break" as it allows Tej and I time for schooling in a more productive manner.  Anyway...

Here are a few photos of our journey so far.  MUCH more to share but for now only photos as I am getting ready to teach science & social studies next.  :)

"Weather" & "Spring Time" Projects

You may or may not know this, but we are a home schooling family.  Actually, I home school Mateja.  Ari goes to preschool two FULL days a week right now and she'll go three full days starting September.  Anyway, today I braved it and did a few projects with BOTH of the girls.  This was a major deal for me.  Ari takes a lot of my attention and focus and ENERGY whenever we are working on a project.  Today she was amazing!  Both girls had fun (Mom did too!) and Mateja was asking for more work to do...  I was a bit drained though so we'll save that "more work" for tomorrow.  Here are a few of their projects today (heavy focus on "weather" and the "season of spring")

Here is Ari's painting of what the weather was like today.

Here the girls drew pictures of things they like about spring time.

These are "Spring" envelopes we each made.

Who Is the Teacher?

This post is simply to state that, after much research, we have decided to home school. Mateja is supposed to start kindergarten in the fall. So, she'll just have me as her teacher (still). See I finally came to REALLY realize that I AM a teacher already. In fact, I am HER teacher. This morning whilst driving in the car she was firing questions at me like she usually does. Here is a sample of the things she was asking me. I had to jot them down while we were stopped at a red light.

"How many eyes do squids have?"

"Why can you turn right at a red light but not left?"

"What is an exhibit?"

"What does great gas mileage mean?"

"What is a gang?"

"What is butter? I mean, I know it's something you eat, but what else is it?"

Before she started preschool, I would get some credit for the things she learned (like her colors or numbers or letters - cuz I did teach her those things). Everything else she would attribute to either the knowledge of her father or her grandmother (Grammy Di). Then she started preschool (two days a week of preschool) and her teachers then received all of the credit for absolutely anything she had ever learned or was currently learning (even things like how to snap her fingers!). Now that she'll be home schooled, I wonder if I will get any credit for the breadth of her knowledge... she informed me once, not too long ago, that the only reason I actually knew anything was because someone had told me or maybe I had read it in a book. Maybe she's the teacher!