B is for Blogging

August 3, 2010


So we started the day the same as yesterday, establishing this new routine.  We found the letter B on the alphabet quilt, and drew the letter B in the carpet.  I think the most important part of starting this homeschooling journey is to make it part of our daily routine, and to keep the kiddos excited about it.  To do that today we kept singing the letter song, and the alphabet, and we kept reviewing what we discussed the previous day.

When I tried having them write in the shaving cream, CJ told me he was freaking out and he started to get extremely mad.  He really REALLY hates the shaving cream apparently.  Well no shaving cream for the rest of the week.  I think Thursday we will try using the bath crayons to write letters in the tub.  I am trying to integrate the letters and numbers into each and every part of our day.  For breakfast we had bread, butter and blueberries.  After breakfast we read jack and the Beanstalk, and Goldilocks and the Three Bears.  The kids yelled B every time I read a B word.  They loved this!  They then found the letter B in several of their own board books.  They told me that book was their favorite B word.

After reading time we went to the garden to identify some B foods we could have for dinner.  They helped me pick beets, broccoli and beans.  We picked some Bok Choy (CJ's favorite veggie) to make some soup for lunch.  CJ loves all veggies, but Eliza isn't as huge a veggie eater.  She will however eat ANY vegetable if I make a pureed soup.  So we had Bok Choy, ginger and garlic soup.  They declared it the Best lunch ever!

After their nap we started talking about animals that began with B.  We talked about bears, birds and bugs.  I pulled out their animal flashcards, and we talked about what is the same and different with the animals we saw.  We especially talked about what makes a mammal a mammal.  They like that we share traits with other mammals like alpacas, since that is their favorite animal.  We used a magnetic habitat board someone gave them for Christmas.  They were able to choose which animals matched to each habitat.  One was the ocean, another the farm, and the last was grasslands.  They were excited to see the barn because it was yet another B word. 

They even asked me which animals were carnivores, herbivores and omnivores.  I kid you not, these are the words they used.  They asked if any of the animals on their board were nocturnal.  They were able to tell me that Logan, our cat, is nocturnal, as is the skunk that lives nearby.  They told me that nocturnal means asleep during the day and awake at night.  They scare me sometimes with how smart they are. 

What I really liked about B day is that B is a simple letter, with really only the one sound.  So much easier than the vowels, or tomorrow's letter C.  Yikes!