Homeschooling has "officially" started!

We enjoyed a bit of an extended summer, and so we finally started our "official" homeschooling this week!  I had to take the obligatory first-day-of-school pictures!  =)

I originally stated our homeschool plans several weeks ago, but I made a few tweaks and additions before we even started!

I decided to add in a daily "circle time" (or, morning time, as we'll be calling it) to our schedule.  After giving it a lot of thought, and going back and forth on whether or not it was too formal to fit in with my plans, I decided to give it a shot and see how it went.  I love that it gives me a bit of focused time with the kids, and it's a great way for me to introduce them to some things that otherwise would probably go by the wayside.  After all, a huge part of my role in our unschooling is for me to introduce them to new things, and this provides me with one more opportunity to do that.  Our morning time is pretty relaxed, and includes things like reading picture books, flannel board stories, songs and/or fingerplays, poetry reading, calendar, simple group games, Bible reading, and memorization.  I don't do all of those things every day, but instead pick and choose several, so we end up spending 20-30 minutes total.  Right now we are doing this in the morning, right after snack time, but I'm open to switching it to the afternoon if I find that the morning isn't working for some reason.

Another thing I added to our schedule is a Bible program - for us, this year, we're going through the "What's in the Bible" DVD series.  We've seen a few of them, and they're so good that we decided purchase and go through them all!  So far, we've been watching one DVD per week as a family, and then once we've watched one, the kids can watch it on their own as well.  There are 13 DVDs, so my plan is to watch them all a few of times throughout the year.  I'm amazed at how much I've learned about the Bible, and the history of the Bible and the church, and we've had some great discussions with the kids as well.  

With Seth's non-traditional work schedule (he has Wednesdays and Thursdays off), we're doing our school activities on a 3-4 days per week schedule right now.  "School" days are Mondays, Tuesdays, sometimes Thursdays, and Saturdays.  Wednesdays and some Thursdays we'll be taking off because it's Seth's weekend, Fridays will be off because we'll either be doing MOPs or some other activity (like going to the library), and Sundays are off for church.  A bit different from the usual M - F routine, but I think it will work for us!  =)