Habits

Ok so there went "blogging everyday". Life gets in the way too much. We have been having some family problems, so my "teaching" and even caring about goes on has gone right out the window. You can' t stop learning though. The girls are developing an learning like little weeds ... smart weeds.
Molly's vocabulary is getting huge. Her problem right now is she is going through a screaming phase. For example... She was calling the dog, so the dog came and sniffed her. She screamed and cried because the dog sniffed her. I gave her time out and told her to not play with the dog if she was going to scream when he touched her. About 10 minutes later she did the same thing! This type of thing is repeated all day.
When I ask her her name she says "Randa" So I am trying to teach her "molly".
I am still reading Charlotte Mason's first book. It isn't as dry as I thought it would be. She is easy to understand and I have made a lot of the same observations my self. She says that at this age (3&4) they should be learning behavioral habits. So that is what we have been focusing on since I quit blogging. She says only one habit at a time, but I have several that we are working on. Charlotte also says that children delight in habits, i totally agree. I have taught them the habit of not going in the street in front of the house. I have a fear of them being hit by a car, so this was an easy one to get across to them. They never go in the street with out me anymore. If they see their friends go into the street they tell them how bad it is. They are proud that they know not to go into the street as an older child is when he knows a fact that a younger child doesn't. Some other habits we are working on is "Please" "Potty Training" and "Eating what is sat in front of you". We will see how that goes.

Monday or "Day 1"

We had a slow and lazy day. We didn't go outside at all. Being in nature is very important to the Charlotte Mason (CM) method. She wanted kids to be outside even in the rain if possible. She understood a child might be sick, but if everyone was well they needed to be outside! I totally agree, however I just didn't want to push them today. Nobody wanted to go out. I think it was because the weather was cold, windy, and nasty.
We read a couple of books. We read "Julie's Jungle" and counted to four several times. Miranda can count to 12, but Molly counts, "one, two, one, two". We watched a video about color and music. I got out the Bible, but they wouldn't listen to me. Molly said, "No Jesus." We watched an alphabet video. We reviewed colors using some crayon pics.
I read several poems and sang some songs to them. We talked a little about the storm. They played with blocks. We made Miranda's bed and sang, "clean up, clean up, everybody clean up." They picked up their blocks. I noticed that Miranda will slowly pick up one block at a time, and Molly will pick up several at a time.

Why and How are we going to Homeschool?

The purpose of this blog is to keep me on track. I need to be able to see a progression of our learning and activities. I also want to be able to show people who are interested in my girls education what we are doing. I feel, as I have heard most homeschooling Mom's feel, like I should keep up with what everyone else is doing. However, I know that isn't necessarily what is best for my kids. I do however want to become more organized and scheduled. So this is my way of starting the process of homeschooling.
I want people to know that I am learning with this process. I have done some research, but I am still developing our style of homeschooling. Our number one reason for homeschooling is we feel God led. Some of our lesser reasons are safety, political beliefs and we feel that we have total responsibility for our children's education.
We are planning on following Charlotte Mason's methods of education. I am reading her series on education now. I will expound on her methods as I blog in the future.
I hope to blog everyday and keep record of how the girls are doing and how we are following Ms. Mason's teachings. Our daily activities hopefully will include : nature studies, Bible, poetry, music, art, stories, the alphabet and numbers. We are also working on developing good habits and potty training.