Our First Few Weeks Of School

Our first few weeks of school have been great! WonderWoman is LOVING history... That is her "favorite" part she says....and then on science days, it's science and then art and then.....you get the picture. She's REALLY enjoying 1st grade! She's soaking it all up and is always looking forward to what we're doing each day. (At least so far! LOL! I'm praying it lasts!)
We are using 'Story of the World' for history and it is amazing! I love reading it and she never wants to stop. She's always asking me to "Please read a little more!" when we're at the end of the section for that day. The last few weeks we've been studying ancient Egypt and have learned some really interesting things.
One of the days we learned all about Cuneiform and Hieroglyphics and tried writing them in our pretend 'stone' tablets that were actually playdoh, but it worked.

Her name, J-O-Y in Cuneiform....it was much easier than the Hieroglyphics but we tried writing those too!

So proud of her work!

Her other "favorite"....we alternate history and science each day. For first grade we are doing Life Science and studing first, the animal kingdom, then later in the year the human body and ending with Plant Life. Each week we've had a different animal that we've been studying and one of the weeks was the Ape family. We went to the library to find books to go along with our study for that week and we found one written by Jane Goodall. After reading that, she thought that Ms. Goodall had THE COOLEST job ever! Each week she is doing a narration about some of her favorite facts from that week and also, being the little artist that she is, drawing a picture to go with it and we are collecting it all in her science notebook. So at the end of this year she will have a nice little collection about all of the things she's learned. She already likes to go back through and see her pictures and read the narrations from weeks past. I'm really enjoying it too! :)

I am having such a great experience homeschooling the kids. It's amazing how much I've learned about them as I've figured out how they each like to learn, their preferences and watching them figure things out, explore, discover and create.....its fascinating to me! 

You can see a little of what I have discovered about CaptainAmerica's personality in the pictures below and these are just a couple of examples that I've noticed on a daily basis...

I use these grid papers for all sorts of games and activities but in this particular picture, CaptainAmerica was just stickering for fun. I didn't actually think he would fill the spaces up, but when I went in to see what he was up to, he was so excited to show me that, "none of his stickers were touching the lines!" and asked me if I, "like how straight they are?!" He was quite proud! And he did end up filling the entire page and with the exception of maybe 1 or 2...NONE were touching the lines....and that seemed to be his goal. :) 

Another day, after WonderWoman had a turn to make all sorts of crazy shapes and designs on the GeoBoard, this is what I saw CaptainAmerica doing with it....

He sure likes those straight lines and having everything even and symmetrical! LOL! 

They are all SO different and each one is a unique, amazing creation of God's! I'm praying that the Lord will continue to guide me and reveal to me more about their personalities and learning styles and help me know the best way to teach and train them and encourage them each in their own gifts and talents. How wonderful it is that we don't live in a boring 'one size fits all' world!  Every one of us on Earth is so totally different from the other. I'm understanding that more and more everyday...even in my 4 'carbon copy' kids that all look so much alike....and appreciating our awesome Creator more fully for all that He has made!