First day of school for the Finnlings!

Because Georgia's birthday falls in late October, she is not eligible for Kindergarten until next year, when she will be 5-almost-6. She is old enough now, though, to start doing some 'schoolwork' at home! It is our intention to homeschool our children at least at the beginning, and so when Daddy's classes started back yesterday, we started some homeschool activities as well. I have not invested in a full preschool or kindergarten curriculum yet, but instead am doing a variety of small structured activities to get us into some form of a routine.

After a morning walk, I took pictures of the kids on their first day of school. They had fun 'cheesing' it up!




Georgia needs to reinforce her knowledge of numbers, so I wrote out numbers 1-10 on index cards and had her put the same number of stickers on each card (thanks for that idea, Jennifer S!). It was also a good skill for her fine motor skills, because peeling off the little smiley face stickers required a lot of concentration. Baxter did this activity some as well, but not as consistently :-)






My main 'textbooks' for the first day of school: the Bible (we read Genesis 1), Big Picture Story Bible, and On the Banks of Plum Creek (we are reading a chapter in this Little House on the Prairie book every couple of days).


I wanted to document some things about the kids' lives, so we measured them, traced their hands, and I asked them a few questions. Georgia wrote her own name on the top of her paper--it is not perfect, but she is trying, and I am very proud of her!




All in all it was a great day!

Date taken: August 22, 2011