Learning how to write is not an easy task for younger children, especially for little boys who are not as coordinated or whose fine motor skills are not as developed.

In order to help my almost four-year-old son to learn to write his letters, I have him trace his letters in a pan of cornmeal instead of using standard pencil and paper. This writing technique helps him to write the letters in their proper form without requiring him to obtain fine motor skills first.  I teach him the correct strokes and sequence to the first letter of the alphabet and he is required to follow my directions.  After he can write the letter well, I let him have the cornmeal pan and he can draw or write as he pleases. This writing lesson is so much fun for my son — he looks forward to free expression after the formal lesson — and I’m very happy to combine both fun and school.

You can also make a pan of cornmeal to help your little ones to write. If you don’t have cornmeal in the house, you can also use flour or play sand.  Instead of a foil pan, you can use a cookie sheet.  The writing instrument can be the child’s index finger, a chopstick, or a closed cap pen.

Kendra at Preschoolers and Peace challenged me to a duel! Well, not really. I was very blessed to be at her house this weekend for a Homeschooling Encouragement Day that’s held twice a year by her church. During the break I noted to her how clean, organized, and visually pleasing her house was. Everything there was neat and beautiful. She chuckled and said I should really see her house on normal days because it’s not as clean and organized. We both agree that whenever we read other people’s blogs, we tend to think that other people have it all together and we’re the only ones with a messy house. So, with that, Kendra said she’ll post pictures of her house if I would agree to post some of mine. I thought she was just saying it, but I was wrong. Since I got myself involved in this challenge, I’ll let you into my house, virtually, and see our regular life.

Here are the children playing in the family room/homeschool room. Notice the mess on the rug? Just in case you don’t think this is too bad, check out the next picture.

Here’s what the other side of the room looks like. Yup, five laundry baskets on the floor and on the train table. Sad to say that these baskets have been sitting there for about a week now, waiting for me to fold and put them away. My oldest saw this picture and asked why I even took the picture. As much as he contributes to the mess in this house, he has a clean gene in his body which alerts him that this is not a pleasing picture.

This is our school table. Oh. . . did you notice another laundry basket next to the student desk? That makes six laundry baskets in the room.

(Yes, we’ve occasionally increased our inventory of laundry baskets to keep up with the backup of washed but not-yet-folded clothes!)

So, here you go, this is the reality of this homeschooling family. I’m just glad that Kendra didn’t ask me to take pictures of myself!

We made crayon hearts as a craft project for Valentine’s Day. We stick the hearts on our window as sun catchers.

Matthew shaving the crayon:

Hearts hanging on our patio window which was arranged by Matthew:

I got a box of Disney Cars character cards, stickers, and tattoos, and the children absolutely loved having all sorts of tattoos on themselves.

A few weeks ago, during Christmas week, I brought the boys into my office for a little fun. They always enjoy hanging out and playing with some of the office toys and running about. Part of the “deal” was that they first do their school work prior to playing. As I was working with them, I discovered that the big meeting room dry erase board (a.k.a. “white board”) was a great resource for doing some teaching of counting and other concepts. So I thought to myself, I should look into getting something like this for Lois to use at home for school!

Unfortunately, the average corporate-quality commercial white board of the size I see at work (classroom-sized) runs in the vicinity of $200-300!  Ouch!

So I went hunting online for ideas for cheaper white boards, and discovered an article that suggested that using “shower tile board” (~$13) from Home Depot could make for a very simple, if somewhat low-end, white board.

Inspired, we went to Home Depot and decided to go shopping. Over the course of a couple weeks, we accumulated a 4′x8′ sheet of tile board (melamine-coated particle board), a thin sheet of plywood for backing, and and a tube of Liquid Nails. For mounting on a wall, I ended up going with a “j-mold” which is typically used for hanging wall-length mirrors. Total cost, approximately $37.00. Sweet.

It has worked out beautifully. Here are photos of us putting it together, with a final photo of the white board in use.

Laying out the white board and plywood to prepare to glue them together:

Matthew helping me to squeeze Liquid Nails adhesive on the back of the tile board for attaching the plywood:

The white board (final size, 7′x4′) mounted on the family/school room wall:

Matthew doing addition on the white board:

Some have asked how I homeschool the children and how I manage the little ones as I teach the oldest one. To give you a glimpse of our homeschool, here is a photo story of a typical day:

I sit in the middle and to my left is Matthew doing his math:

To my right is Andrew coloring/writing in his preschool book:

The girls are free to play about as long as they don’t interrupt, and here they are sitting nearby playing with each other:

Here are the spelling words for today on the white board (and yes, Matthew knows what the word “repent” means since we just reinforced it during our morning devotion):

Our very loose schedule for each day is as follows:

• Breakfast and clean-up
• Morning devotion
• Play a game or do an exercise
• School time
• Lunch time
• Naps for the little ones and “quiet time” for the oldest which means reading quietly on his own
• Free time after everyone wakes up. On occasion I do a history lesson with the boys at this time.
• Dinner time

Looking at this photo essay of our lives may imply a calm and peaceful day as one would hope, but let me assure you that it almost always goes with many interruptions and foiled plans. The youngest one keeps coming to me while I teach the oldest one. I let her be near me as long as she keeps quiet but once she starts to interrupt, I redirect her to somewhere nearby to play. This eventually worked and she played with her sister for a while. Andrew, on the other hand, becomes distracted in his own little world. Instead of coloring as he’s suppose to be doing, he decides to line up his crayons and create a picture of some sort. Emmaline comes to me from time to time to show off her latest arrangement of her toys.

The question that seems to intrigue most people is: “Don’t they get distracted while they do their school work when the other kids are playing nearby?” The answer is a resounding yes. However, I find that even though they get distracted, they have also learned how to work in this type of environment. They do well despite various interruptions. One of the reasons I want the younger children nearby is so that they can see what their older siblings are doing. Children are extremely perceptive and I don’t want to underestimate their ability to learn new things. I’m very well aware that whatever I teach the oldest child, the younger ones are also learning along albeit at a much lower level or degree.

To learn about the origin of Thanksgiving, my son and I read several books and made a lapbook. In order to make sure he understood what he read, I had him narrate the stories back to me. We are very thankful to Jimmie who created a website or a lens on how to put a Thanksgiving lapbook together. We got all of our Thanksgiving crafts from her site.

Here is Matthew holding his lapbook.

We kept the lapbook really simple this time. On the top is a mini book that reads “I am Thankful For. . . . ” To the right is a corn he made by gluing kernels onto a cardstock that’s shaped like a corn. The kernels are taken from the actual corn we picked from Ardenwood Farm we visited in October. The middle bottom contains a mini-book that tells a simplified story of the origin of Thanksgiving from the pilgrims arriving to America to celebrating the first Thanksgiving. To the left and right of the mini book are two pockets that contain an Indian and Pilgrims jigsaw puzzle.

This is a turkey pop-up book. I had my son write things that he’s thankful for on the turkey’s feathers.

Close-up view of the Thanksgiving mini-book and the puzzle.

Yesterday for our history lesson we learned about the Egyptian pharaohs, mummification, and pyramids. It was a rather intriguing lesson for a five year old.  It included a detailed explanation of how a priest mummifies a body. Mummification is a very long and tedious process.  In the case of the Egyptian Pharaoh Cheops,  each of the his organs such as the heart, liver, intestines, etc. were stored in individual jars with a picture of a Egyptian god for each organ. The Egyptians believed that these gods protect each specific organ. After the Pharaoh was entombed in the pyramid tomb, the Sphinx (lion body with a human head statue) acts as a watchdog to prevent thieves from entering the Pyramid.

While learning this particular lesson, I wondered for a bit my son’s thoughts on whether what the Egyptians believed was true or not. Just as I was pondering on this, my son told me, “Mommy, what the Egyptians believe in is not true because the Sphinx is a fake. He is suppose to protect the Pyramid but he’s not real so the thieves got in and stole all the treasures.” I was glad to know that my son picked up on this obvious point.

My husband has been taking the boys through the Westminster Shorter Catechism for the past six weeks, and just last week the boys learned question #5:

Q. 5. Are there more Gods than one?
A. There is but one only, the living and true God.

Since we had just learned about many gods of the Egyptians, I wanted to know whether my son could relate the history lesson with his ongoing catechism education. I asked him if there was more than one God, and after he answered that there was only one true God, I asked again whether what the Egyptians believed in was true. At this point, he knew the answer already. It was clear that since there is only one true God, no other gods exist and of course the Egyptians were wrong.

One of the joys of homeschooling is opportunities such as this in dialogging with my children about the things we learn and how they relate to the one true God.  Too often, in our secularly-defined education system, academics are divorced from the knowledge of God.  But as we teach our children at home, there are many opportunities to help our children absorb those academic subjects in the context of the most significant reality of God as He has revealed Himself in His Word.