"A" Great Start

We finally received our A Beka books in the mail and I was excited to start our formal school year. Since we moved into a new home, here a few pictures of the boy's new school room.

 We were excited when we moved in to see a room with built-in bookshelves, we knew it would make a great school room!

For the Letter A, here are some books we borrowed from the library. Jayce's favorites were "I Saw an Ant in a Parking Lot" by Joshua Prince and of course, Little Critters "Astronaut". I loved the "Fall Harvests Bringing in Food" because it was great to teach about when to plant and what happens to the seeds and lots of other fun fall stuff.

We read the "Apple Tree" poem and then made a craft.

 And we learned about Ants and how God made them orderly creatures. They all have different jobs and they all work together to make sure the colony is safe and well fed.

 We practiced (and practiced and practiced) tracing the letter A. This is not an exercise that Jayce enjoys very much, but we're keeping at it!

 Then he tried to make one on his own! He did a good job (after MUCH coaching) but there has not been a repeat occurrence. Haha, but it's okay, he'll get it soon enough.

 We used the Bible verse for the letter A from http://www.1plus1plus1equals1.net/ Jayce LOVED cutting and pasting the verse together.

 We also found "A's" outside, here's Jayce standing by one on the playground!

 And we found acorns (I had no idea we had these in our backyard) and collected them in an alligator sand mold. Both of the boys thought this was like finding buried treasure. It kept them busy for quite a while.

We ended our week with an Apple Dump Cake, very easy to make so Jayce helped with every part of it. A very yummy lesson!

 

Warrior Training

We are also starting what we call Warrior Training with Jayce (and Josiah) where every month we focus on one Godly character trait. We teach him a simple definition, we also teach him about different animals that God has created that have that characteristic, take him on field trips to places that we can learn more about that characteristic, and of course, teach him how to implement it into his life.

This month our Warrior Training Characteristic is "Orderliness"

 Daddy taught Jayce about the woodchuck and how he is orderly by the way he makes his home and how he goes potty.

Jayce is showing orderliness by cleaning up his crumbs from his afternoon snack.

 

This school year has started off wonderful but also with new challenges. We're learning how to stay focused even when Josiah is running around pulling books off the shelves or trying to color on our paper and, because of little brother, we're having to stretch out our learning throughout the day. It means abrupt stops during some lessons, and having to stop playing (which isn't always happily done) in order to pick up that lesson later in the day. But it is in these challenges that God produces character in us. It was good to start our school year off with Proverbs 15:1 "A soft answer turns away wrath." :)