A decision to make

Most of my friends in Houston know that we are going to homeschool our kids this coming fall. I got objection as well as support from friends and family. But after all, it is our decision to do the best for our boys.

I almost finish preparing the curriculum for Ethan to start his first grade from many homeschooling resources. But just this week, we got a letter from school saying that Ethan is selected for the Gifted Talent Program based on his Stanford test few months ago. He met the criteria and requirements according to the school system. I supposed to be happy to got the news since the school recognized his ability to perform well academically. In contrary, I am not sure whether continue my home school plan for him or putting him into the GT program.

Part of the reason I want to homeschool him is because to get him away from the bad influence from his peers. He learned so many bad things and words in school. I cannot control who he met with in his class and who he mingled around. One time, I found a paper written with SEX in his bagpack. I asked him who wrote that word, he said is another girl from class. I told him I will talk to his teacher, he then admitted that he wrote those words but is a girl told him to do that. He did not know what is that means and I explained to him in a simple way.

Well, long story short, Eric think that we better let him try out the GT program first and see how everything works out. It is hard to be a parents nowadays.

About the farm lapbook

The cover of the lapbook.








We read a lot of books about farm and Evan knows all the animal from the farm and the sound they make. This is his first lapbook about farm. We got the material from the Brighter Vision Learning Adventure pack which is on farm theme.

Homemade alphabets puzzles

I reuse some food styrofoam tray to make the alphabet puzzles for Evan to match up the big and small letters. He is learning to recognize the letters and this is one of the way to get him interest in learning.

First, I write the letters in big an small letter in one tray. Then, I cut the tray into two pieces in zig-zag way. He has to match up the letters with correct pieces.

Chalk Art by Ethan

Ethan drew a turtle and a snail.

The boys like to draw with chalks. This is one of the way to let them get interested in drawing. Ethan likes to draw different kinds of animals or other cartoon features. Evan just like to scribble. He will draw a line and tell me that is number one.

They like to play with the water while cleaning up their drawings too.

Making Easter "Cracker" eggs

I found great idea online about making confetti eggs where we can put the shredded paper or some little papers inside the empty egg shells and then throw them to other people to make it crack.

Instead of putting some shredded papers, I let the boys put some green beans inside the egg shells and they then decorated the eggs as they wish. We make about 10 of it and brought them to a Easter party at our friend's house the next day. The kids were having fun throwing the eggs to others.

Encourage Ethan to read more

Ethan starts to read by himself when he is in PreK. I always borrow lots of books from local public library so that he can read different kinds of books. Evan is learning to listen to the story when the big brother is reading to him.

I found one good website online,www.bookadventure.com, where it encourage the kids to read and take the quiz about the books that read before. Once they accumulate certain points, the kids can claim the prize. I register Ethan as a member and since then, he will take the quiz after reading the stories.

Reading website

Ethan starts to read by himself when he is about 4 years old. Now, he have no problem in recognizing the simple words but he still have long way to go in the reading comprehension. I once stumbled across this wonderful website which greatly introducing him the phonic and reading skill. The website is called Starfall and the web address is www.starfall.com.
I then found out that the Kindergarten teacher in my school also recommend this site to me when I asked them about which website is best for the kids in learning reading skill. They encourage the kids to use this website too in the classroom during the computer time.

Ethan learns a lot from it and now I start to introduce the ABC to Evan with the help of the site. Evan likes it so much because it is very interactive and he can listen to the sound and the action through it.

Check it out, dear parents!