My curriculum... Hands On Homeschooling.... arrived this past Monday.  I ripped that box open and dove right in.  I REALLY liked what I saw.  My experience and education told me the activities were age appropriate.  I felt like there are just enough for each day, not too much and not too little.  The Biblical teachings are perfect for my son's age.  So, first impression... GREAT!

Now that I've spent a week with it I want to say more than that.  Many of the activities are extremely general.  Now, depending on your point of view this can be good or this can be bad.  For example, one of the music activities this week was clapping to the beat of any children's music.  That is quite general wouldn't you say? But I'm pretty sure that's a good thing.  You don't have to rush out and buy a certain CD, just use what you have.

From MY perspective this is AWESOME!  I have a TON of children's CD's including movement CD's.  So now, when I see a very general activitiy like the one I described I'll just us it as a jumping off point to go look for something cool in my stash.  But on the flip side, for someone without the stash that I have after teaching preschool for years, the activities are all very doable.

In order to make this curriuclum work you really need a children's story Bible.  I picked one up off of Amazon.com.  I chose Egermeier's Bible Story Book as the author of Hands On Homeschooling suggests.  Every day you read a story to your child and discuss it.  There are often activities to go with the story.  So this week we started a new ritual.  Every morning I read the story of the week to my son over breakfast.  Since Bible Story Books have very few pictures keeping his interest was difficult.  But reading to him while he eats or draws works well.  He is able to move and such while listening.  By Wednesday he was answering my questions fairly well.

We also started doing a memory verse every day.  You get one memory verse for the entire month.  I think my DS is catching on already.

So, during the first week we learned the Story of Jonah and the Big Fish.  We colored a Big Fish.  We made a collage of squares, and a life sized puzzle of my DS.  We counted and danced to music.  We made squres in shaving cream.  And probably more that I'm forgetting.

So far, so good!

On to next week!