Let Your Light Shine

I knew once Bryce was born, I wanted to make sure I still gave plenty of attention to Brennan. He is so into learning new things and has been obsessed with letters for as long as I can remember, so I thought it might be fun to do something educational with him. (You'd never know his mom was a teacher!)

One of my absolutely favorite blogs is 1+1+1=1. Carisa has so many great posts about homeschooling and shares tons of ideas and printables for free! One of the things she does as a homeschooling momma is Raising Rock Stars Preschool. She has all the stuff you need to do it yourself available for free on her site and I decided it would be a great way to spend some time with Brennan. It allows us to review his letters and numbers, work on writing letters, learn a Bible verse each week, and even introduces some sight words.

Here's our setup. It's basically exactly like Carisa set hers up. I can change everything out each week because sheet protectors are attached to the foam board and everything just slides right in and out.

We started this week with the letter 'L' just like Carisa recommends because it is very easy to write; just two straight lines. Each week basically involves the same steps; all of which can be found on her site. I'm still trying to figure out exactly how to incorporate this into our day. School mornings (Tues and Thurs) are completely filled up until nap time, so I don't think we'll have a set time for pulling out our Raising Rock Stars board, but I am trying to do it for at least a little bit each day, all while adjusting to having a newborn at home.

Here are some pictures of Brennan completing his first week of Raising Rock Stars activities.

He only wanted to trace the letter 'L' with his finger, which was perfectly fine with me. I don't expect him to be able to write all his letters, this is just good exposure for him and he loves doing it.

Check out how he can write his letters all by himself on the iPad using the 'Hello Chalk' app! So proud of this kid!

Here he's waving the popsicle stick with a candle on it while we sing "This Little Light of Mine."

These cards each contain a word and picture that start with L. He was finding each picture I asked for.

Brennan colored (with some help from Momma) the pieces to a candle and we glued them together. 

Brennan can say some of the Bible verse now. He can easily say the beginning, "Let your light shine" and we have talked all week about how he can let his light shine - especially the OBEY part! Each week includes a cutting activity and I don't think B is quite ready for it yet, but we are trying. He made the first cut on each line of the cut-apart Bible verse and I finished the rest. Then we glued it together. He immediately said it was like a train track and pulled out a train to drive on the verse. It was a perfect idea and we "read" the verse together as the train went down the track.

As far as the sight words go, Brennan definitely didn't know the word 'see' before this week and can now recognize it. I'm not sure he'll know it forever, but again the exposure is great for him even though he's so young. He liked the popsicle stick props and the easy reader. I'm excited to try and keep this up each week so he can keep learning and we can keep spending quality one-on-one time together.

Make sure you also follow 1+1+1=1 on Facebook because Carisa often lists great preschool apps that are temporarily free. I have found most of our favorite ones from her!