First Week of Home Schooling

This week was the first week of "Mommy and Nico's school," and I have to say that overall it went very well. Nico was enthusiastic about it, and although I worked him pretty hard, he tried his best, putting in a good effort (with lots of positive reinforcements). We focused on reading, writing and math. To start, I provided a visual schedule for Nico that I made in order to help him understand what the routine was going to be for the day and what he should expect regarding when play time would be in the midst of the school work. When Nico completed a task, he would take that picture off of the schedule, which seemed to be a positive reinforcement in itself. 

Our visual schedule.

Nico began his first lessons in beginning to learn to read, which included memorizing some sight words and practicing blending and stretching words. He also practiced writing the certain letters as well as his name. Then in math Nico was able to explore the various math manipulatives, review calendar concepts. In addition Nico learned what a pictograph is and was able to make one of his own. Over the course of the week, as the little man did such a great job working hard with his school work he earned stickers on a behavior chart. This way Nico could visually see the progress he was making and receive the positive reinforcement in order to help motivate him to continue to work hard.

Nico working on his writing.

I won't name any names, but someone wrote his own name without any help and he was very proud of himself.

Nico working with his pattern blocks.

Here is the pictograph Nico made in order to determine if there are more girls or boys in our family. He included himself, Mommy, Daddy, Natalee, Gigi, Pops, and Big Sis.

Here is the behavior chart used the first week of Mommy and Nico's school.  Nico had to earn a sticker in each balloon in order to receive a prize by the end of the week. He did a great job!

I am very proud of my little student!  I think we are going to have a very successful school year at home and at "real" school.