Daily Agenda

My oldest loves to know the agenda for the day (And week, month, year...life! He gets that from me.) I decided that each day I would provide him with a love note and a daily agenda. I bought him a composition notebook which I hope will last us for the entire school year.

I write in it before I go to bed each night with a little note telling him I love him, what we did that day, why I like homeschooling him, and/or some other little lovey fest words. Then I write our "Today's Agenda" list. Initially I thought the agenda would be the order of our day, but it has not turned out quite that way. However, it works wonderfully for both of us. I barely glance at my lesson plans (unless I need specific information) because our plan is right there for both of us to see. As we complete an item one of us checks it off which gives me a big sense of accomplishment at the end of the day when I see all the checkmarks and helps me keep us focused on what we need to finish as we move through the day. 

Our writtenagenda starts the same each day:
Affirmation
Calendar
Weather
Memory Verse
Virtue/Character of the Week

I always include:
Math U See
Read our FIAR book
FIAR activity/focus for the day
Speech Therapy (I am an SLP)

I really, really try to include:
Nature Walk and Sketchbooking
Read Supplemental Book
Read a book of your choice
Play in Sensory Bin (although he usually does this whether it is written or not)

Things I include on specific days are:
Artist of the Week (Thursdays so far)
Handwriting (2-4 days)
Craft/Art Projects

My goal was to have a literacy heavy play based kindergarten. I am not sure if I am remotely close to achieving that....but we are in the early days so I am thinking and figuring things out as we progress this month. We are doing lapbooking, which surprises me. I am even more surprised that my son loves it! I worry lapbooking is super not play based and I might regret it, but then I think...he loves it, he is learning, we are having fun together....relax.

I will continue to focus on our day and our learning methods as we go on and hope to get to a point where I am just as confident with how we are doing homeschool as I am about the fact that we are doing it!