We're still homeschooling, even though I've had trouble finding time to update the blog! There's just so much to do, my computer is slow, and three active little kids don't allow for much computer time. I have been keeping a plan book. It isn't pretty or particularly neat, but it serves as a record of how many days we've done (15 out of 180) and what we're doing in each subject. I also have a notebook full of page protectors to keep samples of Suzi's work. Here's a little of what we've been doing these first few days.
Even though she's still not reading, Suzi likes to practice writing words. Sometimes she asks us to spell them for her. To help her with this, I made a word book out of a small notebook. I write words in it that she might like to use, and then draw or glue in a picture to go with it. I keep adding to it when she asks me how to spell something. Sometimes she draws the pictures herself. The important thing is that she can tell what the word is.
Here's one of her word book drawings. In case you are wondering what the fairy is doing, she is putting "lost things" on that table. Fairies occasionally visit our house through our little fairy door and leave fairy dust and lost things on the nature table for the girls.
I love Suzi's drawings. This Rainbow Snail is one of many colorful creations Suzi has made so far this school year. Her ability to spend most of her time pursuing her interests might be my favorite thing about homeschooling.
The girls took an interest in dinosaurs after I brought some books and toys home from the homeschool conference. One of the books suggested making your own fossil out of clay with your hand, so we did! While we were at it, we decided to make a time capsule. We put these handprints and a few other things into a bucket and buried it in the backyard. We'll probably dig it up when Suzi graduates homeschool.
Then we made a stepping stone to put on top of it so we can remember where it's buried.
Another picture Suzi drew recently--she copied the name. This one is really special to me because it's a portrait of my dog Shorty who died a couple of weeks ago.
Suzi has been having trouble getting her numbers to face the right way, so I've been trying to think of some fun, different ways for her to experience forming them. Here she is using finger paint to trace the numbers I had already drawn in pencil. Then I let her paint them herself on the next row. As you can see, Ivey really wanted to get in on this! Don't worry, I let both of them paint for about an hour after Suzi finished her numbers.
Another day we made the numbers together with play doh. This went over much better than asking her to write them out with a pencil, and she could pick them up and feel them rather than just see them. We picked up the 7 and flipped it over the way it was supposed to be. 
As for actually doing math, we have been working on adding using our abacus. Suzi currently prefers it to the counting bears.
We have been talking about life cycles lately--birds, frogs, flies, spiders, whatever Suzi is interested in exploring. I helped Suzi with this little project depicting the life cycle of a fruit fly. There was an unfortunate incident here recently during which we came upon some fruit fly larvae in a surprise fashion. I was horrified, but just couldn't pass up the teachable moment before I disposed of them. I bet the fly life cycle lesson is one the girls won't be forgetting anytime soon!
I will close with this photo of the little guy who has been living on our front porch. He spins huge, beautiful webs and because he is so big, it's easy to see what he's doing. If we turn the porch light on, flies come and we get to watch him catch them. I didn't see him out there in his favorite spot tonight, so I hope he's okay!
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