A Little Homeschooling Update

We have been off to a great start this year with school.  We have five weeks under our belt and are looking forward to the year ahead.  We have chosen to take a Charlotte Mason approach to our home education.  Charlotte Mason was an English school teacher who had an undeniable love for children.  She believed children learn best when they are allowed to explore nature and are surrounded with what she called living books.  Living books are books written by someone with a passion about the subject with the facts presented in story form.  Once we read a portion of a living book our children narrate back to us what was just read.  Sometimes we just take turns telling back what was just read or other times Scot Jeffrey will write down a few facts in his notebook.  He loves looking back on these pages and recalling all the things he has learned.   Home educating this way has been a great fit for our family.  It has given us the freedom to read lots of great books as a family and learn new things at the same time.
In case in think our days are filled with long hours of enjoyable reading times  and pinterest worthy projects let me remind you we have a three year old little boy, a two year old little boy and a seventh month old baby along for the ride.  Trying to homeschool with all these little ones around is no joke, but I am learning what works and what doesn't.  We are slowly finding our groove and I am constantly trying to choose joy in the midst of the chaos.
Here are a few pictures of what we have been up to.

Learning that "Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492"

Filling a bird feeder we made

Finding the perfect spot to hang the feeder

Field trip to the library

Learning about the mangroves on the field trip

Learning the days of creation 

Andrew "doing" school 

Keeping little hands busy while mommy reads 

Emmie learning to keep her hands busy while mommy reads