First day of Preschool

Was a great success! We had Maddie's Uncle over for a visit so we decided to take a trip to Lake Wilderness and let her explore the park. She had a blast!

 She Watched her Leap frog dvd on the way to the lake! :)

Made it to the lake! Its such a pretty Lake. :) This is our favorite lake to come to. Plenty of trails to walk through for Maddie to explore.

She found Blackberries!

We did some duck counting. She found 8 of them!

While exploring the park, she found the play ground so we had to stop and let her play

Sliding down the slide! By the end of the day, she was brave enough to do it all by her self!

She LOVED the swing! She was laughing the whole time!

After a long day at the lake we decided it was time to go back home. She still had some school work that needed to be done.

Our first week is about the letter A :) If you dont have this leapfrog toy, I highly recommend it. Teaches the letters and their sounds plus some motor skills as they have to fit the letter pieces into the "house". Maddie loves it.

Doing some Apple Lacing. Great motor skill activity. She was having a hard time with it, and I had to help her. She got frustrated after a few minutes and was done with it. Im sure after a while she get the idea of how to do it and like it.

Art time! I think art time is her favorite. lol. We do art a million times a day...not just during school time. She LOVES it.

Finger painting time! (art time) This was her first time doing finger paint and she LOVED it.

She had a great first day of school. :)

Starting Preschool "Homeschool"

My Hubby Aaron and I have decided that we love the idea of homeschooling our Daughter Madalynn and decided that's the educational route we want to go with her. Why home school? We have gotten the question many times already. There are lots of benefits to home schooling. A few of the most important things why we haven chosen home school are;

• She will get one on one learning, which we feel is very important for learning. 
• She will get a lot more hands on experience, including more field trips
• We can teach her according to her learning style/and her learning speed (each child learns differently)

Another question we are getting asked is, aren't you worried about socialization? Answer to that is NO. Our daughter is very social already, maybe a little too social sometimes (as she likes to run up to random people and give hugs.) We have learned already that keeping her active will keep her social. We have had her in swimming lessons and gymnastics since around 11 months old. We alternate them so she gets a to do different activities according to the seasons. We do swimming lessons during the summer, and gymnastics during the fall/winter. This month we are planning on trying out ballet and seeing how she likes it. If she likes it it will be another great activity to add to her list of things to do. As she gets older, she will be able to tell us more of what she wants to do, and we will let her to them.

We aren't judgmental of parents who decide to put their kids in public or private schools. Home school is not for everyone. Public school is not for everyone. Private school is not for everyone. Every family and ever child are different. What works for one family/child might not work for another. Aaron and I were both in public school through out our childhoods. However, we both feel that home school would give our daughter more educational benefits.

"The Braun Academy" Im sure many of you are thinking why are you naming your home school?

• Maddie can feel like she belongs to a "school". (She will be able to pick her school colors and mascot too)
• It can be more personal for Maddie. 
• We can get discounts when ordering school supplies online
• When we graduates we will have a "name" to put on the diploma
• We will have a "name" to put on any certificates
• When she applies to jobs when she reaches high school age, she will have a name to give rather then just "home school"
• It looks more professional
• Many state require your home school to have a name. So if other states require it, its good to have it. (Not sure yet if Washington requires??)

This is going to be a great learning experience and very rewarding as we start and continue to home school our daughter. Maddie just turned 3 years old this July. Perfect time to start preschool/home school. Starting September 1st, 2011. Since we are learning as we go, we have looked up many other home school blogs to get ideas so we have decided to start this blog to answer questions, share our pictures, share activities, share how we home school, as well as keep records for our selves. :)