We're almost finished with our third week of homepreschool. I must say it's going splendidly. I believe that deciding to do homepreschool is one of the best decisions I've ever made.

I would like to be more consistent about the time of day we do it. There is no order to my life, which drives my husband crazy, and I know Julian does well with routine so I need to work on that.

One of the first projects in Hands On Homeschooling is to have your child lie down on some gift wrap paper (white side up) and then trace the outline of his body. Then you let your child color it, cut it out, and put it together as a puzzle. At first I didn't think I'd be able to convince this child to lie down on the paper. I told him what to do and he ran off in the other direction! I decided to lie down on it myself to show him how fun it was (yeah, right!), but he didn't seem to go for it. Finally he figured it would be okay, and once he did he really liked it. He stayed very, very still while I traced his outline. Unusual behavior in a two year old as you well know! He had a great time coloring it in with his crayons and felt tip pens. I decided to cut it out the following day because cutting it out in front of him was getting hazardous. He wanted to cut with scissors too and he has to be right in the middle of whatever I'm doing, so I decided better to do the cutting later. The next morning the first thing he did was go in the kitchen and lie down on the floor. He wanted to do it all over again!

He definitely likes all the art and crafty type stuff. One activity was gluing different sized squares on paper and he liked it a lot. We're going to do that again sometime too.

I got him a plastic Blue's Clues lunches and we keep all of his crayons and markers in there plus a pair of little Fiskar scissors, although he's not able to use those yet. He loves that little lunch box and he knows it's fun time whenever we take it out of the closet. I have his box and all our craft supplies in my closet. It's the sweetest thing when I tell him it's time for homepreschool because he runs to the bedroom to get his Blue's Clues activity box. I think two year olds are awful cute when they run! Good thing I got all of the things I would need for the whole month of September. I need to get ready for October. It's getting here way too fast.

Another indicator that he really likes homepreschool is that when we go for our walks, which we do nearly every day, I normally have a terrible time getting him to turn around to come home. This child can walk forever. Well, now all I need to say is "Julian, we need to go home to do homepreschool," and he turns around and heads back just sweet as pie. No fussing and no fretting. Wow! It sure is a nice side benefit for me. And he's realized that the HOH binder has his coloring sheets and my notes and when he sees it out he wants to open it and take stuff out to do homepreschool. I have to be sure to put it up when I'm not using it now. When he saw it on the table this evening I told him it wasn't the time to do our art and he nearly cried.

One thing he likes is simply putting his crayons back in the box. I showed him how to put them away neatly while we talked about the colors and he takes his time to do it carefully. He likes putting them away as much as using them I think. Today he held the box and put most of them away all by himself. Little, seemingly insignificant things like this make me see the world through his eyes. I've put crayons away a million times. No big deal. But to him it's quite something. He takes his time and relishes it. Seeing him do this reminds me to me mindful. To slow down and live in the moment.

As for the Bible story learning, I'm limited to only reading a story to him and talking with him about it because he doesn't talk well enough to recite anything. At least I'm learning the Bible stories anyway. I need to know them to be able to teach them.

Well that's it for now. I've checked out some books from the library. Parents As Playmates-A Games Approach to the Pre-School Years by Joan Millman and Polly Behrmann, and a few others so I have some reading to do. I've ordered a copy of Home Education Magazine and I should receive it in a week. It has an article I want to read about unpreschool. I had never even heard of the word. Shoot, I don't even think homepreschool is a real word - someone better add it to the dictionary now though.