Phonic Word Wall Book

I bought Systematic Sequential Phonics about 2 years ago, but I found my then Pre-K, but almost 5 year old was not ready.  So it got shelved. 

As I am organizing our school supplies, I came across it and realized it would fit nicely into our first grade work.  I think it could work good for even kindergarten, but my boy is just not there yet.

So this book does a nice job telling mom what to do!  Oh, I like that.  So it has reproducible pages in the back, so you can make your own alphabet tiles and a word building worksheet.

Things I like:

• Lessons are grouped by 5 with a focus for each week, systematically introducing letters a few at a time.
• It only takes about 10-15 minutes to do the lesson on a one on one basis.
• There is no prep work for the lesson besides photocopy of the word building worksheets (optional) and the prep work of making the letter tiles.
• I do not have to review the lesson before I teach it, I read it for the first time as do the lesson.
• Tract the words they learn.

I did find the book on Amazon for about $13-18.  I can tell you that it makes me sick, I bought mine a couple years ago for $26, yikes!  I have found the local teacher stores have a tendency to be more money.

So having just a little space, I have been trying to figure out how to make a home school word wall.  So with some work I did this.

I am using the 4 by 6 index cards.  I used some good card stock for the covers.  I printed out the letter tabs and the cover onto card stock and got my mommy tools out to do the job!

 To get my home made tabs strong, I folded them in half, added  some good glue and a clothespin.

Finally, with the use of a good hole punch and some ribbon to bind it. Of course, you could just get a binder and do it that way.  See thanks to pinterest, I was inspired by!

To make it easy for you, click here for the wood wall tabs.
Have a great day teaching!
~trish

Phonemes versus phonics

Alright, before this week I had no idea what a phoneme was.  Do you?  So there is this little known secret to the outside world that reading is made up of to very important functions that must work together, phonemes and phonics.  In homeschooling mommy terms, your ears must know what it is hearing in order for your mouth to read it. Hmm, could this have been my own personal delay in my comprehension, we could only wonder.

Sorry, I diverged. So a little catch up.  Yes, I am still stumbling my way through homeschooling my 1st and K kids ,while managing the destruction from a 1 and 3 year old.  I guess I am eclectic by nature in my educating method. Right up until last Monday night, I have felt very overwhelmed.  I then realized, I really need a scope and sequence.  I can teach my kids anything, I know it, I just need to know what and when.  In desperation, I called a friend who was a school teacher and said HELP!  I am so overwhelmed and when I read the state standards, I am humbly overwhelmed that I do not speak that language.

I was directed to several different county links that have provided a Plain English scope and sequence per grade and peace began to wash over me. So over the past week, I have re-organized, because some of my frustration was a geography thing in my home.  I have let go and began to move forth.  Patience, the details of my reorganizations will be shared at another time.

So back to my point, within the Language Arts discipline for both K and 1st is a section on Phonemic Awareness and Phonics.  Hmm, awareness and they miss spelled phonics (ha,ha higher education). I was a bit on the thought of, well isn’t that all r-e-a-d-i-n-g, but apparently not.  You see reading is comprised of understanding what you hear and then being able to reproduce it from written form.  As much as this can make sense, it is a lot like flour and water make glue, but add an egg and you got cake.  Actually, that is very appropriate.

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From: http://reading.uoregon.edu/big_ideas/pa/pa_what.php

Phonemic Awareness (PA) is:

1. the ability to hear and manipulate the sounds in spoken words and the understanding that spoken words and syllables are made up of sequences of speech sounds (Yopp, 1992; see References).
2. essential to learning to read in an alphabetic writing system, because letters represent sounds or phonemes. Without phonemic awareness, phonics makes little sense.
3. fundamental to mapping speech to print. If a child cannot hear that "man" and "moon" begin with the same sound or cannot blend the sounds /rrrrrruuuuuunnnnn/ into the word "run", he or she may have great difficulty connecting sounds with their written symbols or blending sounds to make a word.
4. essential to learning to read in an alphabetic writing system.
5. a strong predictor of children who experience early reading success.

---

An important distinction:

• Phonemic awareness is NOT phonics.
• Phonemic awareness is AUDITORY and does not involve words in print.

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And this is what they have to say about teaching it!

Phonemic Awareness is a critical component of reading instruction but not an entire reading program. It absolutely needs to be taught, but should only be 10-15 minutes per day of your reading instruction.

Teachers increase effectiveness when the manipulation of letters is added to phonemic awareness tasks. Phonemic awareness is an auditory skill, but once children start to become familiar with the concept, teachers can introduce letter tiles or squares and manipulate them to form sounds and words.

Phonemic awareness needs to be taught explicitly. The instructional program must show children what they are expected to do. Teachers must model skills they want children to perform before the children are asked to demonstrate the skill.

If you focus on just a few types of phonemic awareness, you get better results. There are a lot of skills in phonemic awareness, but research has found that blending and segmentation are the 2 critical skills that must be taught. Instruction must focus on blending and segmenting words at the phoneme, or sound level. This is an auditory task.

Research has found that you get better results when teaching phonemic awareness to small groups of children rather than an entire class

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As you look further into Oregon’s Big Idea Lessons, they illustrate the best methods.  In Florida, there is a great website that has lots of PDFs to print about all aspects of Phonemics, but my internet keeps timing out, maybe you will have better luck. www.fcrr.org

There are tons of information that can help you practice these skills, see http://www.readingresource.net/phonemicawareness.html

And as wikipedia will tell us Phonics is then taking letters to form the Phonemics, so we can read, see.

phon·ics/ˈfäniks/

Noun:

A method of teaching people to read by correlating sounds with letters or groups of letters in an alphabetic writing system.

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So where do we begin, well as a mom, make it fun. So we are going to play a game.  I am going to go to use a list of words, mostly cvc words. (cvc is consonant vowel consonant, like cow, mom, man, cat, dog)

With my list, I am going to say the word to my 1st grader and have her isolate the first, middle and final one syllable sound. To my K I am going to say the word the word 2 times and sometimes change one sound at the beginning, end or middle.  He will tell me same or not.

So it would go like this.

ME: Miss first grader, Please tell me the beginning sound of dog?

1ST: dog begins with /dddd/

ME: what is the middle sound for dog?

1ST: /ooooo/

ME: And the final sound?

1ST: /gggggg/

ME: great job!  Here is a skittle.

ME: Mr. Kindergartener, are these two words the same or different, dog/log?

K: Different.

ME: Which word is different from these 3: dog/dog/log?

K: log

ME Great job, have a skittles!

So that is what I am doing this week, let’s see how it goes.  It seems such a simple task, but none the less, an important one.  Doing it together, I plan to only do it for about 10-15 minutes.  And then we move on.

So did you know about phonemic awareness?

~Trish

Handwriting Composition Books

 

I was really excited when I found these books.  We were using the regular spiral notebooks that we took all that time to recovered, but the lines were a bit confusing for them.  When I seen this notebook, I knew we would be better off.

So where did I find this little gem, you ask!  The Dollar Tree!  Can you believe it!  You never know what you are going to find.  This is working out nicely for handwriting.  We have 2 notebooks for the first grader, one for handwriting and another to write the date in every day.  I just picked another one up for the kindergartener. 

We are still having adjusting pains to figure out what we need to be doing.  I am really needing something that is effective and not overly time consuming for mommy or kids, because this momma does not want to constantly be after them. I hate to keep sharing our “new” plan. 

On my previous post, I shared the whole curriculum books from the warehouse store.  My only fear is the public school system has taken say fifth grade work and simplified it to be introduced in fourth and then more so to be shown in third and then so on until it is in first grade.  So it seems as though there is so much introduction for so many years that when it is time for it to be taught, it feels more like a review and the child is bored and never really got to the lesson.

My fear and as I read those books, is that they are introducing things a lot earlier than I really want.  I would hate to be introducing the structure of writing and hinder the love and desire to express themselves in writing.

I guess before I can really layout my curriculum, I really need to figure out the goals we have for first and kindergarten.  I read the new state guidelines and really for more over amount of education, you really have to go to decoding school on how to implement all that taught thinking they plan to do.

Any suggestions?

~trish

Grade School Workbooks from the Store

So it has been a few weeks since I have got back with you.  We are slowly moving back in line with our routine.  Trying out that new school really threw a monkey a wrench in sense of order.  Somehow after 3 weeks, we are finally looking some form of normal, well normal to us.

Of course, we are still finding what works for us.  The freedom that comes with being able to find what works best, also leads to a lot of time searching.  Daddy had a lot of issues of not “seeing” enough done, so I had to institute a worksheet attack on my kids.  Poor little things.  To provide a large amount of comfort, I picked up a complete curriculum from the big warehouse store for under $10.

I really like this workbook set.  I also have the one for Kindergarten.  Of course, I realize after writing in them it is 100%, A OKAY!  to reproduce. I like so many things about the book, except the reading comprehension.  I find that the writing within the reading comprehension section is weak, wordy, unfocused, and wandering.  I really like the way that the text is presented and it makes for a great work book.  Next issue, apparently it is now Out Of Print and there are not many copies available ANYWHERE. If I collect an entire elementary school set of them it would probably be well worth it and cost only $100.

Now here is my confession.  This is my opinion and is meant for only my own self reflection.  I feel like I am not being a “good” homeschool mom by using this as a core to my teaching.  They are great books and for the money, they are superb!  BUT!  I envision a homeschool mom knowing the special handshake, flashing an awesome homeschool club ID card to get into the most exclusive backroom curriculum stores in the figment of my imagination.  This is where they sell the hidden style of teaching and books to go with it, that really work.

Let’s face it, these kids are not going to teach themselves and we mommas have got to figure out what works for them, us, and the budget.  Expensive shine text books and programs do not make smarter kids. 

So currently, I am ripping pages out and sticking them under my kids noses to do.  Lots of writing and a bit more structured.  Now being almost 2 weeks into doing it, they are getting the hang of it.  And the daddy is getting compliant again, so it most be getting better.

Logistics – It really comes down to the logistics for me.  We are 2 months in, we haven’t really nailed ourselves down to a set curriculum yet.  (i.e., each week it is something new, it seems.)  How could this workbook work for us? 

• Well, the core of what we need to do with them is covered. It is keeping us progressing at level with minimal effort from me, so score! 
• It allows me to have a better view of what they really are understanding and not, so we can further work on it. 
• Although it takes up more of their time right now, it is freeing up my mental ability to work on more fun things for them.
• Plus, we still stay on track when the baby takes up my primary attention.

So it works for us at 1st grade and kindergarten.  I whole heartedly want to gobble up the other books and add them to my library, but part of me knows that it is questionable if I will finish up the year with them, much less use them again next year.

~trish

What is your take on these workbooks?

and that was enough of that..

I can tell you with much excitement, we entered the world of possibility and within two days, eagerly went back to what is right for us.  I really knew that it wasn’t our fit, the night before the first day. So with that, we are back to homeschooling.

The biggest problem that I ran into was that it was just about everything I was trying to do from home, except is wasn’t home.  See I want to be selfish.  And as a mom, this is my only time in life that I can.  Yes, they will grow up and leave one day, but I got 12 years before the first one does, so why make it any sooner.  Besides, in 10 years, I will never have these days again. 

So here are a few reasons why home is the best for us.

• I can delay the length of time that my kids think their mom is cool and knows everything.  Face it, give a kid a teacher and for some reason the teacher knows everything and the parent knows nothing.  If I am both parent and teacher, I am golden!
• Keep the siblings together constantly, creates a sibling bond that is tight. (I really assume that this bond is unbendable, but I have no evidence. Yah, they bicker, but they play so much better when they are not subject to being surrounded by other children all day.)
• Like it or not, you are back in the rat race of life.  I am selfish, I am not sitting in the parent pickup line for my kid!   They are mine and I want them now!
• I hate schedules and school calendars.  If the weather is right, I want to take a trip, not wait for a school break.
• Most of all, my house was just too quiet without them.

So we lasted 2 days in the system and then we came back home. And that was enough of that.  Like every day in homeschooling, you have some rough patches.  I often remind myself as I play teacher, maid, nurse, chef, driver, and mom that it is a ton of work and stress, but I would rather be miserable and stressed than to miss the blessings from these days that I have with them.

So on we march.

~trish

Things just happen to go differently

This is our bible verse for this week’s spelling.  I find that I really need to turn it into a self centered verse to really hear what the Lord is telling me.  By the way, yes, I am using my fridge as a white board.

So changes are taking place.  By the grace of God, we were just introduced to a brand new charter school that is project centered and unschooling in style.  So we went and checked it out and loved the entire progressive/democratic education method.  I took the evening to think about it and weigh the pros and cons and decided.  It would be better to take the opportunity to try this for our family, than to regret not doing so when we had a chance and not be able to get it.  See when you have several kids and enrollment is a lottery system, you would have to be willing to let some go, while others can’t. Couldn’t do it.

So what makes this charter worth it:

• unschooling style
• project center learning
• students progress at their pace, not the standard
• teachers are mentors
• mixed grade classes, so mine will be together in the K-2
• close attention to national academic standards and the progression of the student
• agriculture and sustainable practice focus
• 4H
• family and community involvement in the school
• family participation is a requirement, so we will be there alot.

There are a bunch more reasons, but these meant the most to me.  I decided that it was worthy the giving up of my own schedule and my direct lead on their education, in order to take advantage of all the resources that will be available to them.  I will say that I will be there, and I am protective.  If I feel as though my children’s best interest are not be taken care of, we are back home, once again.

I look forward to all of the new experiences that we will get to enjoy.  Please do not consider this the end of homeschooling chaos.  I look forward to sharing their projects and other studies that we still do at home.  The focus we have had for the last few weeks has been a series of unit studies that all have to do with self-sustaining urban homesteading.  See why we are so excited about the school.  So I will soon be posting our worms farm and our bread making.

~trish

Unit Study-Crocodilians

So we did this study on the fly, thanks to Netflix.  Here is a small glimpse on how we exhausted our library system of most of its crocodilian books.  You can see, I have true books adult and juvenile, and some little story books.

We used Netflix, the library, field trips, and our kitchen to do our study.  I wish I could tell you we did some amazing crafts, but we never got around to it.  I thought we might do a lapbook to summarize what we learned, but interest from my little guys were fading too fast. 

Now we put together a great lapbook, but never added information.  I got all the lapbook stuff here, plus a lot more great information and resources.

Coloring book about: http://myfwc.com/media/310155/Alligator_AAA_booklet.pdf

Lap book Resources http://www.homeschoolshare.com/crocodilians_lapbook.php

Links http://myfwc.com/wildlifehabitats/managed/alligator/education/

Printables: http://www.first-school.ws/theme/animals/reptiles/alligator.htm

Alligator pie: http://www.tenderflake.com/Forms/Recipe.aspx?ID=1023

 

We field tripped to the Shell Factory and the Gatorama, alligator farm.  We also ate alligator, yum. For the most part, we read a lot of books, and some more books.  We talked about the pictures and then read some more.  The reading showed through on the field trips, my children were able to repeat to me all that they had learned from the readings. 

So not a bad first unit study!  I plan to use www.currclick.com curriculum with future studies.  We might do a whale study next and I was able to get an age appropriate lapbook for $1 download.  It was a bit sporadic to try and figure a study plan on my own with everything else I need to do and it seemed like I was doing it on the fly.

~trish

Field Trippin’ - Gatorama

So we have finished off our Unit Study with Alligators.  The best place to finish it is at a gator farm, so thankfully we have Gatorama in Palmdale, FL about an hour away.  Can we say, INCREDIBLE!  We actually bought annual passes, because we plan to go back.

www.gatorama.com

There were tons of these big boys that you could throw bread to.

So mommy also learning a thing or two, gators look like they do, to conceal themselves to look like a tree.  The good Floridian mommy, thinking tree, really, I would have never thought a tree.  Well, do you see the gator in the next picture?  

Gatorama is small and the day we went, blazingly HOT!  Twice while we were there they took a baby gator out for the kids to hold, amazing pictures of that!  Then at almost noon, they got the chicken out and got those bad boys to jump out of the water!  AMAZING!

We left with a bag of frozen gator meat too. You know, had to finish the study right with gator in the tummy.  Great Place!  Worth the drive.  So if you are anywhere South of Orlando and Tampa, take a drive.  It is smack dab in the middle of the state.  And if you pass the intersection SR70 and US27 and there are peaches for sale on the side of the road, you better get some.  We already ate half a box in less than 5 days. (think 40 or more peaches and we are going back for more).

 

Of Course, you can’t field trip with out a lunch, so this is what we packed!

It was too hot at the farm to eat there, so we went a mile north to Fisheating Creek FWC Outpost and spent a little money to eat under the shade of some old oaks at the edge of a dug lake.  It was great and since it was the areas official swimming hole, the kids got to cool off a bit, unfortunately for their mother! (No change of clothes.)

http://fisheatingcreekoutpost.com/

We did this trip with Katy-bunz, so head over to get a more personal view of our trip!

http://craftymomma2.blogspot.com/2011/07/gatorama-adventure.html

~trish

Book it! K-6 enrollment!

Book it! is a reading incentive program through Pizza Hut.  It has been around forever, I even did it as a kid.  As a homeschooler, you can enroll your kids in the Book It! program too. 
Things to know, you need to do it by September 1st!  http://www.bookitprogram.com/Enrollment/homeschool.asp
So do it now!
~trish

Our homeschool Space

      

In some ways, I would probably would never post about our homeschool space, mostly because we barely have one.  We have our homeschool space a little here and there. And of course, we have changed it around.

We first began with this shelf. It sits in a corner of a side room that my husband and I have our desk in.  So really we currently use the room as a den. The thing is this room has the only backdoor, so you have to go through it all the time. 

Well, he managed to pick up a wire basket thing! So we moved the shelf to where our front door is.  I say this reluctantly, because we really have to use every inch of the house.

It must be a God thing, because this bookshelf is the only thing that fits into closet of an entryway that I have.

What truly counts as our schooling space is this awesome table and chairs.  I picked them up at our school surplus store for under $50.  I only have 3 chairs, so I keep checking for a fourth.  I found the wooden thing at goodwill and I use it to hold our markers, scissors, gluesticks, pencils, dry erase markers, and colored pencils.

 

Call it what you want, den, disaster, free for all, the beginning of hoarding, but this is our space where most of it lives and then some.  You are missing the view of my husbands desk as I am standing at the back door.

The wire shelf holds baskets.  I have a basket for each kid, to store their curriculum.  This way I can pull out what I need.  I have basket for supplies, math games, crafts and so on.  The other table is my desk and my computer sits on a tv tray. I sew and coupon mostly on my desk.  And trust me it is always a mess.

In fact there is never one time that the entire house is straight.  I have someone always willing to make a mess!

As for decorating our school space.  NOPE.  Mostly because I can’t.  My entire house is the lived in look.  I would love to decorate it, but I am somehow missing that touch.  Then I really want to do some renovations and it seems like a waste to decorate then destroy.  At the same time, I have been waiting years to renovate.  So maybe it is just not in our time line, yet.

For those of you that live small, I hope this lets you know, you are in good company.

~trish

Adding to First Grade

Oh wow, imagine that, slightly changed my curriculum.  Hmm, again?  That is sometimes how I am feeling.  I have added for a couple of reasons, convenience, fell into our lap, and needing something more.

The need of convenience, HANDWRITTING!

Writing things out was getting a bit much for me and then to figure out what to write was another brain storm session everyday.  I found a digital copybook file and printed it off, can a mommy say, “ahhhh.”  At the moment I have Winnie the Pooh classics for her to copy.  All were free.  Because, my new favorite curriculum store is www.currclick.com! Thousands or more digital PDF curriculums to pick from.  You have got to check it out!  It is not a lot of money and they have just about anything you can think of.  I also bought files for our next unit study.  The best part its all electronic so it is reproducible and I do not have to find room on a shelf.  YEAH!

Needing something more, MATH!

Our math just wasn’t making the mark with Spectrum.  It is pretty, but not drilling enough for her.  I some how came across Math Mammoth and YEAH!  Again all digital.  It is a bit self led, so all I need is to answer questions and has a systematic approach.  Again I can re-use it for each kid.  I think the entire math curriculum for First is $35, I bought just the part A at $17 and I will get part B when we need it (just in case we change it up again).  It is working like a charm. www.mathmammoth.com

Fell into our laps, SPELLING!

Well ,I have a spelling program, A Reason for Spelling, but I was given this by another homeschool mom.  THE COMPLETE PROGRAM – LEVEL ONE!  SO I checked it out.  Well, I quickly realized it would be a great addition to our day.  The nice part is, it is all about the rules of the English language for spelling.  So now, poor #1 is doing both.  Thankfully, it is all hands on; so it goes almost undetected.  Bonus, since it is a lot of flash cards #2 is joining in.

Sometimes I get a bit worrisome that I feel like I cannot stick with one thing.  But I remind myself, it is better to spend a year finding what works (while of course teaching along the way), than it is to build frustration for me and my children with something that does not work.

 

By the way, I am working on restructuring how I deliver the work to them.  I had really wanted to do a workbox style, but space and time, just are not permitting it.  I tried a big 3 ring binder, but they are getting confused on what to work on.  Frankly, I need them to be a bit more independent on their work (this is how you think when you have several littles).  Mostly, I need to be able to give them direction and then NOT have to stand over them. 

The best thing I can think of is to put each topic in its own prong folder.  This way I can only pull out the folder they are working on for the day, laid open to the page they need to work on.  Kind of my own workbook style.  Now I am just piling the folders in front of them. 

Lets see how this works out!

~trish

Shell Factory – Nature Park

Our current unit study is crocodilians.  We have read and watched all about them and we were ready to see them in person.  I found out about a little gem that was within an hour from us, so our of first adventures (aka field trippin’) was at the Shell Factory’s Nature Park.  I had never been to the Nature Park before, but we gave it a try, because we heard that you can feed the alligators there.

The alligators were amazing. I must admit this is the best up-close encounter that I have ever had. Then to be able to throw these little pellets to feed them, even better.

There was somewhere between 6-10 gators in the little slough, but it was perfect to have a great discussion about everything we have read about them.

I must say, if you live in the area of Charlotte, Lee, or Collier County, the Shell Factory has a lot to offer.  It is a small, low budget nature park, but their collection of animals was beyond my expectations.

They had a snake room with lizards and toads.  Of course, not my most favorite spot, but I put up a great front for the kids.  Well until my special little man snuck up behind me  and poked me with a feather.  I shot straight up to the ceiling screaming.  So much for keeping up appearances for my kids.

If you are studying dinosaours, there is a little walk that has several of the dinos.  With the little walk being over grown, it kind of gave me the he-bee gee-bees.  well, the sounds in the background of dinos roaring help the feel.

the place also was kickin’ it for some hands on oppurtunities.

The bird atriums have led to a lot of request to daddy to build one at home.  I have had pictures drawn of this experience.  In fact, the experience gave me a the opportunity to see a new side of my daughter and her love of birds.  I am not sure if she is even aware of it.

This is a great price for the 2 days.  We did make 2 trips to the park and had even more fun on the second day.  You can buy a year pass for a total of 6 people for $100.  We will make the investment on our next visit.

if you do make it down there, keep in mind they have events each day, so time your visit right.  And if it get too hot, there is the shell factory gift shop that is huge.  In the gift, shop there is a large exhibit of animals from Africa.

      

~trish

Lunch boxin’

You say, WHAT!  Why would I need to lunch box it?  Because we field trippin’, baby!  Well, anytime we are out of the house, I consider it field trippin’.  Wait until you see the shirts I am working on.  So here is our lunch box.

More like the community lunch box, we end up feeding any kid that is in eye shot of it.  Because, our lunch box is filled with all this goodness.

Now I used to do bentos when my kid went to school for so many reasons, beyond the fact that it makes me look like a cool mom.  So let me tell you why!

1. I am SO COMPLETE lazy and there is no way I want to make sandwiches, shove them in bags.  Have spoons to clean and all that jazz.  If I can boil it or cut it, that is about all I am up for.
2. HEALTHY!  My belief is the meal should be half veggie or fruit, quarter protein and quarter starch.  When you make sandwiches, keeping that ratio is out the window.
3. I got no idea what to pack or how much, so I rummage through the kitchen to fill up all the spots.  So I start with the first thing I could find, apples.  In fact on this day, eggs and peppers were an after thought.  I enjoyed the peppers with cheese the best, while the eggs were gone before I got one for myself.
4. I am snacker and subsequently, I am raising snackers.  If you can eat it with a toothpick, it’s lunch.
5. We love to share. We have the perfect set up to share.
6. Visually appealing.  Sorry for the plastic bag, but it makes good food look boring.  The best way to eat is with all of your senses.  So it should please the eyes, nose, and tongue. And bentos do.
7. I look so cool, especially in my own mind, when I come strollin’ up with this thing.  Then I open it, and the crowds go wild.
8. Most of all, it keeps me just a bit more different from the rest.  That in itself is enough reason for me.

SO shamefully, being a cool bento packin’ momma, is more for my limited culture, but wishin’ I was more alter ego.  Pretty good job fakin’ it, huh? 
And for those of you that happen to have your kids, too close to my bento, I so got your kid to have a veggie!  Try that for pushing my beliefs on your kid!
~trish

Frequency Words – Set 1

 

Realizing we really DO need to be learning the high frequency words for both my 1st grader and Kindergartener, I stole the practice from my daughter’s school last year.  Hehe, being the unschooler (more for the fact that I hate to pay for too much, I also got the word list from her school).

Now they call them Popcorn Words, we call them Happy Meal Words!  See at school when they complete a sheet, they would get a bag of popcorn on Friday.  Well, a bag of popcorn is a regular around here, so what would be so special in that? Thankfully, McDonalds has their Happy Meals on Sale every Tuesday and Thursday for $1.99. 

We are reviewing these words every day.  On Monday, Wednesday, and Friday we review them with a highlighter.  I highlight them if they know them, once the chart is filled, it is HAPPY MEAL time.  Yes, I really will just buy the ONE kid a Happy Meal, the others will just have the usual, McDouble, Apple pie and water.

Here is our first set for both K and 1st.  Of course, I made these after I made my kids.  They are set as 4 by 6, so you can print as a picture and put in a $1 flip book.  Or you can print as half a page.  I used scrapbook paper to make a folder and then printed as half a page.  As they progress, I will staple another page on top, so we can easily review all our sets each week.

 

Being so sweet!  I made a set of blanks so you can make your own. in the same format.   

I will have the other sight word list later.

Enjoy!

~trish

For the Love of Phonics!

I am a firm believer of phonics versus sight words.  My general theory is phonics is a superior form of reading.  That was what I once believed and thought to be true.  Today, a new thought came to mind.  Some kids just can’t blend.

My dear son, is struggling and I am aware and assessing what can be done better. For background, the kid is a logical thinker with the ability to solve any puzzle.  Unfortunately, I think his speech is part of our problem.

Here we go, daughter number one took a month or two to understand how to bring the letter sounds together to make a word.  Since then, she has become a great reader and attempts to sound out most everything.

My son is not.  We are doing the Bob book methods and are at a snails pace.  I am very aware that we will be slow, slow for a while; then all of a sudden one day it will all just click.

Using the teaching with bob method, we have introduced a, m, t, and s.  We built at, mat, and sat. We read pages 1 and 2.  Mat. Mat sat.  Those three words were a chore.  So I set it all aside, keeping these little exercises to 10 minutes. 

Today, I was hoping for a little more.  We used the same letters, reviewed our at based words and built am and Sam. We reread pages 1 and 2, then added 3 and 4.  Sam. Sam sat. He was frustrated.

From these 2 days, this is what I now understand. My son cannot blend the sounds past 2 letters.  Hurray, he can read at, but that is it. It seems like he can’t hear the sounds to register the word that he is saying.  Now I really think this goes back to his speech. 

His articulation has more to do with knowing when to breath when he says each word, or he is taking breathes during the words.  So as he sounds the letters out, he takes breathes that then confuses his listening for the word.  Of course, this is my unprofessional, but practical assessment.

What’s a mom to do? Well, my first instinct is to throw this plan out the door and search the shelves for something new, but that would be ineffective.  I would spend every week and a half looking for something new.  My best bet is to tweak our method to teach phonics.  So this is what I am going to try:

1. I am throwing out the notion that we must sound out these words to read them and replacing it with a sight word memorizing method. yikes!

2. Introduce the root phonically.  Teach the word by sight and review the sounds in the word. So at, is sounded out.  Mat is sight with review of m-at. Do this for all the words, move on once all words in the book are known by sight. Mat, sat, Sam, and on.

Here is my hope, once we are a few books in, the sounding out notion will start to click in his mind.  Then once it clicks, we can go back and review the phonic structure of the word.

I also plan to use the tools by www.1plus1plus1equals1.com for learning sight words.  She has a great sight word program called You Can Read with printables (FOR FREE) that gives the kids a hands on approach to learning 4 sight words at a time. So I have them printed and will be introducing the 4 words from the Bob book and the words in set 1 (a, and, see, the).

I sure hope this works.  I just don’t want to burn him out on 4 words, just because he cannot blend or hear the sounds correctly. Please if you have any advise, I am all ears.  I truly think he will just be a slow to read kid like his parents, but I do not want him to lose his love of books because of it.  I also noticed, he does not have a good reading comprehension to retell a story after hearing it.  It seems as though he is a visual and hands on learner.

By the way, 1st grade daughter #1 is doing awesome.  I should do a post on how amazing she is doing.

~trish

Revised 2011-2012 Curriculum

Crazy.  We are going for a more unschooling approach on my curriculum.  So we will by pass a set curriculum and move through topics on the subjects.  Some things, I will still need, but mostly we will be using what the library has.  This will be kind to my overly cramp house and tight wallet.

Reading/Phonics We will track our first 100 books read for the year by each child.  If the 3 year old wants in, than it will be accumulative until she is reading.

Preschooler: Alphabet.

Kindergarten:  BOB Books!  We will be using the approach presented by www.teachingwithbob.blogspot.com.

1st grader: 

1. Continue on with Bob books.  (I will actually have to place her, to see what set she is in.)
2. A reason for Spelling.  I know I said no workbooks, but this one is a gem so far, she is already 3 weeks into it.
3. The endless supply of easy readers from the library.  We will move through the levels, until we can move to chapter books.  She is really excited about chapter books.

Penmanship: Copy work baby!  So we will progress with tracing, rewrites, and one day, just copying from a book.  All in notebook paper, well, and some from www.donnayoung.org.

Math:

Kindergarten: Patterns, counting, measuring, adding 1 more, adding/subtraction, money, calendar, graphing, shapes.

1st grade: counting to 100, skip counting, telling time, patterns, number order, adding/subtract single and double digit, place value, comparing, calendar, graphing, fractions

Unit Studies: We will do this with lap books, reading aloud, field trips, crafts, and what ever else that gets our fancy tickled. We will do it for until we had enough of it and move on.  It will probably be influenced by Netflix.

So how is that?  Pretty short for a list!  I really think I am going to like this.  By staying away from the workbooks and sticking to a topic, it will force us to be primarily hands on. Hands on is what my kids do best. This is where I have to give my love out for umbrella schools! 

Because we are part of an umbrella school, I do not have to have any of my curriculum or daily lesson plans reviewed.  We can do what is best for our kids, without being bogged down with crazy paperwork.  Not to say, that I won’t record what we do.  I am their mom, who in this world  do you think wants any better for them than me?  I know my kid best.  I expect the best.  I do not need to have them evaluated, so I can be told I did it right.  I will know where my children are at.  But not to say, I might get them tested now and then, just to see.

~trish

Changing the method before starting

So the chaos has begun, before we began.  Haha!  Well, after so much effort on gathering my supplies and curriculum, I am throwing it up in the air. So we did our first few days, kind of winging it.  I thought I had it ready, because I had the books, so we just would do the workbooks, page by page. Easy Peasy!  Not so well!

Unit Study by Netflix!

So first indicator was at the library.  I had an awesome plan, book list and all that jazz to do a bird unit study.  I felt like I had spent a semester prepping for an algebra test, to realize I was taking a history exam.  Yikes!  So at the library, the influence of Netflix reeked havoc in my plan.  The nature documentary of crocodilians and the fact that crocodilian books are for some reason filed in the dewy decimal system next to the birds, landed us into a crocodilian unit study. 

Not really prepared, but I figured we could wing it with a lot of ready.  Let’s just say, I have done a lot of reading about those things and we still have more books coming on loan.  We can safely say, there are no crocodilian books left in our branch of the library.

Workbooks Shmurkbooks!

Next, we are having a small issue with our workbooks.  My darling son, precious #2 HATES them.  Our reading program is sinking has sunk.  He refuses.  No interest, eyes glassed over.

Math also seams to mean nothing on paper to my children, they are hands on. The 3 year old wants to do her school work and the 1 year old trashed the house.  On a positive note, speech is good as long as the list of words for him to say is not bound in a book and I have stickers. 

Unschooling, hmm.

I think we are naturally just unschooling homeschoolers.  Now that is a scary thought.  I have to have a plan.  Or unschooling approach is that we will know the topics to cover, we will use our library and do it, until we get it.  I am thinking we are more of a Charlotte Mason approach.

What flies well around here is reading aloud, manipulative, notebook paper, stickers, and games.  So I need to keep things simpler to be effective.

New Plan!

So new plan with a daily routine built within.

1. Chores. I know this might sound crazy, but the house is out of control.  We could spend all day swimming through books, coloring, exploring, but it doesn’t give use clean underwear in the morning or dinner ready for us to eat.  So chores must come first, besides these are some very important life skills. 

I just learned a new life skill today. Dora is the perfect amount of time to keep the laundry flowing.  After every episode, the washer and dryer was checked and rotated if needed, the dried load was folded and put away before we start the next.  The amazing part was all I had to do was start and load the washer and fold.  The kids did all the moving the laundry around.  Can we have an OHH YEAHH! in the house.

2. School. Simpler is better.  We will simply do a devotion, phonics, penmanship, math, unit study time. I am not covering anything else, nor will I get myself distracted by pretty workbooks, curriculums, or whatever those other homeschool families are doing.

We will also be involved in a weekly homeschool coop, and a monthly one.  I have plans to have the kids join a gardening 4H club (another monthly meeting). Of course, we will do the weekly AWANAs program at our church.  The kids will also take swim lessons 1-2 times a week starting this fall.  Hmm, who ever said homeschool kids are not socialized.  I hope I am up for all this.

3. Play. Then we can play.  Play outside, in the house, as long as it is not a mess in my chore list.  Game on.  I am really thinking we would use this time to garden, cook, sew, woodshop (thanks so much www.anna-white.com). Play!  No TV.

4. TV.  More specifically Netflix.  Once we are exhausted and hot, then the tv can come on.  Of course it will probably just entice the next unit study.  See my children watch the educational stuff and the older movies.  Like tonight, when I was crying my eyes out over  Where the Red Fern Grows.  I think between swamp people and this last one, I might have to get my son a few more pairs of overalls, he is acting as if it is his uniform.  I am also loving all the Christian movies available. NICE!

So I will get into the specific on our new “curriculum”. I am going to say curriculum lightly, since we really will not have a formal one.  We will essentially have topics and progression for reading, writing, arithmetic, and responsibility; those are my Rs.  Well, maybe we will add in relationships.

Pray for me, I need it!
~trish

Phonics – Bob Books – Just beginning

So, here we are already leaving our Phonics program to try something else.  So #2, Mr. Clown, is hard to deal with when it comes to reading out of a manual or workbook.  SO my dragging him through the mud with the Distar Reading program Teach your child to read in 100 lessons is not working!  It is not the method, it is the delivery.

So happy, I just came a cross Brandy at www.teachingwithbob.blogspot.com

She has lesson plans to progress your new to reading through the bob series with intentional reading.  We are going to start this next week.  She has phonics sounding, word building and reading at the first lesson.  She even helps you lay out a great notebook that can be your manual or just to record progress.

Being digital crazy as I am and looking for an excuse to use my laminator.  I decided to make cards that are just smaller than a baseball card, so when I laminate them, they will fit in baseball card sheets.  This way we can use the cards to make the words too.

Brandy lays out her method for getting started, here.

Lessons Day 1, 2, & 3

I hope this will be the nudge he needs to keep his interest.

~trish

Homemade donuts

   

My kids love donuts!  When I am shopping at midnight at Wal-mart, I will give the bakery shelf a look, but none look worthy my money.  I guess I was ruined with the Krispy Kreme at the corner of the university and going in at 9 pm for hot fresh donuts to prep me for a night of cramming.

I used to make these donuts when I was camping, but now as a mom charming my children, I make them about every 2 weeks.  I usually have everything I need; canaster of biscuits, oil, powdered sugar and milk. 

I quarter the biscuits and then fry them.  I make sure the oil is deep enough to cover the dough.  Here they are frying away. 

I then pile them on a plate.  I used to cover them in icing, but we love them warm and the icing would slide off them.  So anymore we just have the icing on the side and dip them.  This makes for a lot less mess.

And then they are gone.

~trish

Number Flashcards

I love printables!  I made these number tracing flash cards for my kids to practice their numbers with.  I printed them as 4x6 photos at the photo lab and then I laminated them.  This is probably the most expensive way to do it, but I had a friend print them so she could get her hands on the file to make a copy for her entire class.

I did redo the numbers, because I was able to get a new font for tracing.  So they look like this.

I am going to share them for you also.  I am using 4shared to access these files.  It is a total of 10 jpeg files.  To download, go here.

 

I love making flashcards.  If you have any ideas for some other ones, leave me a comment.

~trish