A Place to Learn

Our official start date is the week of labor day.  I plan to use that week just to celebrate school, do some fun little projects, introduce the books to the kids, and begin a couple of our books that have much needed introductions. I  honestly have a problem!

I have boycotted our cluttered dining room as a schoolroom.  I have demanded above demands for a shed to school in our backyard. Please look, couldn't you just imagine a learning sanctuary in one of these (with AC and electric, of course).


My demands were not given into though.  I have hit a truce with my dh that for this year, we will  convert a bedroom into a schoolroom. Well, I have been pining since June, with a completion date of September.  Although we are only a third of the way into August, the future homeschool room does not look as though it will be move in ready by September.

I do not know what to do.  I know I can make the dining room work in a pinch, but I cannot wrap my brain around it to get things ready.  I am so overwhelmed with the crowded conditions that I am afraid I will not be able to start on time.  I guess all I can do is pray!

I started this post about a month ago.  My dining room is a mess, but we are getting it done.  September is coming to an end, and that bedroom is not close to ready.  My husband made a comment that he has until December to finish the new room for us to even move out of the potential school room.  See "potential" is now sneaking into my vocabulary.  Seriously, He will then have the other room move in ready for school? What January?  Hmmm, I am having a baby in January.  There is no schoolroom set up in January, so what February?  So I am going to set up shop in a room that we can only use until June.  February to June, 5 months.

I think we are stuck at the dining room table eating around all these books. please tell me I am not the only one?
~trish

Our 2012-2013 School Year - Routine

I feel horrible for not being more interactive and at the same time, I have been extremely careful in controlling my personal distractions.  I just do not want to be a mom that homeschools only to have something to blog about or seem to get  it all. So I have taken to my speech to only air my advise with "in my humble opinion", because seriously, who am I to know.  I might have 4 kids, but I have only been parenting for 8 years.  I have not even completed the task of raising a single child.  So sure, in 10 years, maybe I can speak with a bit more real world experience and a glimpse of the whole picture.  really?  I am not really going to know how it all works out until I am probably 90 years old and seen how the accumulation of all of my efforts and decisions blossomed into reality. Besides, I feel like a dipstick in the pursuit of what works for us.

So we are 3 weeks into our school year and we are just now finding our groove. Our biggest accomplishment is our routine.  I am invoking a little bit of Fly Lady on them.  Each morning they are required to get dressed, make beds, and together sort and put away one basket of laundry, before breakfast.  Sadly as basic as this sounds, this folks is monumental!

The other thing we swapped was when we did our subjects. I tried starting right out in the morning with independent work first.  Well, 2 year old and 4 year old would invoke chaos! Then the 1st and 2nd grader would manage to spread this work out over the entire day, so history and science was a bust.  Now we do our science and history in the morning all together and then during quiet time for the littles, they somehow manage to swiftly get their independent work done.  Also, I am really only doing science and history 1 time a week and on the other days we do random cool, because we stay home kind of things.

Our Basic Weekly Routine
Monday - Well honestly, it is just a free-for-all on the our together homeschooling.  This could be unstructured bike ramp building with dads tools or a mud bath the went bad in the back ditch.  Seriously, it is more of my recovery time from dad junking up my routine all weekend.  Did I mention I am pregnant.

Tuesday - This is our no school day!  HaHA!  We start our morning with a homeschool gymnastics class and follow it up with picking up our books from the library, and then lunch, and on to my chiropractic appointment.  I had a huge sense of guilt over all this car time and no "school time" that I went to Sam's and got the  4 subject grade level workbook for each kid.  I just ask them to do one page of each subject for the day and my bad homeschool mommy guilt subsides.

I don't even check it, but I will say I have had to improve on my  mommy what is this word spelling  coming from the back seat.  Our how about describing in detail how to alphabetize with out sitting side by side with the paper in front of you.

Wednesday - Okay, a sense of get on this hits me first thing in the morning.  So we get our little fly routine done and we sit together and get our Science worked on with a bit of reading out loud, exploring library books, and some sort of something cool.  We might spend about 2 hours total.  We also have AWANAS at church that night too.

Thursday- Trying to keep ourselves moving along, we spend our mornings reading and doing our History lesson.  Usually this is where the mess comes in.  Last week, we learned about what history is and archaeology, then followed it up with making a timeline for each kids.  Plenty of photos and glue sticks.  What a great project to use up extra photos that did not make it into the scrapbook.

Friday - Alright, I am whipped and tired.  I did a Ladies Bible Study the night before.  We move our afternoon independent work to the morning.  Around noon, we should have some friends show up and we all chum around for a play date.  I am thankful to get through another week.  By late Friday night, a sense of guilt once more hits me and I realize I had better reserve the library books I need in 2 weeks or I will never have it in time.

Our afternoons run the same, typically. We eat lunch and then I send my 2 yr old to bed.  We clean up from lunch and get the books out.  The 4 yr old gets the big pre-k book out and at random works on several pages of her choice.  This is her 20 - 30 minutes of school, I give a her a 5 minute warning with this is your last page and then send her off to nap.  During that time the 1st and 2nd grader work independently on math and spelling. The grammar and writing we work on together. The 2nd grader reads alone and the 1st grader and I read together.

I will layout our curriculum next time.  I must continue to say that I am so content with Susan Wise Bauer's techniques and developed path. I probably would not consider myself a highly disciplined homeschool mom. And I am completely aware that I am very relaxed, but I have found that her method is fool proof.  I am astonished at the capacity they are learning and retaining, with minimal prep work on my part. MINIMAL!

Until we meet again.
I do have to share, I am still in the first trimester exhaustion phase, even though I am 6 months along. I look forward to the things I will have the energy to partake in their studies.
~trish

plans, plans, plans.

Making a plan is all well, but I have a hard time putting it to paper.  I need something simple and easy.  I came across a few things and found a great one that I love at http://www.mamajennblogs.com/2010/08/my-homeschool-planning-docs.html


I printed out a set and have a set of plans for each kid.  I have them in a 3 ring binder with a tab for each month (we are having a hard time fitting the pages in a 1/2" binder for 2 kids, by next year we will be in a 1").  I am trying to have plans ready to at least the end of December.  I am slowly making headway.  We will not actually be starting until September 11th.

I am thankful for our later than usual start date.  We will run from September to the end of June this year for a total of 36 weeks of actual curriculum.  Of course, everyday is filled with learning.  From now until September, I am finishing collecting our curriculum and organizing it.  Most of all, I hope to finally have a space with a door to designate to our homeschooling.  What a thought!

So we are slowly, preparing away.  I hope by September to be able to show you all of our amazing books and our curriculum choices for this year.

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

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

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

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

Notebooks for homeschooling

I love workbooks!  I love workbooks for so many reasons.  They are pretty!  You can mindlessly plan.  They remind me of being a small child playing school for some odd reason.  I love them, they get me excited about what adventure I am going to take.  What I do not like, it they cost money, a reasonable amount, but when you are buying multiples, it adds up.

Trying to keep our cost down.  I figured we would use notebooks and at $0.20 each, they are a steal.  For me, they are so boring!  To change that, I decided to go through my untouched scrapbook supplies to see what we could use.  (For those of you gasping that it is obvious that I used Creative Memories AWESOME paper and stickers for notebooks.  Yes I did.  Because I went digital and I can use that artwork over and over {{insert raspberries}} SO ha!)

Well we turned it into a day of making things pretty.  I feel between these 2 selections, I will easily know who’s is who’s.

Here they are all done.  3 for the Kindergartener, 3 for my 1st grader, 1 for the know-it-all 3 year old, who could not handle not being part of something.  Then there are 3 for me, 1 for my thoughts on our homeschooling plans, 2 for plans with my blogs.

 

Here is an example of how I am using the handwriting notebook. first off, all the notebook paper is college rule, this way using 2 lines is a great size for writing for their ages.  This is my 1st graders writing.  She traces and then writes on her own.  I have the lines to show top and bottom to help her know where to stop.  I made the mistake of not highlighting the lines only once. 

I am still fine tuning our curriculum plan for the upcoming year.  We will be reading a lot of books and doing unit studies.  I figured we will linger in each unit study for as long as we are enjoying it.

The other aspect is, I have no idea how long I will stick with this.  I have a thing for notebooks.  I collect them.  There are hundreds of them.  I seem to gravitate to them and here I am conditioning my children to do the same.  Hmm, I might need to set a jar up for therapy at later date for them.

~trish

Preparing to start soon.

 

So I have been working on my first 9 week plan for school.  We will be starting in 10 days! so I figured it would be a good time to get things in order.

To start with, we live in a tiny house with lots of littles (please insert TREX voice from Meet the Robinsons). So the only thing I got for me is a book shelve.  SO here we go for order.

Top Shelf: Lego box, box of old school readers (from the 50s), and a box of Discovery Toys.  Side note:  Just found discovery toys and love them, there are so many cool things to use with homeschooling.

Second Shelf: Blue box of flash cards, mint condition.  I have no idea, I love buying flash cards, but we never use them. The basket on top is all of speech stuff.  All those workbooks are left over half done stuff.  So we will work them into our days, because I cannot throw them away.

Third Shelf:  This is our work station.  A basket for Mr. Family Clown and for Miss Helper.  I figured I would put just that day’s work in the blue basket.  Then a shoe box with pencils, scissors, and pencil sharpener.

Fourth Shelf:  A box for each kid to keep all their active workbooks.  I have another big box for all my teacher manuals.  That binder is My Father’s World Kindergarten with all the tabs for each unit and letter.  You can see it here in full.

Underneath is the Marbleworks and all of our coloring books.

 

I should have taken a before and after, but to give you an idea how I work.  This is a before and after of my desk!

So we I am getting excited.  The last of our stuff will get here tomorrow.  I still have more things to get together, like enrolling them in an umbrella school and unenrolling them out of public.  So counting the days down.

~trish

Our 2011-2012 Course of Study

 

 

We are using a lot of what I have had in the past.  The main reason is, in the last 3 years I have purchased a lot of different things and either didn’t finish it or just never used it.  (ESPECIALLY WORKBOOKS!  Yikes!)

My other thing is my 1st grader would be great with workbooks and creative play, my kindergartener, not so much.  He quickly bores in a workbook.  I will use a workbook to keep use on course, but he will be using a lot of hands on learning and games.

The Kindergartener – Mr. Family Clown

Phonics: We will be using My Father’s World (MFW) K Curriculum for systematically introducing sounds.  He know most of the letters, but I want to be sure that he has a strong foundation.

 

We will also be using Learn to read in 100 Lessons.  I love this book!  I used it on my last year K, while she was still in school.  She immediately began jumping through their frequency words, because she could read them.  I know it says that they are not to sound them out, but up until then, the words were just shapes that she was trying to know the names of.  Too much guessing.

For my Mr. family Clown, this is work.  I will be pulling him along the entire way through this book, but it will be a great investment of energy and patience.

Penmanship: We are winging it, but plan to do a lot of writing. MFW has 1 day a week of penmanship in the curriculum.  I will be also be using the printables from www.DonnaYoung.com, she has a set of printables to go along with teach your kid to read.  Of course, we will be using our notebooks.

Math: We will be counting 100 days of school and tracking the calendar.  we will be using the Spectrum Math Workbook to keep us on track.

We will also be using Hands on Math for K-1 grades, to help us from getting too bored and not making me invent too many activities.

 

My 1st Grader – Ms. Helper

Phonics:

We are finishing off Learn to read in 100 Lessons.  We will also be doing a lot of reading.

A Reason for Spelling! - A

-

We are already working through the phonics review.  It is most definitely a review for her.  I look forward to getting her into the spelling.

Grammar:

Spectrum Language Arts – 1

Printables from Starfall

Penmanship:

www.donnayoung.org

Math:

Spectrum Math –1

Hands on Math k-1

 

Unit Studies:

We will be using the My Father’s world K curriculum of unit studies for each letter.  we are picking up where we left off at last year, even though my son will be doing the phonics from scratch.  I plan to take as long as we want to on each unit.  The nice part is that there are great hands on projects for the kids to do in each study.

So we will be starting off with Bird Nest.  So once, I begin planning that, I will post all the information I am using for that Unit study.

~trish

Needing Speech.

My son was about 3 1/2 years.  Every day was a melt down. Let me repeat that, every day, every hour, every moment.  I could not figure out how a precious little perfect baby boy had turned into a melt down machine waiting to explode. 

It was a couple months before he turned 2 and a month before #3 was born that he morphed into this child.  I figured it was the terrible twos, but we were a year and a half later and it was just uglier.  Thankfully, I was on the phone with a high school friend telling her about my precious son and my trials (clearer picture, I was cringing with complete frustration that I had an out of control kid with obvious behavior problems.)

The light was turned on.  She told me, she had the same problems with her son and then he got speech therapy and transformed back to his preciousness. I had never considered that he needed speech, he was just slow to talk. And then the light came on, at 3 1/2 years old, I only understood about 20% of what he said. What that is not normal?!

By the time we went through all the hoops to get him into the public school therapy, he was 4 and I could already understand about 50%.  Well in that next year in the VPK program with speech therapy, he is 100% understandable.  He is also a happier kid.

I absolutely had no idea how frustrated the little guy was.  Now that I look back, I feel like a horrible mom.  I was so frustrated with him too.  I mean, I was buying into the bad mommy phsyco-ness of maybe he did not spend enough time with his dad. (I was seriously thinking of packing a briefcase for the little guy and sending him to work, it would have made my day so much easier).

Now that my son is not frustrated and can communicate, you have got to see the wide eyes of shock when I tell them that I am keeping him home.  Gasp! I here all kinds of responses.  The speech therapist convinced my husband that my son will digress. I have been told his behavior improvements is the result of structured environment with socialization. I was also told he needs to be challenged.  

At all of these accusations, I laugh in the face of controversy.  So really, I scratch my head at friends and family that have such good intentions, but no idea what my reality is really like.

1. So will my son digress in his speech? Umm, I don’t think so.  Now that the kid can be understood he never STOPS talking.  Trust me, there are days that his lack of articulation would be welcomed so the girls have no idea the names he is calling them or the sing song taunting he is so good at. The reality is, this child has now learned how to use his mouth correctly and a mom to gently remind him when he forget to.  Backsliding will not be a problem.

There are programs available to do speech at home and then there are also private speech therapist that will do all the speech therapy you need or guide you and evaluate your needs and progress to stay the course. so we will not be dropping out of a speech program.

2. Is my kid more socially adapted because of school? Uh, no.  When I hear of comments that school has done so good for him, well sure it has, because speech was part of it.  On a side note, I do not think that public education is a waste, I believe it is what you make of it.  And for me and my house it is just not for this momma. 

If my kid ends up being a weird homeschooler, trust me they would be a weird public schooler too.  In fact, if they are one of those kids, they are better off being with their own kind. At least until the self confidence is obnoxiously good, that they would never know a difference and the rest of us can be the weird ones.  It is all about perception.

3. Will the boy will be challenged?  Are you kidding, if anyone can challenge him, it is his momma.  How in the heck can a teach be focused on him, when they have a classroom of kids.  If he needs anymore challenging, I can challenge him to pick up his room until he is good at it and then we can move on.

Ha! Showed you, didn’t I?  An answer for everything, trust me I have them.  So we are working on making it all work.  I will promise you, I do not have it all figured out.  In fact I had to quit homeschooling after 2 months last year, so my husband is a little untrusting of me. 

My only theory is, I have to homeschool them, it is a desire that burns in me, long before having kids. I cannot make it go away and I will never be satisfied until I am just doing it.  My other thought is, if this desire that God has put in me than He will provide.  So I am winging it and I will not get over ran in the desire to be perfect, just done.

So with that note, I guess I will take these hoodlums to the library.  Isn’t that where weird homeschool kids go to hang out, that and the local riff-raff. And trust me, we are the local riff-raff.

~trish