Week 3

One of the best parts of this week was the feeling that we are starting to establish a routine that works (at least for now).  I've structured Luke's work so that the subjects requiring the most work for him are immediately followed by something he enjoys.  Here is a typical school routine at our house:

Wake up
Copy work
One 30 minute show (picked by Ben)
Breakfast
Math (I help Ben and Olivia get ready when he doesn't need my help)
Read-Alouds (Luke's favorite)
       Literature
       History
Practice Bible Verse
30 minute Break - The boys entertain Olivia in their room while I (hopefully) take a quick shower and get some chores done.
Explode the Code (phonics) (Ben usually does his "schoolwork" during this time.)
Science
Extras - (art, music, spelling, etc. - depending on the day)
Break - play/lunch until rest time
Reading Practice
Story time (I read to Luke from a chapter book of his choice.  Right now, we're reading our 8th Boxcar Children book.)
Rest

The routine doesn't always work perfectly, and we definitely have distractions (ex: Olivia climbing on the table, Olivia eating the crayons, Olivia wanting to sit on top of the book that we're reading), however, I know that Luke is learning so much and Ben is gleaning tidbits from listening to the stories even while he is playing. 

Here are some highlights from the past week:

History  - The goal for Kindergarten history is simply for Luke to understand that the way people live has changed over the years and to learn that some people have done things that affect the way we live today.  One of our readings this week was about Medieval Times and the Renaissance .  This is probably the boys' favorite history topic so far.  We researched items on a coat of arms and Luke decided to make his purple (royalty) with a lion (bravery).  When the kids are older, Aaron and I plan to have all five of us create a family coat of arms, but this was a good intro.

Luke's coat of arms design

The boys also watched a few Medieval Times videos on YouTube and spent a few evenings this week engaged in battles. 

Science -  Our program is designed to spark an interest in Science and to introduce a wide variety of topics.  I love this idea for kindergarten.  We studied flowers this week, so we took a trip to an English Garden located in our town.  I wasn't sure how exciting the boys would find this to be, but it turned out to be a huge success.  They each had to find 2 of their favorite flowers, draw a picture of them, and answer four questions.  Are the sepals green?  Does it smell good?  Do you get pollen on your finger when you touch the stamen?  What is your favorite part of this flower?  My favorite part was seeing the looks on their faces when they discovered pollen on their fingers.  They loved watching the lily pad pond with the fish and fountains and I practically had to drag the away.  We also checked out the community garden on the same property and I was reminded that we need to include a service project in our school plans.

I also found an interactive website that taught kids about the parts of a flower.  Luke liked using the computer and practicing drag-and-drop, but had very little interest in reading the information.

It seems that throughout the past few weeks we've discovered more creepy crawly things in our backyard than Aaron and I have seen in the past nine years of owning the house.  I guess that is what happens when you have two boys!  We found a katydid this week, but didn't manage to get a picture because my phone wasn't charged.  Another night, they found a worm in front of our neighbors' house and decided to adopt him.  They named him Digger and created a sweet little habitat for him.  Unfortunately, within 30 minutes of bringing him home, Digger was accidentally almost squeezed in half (he managed to survive) and then was dropped between the slats of the backyard deck.

Ben School - Our letter of the week was "C" and Ben enjoyed his usually letter activities.  His highlight of the week was being introduced to sight words.  (Note: I wouldn't say that he is reading.  He isn't ready blend sounds together.)  He loves recognizing words he knows, so I introduced him to "and" and "the" this week.  He was so proud of himself!

Looking for "the" in Daddy's Wall Street Journal so that he can highlight them

Ben's Sight Word Caterpillar

C is for Caterpillar

Luke encouraged Ben as he was finding "and" in one of Luke's readers.
 

Unexpected Learning - I think this has become one of my favorite parts of our week.  I'm learning that if you pay attention, opportunities will arise to learn new things.

This week was my grandfather's 85th birthday.  My parents and my aunt bought an I-Pad for him and we all enjoyed teaching him about his new piece of technology.  I think it was a good reminder to all of us to keep learning as long as we are able.

My grandparents brought two old photo albums to the party.  The boys (especially Benjamin) listened to stories and memories as they looked through the albums with my dad.

For his birthday gift, Luke read a birthday poem to Pappaw.  He was excited, but shy, so it is a little hard to hear.

Another big event for the boys was being hired for their first "job" earning real money.  My dad paid them each $5 to move a pile of wood.  They were so proud of themselves and couldn't wait to put the money in their piggy banks (although the $10 bill almost got split in half when they were told they could split it!

Week 2

 

Overall, I would say that our second week of school was smoother than our first week.  We're starting to find our groove, but we definitely still need some adjusting.  Some things are working really well.  Some tasks are a struggle.  Here are some highlights:

 

 

Handwriting -Handwriting can be either the highlight of our day or an all out battle.  Luke loves Draw Write Now, but absolutely hates any other copy work.  We've tried switching things around a bit and I've had a discussion with a kindergarten teacher friend about how much a 5 1/2 year old boy should be writing at this point in time.  I'm trying to make sure that he is challenged, but I'm also trying to keep in mind that although he is doing a lot of first grade work, he is still a kindergarten aged boy.  I know he'll mature and soon be able to handle writing a little more. 

 

 

 

Draw Write Now - I may need to buy the next book soon!

Math - Luke has been working on his 5 through 10 sets of number bonds.  Number bonds are the pairs of numbers that add up to a total (example: The number bonds for 5 are 5 and 0, 4 and 1, and 3 and 2).  In reality, he is learning addition and subtraction at the same time.  It seems to make sense to him and I think it will help him understand story problems a little better in the future. 

 

 

Using Bingo markers to find the 6 and 7 number bonds

 

We also reviewed counting money by counting the money in the boys' piggy banks and listening to one of their favorite YouTube songs - Coins in My Hands.

 

Ben was very excited to help put the coins back in the piggy bank.

 

Science - We read about dirt and seeds this week.  One of our projects was to move a stone in our backyard to see what was underneath.  We found an ant colony and all of their eggs.  I think they were as surprised to see us as we were to see them!  They scurried around to move the eggs which was incredibly interesting to watch.



Olivia sat down for quite a while to watch the ants scurry

We noticed how well the ants worked together to move their eggs. 
It was gross and fascinating all at the same time.

We also took a trip to the park to take a nature walk/scavenger hunt.  The kids were supposed to find different seeds or ways that seeds traveled.  Luke took pictures of the seeds as we went.  My sister-in-law and her two boys joined us for a picnic and for our hunt.  Four little boys plus Olivia made for a very loud hunt, but we were pretty successful!


Scattering dandelion seeds

We came across a groundhog!

 

Our science readings this week lightly mentioned
mushrooms and spores, so we enjoyed checking this out!

We also spent some time just hanging around.

 

Language Arts/ Literature - We read a few poems from "The Llama Who Had No Pajama" (the spinning poem was both fun to read and fun to do) and some Mother Goose stories.  We also started "James Herriot's Treasury for Children" which was a book that was new to me.  I appreciate that Sonlight has many of these books which often turn out to be amazing.  Luke was introduced to similes and thought it was fun to write his own (yet another writing assignment that didn't cause a battle). 

This is Rugle.  He is as big as a pirate ship.
He is as stinky as a skunk.  He is as mean as a lion.

 

Music - After borrowing a "Peter and the Wolf" CD from the library, my boys decided they were fans of classical music.  They created clothespin puppets of the characters that were really cute.

 

 

Ben's puppets

Luke's puppets

We also learned about the four types of instruments.  I found pictures from of each type of instrument on the Internet and the boys cut them out and sorted them.

Luke's finished project

Benjamin enjoyed tracing the words and being part of a big kid project.
 

 

Ben's Letter of the Week - Ben was excited to learn about the letter B!

 

Play do B - Next time we'll do this on wax paper!

 



The letter "Bee"



 Unexpected learning -  We came across a deer as we were driving home one day and ended up discussing the words "buck" and "doe"and how to spell "uck" words (which luckily did not take an accidental bad turn).



Our first week

One of my main reasons for blogging is to keep track of our adventures.  I'm looking forward to looking back to see what we have learned and how we've adjusted.  Here is a general synopsis of our first week. 

I wanted to make the first day of school very special.  The kids were excited about their new supplies and couldn't wait for the day to start.  Luke requested coffee cake for breakfast, so I found an apple coffee cake (after all, Ben's letter of the week was "A") and prepared it the night before.

 

The boys loved the coffee cake and were excited to start the first day of school!

 

Olivia was not quite as impressed!

We started off well.  I had decided to do the more intensive work first while he was still fresh.  I always prefer to get the hard work out of the way before starting the fun stuff, so I assumed that he would, also.   He completed two pages of Explode the Code, got halfway through his copywork, and then melted.  "This is not what I expected!!!" he cried.

Uh-oh.

We pushed through the rest of his sit-down work and moved onto the fun stuff.  We both enjoy science and had fun reading about the water cycle and watching a song on You-tube to help the boys remember the stages.  Good news - they remember and understand the song.  Evaporation, condensation and precipitation are now part of their vocabularies.  Bad news- The song is ridiculously catchy and they won't stop singing it! 

After we finished all of our work, we sat down to discuss the meltdown.  I decided to give Luke input on how to arrange his schedule.  He said that he likes working on the sit-down work first so that he can get it finished.  We also decided that writing his schedule on a white board and erasing tasks as they were completed would really help us both.   Once he realized that school was both work and fun, our entire week changed for the better.

By Thursday, Luke realized that if he worked hard during school time,
we would have time for special things, like a trip to the park!

Here are some of the highlights from our week (I'll post math, phonics and history photos next time):
 
Music - We borrowed Peter and the Wolf from our library today and have already listened to it twice.  All three kids really seem to love it and the boys started to recognize which instruments represented each character.  We also tried going to a free outdoor folk concert.  It wasn't quite to the kids' liking, but we enjoyed spending time with my parents and it provided an opportunity to introduce a new word into Luke's vocabulary - preferences.

Ben enjoying the music with his Yogi.
 

Art - Color Wheel - The boys learned about primary colors and mixed paints to make secondary and intermediate colors.  All three kids loved breaking out our new paints!

 

 

Nature - An unexpected lesson on cicadas - We found a cicada that had very recently molted.  Luke observed it and drew a picture of both the cicada and the molted skin.  We researched them and found out that they spend most of their nymph life underground until they dig out and shed their skin (several times).  They're the loudest insect and if one were to get into your ear, you could actually lose your hearing.  After reading this, Luke insisted on covering his ears whenever we went near it.  We also learned that they are a favorite of squirrels and decided that ours had picked a really lousy place to molt because it was on a bright blue portion of Olivia's play set underneath a tree that is home to a family of fighting squirrels.

Handwriting/ Art -  We began using Draw Write Now twice a week.

Ben joined in for the fun.  He drew everything by himself
except for the blue lines.

Luke

 

In Language Arts, we discussed using capital letters at the beginning of sentences and for the first letter of a proper name.  We completed this sheet together.  Luke had to decide if each word would begin with a capital or lowercase letter.

They may fight, but Ben was so proud that Luke said he was his best friend. 

Ben loves to work on hands-on activities with Luke.  He has enjoyed Letter A activities.

Bingo Marker A

Push Pin A 

This activity was a big hit.  Ben practiced saying his short "a" sounds
each time he poked his paper.

 

 

Happy First Day of School!

Get Ready! Get Set!

This year, we are going to try year-round schooling.  Our plan will be to "do school" for six weeks at a time and then take a week off.  We'll also take three weeks off at Christmas (which works well because Luke and Olivia's birthdays are the week before Christmas).  During each of our breaks, we're hoping to plan some fun activities and trips to take advantage of low off-season crowds.   If we get behind due to illness or unexpected events, we can use the week-long break to catch up.  If everything goes as planned, we'll finish at the same time as the schools in our area and then have 6 weeks off for the summer.  The rough part will be that we start tomorrow!

I spent Saturday morning going school shopping with my mom.  You would've thought it was Christmas morning when I got home!  The kids tore into every bag, holding up every box of crayons, bottle of glue, or ruler up into the air with screams of joy.  Once they were each in bed for nap/rest time, I was able to organize all of our supplies. 

Top Left- Textbooks, Read Alouds for the first couple weeks of school
Bottom Left- Library books, science journal, resource books, math game
Top Right - Basket (pencils, pens, highliters), Each boy has a pencil bag with their daily supplies
Bottom Right - Crafts and Preschool supplies

A peek inside the blue basket

We also checked out the used book store while we were out.  My mom found a really great book for Luke's car unit.  I had planned to just get books from the library, but this one was too good.  It explains all of the different systems in a car using kid-friendly terms.   I think this is exactly what we needed!

The supplies are purchased.  The plans have been made.  We start tomorrow!

Our Curriculum

Choosing a curriculum for our first year of homeschooling was both exciting and overwhelming.  I was completely amazed at the number of options available.  My first instinct was to figure out which option had the best ratings and reviews, but I soon realized that almost every program had both positive and negative reviews.  After a while, I realized the negative reviews had a common thread.  They typically stated the program "didn't work FOR MY CHILD".  I realized I had been forgetting one of the greatest benefits of homeschooling.  I can tailor our curriculum choices to favor our kids' strengths, learning styles, and preferences.  Some children prefer worksheets.  Some prefer hands-on activities.  Luke prefers to listen to good books.

I found a wonderful program called Sonlight that many of our other homeschool friends use (or used at one point in time).  One of them referred to the kindergarten year with this program as "magical."  The history, Bible and literature portions are all read-alouds.  The stories are set in various times and places, so we have blank maps and timelines to fill in throughout the year.  We spent the majority of our summer reading time going through stories that were added to the curriculum after we purchased it (they periodically review their programs) and he loved the selections (Beezus and Ramona, Little House in the Big Woods, and the Complete Adventures of Curious George).   The program also includes Language Arts (including copy work, writing practice and spelling). 

Box Day!  Everyone was excited to see all of our new books!

We're going to continue using Explode the Code for phonics instruction and the Sonlight Grade 1 reader list for reading practice.  We started the readers back in April and have practiced almost everyday, so we'll finish the list early, but I know we'll find lots of other books to read now that Luke's skills are progressing.

We're also going to stick with Singapore Math this year.  Luke will be doing 1A and 1B workbooks and the Intensive Practice book.   I really like the way this program and I've read that if we start with it and stick with it, he'll be really strong in understanding math concepts. 

Luke (and Ben!) learning about the value of money
while finishing Singapore Math K.

One of our many reasons for choosing to homeschool is that we want to encourage our children to research and study on their own.  We want them to know that learning is something that is not just done inside a school building between the hours of 8-3:30.  As a first introduction to this concept, Luke is going to be choosing a topic during each six-week period to research (we're doing year-round school, but that is a different subject for a different post).  He decided that his first topic would be cars.  We plan to go to the library to check out books about how cars are designed, take a trip to get the oil changed (I believe our place will allow him to get out of the car to watch if Aaron holds him), take a trip to the Rouge factory tour, assemble a toy model car, and (just for fun) wash the van.  Cars will not be a staple of our daily curriculum, but I hope having small choices in his learning, he'll realize that he can take ownership of his education.

We won't be completely on our own.  We joined a co-op with about 50 families from our community.  We meet once a week for the kids to go to their classes.  Luke is going to be attending Gym, Engineering (with me!), and Story of the World (History).  Ben will be joining the preschool class and Olivia is taking over the Toddler room.  We've already met a few of the families and I know the boys will make some really good friends.

The boys are also going to enjoy ice skating lessons and after a summer of intro to swimming classes, Luke will be starting Level 1 swim lessons.  Our schedule is really starting to fill up!



  

A Change of Direction

So . . .  I haven't written in quite a long time.  Don't get me wrong, I've had plenty of stories to tell.  The kids give me plenty of material each and every day.  I really could write books.  I've been debating, however, about how to use this blog.  My kids are growing up in uncharted territory where a click of a button releases information to the whole world.  What I write will have the potential to be seen by just about anybody.   I know that at least one of my children has inherited my ability to become embarrassed easily and would be mortified if he knew that goofy things he said or did were on the Internet.  I've even tried to cut back on Facebook posts about the crazy things that they do.  I want to do right by my children and cause as little damage as possible!

Building a log cabin in the backyard while wearing their superhero
costumes.  Like I said, they provide plenty of material.

This predicament means that I am left with far less topics for blogging.  I can write about current events in our lives, or I can just brag on my kids.  Current events are good, but probably not intriguing for people to read.  Bragging on my kids is fun, but paints a very distorted picture of our daily life.  Our lives, however, took an unexpected turn and I suddenly have many topics about which I want to write!

This blog is now going to chronicle the life of our homeschooling family.  (Well, hopefully it will do that . . . . consistency in writing my blog is not necessarily my forte.)  I'm hoping to use the blog as a journal of our first year of homeschooling, so that we can look back and see all of the exciting things we've learned together as a family. 

If someone had told me two or three years ago that we would be considering homeschooling, I would've laughed.  I enjoyed school and I enjoyed teaching, so homeschooling was not even on my radar.  We have several friends who home school, and we had always said that the idea was nice for them, but wouldn't work for us.  We were looking forward to the school experience and going to school concerts, back to school night, and a list of other traditional school activities.
For the past two years, Luke went to a private preschool.  He loved going to see his friends and he loved his teachers.   He was academically ready for kindergarten material at the beginning of his second year of preschool (his birthday is just a few weeks short of the cutoff), so I started working on teaching him to read at home.  I had always thought that teaching him would be awkward and weird, but it felt very comfortable and natural to us both.  I loved cuddling on the couch with him while he learned a new vowel sound, or having him sit across from me at the dining room table working with base ten blocks while I was working on the computer.      

Luke's drawing of arteries and veins


 

Throughout the past year, we've enjoyed observing caterpillars and watching them turn into moths, learning the value of different coins and counting money, and singing songs about the months of the year, days of the week and continents on the globe.  We've trapped, identified and researched bugs from the backyard, discovered that Beverly Cleary is an amazing author, and learned about primary and secondary colors.  Learning has been relaxed and fun.  In the process, Ben and Olivia have learned a great deal, too!  The other day, I overheard Benjamin teaching Olivia about animal sounds and it is not uncommon to hear Benjamin singing Luke's days of the week song. 



Benjamin teaches Olivia about African animals

I'm really excited about the upcoming year.  I know that we are going to have days that are challenging and days that are bliss (and many in between), but I hope this will be an overall positive experience for our family.