Just a quick note to let everyone know that I really do intend to stay updated on this blog -- it is just that unfortunately, two weeks ago, we were hit by a HUGE computer virus that has me without a computer. . . YET AGAIN. grrrrr
I hope to get on my wonderful husband's work laptop this weekend to post a bit, but if not, just hang in there with me and I will be back as soon as I can!
Have a wonderful weekend :-)
Week One: Review
So, we did begin our Kindergarten journey on June 29th. While we have always been year rounders, we decided to go to a 6 week on / 1 week off format for this year. When Monday came around, I had all six weeks figured out -- although that was pretty easy since I was using curriculum that is pre-planned for you.
I did try my variation of Workboxes this week, with pop up hampers that I had purchased from the $1 bin at Target. I had a schedule for each of them that had velcro for either numbers (that correlated to a number on a box) or a picture card (such as Computer Time, Tea Time, Lunch, etc;). I must say that I love the idea of workboxes, how they are meant to give a child a sense of accomplishment -- seeing what has to be done each day and the sense of pride of finishing them one by one -- and I love that it should provide me time to work one on one with each child for Math and Language Arts, since they are on different levels this year. However, they did not work as planned and we abandoned them in week 3. I am really looking forward to the HOTM Conference tomorrow where I can hear Sue Patrick, the master mind behind the concept, and hopefully figure out some tips!
Back to Week One, we used Sonlight for Bible, Scripture Memorization, History, Literature, and Poetry for our "together" lessons, Horizon Health, and NOEO Biology. For their separate subjects, Cali did start with Sonlight LA 1st grade and Math U See Primer, and Jordan used Sonlight LA 2nd grade and Math U See Alpha.
Our daily schedule this week had us doing our morning chores before sitting down to breakfast at 8:30. During this time, I read aloud our Bible lesson (this week we covered creation - the beginnings of Abraham), and we listened to the Sonlight Scripture CD for the verse of the week (All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God). The CD is a huge hit with the girls, probably because it is what they are used to -- I always made up silly songs and dances to help them remember our verses each week, I am just now happy to not have to be coming up with them myself! During this time, we also went over our Health lessons. The first unit focused on feelings, so we discussed different emotions each day.
After that, we moved upstairs. This week, since we were attempting the workbox idea, Jordan would get computer time (she loves Starfall and educational sites like that) while I would work with Cali on her language arts. This was a tricky week because she would easily be able to read the words while on index cards, and would beg to be able to read them in the Sonlight Word List Book (a book that simply listed the spelling words in list form) BUT would completely freak out about reading those very same words in the stories Sonlight provided! We broke it up as best we could, we would cover up the rest of the words, but it still wasn't completely working at this point. Daddy would also read with her in the evenings, as she loved having one on one time and they have a similar learning style so he "gets" her wiggleness much more so than I do :-) We worked on the basic "at" family this week. I will say the biggest struggle is that she wants to learn how to read, she is always looking at books and she sees how well Jordan can read and wants to be just like her, so she asks for it. . . and really, she can sound out pretty easily all CVC words and knows several sight words, but she just doesn't have the confidence that she can do it. I see her frustration sometimes and I try to stop -- I mean, hey, she is only 3!!! -- but that makes her even more upset. So we have been focusing on just trying to be low key and keep it fun (I figured out many more ways to do this, and things started going much better in week 2!)
Then it was time for Cali to get on the computer and Jordan work with me on Language Arts. Jordan's language arts is much more involved, being at a second grade level, and I hear a lot of people say that the language arts is either too busy or "too natural" but I have to say that we ABSOLUTELY LOVE IT! We do make a few modifications, however. She gets her spelling words at the beginning of each week, which I first say outloud and she attempts to write on the white board. This week was all about compound words and she knew them on the very first day. We did have fun mixing and matching endings and different words. All week she LOVED finding examples of compound words in different things she read or heard! :-)
Jordan's copywork was not so good -- we began using Italic print, using StartWrite. Unfortunately, any time that Jordan didn't try her best or would make a mistake, she would just say that it was "an ITALIC H" or "an ITALIC S." That was not going to fly! We did split up the copywork assignment to a few words each day, to last all week, and quickly decided to switch to your standard "ball and stick" penmanship in week 2!
For Jordan's creative writing assignment, on Wednesday she answered five questions to work on "Descriptive Words." She held out one of her favorite toys -- Chattery -- and answered questions in regards to how it looked, smelled, tasted, sounded and felt like. My job at this point is to ask the questions, help her understand what they want and simply copy down word for word what she says. Even though she is only 4, she has NEVER had a problem with story telling or describing ANYTHING, so this was just a fun exercise for her! Thursday she then "wrote" a Descriptive Paragraph that was 6 sentences long and was just wonderful. At this stage, at least, she is very gifted in storytelling!
We do not do the optional Explode the code or Wordly Wise with her, as we feel that would be unnecessary busy work. The only other part of her Language Arts is the actual reading. She is reading The Beginner's Bible, one story at a time, and is reading with such fluency and dramatic flair that it is a pure joy!
At that point, Jordan would get a "FUN" box -- such as her Draw Write Now book or Lite Brite or something, while I worked with Cali on Math. Math U See Primer is the only one that is not mastery based, you can move at their pace, but Cali is absolutely flying through this! We are on week 6 right now and she is in Chapter 15! Really, she would sometimes look at me with the "Are you SERIOUS?" look on her face before answering the question in a "No Duh" type voice, HA! She is such a silly nut!
Cali would then get a "FUN" box -- maybe a preschool activity in a bag, a lace up shape or colors -- while I worked with Jordan on Math. She is in Alpha, which is the mastery level, but she is also doing very well. She flew through the first few chapters, getting a perfect "score" (although we don't really keep grades) on the "tests" for chapters 1 -4 within the first week and a half! I can't remember which chapters she did this week exactly, but what I do know is that both girls enjoy Math and I am not afraid to teach it, which is GREAT!
At this point it would be around 10:30 and the girls would get free time while I recapped with Gregg via IM, check email, do a few chores and begin lunch.
This week, we would just enjoy lunch, and then move to our Read Aloud time. We have made some changes to this, but just remembering how well it went is making me want to try this again. I absolutely LOVED our Read Aloud time! We would all snuggle up in my big bed and read our Literature, History and Science pages.
The Boxcar Children was our literature selection this week. We were only "supposed" to read Chapters 1 -5 and it was "supposed" to take 3 weeks, but we finished the entire book this week! I would read only one chapter in the beginning, then move onto History and Science, saying that I would read more IF they listened just as well to the other two subjects. Our History read aloud was from Hero Tales, a book on missionaries, and we read about Gladys Aylward. I had been leery of this book, hearing it was too advanced for the age group, and my girls are younger than the suggested age, but we had no troubles at all. The girls were able to do easy narrations and enjoyed it! Our Science read aloud was DK Weather as NOEO focused on weather for the first 4 weeks. We would look at the pictures, read the captions and just talk about the subject with narrations and discussing examples. Then we would always go back to The Boxcar Children! :-)
After this, I was trying a Nap Time. One day that worked. . .
Then it was free time (although they did have two boxes with "FUN" items in it, if they wanted -- but we never got to them!) until 3:00, which was Tea Time. We would have a fun snack and read the Poetry selection from Sonlight, Language and Thinking from Sonlight, or other literature selections from other "treasuries" we are working through, as well as just recap our day and listen to music.
Besides the workboxes, the other thing that I had planned out that didn't work as planned was working in a SL Prek Theme schedule (which I got from a SL yahoo group). I had been concerned that the K schedule might be over Cali's head, since that is what everyone warned about, so I wanted to work in books that would be more age appropriate. Really, she has been doing wonderfully, and I have just pulled some favorites out to read with her one on one in case she was too young to remember them (since we had read almost all before). We hadn't read 20th Century Treasury before and that has moved to Tea Time, and besides that, all the other ideas I had to make it more "hands on" and supposedly more "age appropriate" has just felt like busy work to both of us and has been phased out. :-)
Well, I think that is a good review of Week One. I am sure there were wonderful discussions had that could have been included, and I could have listed Jordan's descriptive paragraph, but this is already pretty lengthy!
I will be back with Week 2 in Review soon. . . I hope! :-)
Over the last few months, Gregg and I have been having "Advisory Board" meetings for our homeschool. During preschool, he would meet with me once a month to help choose topics for the various weeks, and we did sit down together to plan out what curriculum we would use for Kindergarten, but apparently I was still presenting myself with a sense of fear in regards to our homeschool.
Although we have taken the last few weeks off due to various vacations and events, my mother comes over on most Friday nights to do a Bible Study with me and Gregg. Our last study was Too Busy Not To Pray. One of the lessons was on fear and how it can hold us back in our prayer life. After our study was over, Gregg and I ended up having a marathon discussion on fear in regards to homeschooling. Although I didn't feel as though I was fearful, it was coming across that way. After much discussion, we realized that it boiled down to not having a written down, agreed upon vision for our homeschool. Not a strict plan on what curriculum to use each year or books to read, but an overall goal for what we want for our girls by the time they graduate, and an idea of what time periods in history we wanted to cover and when.
We had discussed these things verbally through the years, but it was never put on paper, and never so formally. Gregg's MBA really paid off in helping us set attainable goals and narrowing it down to what we want. We used the model from Educating a Whole Hearted Child and added our own ideas to it. Along with our homeschool vision and mission statement, and overall homeschool objectives, we listed the subjects we wanted to cover and what our goals were for each of the subjects. This became the Keep the Way Christian Academy Statement of Purpose. We then came up with a basic K-12 plan for each of those subjects, a plan for when we would cover those areas (and things such as when we would cover what time period in history). Then, we planned out the next 3 years.
We believe that our statement of purpose is pretty much in "stone," while our K-12 plan is in "ink." The 3 year plan is in pencil, meaning we know that it can change, but it definitely helped me to know in detail what we want to cover, and for those 3 years, what curriculum we would like to pursue. A major advantage of this for me was that I was constantly reading about different curriculums that I thought all sounded great, and I worried about not only fitting them in but when. By doing the 3 year plan, and seeing what we wanted to cover, it all fell into place naturally! I can do Sonlight Language Arts for awhile, since the girls and I both enjoy it, and in 3rd grade when the SL LA program doesn't match wonderfully with our plans for history and literature, I can switch to Learning Language Arts Through Literature for a year. For history, Sonlight does the first part of world history in first grade, the second part in second grade, and moves to American History in third grade. Gregg and I would rather do a year overview of world history in first, an American history overview and intro to American geography in second, and then begin our four year History rotation in third. That means that we can use Sonlight (with my own modifications between SL 1 and 2 since I prefer the History in one and read alouds in the second lol) for first, get to try My Father's World for second with their "Adventures in My Father's World" program, and use Mystery of History for third grade along with some wonderful read alouds from The Heart of Wisdom Teaching Approach and the notebook supplement from Winter Promise!
I guess we really are eclectic after all, huh? I fought that label for awhile, wanting to be strictly unit studies as that seemed so freeing, then I wanted to be Charlotte Mason as that seemed so lovely, but in reality, we are just US. Jeans wearing, book loving, variety-is-the-spice-of-life believing, God worshipping, eclectic US. And I like that :-)
Now this post was supposed to be about our first week of Kindergarten. Somehow my fingers hijacked my plans, but maybe that is because someone out there was struggling with fear issues as well in regards to a certain aspect of their homeschool journey. I am not saying that my answer works for everyone -- in fact, I know many people who would balk at this approach -- but the peace it has given me has been wonderful. Now, when I read about a great book, curriculum, idea or unit study, I look to see if it fits with our plans for the next 3 years. If it does, I make a note to bring it up in our next "Advisory Board" meeting to discuss adding it to our plans, and if it doesn't, then I keep on moving. If I wouldn't be covering that topic for another 4 years or more, it is likely that there will be new products out at that time that may be even better or if it truly is right, it will come up in my research when I plan for those years. I am telling you, this has truly set me free!
Well, the girls quiet time is almost over. Hopefully I can hop on this weekend to begin journaling our Kindergarten Adventure. For now, I will just end with the first sentence I originally wrote for this post, before my fingers hijacked it. :-)
We began our journey into Kindergarten June 29th. . .
I will be posting all things Kindergarten starting tomorrow (probably), but right now I am cleaning up my Master "Teacher" Binder and found two recipes that Jordan created sometime last year. I want to post them here before I lose the scrap piece of paper. . .
She loves to watch cooking shows on The Food Network with me, and one day she asked me to write these down for her. Unfortunately, we haven't tried either yet, but we may just try the second one this weekend!
You can tell that I was ready for something new by my notes. I started the year documenting every single thing we did -- books read (and when we read them), crafts done, side notes to self on how the lessons went, etc;
As you could maybe tell from my last post, my notes started to include less and less. . . now that I am looking at our final month (4/20 - 5/31) it is a simple spreadsheet that was pre-typed that listed the date, the letter focus, what day in the Bright Beginnings book we were using for Math, Language Arts and Bible (at this point, I knew we weren't going to use it for a full 36 weeks so I was picking and choosing the lessons that I thought we could benefit from since most were pretty simple anyway), the animal focus, the job focus, the geographic focus and any literature units.
I also knew by this point what we were going to be doing for Kindergarten. Sometime in April, Gregg and I sat down and decided that it was time to move on from FIAR and try Sonlight. I wanted to make sure I covered the remaining FIAR books that I was interested in (and that my library carried), so we just added them in.
4/20-4/24 brought us the letter "M." What a fun week this was!!!! My wonderful friends from Homeschool Share and various blogs from around the globe, along with our amazing family members, sent our girls postcards and letters this week so we could focus on Mail! Our occupation was Mail Carrier and our literature unit was Meerkat Mail. I used this unit from HSS, along with lapbook pieces from Mailing May, Boxes for Katje, and printables from USPS and Enchanted Learning, to learn about the mail system, writing letters AND track the mail the girls received from around the globe. My favorites were postcards from England and South Africa!!! What I failed with was getting letters sent back out. . . I had wonderful intentions but I STILL have not gotten any stamps (just ask my two father in laws who have yet to get the lovely Fathers Day cards that are sitting waiting and addressed! Luckily for my father, he lives next door so I couldn't mess that one up too badly. Martha Stewart, at least in this regard, I am not!) Just thought I would be real there for a moment about my correspondence flaws. . . now, where was I? Oh yes, school. Our animal focus was Meerkats and mice, and our geographic focus was Mexico. We used a wonderful unit from HSS for this -- The Old Man and the Door -- and we absolutely loved it! My favorite part of this week was eating Mexican food every single night! Since moving to Houston, I have fallen in love with Mexican dishes and collect recipes whenever I can (so if you have any, please send 'em!)
This weekend, Gregg's dad and step mom came up for a visit and we all went to Texas A&M for their Vet School Open House. As I mentioned, Jordan says she wants to be a vet, and even though she is young and we definitely won't pigeon hole her, it is a total fit. . . just like Cali, my dare devil child, saying she wants to be a firefighter is a total fit! Anyhoo, we went down there and had a wonderful time. They make it so child friendly, and our first stop was the Teddy Bear Clinic! They brought animals from home, and after getting dressed from head to toe in Vet gear courtesy of A&M, they were led into an exam room where they became Assistant Surgeons!!! They received diplomas with their picture taken "while in surgery" and felt very proud of themselves. Afterwards we had a tour of their three different huge buildings -- where they do large animal surgery, small animal surgery, where they kept reptiles and the like -- and went out to the petting zoo they had set up. We saw zebras and camels, pigs, goats, horses, donkeys, and other animals, and then -- an interesting highlight -- we were allowed to stick our arms INTO a "fistulated cow." I trusted them at the moment that it wasn't hurting the cow, and looked it up later to make sure (it doesn't. . . go ahead, google it. . . I'll wait. Crazy huh?!?) but what an experience! We ended the trip through the reptile exhibit where the girls took a picture with a HUGE snake wrapped around their neck!
4/27-5/1 The letter "N." I must admit here that while I added my own ideas for animals here and there, many of them were used from our Zoo Phonics curriculum. Their animal for letter "N" is Nigel Nightowl and since we hadn't studied owls yet, I thought "Why not?" We read Owl Moon and Owl Babies along with a few others that I didn't record. We read New Coat for Anna as well. Our occupation was News Reporter and this was SO much fun! We read lots of different non fiction books on newspapers, watched a Blues Clues episode on it and I told them things I learned in school (Broadcast Journalism major at LSU) and then we made our own newspaper. The girls also had to interview my husband and my mom, and they did very well -- they had to choose their own questions and then ask them, I wrote the answers of course. Our geographic focus was New Orleans and I used the Louisiana Multi Book Unit Study I wrote for Homeschool Share, along with all the books listed there, and had a blast! Again, we ate food the entire week that went with our geographic focus, but that wasn't that strange since we eat like that normally, ha!
5/4-5/8 Was a combination of "O" and "P." We learned about the Octopus and Penguin, officers in the military and police department and Paris. We read Officer Buckle and Gloria, Lentil, Oxcart Man and Paul Revere's Ride, which strangely enough the girls absolutely LOVED! We did a variety of octopus crafts and dressed up like Penguins, watched lots of videos on both animals, and did a few lapbook pieces from HSS. I pulled pieces from the Officer Buckle unit and a variety of other sources for a lapbook on police and safety, and pieces from the Lentil unit for a lapbook on our military and patriotism.
5/11-5/15 "Q and R" had us doing a fun lapbook on rabbits -- pieces gathered from a variety of books on the HSS website -- and on Queens and royalty. We learned about Russia and read Little Red Lighthouse, Miss Rumphius, and Muncha!Muncha!Muncha!. We had fun this week, gradually getting lighter and easier with our days and falling into a lot of more cuddly reading and watching videos that went with our topics -- maybe that coincided with the increasing temperatures outside, ha!
5/18-5/22 "S and T" We were supposed to learn about snakes, tigers, surgeons, tailors, and Texas. . . we didn't do any of that. We did read The Boy Who Held Back the Sea, Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening and Truman's Aunt Farm. The lapbook on that got scrapped and I did forget to purchase an ant farm, BUT as luck would have it, a HUGE ant pile appeared outside our front door so we were able to watch the real thing, ha! The only real learning that happened that was structured was an impromptu lesson on Scotland. My father is a personal trainer and massage therapist. I workout with him on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, followed by a short P.E. lesson he does with the girls. After he is finished with us, he then has a massage client meet him at his house (next door) who happens to be from Scotland. I casually asked if he could ask her for ideas, and she actually came by with tons of goodies for the girls! She gave them thistle soap (apparently that is the flower of Scotland), a stuffed bear with a sweater of the Scottish flag, a beautiful decorative statue and pictures to look at! The girls loved it all and hearing her voice -- and they were very interested after that. Luckily, HSS is amazing, so I was able to hop on the Internet and print out lots of great things from Wee Gillis, Frog Went a Courtin' and a few other units, as well as crafts from DLTK, Enchanted Learning and a few other sites, and had a lapbook ready to go within the hour. I think my dad was pretty impressed with what we were able to come up with so quickly, and the girls loved role playing the different stories we learned about Scotland for the rest of the week!
5/25-5/29 "U - Z" HA! As I mentioned, we were in combining mode and I was in burned out mode, PLUS my girlfriend Sandra was coming over with her girls for a playdate and she was interested in both Bright Beginnings and Zoo Phonics. I decided to just finish it all up, picking and choosing my favorite lessons to finish out the week.
Gregg and I took the girls to the FEAST homeschool conference in San Antonio (awesome) and we went to SETHSA here in Houston (really good), and the girls and I did two units in June -- Pirates and a combo week on ice cream and chocolate (the units are at HSS, along with complete book lists....the girls loved all the pirate books and we all loved The Parrot Tico Tango)
The rest of June was spent organizing the house and deeper cleaning, and LOTS of relaxing! I also got everything ready for the new adventure of Kindergarten that started at the end of the month. I am SO excited to start sharing about that journey!
Have a wonderful weekend everyone!
It is funny. . . I knew we were learning a lot and having lots of fun at the time, but I don't think it really sank in until now, having to sit down and type it all up so quickly!
I realize I am not explaining the crafts of the various lessons that we did, but I am trying to cover the highlights and at least get my book list in here. We have read some amazing books the past few years and not only would I like to remember them, but would recommend almost all of the ones I list in these posts (I say almost because it is possible that I forgot to scratch a stinker or two off my lesson plan!)
So, onward we go:
The week of St. Patrick's day brought lots of fun! We began the week with a visit to Katelyn and Ashley's house (friends from co-op) to learn about The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Marlene did a wonderful job with this lesson! She had the girls make sock puppet caterpillars, then cut out sequencing cards for the story, and all were stored in decorated old coffee cans. Now whenever the girls want to act out or retell the story, all the materials are together! We ALL made Fruit Loop caterpillars, and play dough caterpillars. Marlene also had HUGE cut outs of all of the items the caterpillar ate in the story that she used to retell the story for the children, and finally, we looked at a poster of the life cycle of a caterpillar. On St. Patrick's Day we watched the video from Veggie Tales and read a paragraph about him in our History book. We talked about shamrocks and how he used them to tell about God. We then colored pictures of them and leprechauns, and looked at pictures of Ireland.
It was around this time that we got our catepillars in the mail to raise our own butterflies. This was so much fun -- for the entire family! It was amazing to watch the caterpillars form the crysalis, to attach to the top and then sit and watch as they emerged as butterflies! We kept them for about a week and then put them out on the milkweed plant we have potted outside (it is their host plant). Since then, we have had several caterpillars feeding on the plant and forming crysalises! The girls get so excited about the whole process and brings learning to life! I LOVE HOMESCHOOLING!!!
The rest of the week focused on the letter "I" bringing us ice cream, India, Italy, the DVD Bilingual Baby - Italian (SUPER CUTE!!), Tigers at Twilight (Magic Tree House), Italy A to Z, My "I" Sound Box, The Sundae Scoop, Maya Angelou's World - Angelina of Italy, There's a Dolphin in the Grand Canal, Opera Cat, Ice cream: The full Scoop, Madeline and the Cats of Rome, Stregna Nona (girls LOVED this!!), Big Anthony, Elephant Dance: Memories of India, Baya Baya Lulla-by-a, The Story of Little Babaji, writing our names in icing, and watching Bollywood dance videos and cardio tapes (total workout!). We also began History lessons with History for Little Pilgrims this week. I had planned on waiting till we started Kindergarten, but while I was looking at it for planning purposes, the girls kept picking it up to look at and asking me to read it, so I figured I would go with their interest! We did a simple poster board Timeline with this and they really enjoyed it.
We spent a second week (for those curious, we are now at the week of 3/23 - 3/27) on the letter I as there had been so many geographic locations that were fun to expose them to, I wanted a second week to focus on the animal and career. We learned about inchworms this week and had so much fun! This week we read Papa Piccolo from FIAR which was very cute and did LOTS of inchworm crafts (Dot-to-Dots, play dough, connect the dots, etc), measured things, crawled like inchworms and sang songs. Our occupation was Investigator and we used the Detective unit study/lapbook on HSS -- it was awesome! In all, this was just a week full of experiments, crafts, and lots of glue!
"J" focused on Jellyfish, Japan, judges, jello, the lapbook for Grandfather's Journey, a tour of Bluebell Ice Cream Factory with our Co-op and a family trip to the zoo. Having spent a week learning about jellyfish, it was so much fun for Gregg and I to watch the girls be so excited to see jellyfish up close! They kept coming back to the display and just sat, staring, for a very long time :-) We did a variety of jellyfish crafts and read several nonfiction books. We did read lots of other books this week -- I know lots of Allan Say books -- but I did not write any of them down this week. I will say that while the information about Japan was interesting to the girls, they did not enjoy the Allan Say books very much. . . their highlight was jellyfish!
"K" focused on kangaroos, zoo Keepers, acts of kindness, kittens, karate, karaoke, ketchup, Katy No Pocket, If I Ran the Zoo, Animal Strike at the Zoo, the zoo lapbook on HSS, Mrs. Katz and Tush, and Katy and the Big Snow and the lapbook on HSS. Our Co-op this month was on your own but it was on Bunnies and Easter so this week we also read The Bunny Who Found Easter, Rechenka's Eggs, Over in the Meadow, Clifford's Easter, and of course, Peter Rabbit. We had a blast learning about kangaroos this week -- we learned that they can jump 40 feet, so we measured that length in our backyard and recorded how many "Mommy" "Jordan" and "Cali" jumps it would take to equal one kangaroo jump!
Focusing on kindness was great -- we instituted "The Blue Plate of Kindness" this week, where someone gets to eat off of a special blue plate if they are noticed doing something kind for someone else. We also made lots of paper hearts with the word "Kind" on them -- the idea was to look for random acts of kindness that can be done in secret and then, again without being seen, to take a heart and leave it where the act was done. One example from the week -- Mama's shoes were left out in the living room and Jordan grabbed them, put them in my room and left a heart where the shoes had been. Jordan LOVED this game! I also had a poster board up in the kitchen where we would write down acts of kindness that were noticed.
They also loved the zoo keeper lapbook we made from HSS. Jordan wants to be a Vet when she grows up and both girls love learning about animals -- one of the reasons it was such a focus point this year. This was a great project to show off what they have already learned and be exposed to new things.
April 13-17th: "L" brought us lizards, love, lions, The Little House (and the lapbook), lifeguard, London, Shakespeare (London tie in!), Stage Fright on a Summer Night (Magic Tree House book about Shakespeare), the library, and lollipops. This week doesn't have lots of notes, but I know the girls loved the lapbook for The Little House, and we had fun role playing being lifeguards and learning about water safety.
One more post will definitely finish up our preschool adventures! We went into super fast mode at this point -- I was getting a bit burned out on what we were doing, was ready for a change, and we decided to sell our curriculum in May and take a few weeks off before starting K in June -- so we started combining letters.
I will try to sneak back on in the morning to finish up the preschool series, but if not, I'll finish on Monday. I can't wait to begin journaling our Kindergarten adventures! It has been a total change, but I am loving it!
Two days in a row, I am on a roll!
I realized last night that while I am glad to have just this little bit on here, that I did not take out their various notebooks from the past few months which are full of fun things, great narrations and crafts. . . at the end of this quick review, I may go back and record a few of those highlights as well. But, for now, I will pick up where I left off yesterday . . . the wonderful letter "E".
We took a second week for "E" the week of February 16-20th. Gregg had chosen so many wonderful picture books on engineers and I had found some really cute minit books on Homeschool Share to go with them, that we stayed with this topic for a bit. We reviewed all our previous Scripture memory verses, did some narrations of Bible stories and caught up on our occupations notebook, as well as learning about Thomas Edison and Benjamin Franklin. This week we also went to the park, spent a long time watching Nutria, had our Preschool Co-op where we made bird pizzas and chef hats, and went to the library for story hour. Friday of this week was our "Big Girl Day!" The Paci Fairy had heard how mature our girls were and thought it was time for their Big Girl Day (totally got this idea from an episode of John and Kate plus 8!). The girls left out a snack, along with their old pacifiers and blankets the night before, and when they woke up on Friday the Paci Fairy had left them a huge keyboard! It was totally approved by their musically gifted Godfather and has been a lot of fun! We started the morning with breakfast at McDonald's, followed by a visit to the Children's Museum and lunch and play at Chuck E. Cheese. :-)
At some point in February we took our co-op field trip to EJ's Pizzeria, where the girls not only had a wonderful behind the scenes tour of the pizzeria, but were then able to make their own pizzas! It was a BLAST -- for kids and moms!
The letter "F" brought us fishes, feathers (and birds), fire fighters, fairy tales, France, farmers, fairies, friends, Feathers for Lunch, The Little Bird (Mother Goose), Fishwish, Flotsam, DK Illustrated Book of Fairy Tales, Big Red Barn and A Chair for My Mother (book and Reading Rainbow episode that showed fire fighter training). The week before at story hour, the focus was fire fighters, so we learned lots of cute songs and it tied in so nicely:-). We had our Tea Party with our co-op friends where we did picture study, listened to Mozart and a cute Rossetti poem. This week we also went to The Depot to meet up with the cowboys riding into Houston for the big Rodeo. We got there early and parked to wait for the riders and before we knew it, we were literally surrounded by horses and riders on all sides! The cowboys were so sweet and let the girls ride the horses, feed and pet them, and it was simply a blast! We also went to several different parks and nature reserves this week.
The letter "G" week began with a small birthday party for Dr. Seuss! We focused on his books all day, reading Green Eggs and Ham, Oh The Thinks You Can Think, ABC, Mr. Brown Can Moo, One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish, and Hop on Pop. Along with our yummy cupcakes (which we baked while doing fractions lol) we watched the animated versions of Sneetches, Zax, Green Eggs and Ham and Horton Hears a Who. We played a game I found online for Pinning the Egg on the Plate, we created silly stories and did lots and lots of rhyming games! Cali enjoyed coming up with rhymes for Cat (hat, rat, that) and Sad (bad, dad), while Jordan came up with the following story -- I should note that the girl LOVES to tell stories and has been known to go on for over a half hour with stories that flow completely, have wonderful characters and everything but this was an assignment to go into a very small Dr. Seuss hat minit book, so I cut her off really short lol.
Once upon a time there was a cat in a hat. He was singing lots of songs until he bumped into something.
He thought he bumped into something . . . but, it was just lightning. It was going to rain and then he thought he was going round and round, but it was just the rain going Pitter, patter, pitter, patter
The rest of "G" week focused on gardens, goats, giraffes, Guinea pigs, gorillas, Greece, grandparents, The Golden Rule, Galileo, Planting a Rainbow, The Tiny Seed, Good Night Walk, Growing Vegetable Soup, Flower Garden, My Two Grandmothers, Good Morning Gorillas (Magic Tree House), gratefulness, grace, I Completely Know about Guinea Pigs (Charlie and Lola), G if for Goat, The Three Billy Goats Gruff, The Secret of the first one up (groundhogs), Gladys goes out to lunch, Good Night Gorilla, lots of nonfiction books on animals and geology, George Gershwin, Paul Gauguin, Van Gogh, D'Aulaires Book of Greek Myths, and Galileo for Kids. The girls also created stories this week that they asked me to type up and make books for, which was fun.
The beginning of "H" week began with a REAL TREAT! We went to a Family FARM! A wonderful woman in our co-op mentioned back in September that she was raised here in the Houston area on a farm, and how much her children enjoy going there. As I was planning the week for "F" and was trying to find a good farm to visit, I remembered this conversation and immediately reached out to her. While we had some scheduling conflicts, the wait was well worth it! This family was so gracious and kind, and we had a total blast! This was better than anything I could have found and we were able to do way more than a farm open to tour groups. We collected eggs, fed their chickens, sat and observed the chickens and roosters for awhile (and where they slept, how they got around, etc), helped them plant a garden (zucchini, tomatoes, and peppers), observed their TONS of cows and baby calfs, played in a creek (spent lots of time here, watching water flowing from higher ground to lower, examining rocks, skipping rocks), fished in their pond -- and caught 2 catfish(!!) -- played in sand, road bikes and skateboards, observed a wide variety of trees and just HAD A BLAST! Thank you so much Sinitieri family!!!!
The rest of "H" week focused on Hawaii, our read aloud was High Tide in Hawaii (Magic Tree House), horses, horticulture, history, Haydn, Handel, My H sound box, H is for Horse: an Equestrian Alphabet, My First Horse and Pony book, tons of Billy and Blaze books, Hans Holbein the Younger's painting of Edward VI as a child, Hooper Humperdink by Dr. Seuss, happiness, Luka's Quilt, Hula Lullaby, Grandma calls me beautiful, watching Hula for Children and having lots of fun dancing around, A House for Hermit Crab, Milton Hershey, Sam Houston, John Hancock, and hygiene.
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Well, I guess that is good for today :-) I am feeling better already having some of this on here as a record of our schooling, so I really do hope to have all of preschool updated and online within the week. Then it will be back to taking a week at a time and including posting our fun family moments in with the lesson plans!
Well HELLO!!!
I know it has been forever since we have updated. In fact, our first official "year" of preschool has come and gone -- we only did it from January 1st until the end of May, as the girls flew through it!
This is just a quick little update post to let you know that I will be coming back (even if it is just a couple times a week) to post pictures, review the school week, keep up to date on family stories and events, journal my own thoughts, and express a little creativity!!
We are now on our fourth week of Kindergarten using Sonlight K, Math U See, Horizons Health and NOEO, along with a few other things here and there (like HSS, Moving Beyond the Page, Bob Books, extra read alouds, Draw Write Now, Donna Young, etc;).
Now that we have a computer back up and running (WOO HOO!), Gregg and I both think it is important to get back to updating this blog, at least once a week. As my wonderful husband just said, "I just know we'll regret it in a few years (or longer) if we don't start doing it."
So, what have we been doing since I last posted in November? WOW, that has been awhile, huh?!? We used Bright Beginnings, Zoo Phonics (thanks Heart of the Matter!!!), FIAR and HSS for our five months of preschool. Gregg and I used them to create our own trip down alphabet lane. While the girls did create a few complete lapbooks, we mostly used a variety of notebooks to scrapbook our learning -- we had an animal science notebook, an occupations notebook, and a hodge-podge notebook full of various lapbook pieces on cardstock for our different literature units. Each week we learned about a different animal, career, and geographic location that began with the letter of the week, and pulled together TONS of fun picture books on a wide variety of topics that related back to the letter of the week.
Bright Beginnings was our main spine for Bible activities (loved, loved, LOVED this part), Scripture memorization (Gregg made huge posters each week with the verse to remember and the girls LOVED it), Health, and Character lessons. We did many of their math and language arts suggestions, however we did skip many as our girls knew a lot of the information. . . but what we did use provided a WONDERFUL foundation!! Jordan (currently age 4) is reading up a storm -- using Sonlight Language Arts 2nd grade and is doing wonderfully -- and is in Math U See Alpha for first grade. Cali (currently age 3) is using SL LA 1st grade and while we are supplementing with Bob Books, Starfall, and totally going at her own directed pace, she is doing awesome! As for Math, she is using MUS Primer for K, but is FLYING through!! This is week four and she is on lesson 12! Since there are 30 lessons total, I know she will be in Alpha before the year is through.
Our schedule currently consist of Bible, Scripture and Health with our breakfast, then Jordan comes up for an hour to do Language Arts and Math while Cali watches her favorite show of all time -- Blues Clues -- then Jordan has free play while Cali has school for 30 minutes. Cali's schooling is always at her own pace and is driven by her desire to learn and be like her big sister! :-) After that is free play till lunch, which is eaten with History and Science read alouds, then they go to their room for our literature read alouds in bed before Quiet Time. After Quiet Time is over, we have Tea Time with poetry and other fun stories, then it is free play till Daddy comes home.
Back to Preschool:
Zoo Phonics is a WONDERFUL program! We used this a little differently than is suggested, spreading it out in the beginning, so that we can keep with our one letter a week concept. They suggest two a week before moving into more advanced phonetic concepts. Doing it the way we did I think was a good middle ground for my girls, with Jordan way beyond what we were doing but EXTREMELY enjoying every single lesson, and Cali really learning and reinforcing what she knew while having lots of fun. Zoo Phonics has TONS Of ideas for a well rounded curriculum so between the two, along with the tons of ideas we came up with, I had way more than enough, but I thought that was a good problem to have :-)
So let's see:
We began the year the first Monday in January with a family breakfast at IHOP and a fun trip to NASA to coincide with our "A" week! Also, this month, our Co-op learned about Ping and China. We went on a trip to the Imperial Gardens in Katy, Tx (followed by a yummy lunch at The Rainforest Cafe with the girls best friends Skylar and Emy), and a day at our house with the girls learning about what sinks/floats, and other cool related things that are escaping my mind at the moment.
"A" brought us alligators, Africa, astronauts, apples, animal crackers, Armadillo's Rodeo, finger painting in apple sauce, aerobics, adding, scurrying like ants, Adam and Eve, and Noah's Ark, among other things.
"B" brought us bears, Brazil, ballerinas, throwing balls, BINGO, Berlioz the Bear, Flight of the Bumble Bee, how to make books, Tower of Babel, balancing, The Wheels on the Bus, Baking, and Babies being born.
"C" was for Cats, China, Canada, Chefs, Cookies, Clouds, Eric Carle, Being Capable, calendars, crawling like crabs, cheese, crackers, catching, cardio, calisthenics, Courage, catching balls in containers, cornbread, cooking techniques, Cook a Doodle Do, counting, and conducting music. Wednesday of that week also brought a WONDERFUL day of story hour with our good friends, a half an hour of exploring a trail at the park and then tons of free play at the park playground. Gotta love Nature Study time when the Houston Texas weather is actually bearable -- um, unlike NOW!
"D" brought us Deer, Denmark, Dentists and Doctors, feeding ducks, Dandelions, Daisy-Head Mayzie, doughnuts, Jacob's dream, dreams of all kinds, dancing, drums, dogs, Dvorak, A Dance of Friendship (Angelina Ballerina), and Dependability. Wednesday brought us a repeat of the week before (still wonderful weather in February) and Friday brought us a field trip to the Dentist where they got their teeth clean.
"E" brought us Elephants, Egypt, Engineers, Horton Hatches the Egg (which Jordan related to our story that week of Joseph being sold by his brothers, as Horton was sold to the circus for money, too!), eggs, excellence, encouragement, and eye care. We went to the Children's Museum with friends this week, and we also really enjoyed the Mrs. Wishy Washy series, The Poodle who Barked at the Wind by Zolotow, and our Stuart Little read aloud.
This week we also did some narrations from Bible stories. I will finish this post with these narrations, and will come back by tomorrow with a few more weeks worth :-)
2/17 I asked Jordan (she had turned 4 3 months prior), to tell me the story of Adam and Eve without re-reading it (although very familiar with the story, we hadn't read it for over a month at this point). This is her narration:
Eve got two apples, but they weren't good. They tried one, but they thought they were better than God!! And they had to leave the forest. The sun was sad. Before they ate and tried the apple, a man disguised as a snake said to try one of the bad apples.
They thought they were better than God.
1. {said very emphatically here} God made a person.
2. Made the sun
3. Made all the animals
4. Made Adam
5. Made the world.
At this point, I asked her how the animals got their names and she said, "Adam saw them and said what they were called." Imagine a "No duh, Mom" look on child's face.
Then I asked how God made Eve:
He made Adam go into a deep sleep. He closed up his skin where he took one of Adam's ribs and said, "Let there be a woman out of this rib," and then -- POP! -- a woman came!!"
Can it GET any cuter than that??? Well, maybe so. . . here is Cali's narration (just turned 3 at this point) of Noah's Ark:
He tried to find his animals. . . a hippo. . . an alligator. . . his Mommy. . . .
{Cali, did they get on something}
A Boat!
{Then what happened?}
He tried to draw a picture of Jesus. The End!!!
Here is Jordan's narration of Noah's Ark:
Noah builted an ark and he counted each animal by 2 by 2. And then God made a flood! Then they floated, and then he sented a dove out, BUT before that he sent a black bird out. Then he sent a dove out again and again and again and again!! Until the flood went away and they saw a rainbow!
IT"S NOT OVER YET!
The ark was on a mountain. Until they saw a rainbow over it -- it was HUGE! They couldn't touch it, but they were still happy. They still had food they could eat and water so they could drink.
Now Jordan's narration of the story of Joseph -- I think she got a bit confused between Jacob and Joseph, but that just made it all the more adorable, ha!:
Once upon a time, Joseph's Daddy Jacob was really old. He couldn't see. His father made him a coat of many colors! And then his brothers were ANGRY, they wanted one, too!!
And they saw Joseph and they ripped his coat off and threw him in an empty well, and they sold him to Egypt. But he was in jail, but he was still happy because God was with him! He got out of jail and the King of Egypt had a dream about skinned cows and fat cows; The skinned cows were eating the fat cows. And then Joseph came to the King of Egypt and he became the Prince of Egypt! And he pretended his brothers were spies, but he still loved them. And they became happy, too. And he hugged them really tight and kissed them. And then he told them that God stays with us and Jesus always loves us!
Now, just in case your heart isn't completely melted, here is our final narration by Cali on the life of Joseph. Remember, she just turned 3 at this point.
I want to be a firefighter that saves him!! {meaning from the well}
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I have a feeling it is mostly only family that is still around following this old blog, which is actually great because you all have to love me regardless of how well I keep this up to date, but if anyone else out in blogland is still around, I'd love to hear from ya!
Have a wonderful Tuesday everyone!
Good Morning :-)
I must tell you that I intended to start back blogging slowly, however my computer has been unwilling to turn on for the past few weeks! The only time I have to be online lately has been when Gregg is home from work at night with his work laptop, but it is important to me to reserve a lot of that time for family. . . and watching our newest passion: The Tudors, Season 1!
I did want to direct you to the interview I did with Heart of the Matter about our homeschool. We are the featured homeschool of the week!
I hope to have our computer fixed soon. . . it has been an interesting challenge to have our online resources so limited, but it has also helped me to keep my priorities in line. We have been having such a blast the past few months! LOTS of crafts (we are ALL finally at the age where we enjoy them lol), reading great books, nature walks, tea parties and science experiments inspired by the new PBS show Sid the Science Kid. I can't wait to share with all of you the MANY pictures we have taken!
Have a wonderful Sunday with your family. . . for us, we will be going to an Indian Pow-Wow in town and getting a wonderful introduction to our Indian unit next week!
I interrupt my Blog Vacation -- which I promise to come back from soon -- for this exciting announcement (he he)
Heart of the Matter Online, which happens to be the best online source for encouragement, information and inspiration for home education, is having an AWESOME Giveaway! Zoo-Phonics is graciously donating an entire Kindergarten Kit (valued around $300!) to a lucky reader.
As followers of this blog know, my girls know their letters and sounds. They have known them for over a year, thanks to the Leap Frog videos. Both have shown an interest in learning to read, Jordan in particular, but I have been hesitant to do much reading instruction beyond the videos. The main reason is because of cost, as we are in the midst of working the Dave Ramsey plan, but I have also waited because I was fearful of taking the joy out of learning. I love their enthusiasm for the written word and am very cautious to not cause that flame to flicker due to boring exercises and worksheets. Keeping our learning joyful is very important to me.
The reason I am intrigued about Zoo-Phonics, and this contest at Heart of the Matter, is because this product looks different than many others that I have seen! Below I have listed just a few of the things that I love about this product:
As I said, these are just a few of the things I love about this product description! I also love the fun games that are included to make it a fun family experience. Really, you MUST go check out this product review at Heart of the Matter. . . Karin did an amazing job reviewing this product and if it is HALF as good as she described, then it would be a very wise investment.
Thank you HOTM for continuing to keep us updated on the tons of wonderful products at the home educator's disposal, and for blessing so many with your wonderful giveaways!
