Thursday, June 23, 2011

First Language Lessons - Memorization

Here is a video of D reciting the first poem that he memorized for First Language Lessons.

I should have taken a video the day before when he practiced it and decided to make up all sorts of cute actions for the poem. Today when I told him that I was going to take a video of him he didn't want to do his actions and just wanted to say the poem and move on to something else.




Monday, June 20, 2011

A few Random pictures


A few random pictures


D being silly


D working on Singapore Math 2A

S didn't want to be left out

Off to a slow start

So far our first 2.5 weeks of our new school year are off to a very slow start. The first half week of June we did great. D was excited to crack into his new books and we didn't have much planned outside of the house so we got to work and got everything done. The 2nd week of June we did good the first couple of days, but then life got in the way and we didn't school for the rest of the week. The 3rd week of June D had VBS in the morning and was exhausted by the time that he got home and was willing to quietly play during quiet time so I didn't make him do any school work.

This is why we school year round. If this were August and we were just starting our school year and had only done 6 days of school so far in the month I would be freaking out. Thankfully since we are going year round I know that even if we don't get many days in during June and July, when all our PS friends are out of school, we will at least have 3-4 weeks done by August. Giving us extra time to take off in the fall when we have gorgeous days and would rather be playing at the park then sitting inside doing math.

Hopefully this week we will work on getting back into our routine and can get some school work done at least a few days this week.

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Homeschooling with younger kids in the house

Why is it the minute I get the little ones interested in something and then try to sit down with D to do anything they all have to migrate to where we are.

Today I had the three little ones happily destroying... err playing in the playroom so I grabbed D and we headed to the living room couch to work on some math. As soon as we sit down R sends a bin of stuff crashing in the playroom. Then not 2 minutes later he is in the room saying that Sarah pushed him. Send him back off to the playroom and get D refocused and then the baby is screaming because R is laying on him. Go pull R off the baby, come back, refocus D again and start our workbook pages. S comes in and starts jumping around the room. Give her a quiet toy to play with. Then the baby comes crawling into the room so I give him a bucket of toys to play with. Then R comes in tries to climb on the back of the couch and jumps on us.

So D and I grab our stuff and move to the kitchen table. At this point he has managed to get 1 of 4 workbook pages done. So of course all the littles see that we are at the table and start moaning for a snack. So I get everyone a snack and then D and I move back to the living room floor. Get another page done before they are all back in dancing around us. Send D back to the table to finish his last two pages while I clean up the disaster that R made in the playroom, S made with her puzzle and E made with his bucket of toys.

All of that in our 15 minutes of doing math today. Homeschooling with 4 kids 6 and under is exhausting!

Monday, June 6, 2011

First Week of First Grade

Last week we started our first week of First Grade

I decided to school year round since we live in the south and the summers are so hot and miserable that we are inside for most of the mid afternoon anyway so we might as well be doing school so we can take more days off in the fall when the nice weather is back and we want to spend the whole day at the park.

We took a 6 week break from mid April through to the beginning of June while I ordered new books and got everything ready for the next year. Thankfully most of our stuff is open and go so there wasn't a lot of preparation for me to do other than to spend a couple of days printing off a ton of stuff from all the ebooks/pdfs that I ordered.

D was excited to be starting school again. After we started our review in math I'm really glad that we didn't take anymore time off than we did. It took him those three days to get back to remembering his basic math facts. He still hasn't got back his fast recall that he had before our break but I'm sure that it will come back quickly.



Curriculum for 2011-2012

Here's a list of what we will be using this year for 1st Grade

Language Arts

Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading
Writing with Ease - Level 1
Explode the Code - Books 5-8
First Language Lessons 1+2
All About Spelling - Level 2

Math

Singapore Math 2a and 2b - Also using the IP and CWP books
Miquon for some "fun math" as D calls it

History/Social Studies

History Odyssey Ancients Level 1
Beginning Geography and Galloping the Globe

Science

REAL Science Odyssey - Life

Art

Artistic Pursuits - Book 1


About Me

Welcome - I'm Jen and I'm hoping that by having this blog it will force me to write more about our days and about our homeschooling adventures.

Here's my family

BigE - My husband and best friend. He's the one that helps keep me from falling apart after a long day. We met in college and have been married 8 years.

D - 6 year old son. He's my little engineer. He likes to know how things work, how to do things, but always wants directions. He doesn't like to be very creative when it comes to drawing or building with Legos. He always wants instructions. He loves to move around so we try to do some of our school work while running around the yard or house.

S - 3.5 year old daughter. She's a stinker! She is very smart but won't let you see it unless it is on her terms. She is very stubborn just like her mommy and she knows how to push buttons. She is very sweet and loves all things princesses and baby dolls, but at the same time you will find her digging worms in the yard with the boys.

R - 2 year old son. My wild child! R is my destroyer. He can make a mess in an instant and is always into trouble. He loves that he is almost as big as his big sister and uses that to his advantage. I'm often hearing S scream that R is on her and won't let her up. He loves to tag along and pretend that he is doing school with the big kids... for about 2 minutes.

E - 8 month old son. My clingy one. Doesn't sleep well, doesn't like to be away from mommy, finally getting happy now that he can crawl. Thinks the world revolves around him!


Why we are homeschooling -

18 months ago when it was time to start looking at schools for D to go to Kindergarten I wasn't impressed at anything I was finding. The local catholic school K teacher told me that since D was so far advanced that she would just put him in front of a computer when he was bored. The public schools are over crowded and just not the right place for him. At 4.5 he was already reading simple CVC words and writing them on the backs of his letter worksheets at the church preK we were sending him too. He was coming home from there bored asking to learn more at home. So we decided to keep him home for K and see how it went. The year went great and D loved being home. So we decided to stay home for a couple more years. D may stay home forever, he may go back to school some year. For now we are taking it one year at a time and doing whatever we think is best for him.