Second Week

I've learned several things through our first 2 1/2 weeks of homeschooling.  The first thing I've learned the past two weeks is that my schedule is still a work in progress.  Major tweaking to our daily schedule has been done since we started.  We've gone from a 5 day a week schedule to a 4 day a week schedule (there always seems to be one day a week where we are busy all day long).  I've cut out our manners program and Corbin's BFIAR lessons for now, decreased what we are doing with Jovi's FIAR lessons and added a ten week fairy princess program (it helps motivate Jovi to happily do her handwriting and reading lessons when she has something extra fun to look forward to).  

The second thing I've learned that goes along with scheduling is to never do detailed lesson plans more than two weeks in advance because I'll have to pretty much rewrite them from scratch if I do.

The third thing I've learned, at least I'm working on learning, is that less is more.  Sure, there are tons of fun, interesting things that I can teach Jovi.  Things that we can have fun doing together.   But I have to focus on my educational goals for Jovi and plan the important stuff, like reading, math and handwriting first.  Jovi can only deal with parent led activities (and it doesn't seem to matter what type) for about an hour before she needs an unstructured break so planning less content for other areas helps us get through everything in a day.

The fourth thing I've learned is to have outside time in the morning, it is just too darn HOT to go out any other time except for the occasional pool trip. (duh moment, how could I not have known that growing up here)

The fifth thing I've learned is that we are really, really addicted to TV.  Cutting down is easier when you have fun stuff to do, but the kids still watch a lot of TV everyday and request more than I let them watch.  Does anyone have some suggestions?  I've been thinking about totally cutting it out for a few weeks, but I'm a bit scared.  What am I going to do when the kids are going crazy and I'm all out of energy or when I'm trying to make dinner and Corbin is either making a huge mess or tearing up things that don't need tearing up?  Right now I turn on the TV and and we all get a little break.  I've tried a few other options with not so great results, but I'm willing to try again.  There are a lot of reasons to watch less tv with young children, my mom sends me research articles about it.  Learning disabilities and ADHD symptoms are more likely in children who watch a lot (being more than 2 hours a day) of tv along with lower IQs, and that's not even talking about content and what kids are learning (although we rarely watch anything other than movies, PBS or qubo when the kids are in the room). Anyway, if you have some ideas, please send them my way.

So on to the actual week...Last week we read  Lentil (Picture Puffins) about a little boy who saves the day with his harmonica.  I think it is a favorite with Jovi.  With our new 4 day a week program we are doing a week and a half (or 6 days) with each book so we finished the lessons on Tuesday.  The two highlights of the week were getting Jovi her own ($3 from Walmart) harmonica and making lemonade (lemons play a big role in the story).  Here is the lemonade that we made together, it was yummy.


Last week we did one Before Five In A Row Lesson, we read  Goodnight Moon and then we made puffy paint and painted moon and star pictures on black poster board.  This puffy paint was a lot of fun.  You mix 1 cup of glue, 3 cups of shaving cream and a little paint together, draw a shape on the poster board and then fingerpaint with it. 








Here are some things I've learned about art projects, especially paint projects, with small children (most were learned through some painful errors).  Do all art over tile or linoleum (never carpet).  Have all supplies ready before starting.  Have an art only tablecloth.  Strip your kids, have them wear an art smock or clothing you truly don't care about because even if it is supposed to be washable, it isn't always true.  The last and most important, don't do ANYTHING else except watch and help the kids during an art project.  This is IMPERATIVE, turn your back for one minute and that awesome puffy paint could be all over your walls.  Art is fun, especially using paints, but it does take some effort to have a positive experience.

Here are the two folders Jovi has made to go with her FIAR lessons.  All the minibooks are from homeschoolshare .  Jovi likes making things like this, otherwise I don't think I'd bother.  I originally thought they would be great for reviewing lessons and what we learned throughout the week, but Jovi doesn't show any interest in reviewing things.  It is a cool way for ME to remember what we've done and maybe she'll like looking through them some time in the future.  (I can hope can't I?)






Hope you enjoyed. :)

First week of homeschooling

Last week was our first week of homeschooling.  It wasn't a "normal" week because we spent the afternoons helping my sister who has back problems, but we did get in almost all the subjects (missed out on science and manners).  It's still early to tell much about the curriculum I've chosen, but the Five in a Row lessons went well and Jovi really likes the reading lessons.  I had kind of planned for this, but Corbin is not always in a "lesson" mood so a few days last week we just played together which was fun too.  So far I am not excited about the Math lessons.  We've been doing colors, shapes and counting to 10 and that is with doubling up on lessons.  She's willing to do it and likes the games we do before the worksheet, but she isn't learning anything new.  I talked with someone and they said that Horizons Math starts out slow and then speeds up fast, I'd say we are ready for it to speed up.  Our Five in a Row book this week was Madeline.  We had lots of fun learning about France.  Jovi is able to find France on our world wall map without help.  This doesn't translate to other maps yet, but it was her first week of working with any maps at all so I'd say it is a good start.  We put together a notebook with all the things we learned last week using lots of cute minibooks from Homeschoolshare so she will have a way to review her lessons.  I'll try to take a picture of it and next week's notebook to give you an idea of what we are doing.  On Friday we went to la Madeline for lunch, Jovi was very excited to find out that croissants were French and had a croissant peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

We read The Little Rabbit (Pictureback(R)) for Corbin's Before Five in a Row lesson.  A very cute book.  It is about a little girl who gets a pet rabbit.  We talked about baby animals ,colors, pets and on Thursday went and got the kids their very own own pets.  Two beta fish in their own PLASTIC bowls (our last beta died when its pretty glass bowl was accidentally pushed off the counter and shattered, very sad).  I wanted to get goldfish, but they apparently need very large tanks and a filter.  This is not what I remember as a child who had feeder goldfish as pets.  They lived in a normal fishbowl and seemed to do just fine, but I guess betas are just as good and they are very easy to take care of.  The kids were SO excited.  Jovi named her fish Rainbow Rose.




Corbin named his fish Blue Fish. We got our last beta fish when Jovi was two and she named it Blue so I think it is an age thing. Kids this age are just really literal, it's funny.




I'm not planning on taking them to restaurants and getting them pets regularly or anything, but I thought we should do a few special things for our first week.  It's been fun and we look forward to next week.

Favorite Color

Jovi's favorite colors are purple, pink and rainbow (in that order).  These were developed over time with no conscious push towards a specific color on the part of the adults that surrounded her.  My best guess is that they came about because we DID buy Disney princess stuff for her and she has always liked "girl" stuff. 

This contrasts strongly with Corbin's favorite color experience.  Corbin didn't get a choice.  About 6 or so months ago Jovi realized that blue is a boy color and so when getting breakfast, Jovi would inform us that Corbin needed the blue bowl.  When getting drinks she would let us know that Corbin would prefer the blue cup.  When choosing things Jovi would give Corbin the blue item saying, "Blue is for boys, you like blue right?".  It was a well thought out and executed campaign.  It didn't take long for Corbin to catch on and blue became the first color he could consistently name.  It is also his "favorite" color and he likes everything that is blue and if it is blue it should be his.  I think it is SO funny how these things develop.  I wonder if this will be his favorite color forever or if it will change when he gets older and has a bit more freedom to choose.  It will be interesting to watch and see.

Curriculum

So, when I get excited about something I tend to obsess about it.  I apologize to all my family who I'm sure are sick and tired of hearing about my homeschool curriculum choices, but I finally placed my final order on Friday and I think Jovi, Corbin and I are going to have a really fun school year.  I've got some really great stuff and just for those of you who might be considering homeschooling, or preschooling your kids I thought I'd share what we are planning on using.

For my main curriculum I am using a unit study called Five In A Row .  The idea is that you read the same classic storybook five days in a row focusing on a specific subject every day; Social Studies, Language Arts, Art, Science and Applied Math.  Every time you reread the book the kids get a review of what they learned the previous days.  As soon as I heard about this curriculum I knew it would be perfect for me and Jovi.  I wanted something literature based and she doesn't like reading more than a few books a day.  She is much more a doing girl than a listening girl.  There are a lot of literature based programs out there, but most require several books and/or pieces of books to be read each day.  I like this plan much better for our family.  There is also a Before Five In A Row for 2-4 year olds, a lot less focused on academics and more on making memories that I plan on using with Corbin so he can have his own "school" time with mommy.  I also found a wonderful FREE site full of ladies who love this curriculum and put together their own book unit studies and lots of resources for the Five In A Row books as well, called Homeschoolshare (really neat FREE stuff).

We will be using Horizons Math K for Jovi's math program.  I really like the scope and sequence, the hands on approach and the colorful, appealing workbook.

I chose Handwriting Without Tears for her handwriting program.  I previously wrote about my personal handwriting issues and decided that I just couldn't teach her D'Nealian.  This program is supposed to be very developmentally appropriate and has lots of ways for children to avoid letter and number reversals (something Jovi struggles with)

Although science is covered with Five In A Row, I want Jovi to have a very strong science background and found the awesomest book Building Foundations of Scientific Understanding: A Science Curriculum for K-2 .  Instead of giving an overview of science, touching on a topic here and then one there like most elementary science books do, Dr. Nebel takes a foundations approach having each lesson build upon previous ones so that children can see how all science is related. And you can't beat the price anywhere, $23 for 3 years of GOOD science lessons that teach the scientific method. I'm very impressed with what I've read in this books so far.

I agonized over the decision on how to teach Jovi to read, really, just ask Juan.  Reading and a love of reading is THE most important thing I feel you can teach anyone because with that skill you can begin to learn just about anything else, so I wanted to make the right choice.  I searched high and low and read tons of reviews.  I made a decision and then second guessed myself, but I finally choose the very reasonably priced and very classic phonics approach used in Phonics Pathways: Clear Steps to Easy Reading and Perfect Spelling.  It looks like a truly solid program, it is priced right and it includes several game ideas (something I know Jovi will enjoy).

For scripture study, I bought A Real Mom's Guide to Homeschooling with The Book of Mormon.  It actually gives more information and activities than I plan on using. But it has all the things I was looking for; a weekly scripture verse to memorize (shortened for younger children), a children's song and a hymn to learn/sing, gospel art to go with the stories, and a family home evening lesson that goes with the weekly reading. Most of this is just a reference to other church publications, but it is SO helpful to have it already planned out. We should end up reading the Book of Mormon (Stories version) in 36 weeks.

I also have a manners curriculum that I plan on doing twice a week. 

We will (hopefully) be starting school on August 16th.  I hope you guys found something you could possibly use and I will blog about how all of it is working for us as we go along.  Now to read all the teacher manuals and plan our days (am I weird that the thought of planning everything out makes me happy?).

Nocturnal Adventures

A few nights ago we had put the kids to bed and I was downstairs.  I thought Juan was upstairs so when I heard the laundry washer turn on upstairs.  I thought it was Juan putting a load of laundry in.  Fortunately, Juan went to investigate.  Apparently Corbin had once again gotten up (the first time).  This time it was because he was wet and wanted to change his diaper.  He took his pjs and his diaper off and I guess he felt his clothes were dirty and in need of washing because he took them to the laundry room, climbed up and turned the washing machine on (I had NO idea that he could even do that.) and put his clothes in.  Then he started putting other clothes in and a toy as well.  That is when Juan found him.  Corbin has always loved helping with laundry.  He loves carrying dirty clothes in there and having me lift him up so he can put them in,  but this was taking it to a whole new level.  Now one of us stays upstairs after we put the kids to bed till Corbin falls asleep.

Jovi lost her second tooth this past weekend.  It had been loose for a week before, but not ready to come out.  On the 4th of July it popped out .  Jovi was so proud she told everyone she saw.  She got a whole dollar bill from the tooth fairy.

Calendar Time

I found out the importance of teaching calendar time when I was teaching in a special ed. classroom.  My mentor told me it was the best way to cover multiple IEPs (individual education plans) in a short amount of time and she was right.  With the right calendar time, you cover lots of math, some science and social studies and can even introduce new vocabulary.  It like higher level circle time.  Anyway, I thought I'd walk you through what we do for our calendar time.

First of all, Jovi is almost always the "handy dandy helper" (a title she got from apple creek preschool).  Occasionally I get to be the handy dandy helper and she is the teacher telling me what to do, just for variety.  The first thing we do is sing our months of the year song.  (Oh, jovi was a super, cowboy, cop?  in the pictures)



Next she finds what day it is and moves the daily marker to that date. and we work on saying the date in the right order.


Then we sing the days of the week song and fill out our today is..., tomorrow will be..., yesterday was... chart.


Next we graph the weather and I ask her a few graph reading questions.


After that we play hundred chart games. There are SO many things you can do with a hundred chart. Jovi is working on number recognition above 20 so we play find the number, I give her a number and she has to point to it on the chart. She loves skip counting by ten. I will probably add skip counting by 5s and then 2s in the next few months. Occasionally I have her count all the way to 100. She also practices counting backwards using the board. Once I teach her addition and subtraction using a number line she can do that on a hundreds chart too.



I've already added talking about place value, by using something like this
We use the day of the month so we never get into the hundreds, but I might change how we do that in the future.

Other things I may add in the future are talking about odd and even using the day of the month and introducing daily/weekly vocabulary. I'll be putting up some wall maps in the future and I might add some geography as part of our calendar time, too. I might introduce some word families during calendar time once Jovi is ready for that.  Really, calendar time can be involved and as long as you and your child want. We have fun with our calendar time right now.

Preschool, homeschool, kindergarten, whatever

Jovi and I have been doing "school" at home for a month now.  We've both gotten into it and been having lots of fun.  I was planning on doing a preschool, specifically a pre-k program, in the fall.  But I only had one person who was even interested and as I worked with Jovi I realized that a slow moving, kindergarten level program would be more appropriate for her.  I emailed the person who had expressed interest and told her that I was increasing the level of the program, but they were welcome to join us.

I feel like this is a blessing in disguise.  If Jovi had been only two weeks older she would almost certainly be going into public school Kindergarten.  Since she cannot go to public school yet I get a chance to try out homeschooling with very little risk and a great opportunity for rewards.  I have been interested in homeschooling ever since Jovi was born.  I toyed with the idea, read books and curriculum catalogs, but never felt sure that homeschooling was the choice I should make...till now.  If Jovi and I love this year we will continue.  If she learned a lot, but for any reason we feel like she would do better in public school I can test her into first grade.  If this year just doesn't go well for us or she isn't learning much she can start kindergarten next year just like she is supposed to according to the state.  I feel like I have so many options at the end of the year, that this year has no pressure and can be nothing but positive.

I've been having lots of fun looking for curriculum, but that deserves a post all its own.  Instead, I will share how our upstairs living area has changed.  Everyone, kids and adults, love the new space and use it way more than we used to.












Next time a post about calendar time...