Friday, September 13, 2013
Thursday, September 12, 2013
Wednesday, September 11, 2013
September 11, 2013
We also watched this clip together (best to skip the political q&a in the middle):
http://www.nick.com/videos/clip/nick-news-what-happened-the-true-story-of-september-11th-full-episode.html
Tuesday, September 10, 2013
Monday, September 9, 2013
September 9, 2013
Day one of learning cursive - and she loves it.
Math. My apologies for my randomly uncooperative sideways camera.
Language Arts - Adjectives
Science/Health - Nutrition
Free art time :o)
Computer-based learning while mom does some work.
We found a friend.... who wanted nothing to do with us. :o(
Recess!!!
That's a wrap.
Wednesday, April 10, 2013
Planning for next year...
I am starting to assemble a plan for next year... and while I do that I am looking sadly at the pile of books that we haven't even cracked... things picked up with good intentions that sat overlooked while we did other things. Oh, well - we will bless someone at our upcoming book swap. :o)
So what is in the works for our next school year? We will have two kids "officially" homeschooling at that point, so I will need to lay out a plan for both of them, but thankfully I have been finding some neat resources that I can use with both at the same time. We'll be doing grade three and either K or 1, depending how the board defines the first year.
I am planning to try out "Teaching with God's Heart for the World" as the core of this coming year, or two depending on how quickly we move through it.
Math -
Science -
Social Studies (Geography, History) -
Reading/Language Arts -
Art -
Bible -
I want to re-read "The Well-Trained Mind" over the summer and revisit some of their ideas - I like a lot about the classical method but I think it is beyond our scope in the elementary years.
So what is in the works for our next school year? We will have two kids "officially" homeschooling at that point, so I will need to lay out a plan for both of them, but thankfully I have been finding some neat resources that I can use with both at the same time. We'll be doing grade three and either K or 1, depending how the board defines the first year.
I am planning to try out "Teaching with God's Heart for the World" as the core of this coming year, or two depending on how quickly we move through it.
Math -
- http://www.always-icecream.com - this site is well worth checking out, and you will see it repeated here several times
- Because we believe in the value of pencil-to-paper working, we will also continue working with the Horizons math workbooks.
- Goals for grade three are multiplication up to 12x12 (ie the table), basic fractions and decimals and how to convert them, and an introduction to the use of both imperial and metric measurements. Whatever else comes along in the books is great, but I want to see those three things understood.
Science -
Social Studies (Geography, History) -
Reading/Language Arts -
- http://www.always-icecream.com
- http://www.readingeggs.com
- http://www.starfall.com
- Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons
- Dick and Jane Storybook Collection
- A Reason for Handwriting - yes, cursive
- I may incorporate the Pearson Education Grammar and Writing Handbooks which I stumbled across one day and downloaded, but I haven't quite decided on that yet. They are published online here for grades one through six: http://www.sfreading.com/resources/ghb.html
- I may also incorporate the reading lists from Ambleside Online as a way to broaden our reading and motivate us to move along.
- Cara is reading the Magic Tree House series and will start doing novel studies on each one, as well as with the Narnia series, from Terri's Teaching Treasures
- And of course the Bible.
Art -
- Artists and Their Art as a guide for art appreciation
- Draw Write Now for lessons in drawing
- We will also continue taking part in group activities and/or community classes when they are offered
Music -
- I plan to start piano lessons with the girls again this year, or at least Cara.
- One or both will be enrolled in musical theatre classes
PE -
- They are enrolled in gymnastics and swim classes, which will continue
- We also visit the local animal shelter a few times a week to walk dogs when the weather is warm enough
- Bible Road Trip
- We will also be working through the Kids of Integrity program - http://www.kidsofintegrity.com/,
I want to re-read "The Well-Trained Mind" over the summer and revisit some of their ideas - I like a lot about the classical method but I think it is beyond our scope in the elementary years.
Sunday, January 13, 2013
2013 - Happy New Year :)
It's always tough getting back on schedule after a break, but we made it through our math and language pages today without any tears and only a few heartfelt sighs... we'll call that progress. LOL
I'm sort of calling this the start of a new year - technically the school year goes from September to June, but we had so much going on the last few months that we didn't really do a lot of schooling... and December was a total write-off. I'd been thinking about switching to following the calendar year anyway, so I'm taking that opportunity now. Started a new planner and everything. ;)
We've made a new deal for 2013 - each day they need to do the number of activities that corresponds to their age. One can be an educational TV show, one can be a computer learning game, and for C one can be a learning app on her iPod. So C is expected to do five "formal" activities, and A is expected to do three (plus a show and a game).
C is a smart kid, she just doesn't like to be told to work. I'm a big meanie, though - I say suck it up buttercup, the real world is going to tell you to work, and I'm only demanding a tenth of the time you'd need to sit still at school. She's quick to pick up on things and easily bored/distracted, so we don't do a lot of repetition. We haven't needed to use any of our manipulatives because she is good at figuring things out in her head - always has been, ever since she first took an interest in math. She's just bright - and independent - and has a painful need to be right and do things perfectly. Any time she sees something new on a page she freaks out... once we get past that, she rarely struggles to do it correctly, it's just that initial challenge. She would really like to be left to work on her own terms, unfortunately that tends to take the form of playing non-stop for a week then spending a morning burning through ten pages of math... and never really doing anything else.
A is much more... interesting... definitely right-brained, visual, kinetic... phonics isn't difficult for her at all and she has a fabulous memory, but without someone watching her and making corrections, she tends to make everything exactly backward. Doing math today, her answers were right, but written backward. A while ago she had her sister spell out words for her to write something, and again it was completely backward, like looking at a sentence in a mirror. And she thinks differently. We were doing basic math today, adding and subtracting ones. "One plus one is..." "Two take away one is..." Approaching it this way, she struggled to comprehend what the words meant. "One more than one is..." "One less than two is..." - 100% correct. Weird. I'm glad now that I read a lot of varied books. One was "Raising Your Right Brained Child in a Left Brained World" - it answered a lot of questions.
I'm sort of calling this the start of a new year - technically the school year goes from September to June, but we had so much going on the last few months that we didn't really do a lot of schooling... and December was a total write-off. I'd been thinking about switching to following the calendar year anyway, so I'm taking that opportunity now. Started a new planner and everything. ;)
We've made a new deal for 2013 - each day they need to do the number of activities that corresponds to their age. One can be an educational TV show, one can be a computer learning game, and for C one can be a learning app on her iPod. So C is expected to do five "formal" activities, and A is expected to do three (plus a show and a game).
C is a smart kid, she just doesn't like to be told to work. I'm a big meanie, though - I say suck it up buttercup, the real world is going to tell you to work, and I'm only demanding a tenth of the time you'd need to sit still at school. She's quick to pick up on things and easily bored/distracted, so we don't do a lot of repetition. We haven't needed to use any of our manipulatives because she is good at figuring things out in her head - always has been, ever since she first took an interest in math. She's just bright - and independent - and has a painful need to be right and do things perfectly. Any time she sees something new on a page she freaks out... once we get past that, she rarely struggles to do it correctly, it's just that initial challenge. She would really like to be left to work on her own terms, unfortunately that tends to take the form of playing non-stop for a week then spending a morning burning through ten pages of math... and never really doing anything else.
A is much more... interesting... definitely right-brained, visual, kinetic... phonics isn't difficult for her at all and she has a fabulous memory, but without someone watching her and making corrections, she tends to make everything exactly backward. Doing math today, her answers were right, but written backward. A while ago she had her sister spell out words for her to write something, and again it was completely backward, like looking at a sentence in a mirror. And she thinks differently. We were doing basic math today, adding and subtracting ones. "One plus one is..." "Two take away one is..." Approaching it this way, she struggled to comprehend what the words meant. "One more than one is..." "One less than two is..." - 100% correct. Weird. I'm glad now that I read a lot of varied books. One was "Raising Your Right Brained Child in a Left Brained World" - it answered a lot of questions.
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