Starting the Whirlwind in November

So thankful God blessed us with another month with my sister and her family before they head to Africa after Thanksgiving. And again so thankful I homeschooled this year because we have been able to get so much more family time in with them.

For November we had our normal schoolwork along with these extras.

Songs: We tried the 1+1+1=1 songs for Thanksgiving http://www.1plus1plus1equals1.com/Thanksgiving_Songs.pdf
and the Turkey Feathers song worked for a little while. Hard with Ellie taking the feathers off, even laminated, and hiding them or playing with them.

Snack:
I did do a turkey snack- cutting the pear in half and fanning the feathers. Mac decorated the turkey with raisins.
Another snack ended up being a craft/snack. We popped popcorn (and ate it of course) and then used some to dye different colors and glued them on a cutout of a corn.

Books:

I know an old lady who swallowed a pie

The thanksgiving door

'twas the night before thanksgiving

Give thanks to The Lord

Thanks for thanksgiving

This first thanksgiving day

Crafts:
Loved the handprint turkey http://jennwa.blogspot.com/2008/11/handprint-turkey-wreath.html
Pilgrim plate http://www.allkidsnetwork.com/crafts/thanksgiving/
And Mac copied her preschool pilgrims that she did the year before.

Fall Fun!

So, unlike apple week, I have not been as prepared to start fall and pumpkin month. To some unforeseen circumstances my sister and her family came back from their mission in Africa for a month, which has turned into a blessing for MAC and her three year old cousin. Lots of playdates and family time this month!

I did use 1+1+1=1.com for their leave and pumpkin songs which Mac and Ellie both love. Ellie likes the hand motions for the songs and will at least give us our audience and claps for us when we are done.

Special snack has been on a hiatus, partly because DC and I have been on a cleanse, but we did manage to make rice krispy treats shaped like leaves and pumpkins.

The books we read were:
How many seeds in a pumpkin by McNamara
The Busy Little Squirrel by Tafuri (little young)
The Little Scarecrow Boy by Brown
Mouse's First Fall by Thompson (little young)
There was an Old Lady who Swallowed Some Leaves
Leaves Leaves Leaves
P is for Pumpkin by Wargin
The Biggest Pumpkin Ever by Kroll
Pumpkin Patch Parable

Crafts were a little tough this month for some reason. I bought a perler bead craft kit of a pumpkin. I also had her make a pumpkin out of paper strips. We also did a tissue paper leaf craft where she just crumpled up tissue paper and glued it on a leaf cutout. Good age for this craft. And we did a shrinking ghost craft. You take a styrofoam cup, draw a face on it and shrink it in the oven for a minute or less at a high temperature.

Pioneer Farm

I surprised Mac during birthday week with a field trip to the Pioneer Farm. It was a great learning experience. She was definitely on the young side at six for the understanding of each particular area, but could do all the activities. We started with a tour of the schoolroom and a woman spoke about the history of the pioneers that made it out this far west, a horse carriage ride and then made candles with the group.
  

Then it was onto the cabin of the pioneers where she could grind coffee, roll out dough, shave, curl hair, try on pioneer clothes and wash them, chop carrots and cabbage and a bunch of other simple tasks that were for children back in the days. It's amazing they had time to play! 

Toward the end we had a chance to do some blacksmithing- pounding horseshoes that were steaming hot, carpentry- pounding in nails, sawing off parts of a log and using pulleys and every kids favorite part... the petting farm and hay jump. Of course, Ellie trooped along with us. 

Apple Week... actually two apple weeks

Inspired by living in Washington and it being fall time just around the corner, I decided to have apple week be our first themed week to include themed reading, crafts, snacks and maybe a field trip. In retrospect, it ended up being two weeks and believe it or not, living in the Western side of Washington it's pretty hard to find an apple orchard to go to for picking apples. But believe me, with all the books I checked out about apples, I think Mac was done with apple picking. (Reminder to self, Kindergarten they lose focus pretty easily still.)

Snack was apples, apples and peanut butter

Our two apple songs (Mac keeps requesting more songs because in preschool they had a million songs!) were from 1+1+1=1.

Journal time I asked her to draw something related to the theme. She drew a picture for her cousin to guess which apple she liked best.

Books I picked up that we liked:
How do Apples Grow by Maestro
Apples by Gibbons (this book has extras for older kids)
Amelia Bedelias First Apple Pie
Autumn is for Apples
Johnny Appleseed by Kellogg (little old for this age)
The Apple Pie Tree
Up Up Up It's Apple Picking Time
Apple Picking Time by Slawson (she didn't like)
Apples and Pumpkins by Rockwell (too young for her but she liked it)

Here are the crafts we did inspired first by 1+1+1=1 blog. The first two are painting crafts (http://jennwa.blogspot.com/2008/10/apple-print-apple-tree.html and http://www.sillyeaglebooks.com/2011/09/fall-kids-craft-apple-tree-art.html), which thankfully on the foot craft it was a nice day. The third craft was the paper plate apple craft where you tear pieces of construction paper to make the apple and then cut out a little branch for the top with a leaf- . http://jennwa.blogspot.com/2008/09/paper-plate-apple-craft.html

Got a little carried away when I wasn't looking with the red apples on the tree.

This painting you use a foot for the trunk and an apple cut in half for the leaves and apples.

And of course we had to finish the week off with caramel apples!

Curriculum and Schedule

Now that I have a week under my belt I figured I would lay out my curriculum and schedule to see how it changes throughout the year. 

Right now it seems like we are going super fast through the material. 

Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays my schedule will look like this:

Bible time from We Choose Virtues. I love having a character quality to focus on each week. This week was patience and Mac loved the character and saying. We also do a devotional and later on we'll add in Awana homework.

Calendar time: this is mostly from 1plus1plus1equals1. It's actually taking a bit longer than I expected because she gets frustrated with herself when writing the words, even though I tell her we haven't really learned that letter correctly yet. But she's catching on and loves the weather song we sing with it. 

Then I usually have her do Reading, although she would prefer her favorite subject Math. Reading is from An Ordinary Parent's Guide to Reading and I love it! It focuses step by step on each sound and gives plenty of practice. 

Handwriting is next so I can take care of Ellie, who has usually gotten into a mess. She is doing great really trying to do the letters correctly.

Math is last of the core subjects for now and we usually do 2-3 lessons, which are super easy. The only thing holding her back I think is that she has to write the specific number about ten times every lesson and by this time is tired of writing. 

So far that takes about an hour. Then I add on journal time. This week we did a geography added page and one of her favorite things from the summer. Or art time from different websites or these two books from Mead- Snit It! and Shape Builders. I feel like she doesn't have an interest in drawing much because she doesn't take the time to practice so the shape builders might help a little plus the journaling on different subjects. This will probably lead into lapbooking of a sort later this year. 

Somewhere in here I'd like to fit more reading aloud books. 

Tuesdays I have bible study in the morning and Mac will go to her kindergarten-like class where they have Bible, calendar time, gym time, and an art project. Then we have a foster visit and gymnastics in the evening so not sure if I'm doing anything that day besides some reading time. I may try and fit in geography this day but we'll see once my class starts. The Geography I'm using is from Evan-Moor and it's called Beginning Geography. I liked this book to start with because it teaches all about maps, directions, landforms, water, continents, etc. The very basics then we can get into specific countries after that. If not I'll add it in on another day. Only plan to do one lesson per week. The first week was finding things on a map of a room and then in her journal I had her draw a picture of her own room looking from above and adding her furniture. 

And Fridays we have a foster visit in the morning so plan to do just a little bit of work.

Whew! 

Classroom and the official first day of school

So I put a lot of thought into making the our dining area (that we really don't utiize for eating) into a classroom because I wanted a fun school-like atmosphere. Here are some pictures of our classroom right now.

Right now she loves school, of course it's the second day. The only thing she's asked for more of is singing. Oh goodness. We already did Old MacDonald with the vowel sounds and we sing our weather song from 1plus1plus1equals1.net.

And of course I have to post our first day school pictures. She picked her outfit out herself, I thought it was so cute she wanted to dress up. That is our daughter- all heart.

Jumping the Gun

So I jumped the gun and did a practice day last Friday. We started with prayer and the first question Mac asked was why, which was neat because I was able to explain to her even part of why we were homeschooling and already it was challenging me.

So cute, whatever I brought forward she was so ready to soak in. We started with our Bible time of We Choose Virtues and this week was on patience. Perfect start. We moved onto calendar time next and that was a little difficult because I didn't have the right markers. It's a good idea to use fine tip washable markers. And then she wanted to make things perfect so she kept trying to erase her writing- that subject will require a little more time than I thought. Then handwriting from Handwriting without Tears, which went easier than I thought it would.

We took a break after a half hour. Ellie was definitely hard to keep track of while teaching. She's crawling, pulling up to a stand and basically getting into everything.

We finished with math for kindergarteners from Horizons, which was a breeze! And then reading from Ordinary Parents Guide to Reading, again easy at this point.

Part of this is figuring out how far she is ahead. So total is only took about an hour, which was comforting.

A First For Our Family

August 15, 2013

EEEEKKK! Homeschooling.

Is that what we really decided? On September 2nd of this year am I really not going to send my five year old daughter Mac to a traditional school that both my husband and I grew up in? I haven't even started homeschooling and I'm already freaking out every other week if we are making the right decision. The good thing about being in America is the freedom... right? So this is our decision for now, for this year, and we'll see where it goes from there.

We have a five year old daughter who will turn six in September and she is full of energy and charisma and loves to be around people. So why are we homeschooling? For a lot of reasons but the main reason was that we felt God leading that direction. This year our daughter is on a junior team for gymnastics and if we put her in the public school by us, we wouldn't see her two days of the week, add onto that Awana's and with my husband's job working late night, we weren't ready for her to be away from us that long.

And we really rustled with the verse in Deut 6:5-7 that says "You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. 

We felt that as a family we needed to be around each other to grow as a family personally and spiritually. Plus, the more I researched websites, talked to friends and friends of friends that homeschool there is something different about the families that homeschool. There is a bigger bond and a closer knit to the family unit. If we are to be a light in the world, that means there should be something different about our family, and if it means having us closer, then I'm all for that! Already my firstborn has been with us a third of her life! Crazy to think about.

My other reasons that were big in the consideration, actually one of my husband's big reasons is that you can only miss ten school days before you start getting in trouble and five more missed days where you really get in trouble with the school district and with our vacation schedule and my husband and daughter's skiing schedule, we will already miss a lot more.. And then there's the academic individualized plan and a want for us to create a loving, fun to learn atmosphere for our daughter. 

Whew! So all that to say, we will be starting in a few weeks. We'll see how it goes.