Week 3

This week marks normal for us. I guess there really isn't a normal and the routine always changes, but as of right now, there will be nothing new added to our weekly routine. This week we added Bible Study Fellowship (BSF). This means that two mornings a week we have commitments, with one of those mornings being pretty intense for the kids. Monday is my leaders meeting and the kids just play with the other leaders's kids. Tuesday the kids are in a program. Well, it is more than that, but for lack of a better word that is what I'm going to use. I expect for Tuesdays to be pretty laid back in regard to school work, but we will see.

Monday

We started out at BSF and then did some errands. I used this time to make a run to the library, we had a few books to return and needed to find a few new ones for next weeks unit. By the time we got home, we only had an hour before we needed to leave for Miss E's gymnastic class. I purposely planned for Monday to be a light day knowing that time was going to be short. My focus is on Bible, English and math when we have our light days.

When we got home I had the kids sit on the couch and we did our Bible reading, Genesis 29-31:21; we reviewed our past memory verses and worked on our new one, 1 John 3:16; and then did our CC memory work. (Since we are only on week 2 of our CC work, we reviewed what we did last week and just added this weeks stuff. For now we will just keep reviewing and adding until I feel the kids have it down.)

I asked Miss E if she wanted to work on her English or do math, she chose math. I found some sorting and pattern activities involving M&Ms in the Letter of the Week program from Confessions of a Homeschooler. I got out the M&Ms, gave both kids a small bowl full and then had them sort them by color. I then had Miss E do a variety of different things with her sorted M&Ms. We talked about how many of each color there were, she made different patterns, and then we talked about adding. She was excited that she got to eat them when she was done. Little Man did some activities, too. I had him make the same patterns and we just talked about the different colors.

 

 After Miss E's gymnastic class and while I was preparing dinner I had her work on her Lexia. She struggled at the beginning. It is tough to watch her struggle and get frustrated. It is tough to keep on her to keep going. Eventually she picked up on what she was supposed to do and finished her level perfectly. She was so proud of herself and I made sure to praise her. Sometimes it is the little things.

After dinner we spent time doing some free reading. While we were at the library Miss E found a book called Real Live Monsters. We read though it and talked about the amazing animals. We also read Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile. For having a light day, we did get a lot done.

Tuesday

We started the morning off at BSF. The Children's program at BSF is just that. It is a program teaching children about God. We do a bible story, sing hymns, have a quiet time, and do some fun playing. It is two hours and for the oldest kids (5-6 year olds) there is a lot of stimulation. Knowing that Tuesdays are already full of learning in the morning, I make our school schedule very light, again. 

I always let Miss E dictate our day, to some extent. I asked her what she wanted to do first and she surprised me by saying her Lexia!! Since she did such a good job yesterday, and because she ended her time on such a high note, she wanted to do her computer work again. She had an amazing session!! After she finished her Lexia, I had her do some copy work that reviewed the letters we have learned along with the words we can make with those letters. 

We then read The War Between the Conconents and the Vowels, a poem that we are memorizing from Poems and Prayers for the Very Young, and Baa Baa Black Sheep from our Earlybird Kindergarten Mathematics curriculum. We did not just read Baa Baa Black Sheep, we discussed what was going on, counted different things, and started working on adding and subtracting.

Math is the last thing we covered for the day. Our objective was to count and recognize 1, 2, 3.

Wednesday
Bible Genesis 31:22-34 and memory verse 1 John 3:16
CC

Miss E started her day off with Math. We are working on recognizing and counting 1-5.
To keep Little Man busy while I'm working with Miss E, I got these lacing cards from Lakeshore. He started having a lot of fun with them and Miss E decided she needed to have fun, too.

 We read David and Goliath, Frogs, and About Amphibians.
After reading about frogs, we did a rhyming activity which sorted pictures into categories either rhyming or not rhyming with frog. The activity came from here.

We also did a frog life cycle poster. I just googled pictures and printed them off. I had the kids color them however they wanted to and then they cut out their little pictures. I guided Miss E in her poster by telling her to put the frogs in order from egg to frog. For Little Man, I just let him do what he wanted.

Their completed posters. Pretty creative, if you ask me. 

 I am still struggling with getting Miss E to do any writing. I talked with a friend at gymnastics and she said that her daughter came home with 'rainbow writing'. We talked about what 'rainbow writing' is and I made this little worksheet. Miss E used colored pencils, so the lines are light, but she enjoyed practicing her letters this way. Just one more activity to keep in mind when I need to change things up a little bit.





Thursday
Bible Genesis 35-37 and memory verse 1 John 3:16.
CC

Today was rough!! Oh my!! I think part of the problem is that I'm run by my schedule and Miss E is not. I want her to try all of our activities and she is strong willed. I keep having to remind myself that everyone learns at different levels and at different times. I don't need to push her to stay up with my schedule. One of the joys of home schooling is that we get to set our own schedule and work at our own pace, we get to be flexible! 

Our math objective was arranging items in different ways. We started by reading Elmer. While Miss E worked on her assignment I had Little Man do the paint brush color sorting folder game again. Of course, when she was done, she needed to do the file folder game herself.

We did our history reading of The Legend of the Persian Carpet.

This is where our day took a turn. We've been working on our little words for at least a week and a half. When we learned 'm' and 'a', we put the letters together and talked about 'am'. We we added letters we added words. Miss E was not excited at all about reading the First Bob Book; Mat. I got a little bit frustrated... We will be working on this...

 We took a break from reading and did our science. We read Why Frogs are Wet and then talked about what animals were predators for frogs and what were prey. And then started our frog craft.

Friday
After the disaster of yesterday, we let our schedule slide a little bit. There are still things that I felt we needed to cover and we did. It was not an easy day but any means, but we got enough done to call it a day.

Bible Genesis 38-41:13 and memory verse 1 John 3:16
CC
We actually did our Bible and CC work while in the car driving to and from our chiropractor appointment. Not to bad for multitasking.

Since we had such a hard time with our words, I make some flash cards and we worked on saying our words with our cards. Miss E started off excited, but then started to push back. Our new flash cards will not be going away, but I'm going to have find the line between making her do some work and letting it go because she has had enough.

We then did math. Our objective for today was reading picture graphs. She loved being able to color different things. She kept asking for more math to do, too.

We finished our school day by reading Sindbad.

I heard from several friends this week that it was tough. Someone said 'Momma said there will be days like this, days like this, my momma said.' I had to chuckle. I know that I am training my kids, that I'm doing for my kids what I feel is best, and that the honeymoon is over. Learning is tough... the process is hard... we'll get through it and if it takes weeks to get through one objective then it takes weeks. We are not on anyone's schudule but our own.

Thank you for taking this journey with us.
Blessings,
Elizabeth

Ideas for this week came from the following blogs.

 

Week 2

Epi Kardia - Week 2 - Ancients I
Earlybird Kindergarten Mathematics (Match and Sort)
Classical Conversations - Cycle 1 Week 1

Monday - Happy Labor Day!!

While most people are taking a holiday or a day off, we hit the day running. Well, not really running, we slept until we woke up, but then we did some school. All weekend Miss E kept asking me when we could do more home school. LOVE IT!! We are also trying to establish a routine, so I felt that doing school today would be beneficial in the long run anyway.

We read Genesis 17-19 and worked on our new memory verse, Matthew 7:12. We reviewed our verse from last week, too. (I'm amazed at how well and fast my kids memorize things.)

This week we start our Classical Conversations (CC) memory work. We are going to be memorizing the timeline, science cards, math, and English. We'll pick up everything else next year. Little man was even getting into it with us.

Math today we talked about objects that are used together.

In History this week we are still talking about Egypt. We re-read Bill and Pete Go Down the Nile. As I read we talked about what is real in the story and what was made up. After we read, I got out the globe and we found where we lived, Africa, and then Egypt. I printed off a blank map of Africa and we compared it to the globe. She pointed to Egypt on the globe and I then asked her to point to Egypt on our printed map. She found it and then I had her color just Egypt. Geography lesson done. We also read Exodus.

This week in science we will be talking about reptiles. For fun we read Yertle the Turtle.

For English/Phonics, we reviewed the letter sounds that we have learned.
In her Lexia program last week, I observed that she is having trouble with rhyming words and syllables. This week we will focus on the rhyming and will do syllables, next week. I found this folder game Space Rhymes and we talked about rhyming words. I figured out, more than half way through our lesson, that she did not understand what I meant when I said beginning and ending sounds. We've got some work to do. I have another activity that we will use later this week helping with rhyming. (I have printed off a lot of folder games from www.filefolderfun.com.)

PE was time in the pool.

**I have found that Miss E and I get a lot more done when Little Man is sleeping. He, however, does not always take a nap for me AND I cannot wait until the afternoon to start our school work. A few weeks ago I got my hands on the Letter of the Week program from Confessions of a Homeschooler. Along with the other fun things I already have available, I'm going to start giving him activities from here to do, too. He is only three and I'm not interested in doing anything 'formal' with him, so maybe this will be a way to keep his hands busy while I work with his sister. Really the only times I need something for him to do is during our math and phonics time because he can sit with us during all other teaching times.

Tuesday
I'm quickly experiencing the highs and lows of teaching school. For being so excited over the weekend, we are having a slow start to the rest of the week. In fairness, I had a workshop with my Bible study this morning. The kids just played, there was no teaching, no lesson, just full on play while I was at my workshop. I brought lunch with us so the kids could eat on our way home and then we would do some school. We got through our Bible reading (Exodus 20) and the review of our memory verses. Then I started reading Adventures in Ancient Egypt. I was sitting between both kids and their heads leaned on me and then began to get heavy. I read about half the book and asked if they were done. Miss E turned on the couch, laid down and feel asleep. She never takes a nap anymore. Little man moved the floor and he was out. I had to wake her up for her gymnastics class. (We won't talk about how the rest of our evening went.)

So, we got our reading in and our PE.

Wednesday
Bible - Genesis 20-23; Memory Matthew 7:12
CC memory work
Calendar

For History we finished reading Adventures in Ancient Egypt. Because we need samples of work to show our umbrella school, I'm going to create a little worksheet for her to fill in. We will work on that later in the week. Both kids really enjoyed the book. I'm going to have to look for more of these books for later lessons.

For math we talked about objects that do not belong to the set and we worked on sorting and classifying objects based on a specific attribute, ie. sorting school supplies and toys.

For science we read About Reptiles, The Journey of a Turtle, and One Tiny Turtle. I found a unit on reptiles here. (I really like homeschoolshare.com and have gotten a lot of ideas for things we will do in future weeks.) Miss E worked on a few of the worksheets. She worked on her fine motor skills to help the reptile find food, she matched three snakes that are exactly the same, and determined the starting sound of three reptiles. Good review and practice of things we have already done. We had fun painting the shell of a turtle, too; the idea came from here.


English/phonics is the toughest time of day for us. I need to find something that will keep her interest. She needs work on penmanship but she gets board and distracted. I did break a pencil in half to help her hold her pencil more correctly but she does not like physically writing her letters, name, or numbers. She does like to work on Lexia right now so that is building her vocabulary.

We read a little poem from Poems and Prayers for the Very Young and we talked about the Family from A Child's Book of Art.

We had a really busy day making up for not doing what I had planned on Tuesday. I have some rearranging to do for next week, but I think overall, the day went well.

Thursday
Bible Genesis 24-25; Memory Matthew 7:12
CC memory work
Calendar -- we watched Signing Time: Days of the Week
We started our day outside to enjoy the cool morning. Actually, Daddy is going to have to work late tonight so he took the dog and the kids out this morning. I used the sidewalk chalk and made a little game emphasizing letter sounds with the letters we have learned, 'M' 'A' 'T'. I called out a word and Miss E stood on the letter that word began with. Then she got out the chalk herself and practiced writing her letters. I think this is a lot more fun then writing on paper. When we were done she rode her bike and jumped rope. PE done!!

When we came inside we read our Bible and worked on our memory work.

I asked Miss E what she wanted to work on and she said her English. Today is a review day, I got out our letter hearts and we started putting together words with the letters m, a, and t. I also printed off letter tracing from here. She did not fight me today when we practiced our letter writing. Maybe there is something to the presentation, colorful is more fun than black and white. Little Man got to work with us with Do.A.Dots.

We re-read Exodus and then worked on the worksheet I made about ancient Egypt. We had to reference back to Adventures in Ancient Egypt a couple of times. I just re-read the sentence that had the answer I was looking for. I used a highlighter and wrote in her answers and then had her copy my writing.

We also read a poem from The Aesop for Children. The history portion of our curriculum has us read some form of poetry everyday.





We finished Chapter 1 in Math today. She did an assessment today matching and sorting different objects by different attributes. She also got some practice with the glue stick.













We finished our turtle craft. I did not give any direction other than telling them we were finishing our turtles. I did tell them what the different pieces where and they just put glue everywhere and stuck things wherever they wanted to. Abstract art at its best!

For Science today we finished talking about turtles and then read two fun stories about snakes, Verdi and Crictor. And that wrapped up our day.

Friday

Bible Genesis 26-28; Memory Matthew 7:12
CC memory work - this memory work is not going as well as I had hoped it would, persistence is key so we will keep plugging along next week.
Calendar 

We finished our unit on Egypt by reading Tutankhamen's Gift.
We also read a poem from Poems and Prayers for the Very Young.

Wrapping up reptiles this week, Miss E wrote a little story about snakes. Here is her story:

Snakes are different colors. Some are green. They crawl around and around, sometimes on the ground and sometimes in trees. They like to eat leaves.

We read About Reptiles again and then I also asked her to tell me what she knew about reptiles.

Some reptiles are snakes. Some reptiles are alligators. Some reptiles are turtles. Some reptiles are lizards. Reptiles eat leaves and meat. Baby reptiles hatch from eggs and are left along with no mother to protect them. They like hot weather.

The last thing we did with reptiles was sort animals into reptiles and not reptiles. I used one of our Zoonooz magazines and cut out pictures of different animals. I also used pictures from here and had Miss E do the cutting. Once she had them sorted I had her glue her answers onto the grid. She is an expert in sorting. 

For English/Phonics we talked about the letter 'S'. I again used The Letter of the Week copy pages and Do.A.Dot pages for both kids. 

We also did this little project, we took glue, made an S and covered it in sand. Fun stuff. 

Literature for the week:
Bill and Pete Go Down the Nile by Tomie dePaola
Exodus by Brian Wildsmith
Yertle the Turtle by Dr. Seuss
Adventures in Ancient Egypt by Linda Bailey
About Reptiles by Cathryn Sill
The Journey of a Turtle by Carolyn Scrace
One Tiny Turtle by Nicola Davies
Poems and Prayers For the Very Young selected by Martha Alexander
A Child's Book of Art selected by Lucy Micklethwait
Crictor by Tomi Ungerer
Verdi by Janell Cannon
The Aesop for Children
Tutankhamen's Gift by Robert Sabuda

Outside blog links/favorite sites.

  

1000 square feet

So, I don't even have two weeks under my belt, but feel I should share how we are doing homeschool in our little condo. There are 4 of us in our One Thousand Square Foot place and over 9 years worth of junk. I'm an avid reader so I have several bookshelves full of books and my husband is a collector of computers so, he has several computers and tons of parts. There are very few empty spots in our house. I really hate clutter, but right now clutter is my 'normal'.

Taking on the call to homeschool also brought on this massive need to find a larger house. We've been house hunting for awhile now and have not found the place that is for us. Well, we did find a place that we thought would be ours but the Lord has other plans. So, we are waiting and looking and praying and looking and...

In the meantime though, we have to go with what we have. My 'school' room is the hearth in front of the fire place. Thankfully we live in a part of the country that does not get cold enough to warrant a fire, ever. Everything is organized in Thirty-One totes. I have organizing utility totes for everything. Right now, I'm pretty organized. The curriculum we chose is literature based so I'm always ordering books. Thankfully most of the books will be used again if we stick with this curriculum for 1st grade, so we will save a little bit of money, but will sacrifice room in the process.

We do school at our kitchen table with most of our reading done on our couch. We do a ton of things at our kitchen table, so it is never set up for any one purpose for long. I'm constantly moving things off the table to some other flat surface and then back again. I find that we take several breaks throughout our school time so I can get the table reorganized. Currently the clutter around the table does not bother my daughter too much. For that I'm very thankful, one of us distracted by clutter is enough.

The start of our day...

During our history lesson...

The end of the day...

What you do not see in any of these pictures is our little freezer we have in the corner of our dining room. It is the flat surface that collects everything that does not go to the floor.

I know that if we had a larger house with a room that had a door that closed for our 'school' room that we would not use it to do school. However, having a room to put everything, having a place to have our supplies out and easily accessible would be wonderful. In time, until then our 1000 square feet will always be evolving to meet our current needs.