Week 12 - Thoughts and Ramblings while I gestate...lol

Hey there again! :) I was truly hoping to have a baby update instead of another week of homeschooling to report on....but it just wasn't in the cards I guess! haha

We've been working on week 12 of the curriculum "Home Education Curriculum: Kindergarten" and DD is doing VERY well. Despite my sheer laziness (I'm currently 40 weeks, 2 days pregnant!) this week, DD has completed almost all of her planned activities for the week. This week has been all about animals, emotions, the numbers 1-10, and writing the letters A-G.

The curriculum we are using kind of goes on the "school year schedule", so here in week 12 it is talking about Native Americans and Pilgrims. I've decided to save all of these activities for the week of Thanksgiving, when I'll add in tons of books and such as well. I'm taking the same approach for when we get to the weeks that are about winter holidays and other month/day specific lessons. (These start with NEXT week's lesson plans, so instead of doing the social studies, art, and music suggested in the curriculum, I am going to bulk up the math, science, and language arts.) This will make these times less hectic because we'll mainly be focusing on fun arts and crafts, baking (which is really science and math as well!) and music activities during the holiday weeks (along with some reading and writing of course!) which will help keep me feeling less overwhelmed....and we won't have to completely STOP semi-scheduled schooling so I'll feel better about that than just "taking time off".

I've also decided to stop focusing so much on the handwriting exercises that are suggested in the curriculum. I don't want DD getting burnt out on writing, so except for the days where specific worksheets or really great handwriting practice ideas are presented, I will replace the handwriting for that day with the Explode the Code worksheets. I've been skipping around in her workbook lately and giving her less of the writing-based ETC pages because I haven't wanted to overload her on handwriting....but I think a better strategy would be to just cut out the "fluff" (she doesn't REALLY need 5 days of practicing a single number and a single letter, after all!) and get to the phonics reinforcement+writing. :) I believe DD will enjoy this much more and I'll feel better knowing that she's completing more ETC. She LOVES reading the ETC words and thinks the pictures are funny, so I like this better than lined random worksheets. ;)

Other than these things, I have nothing else to report! I still plan on homeschooling when the baby is born, but I want to make sure I allow myself to scale back if I need to as I have mentioned in past blogs. :) Hopefully I'll be able to do it! The great thing is that my kids are ALWAYS learning and amazing me with their discoveries. Even if I can't "formally" instruct them, I know they'll be okay! I will remind myself of this when I decide to nap with the Baby instead of reading a book every once in a while. :)

Until next time!
-J

Fish, Feelings, and patiently awaiting Baby#3's arrival!

So I started the system of the stack of books with activities stashed inside for my DD to do this week (and it looks like next week too!) since I am now 39 weeks, 2 days pregnant. ;) She has LOVED it!! She just needs to read 1 more book with me and do the corresponding assignment plus one page of Explode the Code to be all caught up for the week and we can get that in easily tomorrow.

I'm really loving this method of teaching because it "forces" us to do a lot more reading, reflecting, and fun stuff! She looks forward to picking out a book and my DS has been tagging along like crazy lately!!! DD is also doing VERY well on her reading lessons from OPGTR and I am so grateful for that. She requests to do the reading lessons and truly enjoys them because it unlocks so many new words. She is reading EVERYTHING she comes across and loves learning new "rules" to phonics.

When we got down to just having 3 books left for the week, I went ahead and put out the books for next week as well, so we're not exactly doing the assignments sequentially, but it's good enough! The social studies theme for both weeks is the same (feelings/emotions) and the science is close enough (Fish this week and zoo & farm animals next week). The letters we're going over are F and G and we're reviewing numbers 1-10 (even though she's well beyond this, I like sticking to the curriculum as it truly keeps her sharp on her facts with these!).

The workbooks came in and my kiddos are LOOOOVING THEM!!!!! DS begged to do the pasting activities today and managed to complete a stack of around 8 of them! DD has done about 8 or 9 herself. She does her own cutting AND pasting, whereas 2 year old DS just pastes and I do the cutting for him. I'm so proud of him for wanting to "sit down" and do school work with me. I love that he sees how much fun school is and wants to be a part of it too.

Hopefully my next update will include some birth details! :)

Week 10 - Elephants & Pilgrims ;)

So 4 more assignments, and week 10 is a wrap. We were out of the house and out of sorts this week and seem to be dragging along finishing assignments! Between my naps and a series of catastrophes this week, I'm shocked we're actually almost done! hahaha

This week, our air conditioning went out, our van battery died, we had a mouse in the kitchen, my mother got remarried, I've had false labor EVERY night, and my pregnancy insomnia has been horrible so I've been napping a lot during the daytime. My kids have been having a WONDERFUL, wonderful time playing together, though. There have been many times that I've thought about pulling DD away from playing to "do school", but I decide against it because I love that she is having such a blast with her brother. Also, she's ONLY 4! I remind myself of this a lot because I want her to enjoy being a kid and enjoy school. There's no need to stress her out about it and I'd rather not stress about it either.

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So since I am so close to my due date, I have been thinking about ways to modify our schedule to accomodate DD and DS. First, DD *loves* to do activities...particularly cutting and pasting activities! I finally decided to just bite the bullet and purchase some workbooks for her. We LOVED the "I Can Cut!" and "I Can Draw!" books I'd purchased at Sam's last year, so I checked it out online and found that they have an "I Can Paste!" book. YES!!!! Where there is pasting, there IS cutting! haha

I purchased:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0769653723 (I bought 2 so that DS can have one as well...he has shown a great interest in being a part of our schooling.)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1933241020
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/4774307084
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1933241292
and then a Telling Time book:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1933241276


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I also decided that for next week's planned curriculum, I would try a new approach. I have 18 books/videos from the library that have to do with our Week 11 themes. The themes are "Fish" and "Feelings" and the books are awesome! DD is going to be ecstatic! Anyway, in each book or video (the only video is one about Rainbow Fish), I am tucking in one assignment from the week's curriculum. For example, in one book, I have a piece of writing practice paper with the letters A-E on there and the numbers 6-9 for her to practice each about 3 times. Another book has a front and back math worksheet tucked in. Another one has instructions to do a Happy collage.

Besides just the activities in the books (and reading them, of course!), I plan on completing at least 3 pages of Explode the Code with her and 4 reading lessons per week. I'm prepared for the possibility that I'll have my baby this week and that Week 11 will span over 2 weeks (even with someone else helping me out with the schooling) or even more and I'm okay with that! I think this will be less stressful for me and for the person(s) helping me than having 9 daily bags to complete!

I'm going to place the stack of books in the place of the workbox so DD can just pick a book/activity and get started. :) She and her brother have learned a LOT through the books we've read, so I'm convinced that this will be a great idea!! I don't feel that she'll get behind in her studies and I also think she'll feel satisfied with the amount and type of activities since she loves school so much.



This was all very long-winded, but I wanted to post what's going on around here! :) Thanks for checking in!

Dinos and Native Americans!

This week has been fun! I just LOVE the flexibility of homeschooling! I have felt really tired and have had terrible pregnancy insomnia the last 2 weeks, so I nap for at least an hour a day....and then if we have errands to run or something important to go to, it seems to throw our "normal" life out of whack! The awesome thing is that we can pick up where we left off the next day, do assignments before bed, or I can shorten what we're doing to save time and preserve interest in the activity... I love the versatility!

This week has been all about dinosaurs and Native Americans. Mainly the Native American studies have been in the form of reading folk tales and watching a few online vidoes that mainly have folk tales. At age 4, I'm happy to just expose DD to these things and am not concerned about teaching everything like different tribes or ways of life or whatever in more complicated terms. She has gotten a general overview and we'll go over more as we get into a study about the pilgrims next week. :)

The dinosaurs have been fun! We made "dinosaur eggs" 2 days ago. Simply hardboil some eggs, crack the shells (but do not peel), put 2-3 cups of water in a bowl, dissolve an envelope of Kool-Aid into it, place about 4 eggs in there and cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1-2 days. It makes a cool crackle effect on the white of the egg and my kids gobbled them up for breakfast! We've also done some rhymes, TONS and tons of dino books, and we did dinosaur cookies today. It's been fun because my DS is soooo into dinosaurs anyway, so my little 2.5 year old guy has been compeltely engrossed in his big sisters' school every day. I love it!! He pulls up his chair and wants to be in on all art and reading activities! He even wanted to practice writing Ds when his sister was doing some writing worksheets. hehehe

I am continuing to school my DD as "normally" as I can right now, even though I'm nearing the end of my pregnancy. It gives me something to do, it keeps her in learning mode (and she LOVES staying busy with activities anyway...they might as well be educational!!!), and I especially like that she's learning more reading concepts since she's trying to read EVERYTHING now!

Have a great Labor Day weekend, everyone! :)