planning

Well, over the holidays I came up with a new way to plan our school days. It is working very well for us. I sat down and came up with all the subjects and areas that I wanted the kids to cover every week. I wrote a guideline for each day and what we would cover, a sort of masterplan. Then I typed up a sheet for each day to fill in the specific things we would be doing (what books we would read, what Math we would do, etc). Usually on the weekend, I will plan the next week out. I just grab a page for each day of the week and look at my masterplan and decide what needs to be done in each area.
Each day's page, books, notebooks and worksheets are all put together in file folders according to day. I just pull out all the stuff I need for that day and highlight everything that we complete as we finish it.
At the end of the day all the worksheets the kids do go into their own binder and we keep them as a sort of portfolio.

Some pics of the kids doing bubble painting:

i'm still here...

I have not been very good at blogging lately! The last three weeks have been spent living sometimes at our house and sometimes at Perry's brother's house with his family. Perry has been working at the plant that his brother works at Monday-Friday. He only comes home on the weekends and we go to stay with him about 3 nights a week. It is a little crazy, but we all get along really well. It's the kids who do most of the fighting. They have 3 girls and with our 2 boys we have 5 children under the age of 5! They usually get along really well, but what can you expect with so many small children?
Schooling is a little harder to do with our current circumstance, but I am pretty happy with Ethan's progress. In the last week he has started to sound out words so that he can write them on his own without asking how to spell things. He's done pretty well and we haven't even gotten to that point in his reading/writing lessons. So he's jumped ahead on his own. I'm seeing how many parents chose to unschool their children. That is essentially child led learning- it is amazing what children can do when you let them. Ethan was making 'machines' on the stairs today. He made a hot lava machine and a gumball machine. He was very proud of them!
We made pancakes for lunch today, which the kids really enjoyed.
I had some pics to share but my computer won't read my card...

finishing the last post and some garden shots

Alright, to finish off where I started the other day. The other subjects I want to cover through out the week are Physical Education, Life Skills, Arts and/or Crafts, Music, Social Studies, and Science.
Life Skills- This would include things like baking, cooking, cleaning, laundry, sewing, money matters, etc. I would like to start baking our own bread every week. I have an awesome recipe that makes 4 loaves, so easily it can be frozen after the second rise and we will be able to have fresh bread all week. Perry used to be a franchisee for a bread company, but sold his route last month, so now we need to buy or make our bread!
Art and/or Crafts- make crafts or study artists.
Music- this one is a little harder to really study, as I don't know anything about music. We will listen to children's song and Bible songs. Maybe next year I will sign Ethan up for some kind of music lesson.
Science- fun little science experiments and simple facts.
Social Studies- looking at maps, learning about people before us and different cultures.
Physical Education- this is another area I don't care to focus too much energy into! the kids are signed up with the YMCA. Every week they attend three programs- 1st Wacky Wednesday (cooking, gym time and play), 2nd swimming lessons, 3rd Junior Y Kids which is kind of like 2 1/2 hrs of preschool, they do crafts, centres, outdoor play, story time, etc.

My goals for this year:
Ethan
-to recognise numbers to 100
-to read simple books
-to start becoming familiar with the scripture
-to become responsible for daily chores
-to improve handwriting
-to learn simple addition and subtraction

Gavin
-to learn letters and sounds
-to count to 100
-to start becoming familiar with the scripture
-to become familiar with months, seasons, calendar, sense of yesterday, today, tomorrow
-to learn phone number and address
-to write name


their version of the yellow brick road:

I had my zoom lense on and couldn't get back far enough to get a pick of our whole vegetable garden, so here's one tomato, lol:

I did not plant these morning glories, but they are gorgeous!:

agenda

Ok, so we are getting ready to 'officially' start school next week. I have made a list of subjects that I think we should cover every day. They are: Bible, reading, handwriting, letters (for Gavin), some small form of math and I also want them to start doing chores every day. Weekly subjects are: life skills (household type things- cooking, etc.), art and/or crafts, music, social studies and physical education.
Of course I will keep in mind that right now they are only 3 and 4 yrs old! If I put Gavin into a school, he would be two years behind Ethan. Now when Ethan went to Junior Kindergarten last year, he was only one month older than Gavin is now, so I have decided to teach Gavin as if he were in Junior Kindergarten and not preshool.
Here is a bit of a rundown of how I plan to follow my outline.
Bible: every week I will focus on teaching the kids one song. The vast majority of the songs we sing are directly from the scriptures and so they are learning to memorize the Bible at the same time and they find it fun, too!
Also, we will have one Bible story or context to learn about each week. And a Bible verse to *try* and memorize that is related either to the song or the story of the week.
We will also have prayer time every morning. Our boys already ask for prayer or pray for people when they are hurt and it is so beautiful to see, I really want to get them into the habit of praying daily for other things.
Reading: We are using the book Teach your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. It is a wonderful book, if your child doesn't get bored with repitition. We tried it with Ethan last winter and we got to lesson 7 and it became to much of a struggle, he hated to repeat things over and over. And I am getting that from Gavin now- I don't necessarily think he's ready for it, but because his brother was doing it he wants to try to. Anyway, so I got Ethan to start doing the book again by promising him time on the computer at a website called starfall.com if he completes one lesson. Each lesson takes 10-20 min depending on how easily the child can do the tasks or how much they want to :) Also, each week we will teach Ethan a sight word.
Handwriting: Usually worksheets where they trace and then print the letters on their own. Ethan will be doing copy work which he actually enjoys.
Letters: We watch Leap Frog's letter factory and keep a leter of the week on our cupboards and talk about it's sound. We do activities based on that letter.
Math: Just learning numbers and counting for Gavin. Ethan basic addition and eventually subtraction.
Chores: we are using handipoints.com, but we just started this, so we will see how it goes! They are resposible to brush thier own teeth n the morning, make thier bed, clean their room, put all their toys away, make sure their shoes are in the closet and not to whine all day!
I will have to go into the other stuff another day! We're on our way out now!

"For nothing will be impossible with God." Luke 1:37

Letters

I only have a quick minute, so this will be a short post.
I want to start posting more about homeschooling, since I am officially starting to school the kids now.
Gavin has a lot of trouble remember what letters look like and what sounds they make. I had heard great things about Leap Frog's Letter Factory DVD, so we picked it up a few days ago at Target ($9.99).
The kids love it! I was a little afraid they would find it boring, but they have asked to watch it several times in the last 24 hrs. Gavin has been coming up to me and telling me what sounds the letters make! Ethan keeps encouraging Gavin to tell him the sounds.
I would highly recommend this product, but the only downfall is that the letter 'l' in particular is pronounced very strangely in the video- 'ull'. Other than that it is great!

some thoughts on homeschooling

Here are some comments people made about homeschooling on APP.com.

- After homeschooling my three sons for the past 13 years, I have to say a classroom setting gives children the opportunity to learn to socialize with age mates but homeschooling gives the opportunity to socialize with all ages.
My three teenage boys interact wonderfully with senior citizens and babies, as well as with their peers. They experience the world and how to survive in it by being in it and learning from it.
I don't think most people realize there are many homeschool groups across the state that provide sports activities, trips, lectures, language lessons and social activities including teen dances and parties. We don't sit in our houses all day and shut the rest of the world out.

-I am a public schoolteacher who has worked with students who were homeschooled. Not all students who are homeschooled lack social skills or are behind in the curriculum. I know many well adjusted, intelligent homeschoolers.
I also know many who have no social skills and have learned nothing. It depends on the effort parents are willing to put into their child's education. But this holds just as true for any parent of a child who attends public or private school.
I can't tell you how many times I have contacted parents about their child's missing homework, not doing well on tests or poor behavior, and the parents just blame me. I didn't raise these children to have lack of respect for me or any of their other teachers, and I can't make them do their homework or study at home. The lack of support from the parents and community is the reason so many say public schools are failing.

- My favorite arguments against homeschooling is the socialization one. I went to public school and got to socialize with drug dealers, s--ts, incompetent teachers and principals, and lots of bullies. Just think of what the homeschooled kids are missing.

- {sarcastic} I don't know who these parents think they are. You would think they might leave the shaping of their children's minds, careers and futures to trained professionals, but they insist on interfering in their offsprings' lives every step of the way.
As if these children were actually their responsibility from birth to adulthood. Don't they realize these are the people's children, the state's responsibility. As such, they must be molded by the state and educated in accordance with state requirements — no more and no less.
They must be taught to accept the same values approved and encouraged by the state. They must be taught that all are equal, regardless of ability, intelligence or talent, and therefore, all must be rewarded equally, regardless of merit, just like the public schoolteachers.
They must be taught their self esteem is more important than anything they can contribute to society. They must be taught that acting in the best interest of the collective is more important than individual liberty.
They must be taught the role of the state is to protect the individual from his own inherent stupidity, because the individual is incapable of making intelligent decisions for himself, and therefore cannot be held responsible for his actions. The state must act as parent, Big Brother, nanny.
I understand the public teachers' union has the children's best interest in mind. These parents have a lot of nerve, refusing to conform.


It may be long, but I like some of the thoughts in there.
Happy Sunday!

Romans 13:8 (New American Standard Bible)
Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another; for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law.

Click on my flickr badge to the right for some of my recent pics from my new camera. <3

teaching?

I am still thinking about homeschooling...
I thought I had decided and was ok with not homeschooling, but I just can't forget about it and I just don't feel like school is for us. Ethan is in JK right now, but I am thinking that I may not send him back. But I don't know... This is such a major and hard decision. Anyway, this past week we have been doing homeschool type activities at home and I think my plan right now is to see if we (I) can do it now and into the summer and make a decision then. If it doesn't work, nothing's lost, if it does, we'll take Ethan out of kindergarten and Gavin wasn't set to go next year anyway. And then if it isn't working Ethan will have only missed senior kindergarten, which is not a requirement anyway.
Last week at school, Ethan was learning about dinosaurs and loved it. I decided to use dinosaurs as the first thing we would look at. On Wednesday, we went to the library and got some books about dinosaurs. We went through some of the names of different dinosaurs and sang some dinosaur songs. Yesterday, was a busy day, so we didn't do much. Ethan was in school and Gavin and I went to Sarnia, then they had swimming, supper and bed. Today, we made dinosaur boxes and a dinosaur 'collage' type craft. The kids had a bath with some dinosaur shaped foam pieces and we sorted all the different kinds and counted how of each there were and went over the names. If I get right to it in the morning it doesn't seem to bad. It's if I keep doing other things and then don't have much time for stuff that it would be harder. And Perry usually naps in the afternoon, so it makes it hard to do things in the house then. We'll see how it goes...
wish me luck.

Ethan dictated this story to me this morning:
Dinosaurs never ate trees. They jumped in the tree and never ate a crayon. And he saw a little Tyrannosaurus Rex and it was a baby one. Then a little man came tumbling and he didn't know why he had a snowman and it was springtome and he didn't know why it was snowing and the number ten was out. And he didn't know why there was a bat out. There was a shirt outside hanging on the clothesline at his new house and he didn't like it. And he wrote a dinosaur poem. He had a bat in the springtime. Why did he know that he had a dinosaur poem in his house? He had a shirt hanging out on his bedroom door. He never had a crayon in his little life, too.

:)