Mar. 7, 2009 - Times per week
Times for each subject (for dd-8):
Bible: 3 days a week
Math: 4-5 days a week
Spelling: 5 days a week
Social Studies: 2 days a week
Writing: 3-4 days a week
Science: 2 days a week
Vocabulary: None for now (need new program)
Art: Dependant on length of project
Reading: 5 days a week
Music: None for now (need new program)
Valerie
Proverbs 16:3 Roll your works upon the Lord (commit and trust them wholly to Him: He will cause your thoughts to become agreeable to His will, and) so shall your plans be established and succeed. Amplified Version
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Mar. 6, 2009 - New Schedule
After discussing my concerns (previous entry) with my dh, we've come up with a solution to one of them. We're going to start taking a week off every six weeks. As I mentioned, we do year round schooling, but we've never taken "scheduled" breaks. We've always just taken time as we need to (but sometimes not often enough). Anyway, I'm excited!
Our future breaks will be as follows(for the next 12 months):
April 6-10
May 18-22
June 29-July 3
August 3-7
September 14-18
October 26-30
November 23-27 (Early for Thanksgiving)
December 21-25 (Early for Christmas)
February 1-5
I think that this will be a blessing for all of us. It will give me a chance to sit back for a week and plan and evaluate what we're doing, etc. (every 6 weeks) It will also give our children something to "look forward" to. Dd(8) will appreciate this, I'm sure. She likes to do "countdowns" for upcoming birthdays, holidays, special days, etc. :)
Valerie
Psalms 51:10 Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me. KJV
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Mar. 6, 2009 - Feeling Unsure
I've been seeking the Lord lately on what His will is for our homeschooling plans. I want to do so much with our children but there either isn't enough time or I can't "plan" it right.
For example, I want to do Spanish with them while their young but haven't. Also, I have a new art program I'm doing with them but I'm unsure of how often and when in the day to it. Piano...want to learn this myself and have dd join me in learning it (she wants to) but we don't have a piano and my dh says he feels we should wait right now on getting a keyboard (he prayed on this). And then there's typing. Dd loves to type and I want to do a typing program (probably Mavis Beacon Typing) so that she learns to be efficient without looking at the keyboard (like I have to!). This will be very important as she gets older but I feel like she should start now, not have to re-learn the "correct" way later. But again, I don't know WHEN she would do it!
Another thing is, I end up feeling pulled in so many directions on curriculum! When I read reviews on h/s message boards for great products I start second guessing what we're using or I feel like I'd love to give something a look/try. Furthermore, I find myself comparing us to other h/s families which is SO detrimental to my well-being and peace!
The last thing (and then I'm done!) is that I need to figure out exactly how I should h/s. As in, we've always h/s'ed year round and it's worked up until now, but I'm feeling like we need to do something different. We've just taken breaks throughout the year as we need them but I'm thinking about making a schedule and following it so we can all have breaks to "look forward" too. I was thinking every 5 or 6 weeks, take a week off. Hmm....
Valerie
Proverbs 3:7 Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the Lord, and depart from evil. KJV
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Mar. 3, 2009 - Organizing System
Not long ago I read an article (I can't remember where) and the woman was talking about a simple system of organizing for the eclectic homeschool mom.
What you do, is:
In a spiral notebook, you use a ruler and draw 2 lines down the length of the paper, one on each light pink line (margin). In the large, middle section you write lessons/ideas for school. (I use a 70 page notebook per subject per student). Once you complete a lessons/idea, you write the date in the left margin and any notes in the right margin. So, it would look something like this:
2/16/09 Play History board game (Went great!)
2/23/09 Fill in the blank Pledge of Allegiance (Missed 2 words)
2/18/09 Textbook pgs 101-109 (Review tomorrow)
What is so awesome about this system for me, is that I do NOT have to do anything in any given order. I am a teacher who likes to pick and choose on the current day what and how I'm going to teach. So, this way, I can write down what I want to do in the near future, and then date it when I've done it. :) See how the above example has dates out of order? This is how my real notebooks look. I've been doing this since the first of January and I'm telling you it's the best system I've ever used! I wish I'd found it sooner, but the Lord has a reason for showing it to me now. His timing is perfect.
Valerie
Colossians 3:2 Set your affection (mind) on things above, not on things on the earth. Amplified Version
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Mar. 3, 2009 - Good day at the library!
Today we found so many things at the library! The book I had on hold finally came in (Discovering Great Artists); two computer games for ds; Book One in the "My America" series (this one is about the Oregon Trail); two books for dd in the "Animal Ark" series; two books on tape; and the "Science Rocks" soundtrack.
I've looked a little at the art book and it's exactly what I wanted in an elementary art curriculum. :) Dd can read the brief biography of each artist and then replicate his/her style, while ds can enjoy making the art as well. I'm going to find some pictures online of the artist's work and let them look at them before doing each project.
I've always enjoyed art myself (painting, drawing and photography) but with my kids I haven't ever done anything more than arts & crafts. I am so excited about learning about artists with them and doing some real art!! :)
Valerie
Job 28:28 Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding. KJV
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Feb. 28, 2009 - Current Curriculum Part 2
For our ds, who turned five in late December, we are doing lots of fun things for "school".
Reading-For learning to read we roughly use Hooked on Phonics (it's my backbone, so to speak, and I basically use it as a reference). We play lots and lots of GAMES. I've made board games to reinforce sight words as well as short vowel words. We do physical games when reading words to keep him jumping! Beanbags are a favorite as well. Sometimes bikes are involved... :) Read alouds are an almost daily thing (I need to do better on this). We also do "silent reading" for 15 minutes in the afternoon, where he looks at books from the library while dd and I read our own books.
Writing-At this point he does handwriting daily (I write a sentence and he copies underneath), and a workbook where he does simple writing like fill-in-the-blanks.
Math-We play games and use manipulatives for addition/subtraction. He does mazes a few times a week (I don't know if this is actually math but I'm gonna say it is. LOL) He enjoys connect the dots and it quickly taught him to recognize numbers up to 20. Today I bought a connect the dots workbook that has pictures for 25,30,35,40,45, and 50. We'll start it on Monday. He also does addition/subtraction worksheets that I get from www.kidzone.ws/math/index.htm and he uses blocks as manipulatives.
Science-We are doing notebooking on animals right now and learning a lot!
Puzzles, puzzles, puzzles! He loves these and does them daily.
He gets computer time each day (30 minutes of a "learning" game like Reader Rabbit or a Living Books game, and then 30-45 minutes of any game he wants in the evening after dinner. He's really into I SPY games right now).
I love this stage where everything's new, reading is so close to happening and learning is second nature. :)
Valerie
Psalms 25:9 He leads the humble in what is right, and the humble He teaches His way. Amplified version
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Feb. 28, 2009 - Current Curriculum
To help me clearly see what we're doing (because right now I'm all jumbled in my head and P.M.S.ing-LOL) I'm going to list everything we're currently doing/using for "school".
For dd who will be 9 next month:
Bible-Lesson each day with me (Read passage, complete activity sheets together, and do craft or act out story with felt) Activity packet comes from http://children.calvarychapel.com/site/curriculum.htm We're also learning the books of the Bible (about 5 a week).
Writing-Journal (like a diary but she needs to be neat and also draw a picture of whatever she wrote about.) This is something we've done since she turned 4. It has changed from just a picture to a simple sentence, to paragraphs to cursive pages. :)
Writing Prompt Notebook (She chooses from pre-typed prompts I've prepared for her.) Mostly they're creative writing prompts but sometimes they'll be to write descriptives, etc.
I still occasionally give her handwriting practice. She has a notebook that I write a bible verse in and she has to copy it below mine. I'd say we're down to about once or twice a month now.
Spelling- I give her a pre-test every Sunday of fourth grade words and when she finally has ten words she's gotten wrong, we stop and those will be her words for the week. During the week, she will do several things with the words. She writes sentences; alphabetizes them; types and prints them on Microsoft Word; writes them left-handed (she's right-handed); writes them 3 times each in different colors. On Friday I test her and she usually scores 80%-100%. The website I get the words from is http://www.ecarter.k12.mo.us/dept/elementary/fourthgrade/jsievers/spelling.html
Vocabulary- I recently started giving her vocabulary words(ten a week). On Monday I introduce each word and look it up in the dictionary with her. I make a flashcard for each word and we write the definition on the back. I make them by cutting an index card in half (I use five index cards to make the ten flashcards). During the week she does a crossword puzzle, maybe a wordsearch and a fill-in-the-blanks worksheet. The website I use for the lists is http://www.aaaspell.com/vocabulary3.htm
Math-She is learning the multiplication facts right now. I have also recently started a geometry 3/4 book with her which I really like. I have introduced the concept of division and she totally gets it but I'm going to wait to give her any problems until she has her mult. facts down, otherwise it'd be tedious for her. She has really mastered fractions (to the point that a third-grader should) and really enjoys doing them. Same for place value. Money is not a problem for her except when counting back change. She doesn't get it and I'm going to have to work with her on that. I think she needs to feel more confident with subtracting....
To reviews lots of different facts, she enjoys going to www.mathfactcafe.com
Science-We are using the McGraw-Hill third grade textbook and doing lots of experiments and reading. It's not her favorite way to learn Science but I don't feel qualified to just "wing it" in this subject past second grade! Yikes. We are doing a lapbook for the Human Body and she enjoys that, plus she gets all kinds of non-fiction books about animals, weather, etc. and National Geographic for Kids magazine from the library each week.
Social Studies-We also have the McGraw-Hill textbook for this subject. She claims she gets bored reading it with me but I tell you what, she and I have the best conversation relating to what we're reading in that book each time we read it! I don't know why she complains beforehand every time. ?? Just an 8 year old thing? I dunno.
I am waiting for a book called Discovering Great Artists from my library which I will probably end up buying shortly thereafter and using for Art. It introduces famous artists and their technique. The child then tries to replicate a famous work of art or make their own, original art using the artists' technique. Looks neat. And the reviews on Amazon were fantastic.
She also, on her own, loves writing short stories, crocheting, sewing and baking. Did I forget coloring?! She's the coloring queen! :)
I will talk about what I'm doing with my ds in my next entry.
~Valerie
John 1:50 Jesus replied, Because I said to you, I saw you beneath the fig tree, do you believe in and rely on and trust in Me? You shall see greater things than this! Amplified version
