|
I know it's been awhile since I've updated this (a month?) Part of that is because I'm lazy when it comes to uploading pics to photobucket FIRST, then updating my blog. OK- really, all of it is because of that LOL News on homeschooling: We tried to do the "unit study" approach. We gave it about a week, but in the end it just crumbled. The thing is, I was not willing to stop using Abeka for Language, Letters & Sounds, Spelling, Reading, and Arithmetic. Soooo that didn't leave much left for the unit study approach, besides Science/Social Studies. Well, given that, I ended up asking myself 'what is different about what we are doing?' We found that we do enjoy learning the things we were learning in our first unit study (Space Exploration).. but the children were asking me 'when are we going to do school' and saying that they didn't like *not* doing things the way we normally do. So, about the only thing I kept from that 'change' was that we 1) are sticking with starting school at 10am, instead of 8:30, and 2) we are not going by a minute-by-minute schedule anymore- school is from 10-2:30, and we do everything we need to do in that time-frame...none of this 'must be doing this at such and such time' stuff. That was stressing us out. We are ALL much happier to just know the school hours, and know the order of subjects, which is: -Opening time (singing songs about the days of the week, season, month, calendar, the Pledge, and our current patriotic song, which, for Oct is the Star-Spangled Banner.)......and any news/announcements that need to be made (for instance yesterday we discussed the Book-It! program that just started this month, and we set our goals. -Language Arts... (everyone does Letters & Sounds from Abeka, and handwriting, and 2nd grade also does Spelling, Language, and morning reading from their Abeka reader...meanwhile I take turns rotating for individual grade level instruction) -Bible....we usually take whatever papers they have brought home from Sunday School and I use my Bible curriculum to elaborate on those stories. This includes reading again from the Bible whatever they learned, and typically some sort of coloring or cutting/pasting/coloring activity, or a game, or acting out the story- whatever. -Centers -Activitiy Time/Specials (varies according to the day) -Lunch -afternoon reading....everyone is to sit down and read quietly while whatever grade level I have called over to me reads orally, and assessment is done, as well as comprehension questions. I also may read to them during this time. -Arithmetic (similar to Lang. Arts in the way it 'operates' -Science/Social Studies (mostly Science at the present time) -End of day.....2:30 Progress: I intend on making up progress reports by next week (that will be our 6 week mark) but so far, this is the progress made: Noah- knows all colors, shapes, can count clearly to 13, roughly to 20 LOL, writes his name, recognizes the letters from his name and some other letters, knows the sounds of several letters, counts objects, identifies numbers through 10, draws people with facial features and clothes, arms, and legs, "reads" according to the pictures in books. Loralai- writing so many letters, knows all letters and sounds, can identify vowel sounds in words, can identify beginning and ending sounds, knows the vowels, reading blends, writing numbers, can count at least to 20 (probably higher but that's as far as our curr has gotten so far), writes her name and other family members' names, can copy any word, though some letters may be backward (such as "s" or "b/d") Abby & Lexi- reading chapter books (currently enjoying the American Girl books and also some of the Great Illustrated Classics), writing paragraphs concisely, writing stories (1-2 pages front and back), cursive writing coming along great, adding double digits with carrying, subtracting double digits, adding higher dollar bill amounts, beginning multiplication, currently skip counting by threes, learning place value to thousands, rounding up numbers, measuring to the 1/4 inch, learning 20 spelling words per week (test every Friday for Spelling)............ you know, they can do so much more, but this is not a progress report, I have some lesson planning to do, and want to finish updating this blog with pics! I better stop rambling off everything! AFA Science/Social studies- we are currently learning about animals and space, and Loralai is learning about community helpers. Whew- that's enough for now! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ But we've been up to a lot lately! Let me try to start in chronological order.... Here's a shot from Loralai's 6th birthday- I made her the cake, and the crown is something she got to wear all day in school (I believe that was a Library day, but I don't think she wanted to wear it into the library LOL)
Here are some more school shots: These are my daily folders. I try to have every day's planning, reproducibles, manipulatives, etc in the day's folder, so all I have to pull out is that day's folder, and my planner.
Some Art:
Apple Stamping...
Some Arithmetic:
A test going on for 2nd grade....can't recall what test that was (looks like Arithmetic):
Noah working intently on his Letters and Sounds (C's): (you see how he's scribbled on his nameplate?? That's why I bought packs of 30 something LOL)
Loralai working on her blend ladders: (I let her use my pointer for fun lol) (and this pic was taken at least 2 weeks ago- our pocket chart is way more filled with letters at this point haha)
An award Abby earned for good behavior in Centers one day: (What do I need for my birthday on November.....thats N O V E M B E R.... 24 (twenty-fourth)?? A new camera! This pic came out terrible! I debated including it, it was such a horrible pic, but I wanted to brag on Abby a little, so try to make it out if you can....)Anyway, she was the only one that day who I didn't have to remind to be in their center, so she got a certificate to pick a center of her choice, and choose whatever she wanted to do in that center.
Noah doing some computer stuff:
Oh, and we're using Loralai's hundred chart to count down to the 100th Day of school...there are star stickers in the corner of the numbers, this was taken about 2 weeks into school:
One day at the park for PE. We intended on going to the Sprinkler park with a friend, but it was closed that day, so we ended up on the other side, at the regular park.
OK..........now for some Disney pics!! :) (you knew you weren't gonna get through this w/o some Disney!) Daddy has been taking the kids to Disney on his own a lot lately, at least once a week, while I work for a few hours during the day:
Here they were at some restaurant dancing with Cast Members and eating:
Some pics Jeffery took on Test Track:
A pic of Lexi on Mission Space when she went alone with Daddy the other night:
And sometime last week he took the kids to see En Vogue at EPCOT's Food & Wine Festival:
And that, my friends, concludes my blog update for today LOL WHEW!! :) Hope you enjoyed!! |
Comments
|
|
|
|
|
Posted by Anonymous