I am really excited to start a new year of home educating. There have been many days in our journey that I wished we could just quit, but there is nothing like a fresh September and a big pile of books to awaken my joy.
We are starting out a bit slow this year. Science, Drawing, Writing and maybe a little Latin and/or French. Those are the resources I have on hand. Oh and economics and we will probably continue watching our Canada: A People's History videos. I am just hoping and praying that we can order our math and our Sonlight soon.
Nothing like opening that box of Sonlight, full of new books and *rubs hands gleefully* schedules! We don't always follow schedules that well, but I am hoping that my big boys will be working very independantly this year and it will be so helpful for their work to be already scheduled. Talk about a time saver!
For math I am making the change from Saxon to Teaching Textbooks this year, hoping to save my R from another year of torturous (to him) repetition. He just doesn't need the repetition of Saxon and the fighting with him to 'do math' has made us both hate math by now. I love Saxon, I think it teaches thoroughly, but it is just not a fit here. I will be starting him off with the Life of Fred books only though, I haven't seen them yet, but I have high hopes for the funny stories/curriculum wrapped into one.
We are still enjoying the last vestiges of summer around here, one last steamy weekend by the pool, hanging with friends. Next week we shall get back to schedules, and I am happy for it. I am counting the days until I can order the rest of my books!
ps if you are intersted in Sonlight, please use my button on the left to check out the site and sign up for a free account. You will recieve $5 off your first order and I will benefit as well!
God bless you as you start out this new year with your kids.
Showing posts with label math. Show all posts
Showing posts with label math. Show all posts
Friday, August 28, 2009
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Life lessons.
So we took a month off of school, not a week. I needed the break and so did the kids. They read tons of books and played outside, so not a waste.
This morning, I have been trying to get them going on their book work while I read about a new-to-me math program called Jump Math. The book work is not happening, but what is may be more beneficial. The big kids are taking time to teach the little ones about chess and now go-fish. How can I make them stop to do yet another math lesson!?
This morning, I have been trying to get them going on their book work while I read about a new-to-me math program called Jump Math. The book work is not happening, but what is may be more beneficial. The big kids are taking time to teach the little ones about chess and now go-fish. How can I make them stop to do yet another math lesson!?
Wednesday, October 08, 2008
Today the boys got up early with dad and got a head start on their math. Yay! The littlest 3 and I went to chat and play at the church while the big guys worked on school. Not ideal for getting school done, but much needed for me and the preschoolers.
Social Studies:
B and R have been watching the Canada: A People's History videos. We are on episode 2 this week, it goes up to about 1670 and talks about the fur trade and New France, the life of Samuel de Champlain, etc. They are working together to write a 6 scene play about the fur trade and have chosen to follow the voyage of a beaver pelt through 6 interactions between different people involved. With a little prompting, their first 2 scenes look like a terrific start. B(13) wrote a scene where a native father is teaching his son how to catch a beaver and R(11) wrote the scene where they take the pelt to the trading post.
We are using various other resources: books from the Discovering Canada series, such as New France and The Fur Trade; Kids Can Press books such as The Kids Book of Canadian History and the Kids book of Canadian Exploration; Donna Ward's Courage and Conquest and various websites and other books.
As for the preschoolers, I read to them about beavers from the Fur Trade book. Of course A (3) has many more questions to ask than ears to listen.
Science:
Body Worlds is still playing at our Science Centre this week and I am still hoping Daddy will have time to take the older kids. I am kind of grossed out by it, so I don't want to take them. In preparation, we have been studying a bit about the human body using Lyrical Life Science 3: the Human Body as our base. The kids all enjoy the songs.
We are supplementing our reading with various Usborne books, websites and a life size skeleton model I am having the boys put together. I pulled out the Grey's Anatomy to help them label some bones not already labeled.
I am still trying to find our Science curriculum cd-rom, the boys have managed to misplace it since spring and I am frustrated with that. $75 and a month of time wasted because we can't find it. When we do, we will skip ahead to the human body section for now and then go back to earth science.
With the preschoolers today, I read the muscles pages of The Usborne First Encyclopedia of the Human Body and then we went the the linked websites and played some games.
Language arts:
Both boys are using Writing Strands this year, supplemented with weeks of Dictation exercises, Spelling workout for R(11) and Vocabulary from Classical Roots for B(13) and yet to be named grammar programs. We should be starting the Latin Road to English Grammar again soon.
B is on WS 4 lesson 5 this week and R is WS 3 lesson 3 as well as doing the dictation exercises that he only said he did last week.
The littles made an emergent reader booklet today of the Eensy Weensy Spider today and recited that with me a few times. This promotes fluency and success in reading for beginning and pre-readers. J (4) is actually reading quite well already, I literally cried last week when he read a passage from the Human Body encyclopedia. I couldn't believe how well he was reading.
The preschoolers also did a bit of cutting practice today.
Math:
Saxon Algebra 1/2 for B(13) and 6/5 for R(11) this year, continuing from the spring. B is on lesson 20 and R is on lesson (43)
Logic:
B has started a formal logic program this year by way of Introductory Logic. We are also using Critical Thinking Co.'s Mind Bender's cd-roms and Red Herring stories with both boys as fun add-ons.
Latin and French:
We haven't attempted to start these subjects yet this year. French should be easy to add in, but I have to get ahead of the kids in Latin before starting again, and with a newborn I can't even think about it now.
Cooking!
I have been lax in formal elective instruction, but both boys have shown such an interest in cooking that I am going to consider this one of our electives this year.
So far this year R has made a curry - Butter Chicken and Naan bread which was his first yeast bread. He also had to clarify butter for the naan bread.
Both boys have made pancakes and cookies, grilled cheese and ... I can't remember! I will have to keep track of their experiments and successes in the kitchen as well as cover meal planning, shopping with a budget, substitutions, conversions, tools and terms, various skills and maybe even thematic menus.... should be fun.
I need to have both boys pick passages for memory work, I keep forgetting to do that...
I had planned on taking all of September off school. E was born on September 9th and I knew I would be tired and overwhelmed and just not up to keeping up with the boys. Brent decided that when he went back to work that the boys should be doing something so he set them up and took care of making sure they did what he assigned and marked. He was right, but it has been hard many days. By the end of the first week, I took over the planning, but he has been checking in with them most nights.
When R started his usual taking all day to finish a 30 minute math lesson, Brent started waking him up at 6 am the next day to work with R before going to work. This seems to be helping so far. I am trying to stay on top of everything and them each day. I plan out our schedules with my Homeschool Tracker software, print out their weekly assignment sheets so they know what is expected each day and then try to check their work and enter it into the software as done and their marks.
I got behind last week, so this week I am playing catch up. I discovered that R hadn't done his dictation exercises last week, so he has double writing assignments this week. B had some difficulties with his vocab assignments, so he is doing catch up and corrections this week. I feel good about where we are heading this year, but frustrated with monetary constraints that are preventing me from buying some much needed and some just much wanted supplies and curriculum. Like Braeden's science. Time is limited and he really does need to complete his science this year to stay on track for college. I guess I need to pray for God's provision! Hmm, maybe the school board would be able to order it for me... I have some phone calls to make.
Social Studies:
B and R have been watching the Canada: A People's History videos. We are on episode 2 this week, it goes up to about 1670 and talks about the fur trade and New France, the life of Samuel de Champlain, etc. They are working together to write a 6 scene play about the fur trade and have chosen to follow the voyage of a beaver pelt through 6 interactions between different people involved. With a little prompting, their first 2 scenes look like a terrific start. B(13) wrote a scene where a native father is teaching his son how to catch a beaver and R(11) wrote the scene where they take the pelt to the trading post.
We are using various other resources: books from the Discovering Canada series, such as New France and The Fur Trade; Kids Can Press books such as The Kids Book of Canadian History and the Kids book of Canadian Exploration; Donna Ward's Courage and Conquest and various websites and other books.
As for the preschoolers, I read to them about beavers from the Fur Trade book. Of course A (3) has many more questions to ask than ears to listen.
Science:
Body Worlds is still playing at our Science Centre this week and I am still hoping Daddy will have time to take the older kids. I am kind of grossed out by it, so I don't want to take them. In preparation, we have been studying a bit about the human body using Lyrical Life Science 3: the Human Body as our base. The kids all enjoy the songs.
We are supplementing our reading with various Usborne books, websites and a life size skeleton model I am having the boys put together. I pulled out the Grey's Anatomy to help them label some bones not already labeled.
I am still trying to find our Science curriculum cd-rom, the boys have managed to misplace it since spring and I am frustrated with that. $75 and a month of time wasted because we can't find it. When we do, we will skip ahead to the human body section for now and then go back to earth science.
With the preschoolers today, I read the muscles pages of The Usborne First Encyclopedia of the Human Body and then we went the the linked websites and played some games.
Language arts:
Both boys are using Writing Strands this year, supplemented with weeks of Dictation exercises, Spelling workout for R(11) and Vocabulary from Classical Roots for B(13) and yet to be named grammar programs. We should be starting the Latin Road to English Grammar again soon.
B is on WS 4 lesson 5 this week and R is WS 3 lesson 3 as well as doing the dictation exercises that he only said he did last week.
The littles made an emergent reader booklet today of the Eensy Weensy Spider today and recited that with me a few times. This promotes fluency and success in reading for beginning and pre-readers. J (4) is actually reading quite well already, I literally cried last week when he read a passage from the Human Body encyclopedia. I couldn't believe how well he was reading.
The preschoolers also did a bit of cutting practice today.
Math:
Saxon Algebra 1/2 for B(13) and 6/5 for R(11) this year, continuing from the spring. B is on lesson 20 and R is on lesson (43)
Logic:
B has started a formal logic program this year by way of Introductory Logic. We are also using Critical Thinking Co.'s Mind Bender's cd-roms and Red Herring stories with both boys as fun add-ons.
Latin and French:
We haven't attempted to start these subjects yet this year. French should be easy to add in, but I have to get ahead of the kids in Latin before starting again, and with a newborn I can't even think about it now.
Cooking!
I have been lax in formal elective instruction, but both boys have shown such an interest in cooking that I am going to consider this one of our electives this year.
So far this year R has made a curry - Butter Chicken and Naan bread which was his first yeast bread. He also had to clarify butter for the naan bread.
Both boys have made pancakes and cookies, grilled cheese and ... I can't remember! I will have to keep track of their experiments and successes in the kitchen as well as cover meal planning, shopping with a budget, substitutions, conversions, tools and terms, various skills and maybe even thematic menus.... should be fun.
I need to have both boys pick passages for memory work, I keep forgetting to do that...
I had planned on taking all of September off school. E was born on September 9th and I knew I would be tired and overwhelmed and just not up to keeping up with the boys. Brent decided that when he went back to work that the boys should be doing something so he set them up and took care of making sure they did what he assigned and marked. He was right, but it has been hard many days. By the end of the first week, I took over the planning, but he has been checking in with them most nights.
When R started his usual taking all day to finish a 30 minute math lesson, Brent started waking him up at 6 am the next day to work with R before going to work. This seems to be helping so far. I am trying to stay on top of everything and them each day. I plan out our schedules with my Homeschool Tracker software, print out their weekly assignment sheets so they know what is expected each day and then try to check their work and enter it into the software as done and their marks.
I got behind last week, so this week I am playing catch up. I discovered that R hadn't done his dictation exercises last week, so he has double writing assignments this week. B had some difficulties with his vocab assignments, so he is doing catch up and corrections this week. I feel good about where we are heading this year, but frustrated with monetary constraints that are preventing me from buying some much needed and some just much wanted supplies and curriculum. Like Braeden's science. Time is limited and he really does need to complete his science this year to stay on track for college. I guess I need to pray for God's provision! Hmm, maybe the school board would be able to order it for me... I have some phone calls to make.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Thursday teatime
We did our first official tea time today. Other than some wrestling between the 13 year old and the 4 year old, it went well.
We started off reading The Royal Canadian Mounted Police by Marc Tetro. It is a picture book for 4-8 year olds I would think and has amusing drawings that all the kids enjoyed. Then we started The Jungle Book, an illustrated one that I bought years ago and never read. All 3 boys seemed to be really into it and the older style of writing doesn't seem to be an issue. We stopped at page 26, just after the wolves accept Mowgli as part of the pack.
The children then each chose a poem from Favorite Poems Old and New selected by Helen Ferris to read and I read Written in March by William Wordsworth. I gave the older boys an assignment to pick a poem to memorize for next week.
Monkey Boy and I did some Hershey Kisses Math before the big boys joined us, Monkey's choice. It is a multiplication and division book, but he was really into it and seemed to at least grasp the basics of the multiplication part. I would like to find a similar addition book.
Next we opened the laptop and went to the Classics for Kids website where we listened to 4 shows about Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, the composer of the Flight of the Bumblebee. I think next time we will just do one show, even though they are just 6 minutes long, we were all restless by the end.
We headed on over to News Flash Five, a news for kids site I found on PBS. I am gonna go through some of the lesson plans and maybe incorporate some of them into our weeks.
I thought we would spend some time looking at some art books, but we were all tired of sitting by then and I gave the kids their poetry assignment and told them that they could actually have their computers back today to blog. I can't wait to read them, I have missed their blogging.
Oh, biggest brother read a really cute version of There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly and Monkey has been reciting it all day.
I can't wait to try this again next week. It is nice to just relax together, read and talk.
If anyone has some good art appreciation websites, would you please share?
We started off reading The Royal Canadian Mounted Police by Marc Tetro. It is a picture book for 4-8 year olds I would think and has amusing drawings that all the kids enjoyed. Then we started The Jungle Book, an illustrated one that I bought years ago and never read. All 3 boys seemed to be really into it and the older style of writing doesn't seem to be an issue. We stopped at page 26, just after the wolves accept Mowgli as part of the pack.
The children then each chose a poem from Favorite Poems Old and New selected by Helen Ferris to read and I read Written in March by William Wordsworth. I gave the older boys an assignment to pick a poem to memorize for next week.
Monkey Boy and I did some Hershey Kisses Math before the big boys joined us, Monkey's choice. It is a multiplication and division book, but he was really into it and seemed to at least grasp the basics of the multiplication part. I would like to find a similar addition book.
Next we opened the laptop and went to the Classics for Kids website where we listened to 4 shows about Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, the composer of the Flight of the Bumblebee. I think next time we will just do one show, even though they are just 6 minutes long, we were all restless by the end.
We headed on over to News Flash Five, a news for kids site I found on PBS. I am gonna go through some of the lesson plans and maybe incorporate some of them into our weeks.
I thought we would spend some time looking at some art books, but we were all tired of sitting by then and I gave the kids their poetry assignment and told them that they could actually have their computers back today to blog. I can't wait to read them, I have missed their blogging.
Oh, biggest brother read a really cute version of There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly and Monkey has been reciting it all day.
I can't wait to try this again next week. It is nice to just relax together, read and talk.
If anyone has some good art appreciation websites, would you please share?
Tuesday, January 08, 2008
Not so bad
Well it did not go to badly yesterday. Our morning started with listening to the terrific New testament on CD I bought for Brent for Christmas. It is in the style of old Radio plays but true to the complete text of the New Testament. Awesome!
In school we started with math, as usual and that went well so we moved on to spelling. I have not taught spelling yet this year so we did the Spelling Power placement testing. I am very pleased with the results as R is one level ahead of where we left off and B is two levels ahead. Today we did the more specific tests and those were the final results. (R{10}is level C and B{13} is level G) We also managed to get in some handwriting, blogging/journaling and French. Not too bad for the first day back.
Today we started with our prayer and Bible reading: Ps. 1 and 2 & Matthew 10 & 11
I have finished the spelling placement and the boys are working on their math.
Science: We are finishing our reading for Module 3 and I need to print out the pre-test and tests for them. I love this module, we are learning about non-obvious variables, blind and double blind studies, graphing and interpreting results. Cool! I have decided to use science as exam taking practice. Easy choice considering that there are exams for each module. I am going to set them up formally to take these tests, this is not something we do very often, but I think it is important for them to know. They both plan on continuing their education, so they will need to know how to write an exam as well as how to study.
Handwriting: I have been using Handwriting Without Tears with R (10) and I have kind of let handwriting slide with the eldest. Today he decided to handwrite his spelling test. Big mistake. So I am doing some remedial handwriting with him using the same curriculum. I wish I had found it before he learned to handwrite because although he has some pretty letter formations, often the curly letters he writes are easy to mistake for other letters or letter combinations. Not so good.
Grammar/Punctuation: I will go over a page or two of The Usborne Guide to Better English. I hope.
Writing: 20 minutes of blogging
Geography: finishing off our unit on Canadian Geography
I need to get to the library and renew my card so that I can order all the books we need for our Canadian History unit.
I was flipping through a book I bought a year or two ago, The Usborne Guide to Better English: Grammar, Spelling and Punctuation. It is terrific! In five minutes of flipping I learned tons of things that I am doing wrong in my own writing. How embarrassing! It is a fun little resource and it even includes some activities and tests, so I think I will read it with the boys and we can do the activities. It is the least dry English book I have ever seen and it offers a very common sense approach to the subjects that makes so much sense to me. The book is British, so I am not sure how it would line up with the American standards of Grammar and spelling, but for us canuckleheads it works perfectly.
In school we started with math, as usual and that went well so we moved on to spelling. I have not taught spelling yet this year so we did the Spelling Power placement testing. I am very pleased with the results as R is one level ahead of where we left off and B is two levels ahead. Today we did the more specific tests and those were the final results. (R{10}is level C and B{13} is level G) We also managed to get in some handwriting, blogging/journaling and French. Not too bad for the first day back.
Today we started with our prayer and Bible reading: Ps. 1 and 2 & Matthew 10 & 11
I have finished the spelling placement and the boys are working on their math.
Science: We are finishing our reading for Module 3 and I need to print out the pre-test and tests for them. I love this module, we are learning about non-obvious variables, blind and double blind studies, graphing and interpreting results. Cool! I have decided to use science as exam taking practice. Easy choice considering that there are exams for each module. I am going to set them up formally to take these tests, this is not something we do very often, but I think it is important for them to know. They both plan on continuing their education, so they will need to know how to write an exam as well as how to study.
Handwriting: I have been using Handwriting Without Tears with R (10) and I have kind of let handwriting slide with the eldest. Today he decided to handwrite his spelling test. Big mistake. So I am doing some remedial handwriting with him using the same curriculum. I wish I had found it before he learned to handwrite because although he has some pretty letter formations, often the curly letters he writes are easy to mistake for other letters or letter combinations. Not so good.
Grammar/Punctuation: I will go over a page or two of The Usborne Guide to Better English. I hope.
Writing: 20 minutes of blogging
Geography: finishing off our unit on Canadian Geography
I need to get to the library and renew my card so that I can order all the books we need for our Canadian History unit.
I was flipping through a book I bought a year or two ago, The Usborne Guide to Better English: Grammar, Spelling and Punctuation. It is terrific! In five minutes of flipping I learned tons of things that I am doing wrong in my own writing. How embarrassing! It is a fun little resource and it even includes some activities and tests, so I think I will read it with the boys and we can do the activities. It is the least dry English book I have ever seen and it offers a very common sense approach to the subjects that makes so much sense to me. The book is British, so I am not sure how it would line up with the American standards of Grammar and spelling, but for us canuckleheads it works perfectly.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
I love preschool!
I made the mistake of telling my 3 year old that we could work on his new preschool stuff as soon as his sister went down for her nap. Well he asked this before breakfast and she doesn't take her nap til 2 pm. It has been a very long day for Juju. He has asked me 30 times if it was time for Girly to take her nap. I told him that Girly doesn't take a nap til after lunch, and then made omelette's for breakfast. He thought that must be lunch and than it must be Girly's naptime!
Girly must feel kinda bad that Juju wants her in bed rather than playing with her. Right now they are chasing each other around the couch, guess they are both okay.
I had a big morning of teaching planned, but we got a bit sidetracked. After grammar, B curled up with Juju to read him a story. It ended up with all four of them curled up in a blanket nest with the Dr. Seuss treasury I bought at Costco yesterday. I think that is pretty much a perfect morning of school. The boys are working on math now, Ryley of course is avoiding and giving me a hard time, and the babies are gonna eat lunch. Hopefully the boys will get their science experiment done this afternoon and some writing. Juju and I should have some fun with preschool stuff.
Okay, we pulled out the Hooked on Phonics kindergarten and started on the learn to read. We did the first activity which are letter name flashcards and a cd. He got bored before the activity was over, very repetitive, but I think we can do a couple reps and then put it away for next time. He wanted to try the video game, so we put in the cd-rom. It has an I-spy game for letter recognition, it was fine and he enjoyed it. He then tried the letter sound game, he doesn't know many of the sounds yet and the first thing he noticed was that the dog named Pop, turns his head away if you answer incorrectly. "Why does he turn his head backwards when I get it wrong Mom?" It bothered him, and when I thought about it, it bothered me too. It felt like rejection to my sensitive boy. When you get it right, Pop turns his head into the page, towards the child. The next thing he said is, "Dogs don't talk Mom." That made me giggle, he didn't say anything about the dog wearing clothes though.
Other than that he enjoyed the activities. I will have to keep an eye on it, and see if I think it is more positive or negative overall. He so wants to learn, he is so hungry to gain the skills to read and write and basically do whatever his brothers can do. I don't want to do anything that will dampen that thirst for knowledge.
Girly must feel kinda bad that Juju wants her in bed rather than playing with her. Right now they are chasing each other around the couch, guess they are both okay.
I had a big morning of teaching planned, but we got a bit sidetracked. After grammar, B curled up with Juju to read him a story. It ended up with all four of them curled up in a blanket nest with the Dr. Seuss treasury I bought at Costco yesterday. I think that is pretty much a perfect morning of school. The boys are working on math now, Ryley of course is avoiding and giving me a hard time, and the babies are gonna eat lunch. Hopefully the boys will get their science experiment done this afternoon and some writing. Juju and I should have some fun with preschool stuff.
Okay, we pulled out the Hooked on Phonics kindergarten and started on the learn to read. We did the first activity which are letter name flashcards and a cd. He got bored before the activity was over, very repetitive, but I think we can do a couple reps and then put it away for next time. He wanted to try the video game, so we put in the cd-rom. It has an I-spy game for letter recognition, it was fine and he enjoyed it. He then tried the letter sound game, he doesn't know many of the sounds yet and the first thing he noticed was that the dog named Pop, turns his head away if you answer incorrectly. "Why does he turn his head backwards when I get it wrong Mom?" It bothered him, and when I thought about it, it bothered me too. It felt like rejection to my sensitive boy. When you get it right, Pop turns his head into the page, towards the child. The next thing he said is, "Dogs don't talk Mom." That made me giggle, he didn't say anything about the dog wearing clothes though.
Other than that he enjoyed the activities. I will have to keep an eye on it, and see if I think it is more positive or negative overall. He so wants to learn, he is so hungry to gain the skills to read and write and basically do whatever his brothers can do. I don't want to do anything that will dampen that thirst for knowledge.
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