My Fathers World

Wow, BAD blogger! I have soooo not kept up on blogging what we are doing with school! Now that spring is here, the answer is "not much!" We are taking our normal 6 week spring break but we have been doing some work since I anticipate our fall break will be a bit longer this year. :)

Here are a few photos from March and April.

First, here is our page protector garden starting to grow....

And our corn sprouts as we studied them.

A story Miriam read and illustrated. I love the cat being forced to "spit up" the bird! :)

Evan's "A-a-apple" unit papers.

And finially, Miriam's book from days 18-23 of MFW 1st.

This last "week" has actually been a week and a half between co-op and trips and other craziness, but let me share what we did for MFW K "L-l-Leaf" and MFW 1st Days 12-17.

Do to the general craziness, we did not do any of the science, Bible, etc from the K unit this week. I focused on Evan really hearing the sound of "L" at the beginning of words which is difficult as he has a little bit of a lisp on "L". Also focused on counting 1-20 and number recognition.

Here are his papers from the week. Love the blue lips he drew for his second "L" word. :) He still does most of his writing by tracing over the letter using the guides I provide, but for the letter L he did about half independent. We do a salt tray for extra letter making practice which he loves and does very well at. I believe that like Miriam, he will easily transition from tracing everything to writing his letters free hand.

Working on counting!

Here they are working with pattern blocks on our exploration day. They both really enjoyed this time.

On to Miriam and MFW 1st. This week the focus was reading short vowel sounds. Science was Plants & Seeds. Math was counting 1-100,
etc. 

Here is a shot of Miriam's student work book. She had to read the words and write them in the correct spot. The other side was identifying the vowel and it's sound followed by reading the words to me.

And here is her sentences which she read and then labeled the pictures. Since I really wanted to make sure she gets plenty of practice reading short vowel words, I cut these up and made a little book for her to read over and over to us.

And to add to that reading practice, I also had her do some work on Starfall and wrote a little story (starring her) which I had her read and illustrate.

She also spent some time spelling words with the leapfrog letters on the fridge.

We also put together the scroll Miriam had work on the previous 12 days as we reviewed the alphabet. She was very proud of it and took it to show and tell at homeschool co-op.

For Science we read the following books... actually we watched the Magic School bus video. I had Miriam read part of the "I'm a seed" book to me.

We planted some corn seeds one each in a spot of an egg carton. Over the next 2 weeks (or so) we will dig these up and watch what happens to the seeds! The kids enjoyed planting these. And enjoyed watering everything once we were done!

We also created and planted a small window garden. We will water it and watch it grow over the next few weeks. I saw the idea in a magazine (can't remember where now). You take a 9 pocket page protector (the kind for business or baseball cards), punch holes in the top, add dirt and seeds to each pocket. Water and hang in a window by suction cups. We'll see how this goes!

This post is linked to Homeschool Highlights in MFW at A Heart Like Water

This post is a catch up post as we actually did this science day 3 weeks
ago before THE VIRUS. Anyway, the first science unit of MFW 1 is
"Things near the ground". We read books about worms, ants, and moles.
Watched a video or two or three (the kids LOVED the BBC ant clips off of
Youtube.) And did a few activities.

We made an earth worm habitat out of a 1/2 gallon glass jar. The worms
arrived in their little tub form the Walmart bait shop. Evan WAS not
sure about touching those wiggly things! Miriam however thought they
were great, she had not hesitation at all.  After adding 6 worms, we
wrapped the jar in black paper and put it up to wait and see. When we
checked on them a week later, the kids were so excited to see the
tunnels and all the leaves gone.

The ant observation was a little harder to do since it's cold here in
February and most self-respecting ant colonies are hibernating. Well,
except for the little ants that live somewhere just outside my kitchen
and come in the window to eat anything sweet. So... I let the kids put
out syrup for them. Three weeks later I'm still trying to get those ants
to go away! The things we do for homeschooling! :)

Well, as planned after Christmas break (which lasted a bit longer than originally planned due to adoption related "stuff") we returned to homeschooling at the end of January. Miriam started in 1st grade My Father's World and Evan started My Father's World K. I was honestly a little nervous as to how this would work with the two of them but ... wow, I honestly think homeschooling them BOTH is easier than just Miriam!

Since I know I would be interested in this, I'm going to talk just a little about how I've integrated the two and our daily routine.

We start the morning all together (including Katie) by standing and singing 3 children's songs together focusing on those with motion. Then we sit as we sing our hymn that we are learning. Because I really want my children to learn the great hymns of the church, I have decided to sing one hymn each day. We will spend a few weeks on the same hymn until they have learned at least the melody and first verse. After the singing, we pray and do the Bible lesson from the 1st grade level. I'm considering also doing any lesson/Bible review from the K level at this
point as well if it doesn't get too long.

At this point we move on to our calendar activities. (See a photo of the calendar wall below.) We sing the date and find it on the calendar. One child gets to mark the date following our monthly pattern. Then we singour days of the week song and talk about what today is, what yesterday was and what tomorrow will be. We sing our months of the year song and talk about our month. Then we sing our weather song and one child makes the weather report and puts the correct window stick on the window. Then we graph the weather on a chart in our math binder.

Once we have completed all the calendar activities, we sit again and I work on Miriam and Evan's math. (At this point Katie is given a piece of paper to destroy color, cut and glue.) Many of the math activities for MFW K and 1st are similar so what they can both do, they both do. And I spend a few minutes here or there on a harder concept for Miriam. I then set Miriam up across the room with her math activity for whatever concept she is working on. For example, the first week it was patterns so she was given a bunch of pattern cards to complete patterns on.

While Miriam works on her math, I turn my attention to Evan. We do the phonics portion of MFW K for him. (Katie does all the songs and such with us.) So far, Evan is fast enough with the phonics activites that he is done before Miriam is done with her math. He is doing really well, and I am so proud of him! I wasn't 100% sure he was ready, but he very much is. It is possible we will need to slow at some point as the lessons get harder but right now it's full speed ahead. At this point Evan and Katie are excused for the time being.

Once Miriam finishes up her math, we sit and work on her phonics activities. Once those are finished, I gauge whether or not she needs a break or if we can complete whatever history/science activity we have for the day right then. Most of the time I give her a brake and in the afternoon, during Katie's nap, Evan and Miriam do the activity together.

On day 5/Exploration day for MFW 1st, Miriam and Evan do the science experiments together. On that day and once or twice a week otherwise we do a few of the MFW K activities as well. Since Evan did most of them with Miriam last year, it's more just to refresh his memory and as a fun extra as we have time.

One other thing I did over our winter break was to change our school area around a bit. Now that Miriam and Evan are older and Katie can go up & down stairs well, we've moved most of the play toys to the basement and set up a play room there. I left all the educational toys and puzzles and such upstairs so they can be used during school time as well. It is working so well and has made my whole life so much easier! (Think I've got my living room back!!)

Here is the new toy section.

I realized about three weeks ago that Miriam was 5 units from finishing
the kindergarten curriculum. Now each unit is suppose to take 6 days to
complete, but Miriam is advanced enough that she is bored with it.  I
knew that I could leave out some busywork and step things up for her so
that we could get done before Christmas. I went through and rearranged
things so each unit would take 3 days instead of the normal 6. So that
is what we are doing. We have finish up the F-f-Frog, X-x-foX,
V-v-Vegetables, and Q-q-Quail units. Now we just have to wrap up
Y-y-Yellow, and we are DONE!!!

For the B-butterfly unit we did some painting including some transfer
painting. Here are the kids working on their butterflies and the
finished produces.

We also made caterpillars out of paper links. I was very pleased that
Evan actually did such a good job cutting the strips they were usable!

Here is Evan and his finished caterpillar.

Katie plays with her caterpillar.

Miriam finished her caterpillar and after playing with him awhile, he
curled up in a ball and made a chrysalis. (Who know a paper caterpillar
could do that?!) After coming out of his chrysalis, the new butterfly
needed wings so she made him some. I love how homeschooling can result
in the child taking over and continuing the lesson beyond what you had
planned!

A few pictures from the recent unit on J-j-Jewel. We make foil necklaces
and glued jewels to crowns. The later was a big hit with the princesses
of the family!

On day 5 of the My Father's World K program the child is orally given 4 words which they are to figure out how to spell and write and then do so below one of four boxes on their work sheet. After doing this, they are to illustrate each word in the box above it. As I mentioned before, Miriam's drawing has really jumped a notch or two recently. But so has her creativity, as seen in this worksheet in the "R" unit were she was not given any words dealing with "princesses"  which is THE thing right now. Not to worry. One can still draw a princess. :)

First draw her on the RUG you have to draw. Then draw her on the rug seeing the RAT. Then have her RUN from said rat! Then draw her in a RED dress after escaping from the rat. See you can have your princess AND finish your school work too! (This was also the first time she turned this exercise into a story. Which was all her idea, btw.)

Last weekend we made a trip to the zoo to wrap up the 4 units we just
finished in My Father's World K. They were the "wild animal" units
including E-e-elephant, P-p-penguin, K-k-kangaroo, and Z-z-zebra.

We had a wonderful time, and the children were able to see all the
animals except kangaroos. It was actually their first time seeing an
elephant live as the zoo we normally visit does not have any.

We were able to get right up by the zebras:

The kids rode a few metal animals....

And pretended to drive a 4 wheel drive...

More WILD animals kids and one camel! (Can I just say Katie makes the cutiest little zebra!)

One of the elephants...

Miriam and a penguin!

I'm finally getting around to posting about our unit on K-Kangaroo even though we finished almost 2 weeks ago. :)

We did the standard My Father's World work pages like always. Here is Miriam working on one of those.

I printed off some coloring sheets and work sheets about the letter "K"
and kangaroos for Evan and Katie from the same website as before. Katie
decided to put stickers on her kangaroo!

The book we were to read for Day 6 in MFW was Katy No Pockets. I decided
to supplement the reading with some of the lapbook projects available
for free at Homeschool Share. I love Homeschool Share. When I did Before
Five in a Row with Miriam for preschool I used it all the time to make
lapbooks. I did not actually make a lapbook this time, but did have
Miriam do 3 of the little projects. Here she is making a "Kangaroo
Facts" book.

Evan was not in the mood to join us as much for this unit so he did some puzzles and sorted his cars. :-)

One other special thing we did this unit was to go outside and measure
out how far a kangaroo can jump in a single bound. Then we each tried to
jump and see how we measured up! Here are our results. (Note: Evan is
standing on the kangaroo's line)

As part of Miriam's My Father's World curriculum, we filled in a number
chart from 1-100. Now I only did the chart with her on days we did
actual writing work and not always then so we just a few weeks ago got
to 99. I waited until after our vacation to do day 100 and have our
celebration. We did a lot of counting 1-100. Miriam also practiced
counting by 5's and 10's to 100. Miriam made a sticker chart of 100
insect stickers. We read Miss Bindergarten celebrates 100 days of
Kindergarten. And we make a 100 pieces snack by counting out 10 pieces
of different snacks to reach 100. I tried to get them to run up and
down the driveway 100 times, but they were onto me. :)

Miriam working on her 100 stickers chart

Working on the 100 pieces snack.

 Miriam's finished product.

Well, school is back in session. Or at least Summer school is! We
stated back the second week of July and will continue until the weather
cools off sometime in Sept.

We just finish the P-Penguin unit of My Father's World A-Z Kindergarten
curriculum we've been using. It was a fun unit. The kids really love
learning about penguins. Miriam absolutely loved the movie "March of
the Penguins". We were able to stream it off Netflix and it was her
rest time movie of choice for most of the week. We read lots of fun
books to learn more about penguins as well.

Snack time was extra fun on day 1... we had p-p-pretzels and fresh from the tree p-p-peaches!

We did some p-p-painting later in the week... it was suppose to be of a
penguin like Momma's example, but the kids did their own thing!!

I also tried something different on day 3 for the number page. The
directions have the child randomly draw a number from the number cup,
write it, and then draw that many of some item in the box. Well, since
we now have numbers in the teens, Miriam doesn't like to draw that many
ice cream cones or cakes (or whatever the thing of the week is). So I
decided to just let her pick out that many stickers and place them in
the box. It worked very well and she loved it!

The other new thing I am now trying is to keep Katie and Evan more
occupied. I downloaded coloring pages and other worksheets from this
site and them work on these while I helped Miriam. It has worked out
very well, and I will keep doing it!

I am also very proud of Evan this week. He finally has shown an
interest in learning to write and worked very hard on his name. He has
a ways to go yet, but for a kid that 2 weeks ago could not even make an
E... well, he has really started to get it!

Well, I have decided that the standard school year schedule isn't the best for our family, and since we homeschool... well, we can adjust it! :) We did school from January through April. How we are taking May and June off while the weather is so nice and I have lots of outdoor stuff to get done. (Planting garden, clearing beds, tending fruit, trimming things, etc, etc) I plan to do a summer session starting in mid July when it gets so unbearably hot here. We'll do 6 weeks or so and then take off for 6 weeks or so when things cool off again in mid-late September. This way the kids and I can really enjoy the wonderful weather in the spring and fall.

Right before we started our break at the start of May, Miriam had wrapped up 14 units of the My Father's World Kindergarten curriculum. In the last 3-4 weeks I saw a real jump in her concentration and in her writing which is her weakest area. I believe we can now work at the speed of one unit per week instead of stretching it over 2 weeks. If we do this, I hope to get through 5-6 units this summer. This would leave us 7-8 units to finish this fall. My tenative plan is to finish Kindergarten by Christmas, and to start 1st grade in the new year. At that time I will also decide if Evan is ready to formally start My Father's World Kindergarten. I know he will certainly not be ready before then as he is a (fairly) typical boy and is maturing slower then Miriam has in concentration level and fine motor skills. The fall will also be busier for us as I have joined a local co-op and hope to inrole both Miriam and Evan in classes one day a week. I am very excited about this and can't wait.

While we are "taking a break" from school we are hardly not doing any learning. :) The kids have been playing online educational games a lot as well as their piano program. They have been watching educational videos on interesting subjects they learned about this last winter. We still go to the library story time almost weekly and plan to do the summer reading program. And speaking of reading... I'm reading chapter books to Miriam (well, all of them but the focus is Miriam). We have completed The Little House in the Big Woods, Charlotte's Web, My Father's Dragon, and Elmer and the Dragon. We will be reading the third and final book of the My Father's Dragon series then moving on to The Boxcar Children. We also have outings planned to the local children's museum and (hopefully) the zoo. So, yeah, we're busy. :)

As I talked about in this post, I've been homeschooling Miriam for
preschool. Actually, she is doing a Kindergarten curriculum from My
Father's World spaced out a bit. Well it has been going really well for
us for the most part. I don't make Miriam do school if she really
doesn't want to on a certain day. After all, she is just 4 1/2. She was on
"strike" for most of December, but then today she was asking to do
school again, so I think she is ready for the holidays to be over. :)

So far this fall we have covered 7 different letters in units. We've
done "S" Sun, "M" Moon, "L" Leaf, "A" Apple, "N" Nest, "T" Turtle, and 
"U" Us (human body/senses). Up next is "D" Dinosaur! The activities
have been fun, and for the most part the lessons have been easy for
Miriam. In the phonics lessons, she has just been started on reading
three letter words, which she loves. The handwriting part is the thing
that gets us, but I figure she is just 4 1/2 and has tons of time to
learn to make a perfect letter. :)

Here is a picture from "N" Nest. We made a "nest" out of pillows and the kids were the baby birds. LOL

Well, we have completed our first full month of homeschooling for this school year. :)

Even though Miriam is only 4, I decided to start her in a kindergarten curriculum since she is starting to read already. I felt like if we go slow she can handle it. So far it looks like I was right.  I decided to use the My Father's World From A to Z which is the kindergarten level for My Father's World (MFW) curriculum. I am very excited with how MFW has everything set up. It's easy for me the teacher. It's interesting for the kids. It is a mixer of a number of different styles of homeschooling all of which I really like. It is 100% Biblical world view. They even teach Creation Science!  

Anyway, we spent the first 2 weeks on a unit about the days of Creation. The last two weeks we have been working on unit 1 which is the letter "S" and a study of the sun. We didn't do all the activities they suggested but we did go out an play with our shadows. We even outlined them and watched how they changed over time. The kids loved that. (See picture below.)

Some people have already ask me, "How do you homeschool Miriam with two other little kids??"  Well it really isn't hard. The lessons are short, only take 30-40 minutes a day total. Evan often joins us for the lesson. I don't require that he does but when he does, I focus on letter recognition, learning colors, shapes, and counting for him. So I focus the easy preschool stuff to Evan, and the harder stuff to Miriam. When he doesn't want to do school, he plays quietly or he does Starfall on the computer. Evan LOOOVESS to do "ABC's" on the computer. (See picture.) Now Katie is bit trickier cause lit' Miss isn't missing anything! LOL Usually though I can convince her to sit in a chair and "color" or  put the crayons in and out of her bag. After awhile of that, she comes and sits in my lap as we finish up. It's really not bad at all.

As I mentioned, I am slowing the program down a little since Miriam is a year younger then expected. Each unit is designed to be 6 days. But I decided to make it into 10 days or 2 weeks.  So we do Lesson 1 on Monday. Lesson 2 on Tuesday.  Wednesday is storytime at the library and we do a worksheet or catch up if needed. Thursday is Lesson 3. And Friday we do Lesson 6 which is actually reading a book and doing activities around it.  Then the second Monday is Lesson 4. The second Tuesday is Lesson 5. Wednesday is library again.  Second Thursday is Lesson 6 again but with a different book (they give you 2-3 options each unit).  Then the second Friday we can catch up anything we need too or do other worksheets or games.  So far, so good! I may speed things up though as Miriam gets better at stuff and more used to the routine. We will see! Tomorrow we start the "M"/moon unit. Should be fun!