Homeschooling

We're staying home for Christmas this year and this has given us the
opportunity to start some new traditions and spend more time with
friends as well.
Mid-month two of my homeschooling mom friends came over with their
families and we had a little Christmas party. We made Christmas pizzas
for lunch. I got the idea from this Pinterest link. The kids thought it
was way cool to eat a Christmas tree and snowman pizza!!

After lunch, we made a Gingerbread Nativity which in our case actually
used graham crackers. I got the idea from this Pinterest link. We had
lots of fun and I thought ours turned out well.

The first Sunday of December, Miriam was in a little Christmas musical
at church. We are blessed to have great little children's choir at
church which Miriam very much enjoys. This year they did "Just Believe"
the story of a church children's choir that doesn't get to do the
preformance they intended but along the way learns some important
lessons. Miriam played the part of a sheep. I know I'm bias but Cutest.
Sheep. Ever!!! I was so proud of her. She was in the front of the stage
the whole show and she did so well singing out and saying her Bible
verse (John 3:16). The last 6 months have seen a big jump in her
maturity and it show in places like this.

One final bit of proof that Pinterest is not a total waste of time... I
made this new decoration for our family. A felt Christmas tree the kids
can play with and decorate! It was easy to make and I think they did
enjoy being able to decorate over and over.

Now that our homeschool co-op is over for the fall semester maybe I have a little time to blog about it!!
I actually missed the first 3 weeks due to traveling to China, but Mimmi
took the whole crew the first two weeks and Aunt Kristin took them the
third week. This year I was actually teaching a pre-school class using
Before Five in A Row. Yes, I was that crazy to agree to do it!! I had 14
3-4 yr olds for one hour... the second hour... and they had an
attention span of about 15 minutes before all craziness broke forth!
This year we are also attending the afternoon club time which means we
are at co-op from 9 AM until 2. It is always fun and the kids really
look forward to co-op each week.
This year Katie was in a ballet class, Before Five in A Row (my class),
and an art class. In the afternoon, she was in Daughters of the King
club.
Evan being in Kindergarten this year had Show and Tell (which he
HATES!!!), Story Time, and Science Fun. They tell me he does fine in the
last two classes, but has yet to speak a word in Show & Tell. His
afternoon club was Kinderstations... a Montessori based playtime.
Now that Miriam is a 1st grader, she has more class choices since 1st to
3rd graders are usually offered the same classes. She was in Globe
Trotters (geography), Book Fun (art/craft unit study based on picture
books), and Discovering Great Artists (an art class that included
studying the great artists and trying their methods). This art class has
brought out the artist in Miriam and it has been fun to see what she
can produce.  It is also her favorite class. Her afternoon club was also
Kinderstations.
Co-op continues to be a very important part of our homeschooling
experience, and I am so grateful for the friends I have made there.
Here are just some of the things the kids have brought home this year.

Well sort of.... Mimmi was here visiting this last week while Mommy was
playing single mom. Let me just give a shout out to all my single mom
friends... seriously, you all ROCK!!!!
Back to the point of this blog post. So with Mimmi was here, we took a
little day trip to a wonderful aquarium. We had been meaning to go for
sometime and it was every bit as much fun for the kids as I had hoped.

We saw fish of all sorts.

Got right up close to some of them.

We saw sharks.... lots of them.

Also a sea turtle.

We saw string rays. Many kinds in fact.

Miriam even got to pet one. (Mommy too.)

The rays were a HUGE favorite.

The other favorite part of the day was the penguins.

Miriam totally fell in love with this one named Suzie.

Asher did so well through out the day. So I got to leave you with a few happy Asher pictures! :)

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.

We are doing homeschool co-op again this semester and loving it even
more than before. Miriam and Evan are taking the same classes as before.
Miriam is in "Story Stretchers" which is activities based on a picture
book, "Montessori Learning Center" which allows her to work on different
Montessori style activities to learn, and "Show and Tell".  Evan is in
"Before Five in a Row" which is also a book based activity class, "Art",
and "Letter of the Week". The change this semester is that Katie is
also taking "Before Five in a Row" and "Art". She spends the finally
hour in the nursery playing. I am now a helper in Evan and Katie's
"Before Five in a Row"class the first hour. I enjoy seeing it but am a
big distraction for Katie. I'm certain that she would be much better
behaved without me there. The second hour I am a helper in Miriam's
Montessori class. This has been very good. I love seeing Miriam do her
stuff and I have gotten some good ideas from actually seeing the
Montessori activities. My free hour I spend in a class for me...
Homeschooling 101 which is really more of a support group. Love those
ladies! :)

A few pictures of our art work line over the last month and a half. Pretty much all co-op stuff from Evan and Katie.

And here is Miriam making bracelets from the bead kit she earned as a
prize in the Montessori class for independently completing 5 activities.
I just have to say I am so proud of her in that class. She consistently
picks activities that are challenging for her instead of ones that
would earn her a quick and easy ticket. May she always be unafraid to
tackle the hard things in life instead of taking the easy way out!

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! :)

Just a few pictures from homeschooling this last month.

Miriam working playing with pattern blocks.This is a castle.

Evan's turn.

Katie working on a puzzle.

Just playing around...

Working on making "clay" jars out of salt dough. It did NOT turn out well but the kids did have fun playing!

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!!!