Homeschooling

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.

Miriam after coloring the picture of a little girl kicking told the following story:

The girl is going to tell the kangaroo that the king is trying to kill
the baby kangaroo in her pouch. Then the kangaroo will kick the king
out of the pouch into his castle. ("Or you can call it his kingdom",
she added.) And he will go, "OH, AHH, OWAH!!!" And the girl will be
happy!

(can you tell this was "K" week?)

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. :)

It is with great pleasure that I announce that we have a new READER in
the house!! Miss Miriam has join the ranks of the literate. She read
her very first book last night. Yes, it was one of those Bob Books for
beginning readers, but she was so incredibly proud of herself. She was
actually jumping up and down and yelling. So cute. We are so proud of
her!

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!

It snowed today!! It snowed today!! Yay!! Yay!!
Appropriately enough we are reading/using "The Snowy Day" for preschool this week. SO today we read two books about snowy days and talked about them. THEN we put on all our snow stuff and out we went!! Aunt Jen was over, and we built a cute little snowwoman. Miriam had a BLAST running around kicking snow and throwing snow "piles" (they weren't really snowballs!) Evan had fun for awhile, but then he was at the wrong end of a snowball, and it was over. Poor guy would take one look at snow in someone's hand and run to Momma. He wanted "Up!! DONE!!! Hooouuuseee!" Hot coco cheered him right up, thought!! :)

Well, today was the first day of preschool for Miriam and Evan.  They both did well.  Miriam's teacher reported that she didn't want to participate in coloring, but otherwise joined in all structured activities. Evan did VERY well with coloring and listening to the stories.  Their teacher is so proud of them! :)

For those who are curious, I'm using the Before Five in A Row book.  I've also found some really great activities and lapbook ideas at the Homeschool Share website.