Taking it Easy

With less than a month left in the school year, I have decided to scrap the remainder of my lesson plans and have a fun and relaxed end of the homeschool year. The last couple of weeks in public school are always a joke anyway, right?

The Child Thing finished her Pre-K reading curriculum long ago and is more than half way through with the Kindergarten curriculum, so this isn't going to cause her to get behind. And to be perfectly honest, I think both of us were kind of getting bored with the routine and not having fun anymore. So...no more phonics and no more structured lessons.

For the last few weeks we are going to learn about the 7 continents and be very relaxed about it. I intend to spend 3 days or so on each continent, and here's what I have in mind:

Day 1: Read a short exerpt from What Your Kindergartener Needs to Know about whatever continent we're studying. Color map of continent. Color any other appropriate pictures. I found free printable coloring pages and maps for all of the continents at http://www.coloring.ws/coloring.html

Day 2: More Coloring Pages, animal sticker book (which groups animals by continent), cut out images from magazines that apply to our continent, read library books about/set in our continent

Day 3: Combine all cut out/colored images onto a poster to make a continent collage. Watch a movie set in our continent.

I'm hoping this laid back approach to our last few weeks of homeschool will break the routine some and restore the joy of learning, so that we are fresh and ready to go next year. I suppose this end-of-year burnout is normal. I was never homeschooled, but I know I sure felt that way by the time the last month or so of school got there. Any knowledge or advice on the end-of-year blues?

Our Homing School Schedule

When we started off this homeschooling experiment, it was not totally structured or planned out, but we have fallen into a routine that's working for us. Our focus is on phonics/reading, but our schedule allows us to touch on lots of other school subjects, too. Here's a little taste of how we do pre-school at home week by week.

Mondays: phonics (We use the Abeka curriculum, and we are seeing good results), handwriting (using a workbook published by Zaner-Bloser), art project (from the Art Projects K4 published by Abeka. Here's my opinion on it).

Tuesdays: phonics, science lesson (we read and discuss a chapter from What Your Preschooler Needs to Know).

Wednesdays: phonics, handwriting, science project (something that relates to what we read in our science lesson the previous day)

Thursdays: phonics, library trip, math lesson (We do a chapter from the math section of What Your Kindergartner Needs to Know. These are really more like math activities. They are very hands-on and lots of fun for the child things.).

Fridays: phonics, handwriting, picture study or additional art project

This schedule certainly isn't set it stone; we are very flexible and love adding on to this basic schedule, but it helps me to have a guideline. We also read lots of books, inspect the calendar every day, memorize a Bible verse every two weeks, etc.

I still am not 100% sure about what we're going to do about school next year, but I'm leaning towards homeschool right now, so I'm trying to be prepared for that if that's the route we go. So...any suggestions for next year? Do you see any glaring holes or have any advice on what we should include next year? I'm always open for ideas from those who have been there/done that! Thanks.

Long Rambing Post About Curriculum

It's only Spring Break, but I'm feeling the need to prepare a homeschool curriculum for next year. Truth be told, I have been considering different curriculums since way before Christmas. This year, we are doing pre-k at home, and I was very loose with the curriculum, but next year, if I go ahead with homeschooling, we'll be official.

Not that the state of Hawaii is has strict rules about homeschooling or record keeping. But...it will still be official.

This year, I bought the phonics program from Abeka Book. I have been happy with the results. The child thing is reading, and that speaks for itself. We actually finished up the pre-k program and are working on the kindergarten one now. This curriculum may be a little too repetitive, but I think we are going to stick with it for next year for reading/phonics.

The history and literature programs from Abeka do not really appeal to me, though. They seem a bit hokey/not challenging enough/overly Christian. That may sound strange coming from someone who's a Christian, but I don't want to shelter my kids from viewpoints that are different or "brainwash" them.

So I'm having a hard time deciding what sort of curriculum I'd like to do for subjects other than reading. I'm liking the Sonlight curriculum for history and literature, and I love that they buy into the living history book theory. This curriculum has everything included and planned out for you already, so that means less prep work for me. That sounds good! But then again, choosing what you want to teach and not having it all planned out for you is one of the benefits of homeschooling, isn't it?

But I also bought The Story of the World Vol. 1 by Susan Wise Bauer, and I find it very intriguing also. It is not completely planned out, so I would have to be more involved in the lesson planning, but it is still very inclusive. For each unit, you read a short chapter from the book, and it provides coloring pages and maps that correspond with each chapter. It also gives suggestions for projects that relate to what you're learning. And these are not hokey activities...they are cool. Like to go along with ancient Egypt, it has instructions on how to mummify a chicken! It also includes suggestions on other books and biographies that you and your child could read to delve deeper into any unit. It seems like it would be pretty fun and pretty challenging.

And math, well, I don't know. If I buy from Sonlight, I will probably buy a math program from them, too. But if I don't go with Sonlight, I may try out Abeka's math, too.

So this turned in to a long, rambling post, and I kinda doubt anyone has stuck with me so far, but if you have...sorry I have rambled for so long. If any homeschooling types have opinions/suggestions on any curriculum, I'd love to hear them!

Homing School Arts and Crafts: Abeka

Pre-K is all about the arts and crafts! Kids love doing this sort of thing (and so do moms), so I bought a book of art projects at the beginning of our school year designed specially for 4-year-olds from Abeka Book. It contains 5 projects for every month in the school year, and for the most part, they coordinate with the season.

Overall, I have not been too impressed with this book, but it does have some redeeming qualities, I suppose. Here are the positives:

1. It's affordable. Less than $15

2. It has allowed my daughter to learn to use scissors fairly well.

3. The projects are quick and easy. There's very little prep work for the parent to do, so it's basically a no effort/no planning craft project once a week.

However, these aren't really art projects. It's just cut-and-paste. And though the child thing kinda has fun with the crafts, they certainly do not encourage her to develop any creativity. The crafts don't involve any painting, drawing, designing or creating. Instead, you cut the three pre-printed circles off of the paper and then glue them to the pre-printed scene to make a snowman. Somewhat entertaining for a four-year-old, perhaps, but not nearly as exciting (or as intellectually stimulating) as making your own dough, forming it into beads, painting them and making your very own necklace! We're still do the projects from the Abeka book once a week, but I am sure to encorporate some other, more creative, craft project into the week as well.

What We're Learning: Our Fave "History" Books

Our history curriculum is...well, non-existant, really. But, despite that, the child thing has learned a lot about history so far this year. Kids don't need structure to learn...at least that's my excuse for being disorganized.

To cover history, we pick out a couple of biographies or historical fiction books geared toward pre-k or elementary aged children every time we go to the library. And it is amazing the discussions we have after reading these books...the child thing is full of questions, so reading the books are just a jumping off point. She will learn the story of an interesting person, and while doing that, she'll also learn that long ago, women never wore pants was, for example. So even if our history lessons aren't structured, she is definitely building her knowledge of the past. And in pre-school, I think that's all you really need.

Here are some of the best "history" books we have come across this year:

I Could Do That: Esther Morris Gets Women the Vote - A very interesting and inspiring story about an American woman I had never heard of (I'm learning here, too!).

The Legend of William Tell - I love, love, love this book! The story of a Swiss hero, written in verse (beautiful verse, at that) and gorgeously illustrated. Read it!

Abe's Honest Words: The Life of Abraham Lincoln - This stands out from other biographies about the 16th president because it is infused with his quotations. And I never realized how many good ones he has! This book may be better for older elementary kids, though, because the child thing didn't love it quite as much as I did.

Johnny Appleseed - The child thing was fascinated with this book, as was I. A classic story with wonderful illustrations...how could you go wrong?

What We're Learning in Pre-K at Home: Food Pyramid

We took a loooong winter break from "homing school," as the child thing calls it, to celebrate Christmas, New Year's, and then Daddy's mid-tour leave, but we are back in the saddle now. What Your Preschooler Needs to Know has a science section on staying healthy, and since healthy eating does not come naturally in our house (I know someone who would consume marshmallows for 3 meals a day if she could), we expanded that to include the food pyramid.

Here's how we went about studying the food pyramid, if you're interested:

I printed off this food pyramid, and we colored each section a different color as we talked about the different food groups and identified the pictures in each group. Then I cut out the pyramid, glued it to a piece of construction paper, and I asked the child thing to tell me the names of each group as I labeled them.

The next day, we drew a bigger version of the pyramid on a poster board, and again, I had her tell me the names of the food groups to write on the poster. Then we sorted her toy food set into the groups and placed them in the proper section on our poster. She did a great job with the sorting, and after that, we played restaurant. I was the customer, and she was the waitress. Instead of ordering a specific food, I'd just say I wanted something from the vegetable group, for example.

Normally, we don't include snack time into our homeschool, but when you're learning about food, you gotta eat! So, we gathered ingredients from each food group.

Bread/Starch: crackers or mini rice cakes

Vegetables: cucumber slices, shredded carrots

Fruit: raisins, berries

Dairy: cream cheese

Protein: peanut butter

Using the cucumbers or crackers for a base, the peanut butter or cream cheese for spreading and the rest for toppings, we assembled the ingredients into a variety of snacks, counting how many of the food groups we could include in one snack.

I also asked the child thing to help me plan and prepare a meal, keeping the food pyramid in mind. One guess what she picked for the starch.

It's important to teach kids about healthful eating, and it's never too early to start good habits, but here's a word of warning: if you choose to teach your child about eating a healthy, balanced diet by consulting the food pyramid, every meal you serve them from then on will be under scrutiny.

Oh, and she picked macaroni and cheese.

One Semester (Almost) Down

• In just a few days, our first semester of homeschooling will be over. I started this project with more than a few reservations, but most of my concerns have been eased by now. This girl has made some major strides since August...both in school and out.
• -She can read 3 and 4 letter words, and even short sentences!
• -She can write her name legibly on her own (though she has decided her name is too long to write over and over again and wants to be known as Kate from now on).
• She learned to set the table properly
• She was "promoted" to the advanced ballet/tap class
• She can now use scissors fairly well
• She can identify numbers up to 20 and can count to 29 :P
• She has memorized 10 Bible verses

She has really just blossomed this year and is doing fantastic in everything. So, as I said, most of my worries about homeschooling are gone, but there are two things I still mull over.

1. The baby: Right now we "do school" during his nap time. But he will be sleeping less, and we will be schooling more, and I just don't want to deprive him of attention.

2. Math: Yes, I am certain I am capable of teaching kindergarten-level math, but I just don't like numbers. It is not my passion, and it is certainly not my strength. So I can teach it, but I don't know if I can teach it with the same enthusiasm that I can other topics.

Concern #1 is definitely bigger than #2. What to do, what to do?

Science: What We're Learning

When I decided to give pre-k homeschool a shot this year, I knew I did not want to spend a ton of money. And you can drop A LOT of money on books and curriculums designed specifically for homeschoolers. A LOT! The only subject I bought a full curriculum for is reading (I had no clue how to go about teaching someone to read). Everything else, I'm just kinda winging it. For science, I am using this book called What Your Preschooler Needs to Know. It's certainly not a complete school curriculum, but it's working great for our purposes.

We read a chapter (which is really only a paragraph or two) once a week, and then read library books and do activities that correspond with that chapter throughout the week. Right now we're working on animals. We just finished learning about insects and spiders. After learning about them, we of course had to make our own out of pipe cleaners and egg cartons and go on an insect hunt in our backyard.

I know I'm supposed to be the teacher, but I'm learning new things, too. For instance: holding a giant grasshopper with your bare hands does not make a 4-year-old squeamish a bit. In fact, a 4-year-old may even think it's "so cute" and want to keep it as a pet! :)

Off to a great start!

Two weeks of homeschooling down! And they have gone really well! I am having lots of fun being a teacher again, and apparently the child thing is enjoying being a student so much that she asks to do school on weekends, and some days she wants to do "double school."

This is where we have set up our school area. Lucky for us, the house we are in right now has this awesome built-in desk in the breakfast area. It gives us plenty of space to work and store our supplies. Our dining table is right in front of it, so we can spread out and work on projects there. Add a Clifford calendar and a cool tree, and you've got a school room! I have lots of plans for this tree, but so far we have only used it as a reward. We have been focusing on learning vowels, so anytime my pupil got a question right about a vowel, she got to attach a leaf or acorn to the tree.

And who knew how exciting that would be for a 4-year-old? But she really likes it. The first day of fall is in just a couple of weeks, so then we will start letting the leaves fall to the ground. I hope that will be just as much fun!

So far I am feeling very positive about our homeschooling experiment. At this point, I can definitely envision myself teaching my kid at home instead of sending her to a public school next year. It's only two weeks in, though, so I'm not going to commit to anything yet. :) I'll keep you posted.

Dipping My Toes Into the Homeschooling Waters

By the time our oldest child thing starts kindergarten, we will be in Hawaii, which literally has the worst public school system in the country. Pretty much as soon as we got to Hawaii and learned a little about the schools, we started discussing our options. One option that (to my surprise) my husband brought up is homeschooling.

I have to admit, at first I didn't seriously consider it. "Why would I want to do that?" I asked. I mean, it does seem like a way out-there thing to do. But, the more stories I heard from kids in public schools and the more research I did on private schools (and their tuition), the more it seemed like a good choice.

So I am dipping my toes into the homeschooling waters. To see if I have the capabilities, endurance and patience to homeschool successfully, we are going to try out a preschool curriculum this year. I'm actually excited about it, and my mindset has shifted. Why wouldn't you want to do this? (Ok, there are actually quite a few good reasons not to, but...don't remind me). If you could provide your child with an educator who could design a curriculum specifically for that child--that allowed for in-depth exploration in areas of interest and reviewed areas of weakness until they were mastered, that didn't leave that child behind because his/her peers were ready to move on or expect that child to mindlessly fill out worksheets because other children needed remediation, that challenged the child to be way more than average--wouldn't you?

My answer is yes, so here we go! We are going to focus on phonics and reading this year, but also touch on art, science, history, Bible and math. And you may have noticed in my picture that we are including the essential-for-any-homeschooler My Little Pony Coloring Book.

If at the end of the year the child thing has learned and I have not gone insane, we may very well do it officially for kindergarten next year.