Organization

It has become blatantly obvious to me that I need to make a conscious effort in the area of organization.  We are 5 months into our learning at home journey and I can begin to feel a shift from “something we are trying out” to “let’s do this thing”!

Our learning year is from June to June, and I can feel that when Mason turns 5 years old (in June) that we will begin to move things to a new/next level.  A few more structured activities, a few more activities during the week, as well as a few more activities that Mason does more independently.  All of these things are wonderful and I am whole-heartedly looking forward to them.  What I am seeing now is the need to find our path of organization.

To be honest, it’s a little overwhelming.

When teaching public school, I had a whole classroom in which to organize work, manipulatives, supplies, etc.  Granted, I had many more students, but still.  We do not have any extra rooms, or much extra space in our home to use as a “school room”, not that I would be likely to do that anyway.  I know it will work.  I know there is a way.  I need to remember that I am creative, and that this can be done.  I also want to do this without spending an outrageous amount of funding on organizational items.  I will keep you posted (quite literally!) on how we obtain our organizational haven.

If you have walked this path and have ideas to offer – please feel free to comment below!

Week-in-Review

Math:

Lego Take Away

• Several weeks ago, the concept of “take away” was introduced through Freddy the Front Loader, a learning activity found in the Lego Pack from walkingbytheway.com.  This introduced the concept of subtraction, so this week I decided to move into connecting the symbolic numbers with the concept.
• I wrote a subtraction problem and we did the first two or three together.  Toward the end, Mason starting making his own problems.  This, as it always does, leads to the discussion of what happens when a larger number is taken away from a smaller number.
• I refuse to tell students “this can’t be done”.  We had a conversation that if we take a larger number from a smaller number we don’t have enough!  In the coming years, this gives a foundation on which to build the concept of negative numbers.

Graphing:

• While sitting at my desk, Mason found one of the die from the Fourth of July pack at 3 Dinosaurs.  He asked if he could do it.  I didn’t feel like finding it on my computer, printing it out, etc.  So, I quickly sketched pictures at the bottom to match the pics on the die and Mason set to rolling and graphing.  Gotta’ love the impromptu practice!

Science:

Season Characteristics – Fall – Informal Assessment

• Page 9, in the All About Fall pack from servingjoyfully.com, is a cut-and-paste Fall tree.  My plan was to use this activity as an informal assessment on what Mason knew about the Fall season characteristics.  While he was creating his tree, I asked him what he knew about the season of Fall.  I made sure to not give him any prompts besides, “What else?”.  I wanted to know what he had truly internalized about Autumn, not what I could trigger in his memory.

• After creating the tree, we used Page 10 in the pack to graph the different color of leaves that had fallen from the tree.  A great activity to blend science, informal assessment, math, arts-and-crafts, and cut-and-paste for fine motor skills.  Another big thumbs up on this 20 minute activity!

Extras:

Canvas Painting

• We did a little acrylic paints on canvas boards and threw in some extra tools such as forks to experiment with texture.  Mason put tape on his canvas before painting so that it would create a fun design after the paint dried and we peeled off the tape.  Madison was simply more interested in getting as much color on her canvas as possible.  She also decided that playing with the bottles of paint was just as fun!

Too Much Help

With the start of public school, I have been seeing many Facebook posts and emails regarding going back to school, supplies on sale, curriculum discounts.  I have had two reactions to this:

1)  A complete joy because of the freedom we have in not being tied to that schedule – AND –

2)  An extreme pressure toward finding a whole or partial curriculum.

I will preface this with saying, there is absolutely nothing wrong with pre-made curriculums.  Coming from a background of ten years teaching in the public schools, I am a fan of certain curriculums and not others.  I can see where specific curriculums work better in a private or home setting vs a public school setting, or for one student personality vs another student personality.  I get all of this.  What I have realized this week is the venture to find a curriculum when the Lord has told you not to is a bit futile!

I also discovered that walking this homeschooling journey is akin to parenting in general.  When I had my first child, I thought the internet would be my best friend.

Google to the rescue!!!  

Um…no.  With all the wealth of information out there, I quickly discovered that there was too much information out there.  Breastfeed vs formula, cry-it-out vs never cry, spanking vs not, cloth diaper vs disposable…you name it, the arguments are there.  All sides are right, all sides are wrong.  I quickly found my head swirling and my eyes shedding many-a-tear because I was worse off after my two hour search!

4 years into parenting and another child later, I finally came to understand.  When searching the internet all those times, I would end up searching for an opinion that already matched mine and it made me feel better about what it was that I already had a leading to do anyway!  Parenting is being me, with the Lord, training my children up as we go.  If I’m really not sure, I’m going to ask the Lord, or another person who is walking this journey with me and slightly ahead of me.

This same thing goes with homeschooling.  There are as many ways to homeschool as there are unique and individual families.  What is right for one is not automatically right for the next.  Some may be and look similar, some may look completely different, but they will all have their own flavor…as they should.  So I walk on, being my own flavor with the Lord.  I know the Lord has told me it is not time to purchase any curriculum, but to follow the leading of Mason and his interests.

My encouragement to you in your journey, be it life or homeschooling or fill-in-the-blank:  If you are following the true desire of your heart, don’t give up.  Stand on what you know is right, and walk on.  Today you may feel overwhelmed, tired, and stretched, but joy comes in the morning.  Each day is His and therefore, each day is yours.

Live it, Love it, Joy in it, Learn.

Week-in-Review

Math:  

Measuring in centimeters

• My children love to empty my center desk drawer of all its pens, pencils, erasers, binder clips etc.  This time Mason had placed most everything from the drawer on the kitchen table.  This included a ruler that had cm on one side.  My husband explained how to line an object on the zero and find its length.  Mason spent the next 15-20 minutes measuring items from the drawer.

Lego Block Addition and Subtraction, Lego pack

• Several months ago, I came across a free Lego pack by www.walkingbytheway.com.  Two of the pages included were addition and subtraction of blocks.  We spent most of our time doing the subtraction.  You place an amount of Lego bricks on the card, let them count, and then take some away while their eyes are closed.  The student then has to tell you how many you took away.  We made sure to restate the problem after each time “Six take away two equals four.”  This will really help when we are ready to move to writing these type of problems using symbolic form.

Reading:  

Matching Partner Letters (Uppercase to Lowercase), Alphabet Cards by The Learning Leaf

• This was a fun review game.  It is the age old game of concentration using Uppercase and Lowercase letters.  I made a set of alphabet cards and we placed a 4 x 4 block of cards on the table (8 letters of the alphabet at a time).  Mason would turn over two, trying to match the uppercase letter with its partner lowercase letter.

(Click the pic for a free set of printable cards.)

• Madison (age 2) was very interested in the alphabet cards, so I made a tot-pack for her.  I made templates with the Upper and Lowercase matches on them.  I placed two templates in front of her (4 letters at a time), and she had to match the alphabet card to the correct letter on the templates.  An example of Madison’s templates:

(Click the pic for a free download of the tot-pack templates.)

Word Family Practice, Starfall.com

• We did 15-20 minutes on starfall.com working on word family reading, recognition, and spelling.  I saw him work on the -an, -at, -en, -it word families, but there may have been more!  If you have never used starfall.com, jump over and take a look, it is a wonderful free online tool.

Never Underestimate

My lesson this week:  never underestimate.

I am seeing a beautiful blend of basic planning and inherent motivation budding forth.  It will help to explain using examples.  We have several educational workbooks that have been given to us and have thus far been mostly out of sight, out of mind.  In hopes to decrease the pile, we started working through these to use them up.  Sitting down to work on letter tracing:  my basic planning – complete two pages.  Mason’s inherent motivation – complete 5!

Another time I noticed this blend of basic planning and inherent motivation:  throughout the last couple of weeks, Mason has been more consistently sounding out words.  Out of interest, I asked if he could spell ‘and’ the other day.  He could.  This makes it a great time to move into the realm of spelling basic word families and sight words.  It came to me to write several letters on the ground and have Mason spell words by jumping on the letters in order.  I made sure to include the letters of his name so that there was a word with which I knew he was familiar.

(Madison enjoyed jumping on letters as well!)

Long story short…

Not only did he spell the words I thought up, he then started making words out of the letters on the ground.  Words I hadn’t even thought to ask him.   Then he said a word, realized one of the letters wasn’t there, and wrote the letter with the chalk himself.  Wow!  My basic planning – have Mason spell his name and a few other words.  Mason’s inherent motivation – spell given words, make my own words, include new letters.

I must pause and say, there is definitely a timing to this whole process.  There were a few times this week that I presented the idea of tracing letters and either it just didn’t fly, or only what I asked was done (and that with little enthusiasm).  In these instances, I didn’t push and we didn’t move on to other areas.  Most of our learning activities this week happened on Wednesday and then Saturday and Sunday.  There just seemed to be a “no go” on the other days of the week.  This, however, is the beauty of “doing school” from June to June on a 12 month cycle…plenty of time to flow.

Week-in-Review

Math:  

Collecting Data, Calendar Activity from RoyalBaloo

• The only math we did this week was graphing the weather each morning with our calendar activity.  The activity is set up to do daily.  This is not something I’m willing to make happen everyday.  It seems to work better for us to do it once, maybe twice, a week – doing a few days work at one time.

Reading:  

Introduction to Beginning Consonant Blends, Blend Wall Cards by 3 Dinosaurs

• Since sounding out words and attempting to read books is occurring more and more, we began to look at and attribute sounds to specific blends of consonants.  These wall cards helped with the sounding out of each particular blend and then I had Mason think of another word that started with the same blend.

Sight Word Practice, Lego Pack by walkingbytheway.com

• Reinforcement is always good, and we have a large supply of foam letters.  Thank you Grandma S for the foam letters!  I also found this great Lego pack at walkingbytheway.com.  So, we practiced color sight words, by finding and placing the correct foam letters on the words.  Since spelling is becoming a forefront concept as well, I made sure that once the word was completed, I would ask the question, “How do you spell blue.”  Since the word was in front of him, it simply gave him a chance to practice responding to that question.

(Madison’s version is on the right.)

Handwriting:  

Tracing and Free writing Letters

• As stated above, we have several educational workbooks that I am ready to work through and lessen the pile!  The pages with letters A-D were completed this week.

Tracing Numbers

• Calendar Activity – writing in dates on the August calendar printable found at RoyalBaloo.com

Spelling

• What we are now calling Spelling Jump.  It is the activity described in the blog above.  Writing letters on the driveway and giving Mason a word to spell by jumping on the correct letters in order.