The boys have been plugging away at school, having more good days than bad, and for that I am thankful. All my planning has paid off (for the most part) and I have been prepared enough to keep things flowing. The other day, ds3 actually said that school had been fun, and we didn’t even do anything special. Gotta love that.
However, we have been doing some fun things to help reinforce lesson plans.
Hello, and welcome to week one.
I am surprised at how well our first week of homeschooling has gone so far. My boys were so resistant and complaining all summer at the mere mention of the “s” word (school, people, school) that I thought there would be much more teeth gnashing and fit pitching. Instead they both cooperated and even seemed to enjoy themselves. Fancy that.
I’m using Carissa’s themed calendar fact cards this year. The theme for August is oceans. I’ve set up a little cubicle area for resources related to the theme, such as books and discovery bins. I love how we spend just 10-15 minutes tops discussing the day’s card but the boys’ learn so much.
We started up our SOTW lessons right where we left off last year and it was like there was no break at all. The boys’ retention of what we had covered so far was impressive. This week we are covering China. After we discussed the Great Wall my guys made their way to the legos and started creating their version. They also made lego versions of an execution. At least it’s less bloody.
In geography ds3 is learning about map scales and how to measure distances between cities on a map. He is also continuing his states study (up to #39 I think) and has begun a vocabulary word a day program. Ds4 has started the Explode the Code series but seems to have made more progress in reading when we used a more sight/whole word approach, so we will be doing both. He also picked right up with his First Language Lessons.
We are still reading Fantastic Mr. Fox and learning some new vocabulary with it as well. I’ve also introduced a classical music study which both boys LOVE. It floored me, how enthusiastic they were with Hadyn’s Surprise Symphony. Of course, they both played their unique versions on their ocarinas.
Now we can put a big old checkmark next to week one. Done!
I’m getting late with my weekly postings. Not good, as I get the weeks mixed up or forget things I wanted to make note of. Bad homeschooling mommy!
Things are moving along nicely with ds4 my 1st grader. Thanks to his recent lessons in First Language Lessons he has just about mastered the days of the week. I am also surprised that he can recall some of the poems we learned in the beginning and his full address as well. I am impressed with FLL. He is still liking the new Math Mammoth workbook and almost finished with his latest Code book. I started using some You Can Read resources from Carissa at 1+1+1=1 and so far so good. I was worried that they would be a tad too “toddlerish” for him, but he is liking it so far. She has quite clever methods that work well with little boys. :)
We finished Call of the Wild. The boys have mixed feelings on this one. I think they enjoyed the overall storyline, but the violence was a bit much for them. We are moving on to The Fantastic Mr. Fox.
Sometimes my boys really surprise me. We have been having some issues lately with not giving school the proper attention. There is general fussiness at doing lessons, dawdling or incomplete work, stopping and telling me completely unrelated stories in the middle of school. I had enough one morning and said I was making up a chart where I would put an x next to their names for each infraction, and after a certain number the naughty boy would not receive “pay day.” All of this was off the top of my head and in all honesty I may never have gone through with it.
Then ds3 got busy and made up his own version of the chart. He wrote his and his brother’s names and at the bottom wrote, “You will get a x if you say rude things.”
I finally, finally got enough Amazon money and ordered The Well Trained Mind. I don’t really like labels or confining myself to a certain method of homeschooling. If anything I’d say we are eclectic, but honestly I just use whatever works. It’s been different every year and with every child. But the Classical method has always intrigued me and this year we’ve been using products that the Bauer family has published with success, so I got the book to learn more. So far I am liking it and really relating to it. I doubt it will turn me into a strict Classical homeschooling mom, but it’s the first resource I’ve found for years that has given me some new ideas for using with the boys.
I had planned on having May be our last month of school, taking all of June and July off and starting up again in August. So of course things aren’t going as planned. ;) Dh is off this week. I knew he had taken a week off, but I guess it just didn’t occur to me that it was so soon. So now the boys have the week off as well, and we will just have to do a little schooling into June. Dh is finally painting the monster, two-story shed and needs as many helpers as he can get. I tell myself that this is perfect, I can spend the week making final plans and prepping for next year. I like to tell myself stuff like that, ‘cause I know how gullible I am and will totally believe it lol. So far I’ve helped build scaffolding and supervised young painters. Such is life.
Maybe at the end of the week I’ll have a homeschool planning post, maybe it’ll be a surprise vacation post, maybe a trip to the ER post…who knows? Just don’t make any plans around it.
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We had another good week, just about as good as I could have hoped for with all our little “interruptions” lol. Poor ds4 had to have an infected tooth pulled, I had a long awaited doctor’s appointment and dh and I celebrated 23 years of marriage this week. We did still manage to fit some school in there somewhere. ;)
Ds4 and I are both still loving First Language Lessons for his language arts. The pic above shows some of the nouns he remembered from a story we read. He drew a cottage, bird, egg and forest (though he said the bird looks like a banana lol.) And he seems to like the new Math Mammoth workbook we started…only I also received two new math programs for him to review lol. We will be a little math heavy for a while. :)
We are starting to see the light at the end of the school year tunnel. We finish up at the end of May, take off June and July and start right back up the beginning of August. A lot of other homeschoolers are already making plans and buying resources for “next year.” I’m kinda sorta thinking about maybe doing the same. I should probably finish the lesson planning for this year first lol. We are taking a week off but I’m not sure how much planning I will get done. Ds2 has FCAT testing for two days and I have an endoscopy scheduled to see if we can finally figure out why I haven’t been able to eat much. Fun, fun, fun! Ah well, at least as homeschoolers we are able to change our schedule as needed. :)
We had a pretty good week. Ds3 has been working hard, no complaining, listening a little better. Ds4 has good and bad days…well, he’s 6, he still has many good and bad moments within a day lol. The morning routine has been going well and the afternoon one for that matter. All that changes next week as we have a lot of appointments and such to attend to.
I have changed the boys’ math to Math Mammoth. They both really enjoy Mathletics but ds4 sailed through both K and 1st levels already and ds3 hit a snag with factors since he still hasn’t memorized those times tables. So I ordered a complete 1st grade workbook for ds4 and downloaded the multiplication series for ds3. While we are waiting on the workbook I printed up some samples for ds and he loved it. Ds3 and I have begun the process Math Mammoth outlines for memorizing times tables…I am really hoping this time it will sink in.
Ds4 is almost finished with his Go For The Code book, and will graduate to the actual Explode The Code series soon.
Ds3 is still testing a new writing/language arts resource I am going to review and so far we both like it. Ds3 is more than halfway through his states study and also still using his Daily Geography Practice book (and learning a lot! I am loving that book!) We have moved on from ancient Greece in SOTW and are nearly done with the first book. Still reading Call of the Wild. Ds3 is pretty riveted by it, ds4 not so much. However, ds3 has not liked all the death and cruelty. We finished studying the senses in our human body study and this week covered hair and skin.
Well, it’s been a strange couple of weeks indeed. We actually skipped a week of school as I was ill. I was pretty out of it and feel like I missed a lot of things. Dh even had to cancel his business trip. But I think things are turning around and getting back to somewhat normal.
School has been light, just doing the basics. Still reading Call Of The Wild which the boys are really enjoying. One afternoon I caught them acting out scenes from the book with all their plush toy dogs.
I have to say it’s been very helpful having some of the boys’ schooling be computer based. They know how to log in and do their lessons without much prompting from me and it has lightened my load so to speak. Since I didn’t have detailed lesson plans for the week we still had the computer lessons to go to. Nice. :)
I am also thankful for the structured workbooks we use for some subjects. The boys can easily grab their HWT and ETC books and complete those lessons on their own. The same for ds3’s Daily Geography Book as well. Ds3 is also working on a new language arts program that I will be reviewing soon and so far it seems to be a nice mix of independent and guided learning. I just want to make a note here to myself that I was very proud of ds3 this week in regards to his reading. He has really improved his reading aloud and is getting more and more confident with doing so.
I am not completely up to snuff yet so posting will probably still be sporadic (which I hate, I really miss keeping up with all the memes and just posting regularly.) I have some more dr appointments scheduled next month to hopefully get things straightened out and back to normal. Dh is still ill as well. He finally got over his pneumonia, only to develop another infection a few days later, so he is on antibiotics for the third time around! He is just never sick so this is all frustrating to him. Seems it’s been a rough start to the year, hopefully as we plow through spring and into summer our outlook will be brighter.
We pretty much had a routine week, I didn’t even take many pics. Both boys have gotten into a routine with their computer work and pretty much get on and get it done without much prompting from me. While they are on the computers I set up their worksheets and such on the school table. When they complete those we’ll do our reading, science and history and call it a day.
We did manage another art lesson. This week they learned more about impressionist art and made a color wheel.
There is a definite feeling a change in the air and I don’t think our routine will be the same for much longer. Warmer weather is becoming the norm so we will be able to go out more. My physical therapy for the frozen shoulder will mean more disruptions to our day. And dh is preparing for a 3 week business trip. Yep, I’m relishing this routine week for as long as I can. :)
I was completely blown away with how well the boys jumped right back into school after the week off at Disney. They did better than I for sure. My problem is most likely related to the fact that dh is sick. It started on the trip (poor man had chills and sweats off and on for days) and he hasn’t really improved even after a trip to the dr and being on antibiotics for days now. He’s missed worked for two days (that’s a big deal for him) and his cough is so bad it’s keeping us all up. He leaves for a business trip next week and I hate the thought of him still being sick while travelling. So I am sleep deprived and nervous. Not a good combo for a homeschooling mom.
We are wrapping up our human body study. We played a game that reviewed the muscular and skeletal systems.
I’m linking this post up to Weird Unsocialized Homeschooler’s Weekly Wrapup. Hop over and see how other homeschooling families did this past week.
I seriously cannot believe we got as much done this week as we did since tomorrow begins our week-long vacation at Disney World! Actually, the kiddos think we aren’t leaving until Sunday, but as a surprise we are leaving tomorrow and spending a day at Universal Studios (our first time ever!) I honestly thought this week would be a bust as far as homeschooling, but it’s been pretty productive.
Both boys keep logging in and doing Mathletics daily (most of the time they do more than one lesson, unprompted.) They like doing as much as is required to earn a “certificate” and thus more points for “spending” on their avatars. Ds3 actually completed his grade level and moved up to 5th grade work. It seems to be a lot of the same material with some new lessons added in. I can really see his progress, especially in adding large numbers. Ds3 is also still using Times Alive! and making much progress with his multiplication tables (one of my goals for him this year.)
Ds3 has also begun his HWT cursive writing book. He is doing well with it so far, and I credit HWT for really turning his writing around. Love it!
Ds4 is still doing well with First Language Lessons. He has memorized his second poem in the program. I have recorded him reciting his poems so he can see his progress thorough the year. We’ll start our new poem when we get back from our trip.
The stuff is sinking in, as this is ds4 showing me his drawings of the brain (on the left) and the heart pumping blood (on the right.) He drew these on his own while he was “testing out” a new box of crayons. :)
It has been so cold and gloomy and we are so so ready for this vacation! I think a few of the days we will be there will be a little chilly as well, but I don’t even care. A week away from the ordinary, spent in the company of my beautiful little family…I’ll do that anywhere, anytime, anyhow. :)
Both boys continue to happily plug away at their math programs. I never thought I would stray from Abeka math, it worked so well with ds1 and ds2. But my younger boys just aren’t keen on workbooks and so far Mathletics is working well with both of them. We are also using a few computer programs for math fact drills.
In science we are still studying the human body. I rented The Magic School Bus Inside The Human Body from Netflix and it has been the star of our science lessons for the week.
Ds3 is still learning about two US states a week. I found a couple of neat sites that drill state abbreviations and locations and had him play them a little. I was pleasantly surprised at how well he did! He has picked up on the pattern for the abbreviations and knew many that we haven’t covered yet. He also did really well locating states on a map, even more than just the east coast ones we have already covered (and the Gulf Coast region where we live.) Some of this stuff is actually sinking in lol.
In SOTW we read about ancient Greece and the boys wrote their names using letters from the Greek alphabet.
For art this week we learned about Paul Cezanne and the boys arranged items from around the house to paint their own still life pictures.
Ds4’s is on the left. I had them title and sign their masterpieces. I am very pleased with how productive our schooling has been since returning from holiday break. We have one more full week of school, then we are off for our trip to Disney World! Ds2 commented at dinner last night that I am the most excited of all of us about this trip. It’s true, I AM! I so need a vacation, a getaway, a distraction. Only 8 more days to go!
I am linking this post to Weekly Wrapup at Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers.
