My Christmas Wish List

I've asked for this for Christmas. During the Black Friday sales it was on sale for $24 at JoAnn's. I am hoping that it could make things a little less cluttered in our homeschool. I am thinking it would be a nice system for workboxes but we will see.

Just thought I would share.

What's in the box?

Next week starts our Christmas light school time. In January we will be ramping things up again but during this time of the year when attention ability is low and they seem incapable of learning anything new we generally just spend time in review and doing fun units and creative projects. That way the holidays are a little less stressful.

So what is in the box?

Box 1--Reading: Second grade: a selection of easy readers on Horse breeds and Penguins.

Box 2--Math: Second grade: addition within 8 and perhaps 9.
Fourth grade: multiplication tables with 6 and 7.

Box 3--Spelling: List I-1.

Box 4--Lapbook: The Polar Express. We are going to start our December journey with this book so that we can return it to the library so that other families can have a chance at using it this holiday season.

I am looking forward to next week and I hope that it is an enjoyable time for us all. So what are you planning for school to start off the Christmas season?

Weekly Report November 27, 2009

How did Thanksgiving week go? Read on:

Monday--A good but busy. We went to the library, grocery shopping and did banking in addition to math and reading with my second grader.

Tuesday--I got a new driver's license, cleaned house and read with my second grader.

Wednesday--we relaxed and listened to my second grader read.

Thursday--baths for everyone, baked the pumpkin pies which I bough frozen and went to my Mother-in-Law's for a nice meal.

Friday--cleaning out the living room so that we can set up the tree.

Not a real exciting week but we had a nice break from real life. How was your holiday?

Monday

I did work with my second grader on math and reading today. We felt like it would be better for her if we kept things going over vacations until she is reading well.

We also went to the library and picked up books on Antarctica and penguins as well as a copy of The Polar Express. We are all ready for our December units.

This was my day for running errands today and so we went to Kroger and got our Turkey Hill ice cream for .99. It's on sale for 1.99 but we had coupons for -1/1. Good deal! And we went to the bank.

So now, Tuesday and Wednesday is going to be all about house cleaning. We are going to work on laundry, kitchen and bathroom tomorrow and Wednesday is going to be dedicated to the girls' room and our basement classroom.

Thursday is Thanksgiving and we go to my mother-in-laws and Friday is our traditional day of putting up the tree.

I am sending good wishes every one's way for the holiday weekend.

Prepping Units

I spent some time yesterday, preparing upcoming units that we are going to do. I got the stuff together for December. We are doing a lapbook on Antarctica and one on The Polar Express. We may do one on penguins as well since there has been a request for such but I don't have that one pulled together yet.

But this inspired me to start putting together my information and such for our history units for January and December. I put together one folder that is filled with information on creation, the big bang, and early eras. We will be digging through all this stuff in January and finishing it off with a lapbook on dinosaurs.

Then I put together another folder that is filled with information on coming of man, needs of humans, and the development of writing and numbers. There are also charts on the stone age and the evolutionary family tree. I wasn't planning on introducing these topics to my children at this age but recently, I caught the last 2 parts of PBS documentary on "Becoming Human." They joined me and were engrossed. They asked intelligent questions and were interested in learning more about these early forms of human life.

My oldest has also started asking very intelligent questions about the Adam and Eve stories vs evolutionary record and what is true and what is not true. This is all very exciting. I've been waiting a long time to have these kinds of discussions with my children. Of course, shortly after I told her about the three main points of view she wandered back into talking about Webkinz but she is thinking.

I am very excited about the next three months of work and I am hoping to see more sparks of learning and questions in both of my children.

What's in the box?

So what is in the box for Thanksgiving week?

Nothing. We are taking a break from school. Or at least my oldest is taking a break, my youngest will be working on math and reading during that week. I am thinking about having her work on math and reading every day of the week including Sunday. But we will see.

So what will be in the box for December?

We are looking at doing units on Antarctica and The Polar Express. We will do 2 more spelling lists at the rate of 20 words per week, and continue our work in math and reading.

December should be a good month and I look forward to the winter break over the holidays. I have high hopes for January and the New Year. I am hoping that my youngest has worked her way through this difficult period and that we can get some serious work done and make some progress.

Best wishes for Thanksgiving.

Weekly Report November 19, 2009

We had a good week until this morning. For some reason my younger daughter is refusing to do schoolwork on Thursdays. I am ready to follow through on my ultimatum to her. She either needs to take her schoolwork seriously and try to do it or we will send her to school in January.

So here is how things went this week:

Reading--my second grader did well and she is making progress in reading. My fourth grader is still reading the Mark Crilley books.

Math--Second grade: wrapped up our review work of subtraction within 7 and are now starting work on addition within 8. We are using the Rod and Staff second grade workbooks for this.
Fourth grade: She is working on multiplication facts out of the Rod and Staff 4th grade book.

Spelling--We finished up list H and my oldest did very well with spelling the words. They both did well with the worksheets I made.

Poetry--The poetry lapbook was fun. They did a lot of work with syllables this week and wrote a few cute poems.

Read Aloud--Laura and Mary are on a break again since I got a copy of The Austere Academy by Lemony Snicket. They enjoy these books so much.

How was your week?

Hands of a Child Black Friday Sale

Hands of a Child started their Black Friday sale today. I went ahead and bought the units I am planning on using next year. I picked up:

Horses
Rabbits
Ancient India
Roman Britain
The Ice Age

I am really looking forward to using these units as a part of our studies next year. So far all the lapbooks we have done with Hands of a Child have been very thorough will all the pieces there. There is no hunting and searching for answers--they are right in the information packet.

So, if you have wondered about Hands of a Child. Why not head over there. Today is the last day to get super memberships at a discount.

http://www.handsofachild.com/shop/

Organizing Curriculum

How do you keep track of all the various curriculum and materials that you have on hand to teach various subjects and skills? Do you keep them in a box? On a bookshelf? Do you have them sorted by size? grade level? subject?

Today, for Tuesday's organization post we are going to talk about how to organize curriculum. My method of grouping items can be used on shelves or boxes. This is what I do:

I use shelves and each shelf or group of shelves is dedicated to a subject: Language arts, science, math, history, art, literature, readers/books, foreign language, etc.

Within the subject shelf, curriculum is sorted by levels so that all the math curriculum for first grade is together, etc. Then each shelf has a binder of ideas. These are things that I print off the Internet and can include anything from mini-office to games to worksheets, etc. And then any other resources are on the shelf. The History shelf is arranged in order of time period.

I've found that since organizing my shelves by subject and grade level that things are easier to find. I hope this helps.

A Good Start

It is Monday again. This week started out fairly well. The in-depth subject for the week is a lapbook on Introduction to Poetry (found here: http://www.handsofachild.com/shop/Preparing-for-Poetry-Project-Pack-P1608.aspx)

Today we worked on rhyming words. The rest of the week will be spent working on easy poetry forms. It went rather well.

Both girls are doing well in math as we review multiplication and subtraction within 7. My youngest did well reading and they learned about homonyms in spelling. Today is our last day with Mary and Laura for a while because The Austere Academy is in for us. So we are back to the tales of the Beaudalaire children. How fun!

So did you get a good start to the week?