I always like to type up my ideas and share them here. Some of the ideas we use and some we don't use. Actually, this blog is a part of my troubleshooting and brainstorming process where I can write down my thoughts. So I've been thinking about spring semester and what we are going to do for subject blocks.
I know that each month I want to spend 1 week each on history, science, grammar/composition and the other 1-2 weeks will be children's choice.
For language arts the topics I would like to cover include:
verbs
punctuation, sentence types and writing sentences
adverbs
pronouns
prepositions, conjunctions and interjections
For history/science:
creation/beginning of the world and the science involved
dinosaurs
the ice age
Mesopotamia
Old Testament stories
ancient Egypt
For just science:
horses
rabbits
and basically what they are interested in
For the children's choice weeks, I want to let them choose if they want to do music, work in a certain art medium, study an artist, do a literature lapbook, follow a rabbit trail from history or whatever they are interested in.
What do you think?
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Thursday, November 12, 2009
What's in the box?
So what are we doing next week?
Box 1--Reading: more horse books with my second grader.
Box 2--Math:
second grade: working on subtraction within 7
fourth grade: multiplication 1-5 review
Box 3--Spelling:
List H-2 second 10 words, homophones
Box 4--Special:
Hands of a Child introduction to poetry lapbook
Box 5--Read Aloud:
By the Shores of Plum Creek unless the Austere Academy comes in on Monday.
I think it will be a great week.
Box 1--Reading: more horse books with my second grader.
Box 2--Math:
second grade: working on subtraction within 7
fourth grade: multiplication 1-5 review
Box 3--Spelling:
List H-2 second 10 words, homophones
Box 4--Special:
Hands of a Child introduction to poetry lapbook
Box 5--Read Aloud:
By the Shores of Plum Creek unless the Austere Academy comes in on Monday.
I think it will be a great week.
Weekly Report November 13, 2009
It was a good start back. I think the blocks are going to work a little better for us rather than trying to do numerous subjects every day. So how did it go?
Reading:
second grade--we are making progress although it is frustrating. She is an intelligent child who could read if she wanted to but she hasn't decided that it is important yet.
fourth grade--she is still reading the series of books by Mark Crilley.
Math:
second grade--she is doing well with the review of subtraction within 6.
fourth grade--I am having her work on exercises from Rod and Staff grade 4. She is still reviewing multiplication facts.
Spelling:
We are working on list H and it is going well. I had my youngest do Starfall.com while I dictated the list to my oldest. But they are both working on the enrichment work with the words.
Science:
The Zebra lapbook from Hands of a Child was great. We learned a lot and really enjoyed it. The Lion lapbook from homeschoolshare.com was good but there were a 2 pieces that we couldn't do because there wasn't the information there to complete those pieces.
Read Aloud:
On the Shores of Plum Creek was all about parties and school this week. They enjoyed it but we are missing the Lemony Snickett books. Hopefully we will get the next book soon. It has been on reserve for two weeks now.
I think that we are making good progress despite the learning walls that we hit a few weeks ago. Next week should be OK and then we have Thanksgiving week off and three more weeks of school before winter break. I have high hopes that after Christmas they will be ready to move on in math and we will have some breakthroughs in reading for my youngest.
How was your week?
Reading:
second grade--we are making progress although it is frustrating. She is an intelligent child who could read if she wanted to but she hasn't decided that it is important yet.
fourth grade--she is still reading the series of books by Mark Crilley.
Math:
second grade--she is doing well with the review of subtraction within 6.
fourth grade--I am having her work on exercises from Rod and Staff grade 4. She is still reviewing multiplication facts.
Spelling:
We are working on list H and it is going well. I had my youngest do Starfall.com while I dictated the list to my oldest. But they are both working on the enrichment work with the words.
Science:
The Zebra lapbook from Hands of a Child was great. We learned a lot and really enjoyed it. The Lion lapbook from homeschoolshare.com was good but there were a 2 pieces that we couldn't do because there wasn't the information there to complete those pieces.
Read Aloud:
On the Shores of Plum Creek was all about parties and school this week. They enjoyed it but we are missing the Lemony Snickett books. Hopefully we will get the next book soon. It has been on reserve for two weeks now.
I think that we are making good progress despite the learning walls that we hit a few weeks ago. Next week should be OK and then we have Thanksgiving week off and three more weeks of school before winter break. I have high hopes that after Christmas they will be ready to move on in math and we will have some breakthroughs in reading for my youngest.
How was your week?
Crazy Week
It has been one of those busy, busy weeks. Monday after school we went to the library and then to Kidscommons. At Kidscommons every month there is a homeschool "field trip." This month they were doing architecture. Now I need to take them by the visitor's center after the library on Monday so that they can see the movie about our city and its architecture.
Tuesday, I got my hair done and that took up a good portion of the afternoon.
Wednesday was grocery shopping which is always a chore that takes up the entire afternoon since we have at least 2 stores to visit. We got more free Snuggle and picked up All for a great deal. We also stopped by Kohls to use the -10/$10 card we got in the mail.
Today, the girls have a dentist appointment. No big deal, huh? We'll the only dentist we could find in our area that does well with sensitive children is about 45 minutes away in a larger city. So we will stop by Panera on the way to pick up bagels (a twice a year treat).
Tomorrow is playgroup and I have to come up with a craft. I want to do animal track rubbings because I think the children would really enjoy it and I have it all together all ready. But since we might not have playgroup next week they are wanting Thanksgiving crafts.
I am looking forward to the weekend and the end of the busy week. Although we are going to try to make it so that the rabbits stay warmer this winter and that is going to involve building projects. So no real relief there. I guess we are paying for that week off last week.
Tuesday, I got my hair done and that took up a good portion of the afternoon.
Wednesday was grocery shopping which is always a chore that takes up the entire afternoon since we have at least 2 stores to visit. We got more free Snuggle and picked up All for a great deal. We also stopped by Kohls to use the -10/$10 card we got in the mail.
Today, the girls have a dentist appointment. No big deal, huh? We'll the only dentist we could find in our area that does well with sensitive children is about 45 minutes away in a larger city. So we will stop by Panera on the way to pick up bagels (a twice a year treat).
Tomorrow is playgroup and I have to come up with a craft. I want to do animal track rubbings because I think the children would really enjoy it and I have it all together all ready. But since we might not have playgroup next week they are wanting Thanksgiving crafts.
I am looking forward to the weekend and the end of the busy week. Although we are going to try to make it so that the rabbits stay warmer this winter and that is going to involve building projects. So no real relief there. I guess we are paying for that week off last week.
Monday, November 9, 2009
First Day of Subject Blocks
I think it is going to work. Here is how it went.
We started with reading. My oldest finished up a book and I worked with my youngest as she read "Shetland Ponies."
Math for my oldest was hard today. She did OK with the worksheet I printed out from 1-800teacher.com (a site with free supplements for Singapore math) but she melted down with the multiplication drill sheets. She has this block on 8s and basically, I've looked at the math books and we are stuck. We can't go on unless she knows the fraction material and what she is lacking to understand the fractions is her weakness in multiplication.
My youngest did well in math and we continue to make progress.
Spelling went well and we followed it with a chapter from "On the Shores of Plum Creek." They liked having quite a bit of time to really talk about and delve into learning about lions and zebras.
I think it went well. We just need to get math straightened out.
We started with reading. My oldest finished up a book and I worked with my youngest as she read "Shetland Ponies."
Math for my oldest was hard today. She did OK with the worksheet I printed out from 1-800teacher.com (a site with free supplements for Singapore math) but she melted down with the multiplication drill sheets. She has this block on 8s and basically, I've looked at the math books and we are stuck. We can't go on unless she knows the fraction material and what she is lacking to understand the fractions is her weakness in multiplication.
My youngest did well in math and we continue to make progress.
Spelling went well and we followed it with a chapter from "On the Shores of Plum Creek." They liked having quite a bit of time to really talk about and delve into learning about lions and zebras.
I think it went well. We just need to get math straightened out.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Subject Blocks
We are going to go with subject blocks which I mentioned in my last post. We will do skill work daily but about half of our day will be spent exploring a subject using a unit study or lapbooking approach. I've been going through my notes for what I want to cover for the year and my list of lapbooks that we have access to. So now I can give my children choices of what they want to do for weekly or multi-weekly units.
Some of what I wanted to cover this year includes:
Grammar/language arts--introduction to poetry, The Polar Express, verbs, punctuation and types of sentences. With the option to work on adverbs, pronouns, interjections and conjunctions.
Geography--choices of Antarctica, Africa, Europe, Asia and Australia.
Science--we have a huge selection of choices for them to pick from and too many to list. I want this to be child-led.
History/Biography--American Girl lapbooks on Rebecca, Kit, Molly and/or Julie. Also any sort of patriotic theme or choice of a person that they want to learn more about.
Art--Drawing, painting, clay or crafts.
4-H--they can choose from mini-4-H sewing or farm animals and regular 4-H caged critters, microwaving, freezing, gift wrapping, computers, aerospace, and scrapbooking.
My thoughts are that if we really delve into a subject matter for a week or more that they will get more out of it. Also, my plans are to have to work on penmanship and composition within these units.
This is also going to be fairly child-led. Sometimes, there will be a subject that I will pick like the grammar topics but mostly I want them to choose what they want to study either from the list or by coming up with their own idea for us to run with.
I think that this will take a lot of pressure off of all of us and give us a new start with school. I think that we have been trying to do too much.
Some of what I wanted to cover this year includes:
Grammar/language arts--introduction to poetry, The Polar Express, verbs, punctuation and types of sentences. With the option to work on adverbs, pronouns, interjections and conjunctions.
Geography--choices of Antarctica, Africa, Europe, Asia and Australia.
Science--we have a huge selection of choices for them to pick from and too many to list. I want this to be child-led.
History/Biography--American Girl lapbooks on Rebecca, Kit, Molly and/or Julie. Also any sort of patriotic theme or choice of a person that they want to learn more about.
Art--Drawing, painting, clay or crafts.
4-H--they can choose from mini-4-H sewing or farm animals and regular 4-H caged critters, microwaving, freezing, gift wrapping, computers, aerospace, and scrapbooking.
My thoughts are that if we really delve into a subject matter for a week or more that they will get more out of it. Also, my plans are to have to work on penmanship and composition within these units.
This is also going to be fairly child-led. Sometimes, there will be a subject that I will pick like the grammar topics but mostly I want them to choose what they want to study either from the list or by coming up with their own idea for us to run with.
I think that this will take a lot of pressure off of all of us and give us a new start with school. I think that we have been trying to do too much.
What's in the box?
I've decided to change the order of how we do school next week. I am tired of feeling like we are just trying to push through our boxes. I am looking at having a time for skill work and then time for subject work. This is what I am thinking of doing:
Box 1--Reading to me or yourself. My second grader will read to me and we will work on sounding out words that she does not know.
Box 2--Math
Box 3--Spelling
Box 4--Read Aloud: On the Banks of Plum Creek is the current read aloud until we get a copy of Lemony Snicket's The Austere Academy.
Then we are going to break into a Waldorf-style block scheduling and focus on a topic for 1-4 weeks. These subject based topics can be:
history
science
art
music
4-H projects
geography
or any thing that we want to do a unit study on
This week we will be working on lapbooks for zebras and lions. We wanted to do lapbooks on hippos and giraffes as well because an interest was sparked by the movie "Madagascar." But we can only find ones for zebras and lions.
I'd love to really let loose and do real Waldorf-style block scheduling where we just have time for reading and math after the main lesson but I think that we really need to spend time on spelling and grammar right now until we get those skills down.
The hope is that instead of feeling like we are dragging through things and trying to do a little of each subject each day that we will be able to really enjoy and learn about a topic. I think that after the poetry lapbook we may let grammar go for a bit and just work on composition skills within the lapbooks.
I'll let you know how it works out.
Box 1--Reading to me or yourself. My second grader will read to me and we will work on sounding out words that she does not know.
Box 2--Math
Box 3--Spelling
Box 4--Read Aloud: On the Banks of Plum Creek is the current read aloud until we get a copy of Lemony Snicket's The Austere Academy.
Then we are going to break into a Waldorf-style block scheduling and focus on a topic for 1-4 weeks. These subject based topics can be:
history
science
art
music
4-H projects
geography
or any thing that we want to do a unit study on
This week we will be working on lapbooks for zebras and lions. We wanted to do lapbooks on hippos and giraffes as well because an interest was sparked by the movie "Madagascar." But we can only find ones for zebras and lions.
I'd love to really let loose and do real Waldorf-style block scheduling where we just have time for reading and math after the main lesson but I think that we really need to spend time on spelling and grammar right now until we get those skills down.
The hope is that instead of feeling like we are dragging through things and trying to do a little of each subject each day that we will be able to really enjoy and learn about a topic. I think that after the poetry lapbook we may let grammar go for a bit and just work on composition skills within the lapbooks.
I'll let you know how it works out.
Additions to Weekly Report
My pictures came out fine. They told me that 90% of call-backs are OK but that means that 10% are not. They also said that the more picture they have the better they are able to read them and avoid unnecessary call-backs.
So I am encouraging you to get your baseline mammogram done in your 30's and then do them every year once you turn 40. Good luck to the rest of you.
So I am encouraging you to get your baseline mammogram done in your 30's and then do them every year once you turn 40. Good luck to the rest of you.
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Rethinking Workboxes
We've been doing Workboxes for about three months now. I've done hanging files and boxes. We've tried everything from 5 to 12 boxes. I've tried having subjects and then supplements boxes. I've tried having everything together for a subject. And although it works OK, I am finding that we feel tied down. School isn't a free-flowing fun learning experience. It is about getting the boxes done.
I do like the boxes for organization because I am able to put everything we need for a subject in the box and I don't have to hunt for items that we need. So I am thinking about the boxes. And I am thinking about the order that we do school. And I am even thinking about the location of school.
If we changed the order, I would do something like this:
read aloud
math
reading
grammar
spelling
history
anything else (science, geography, biomes, lapbooks, 4-H, art, music, etc.)
Sometimes, I wonder about going to a more free-flowing system. Like one used in the Montessori schools where the children pick and choose what they want to do. They have to do the list but they can choose what order to do things in.
I've also thought about the Waldorf block scheduling. Where we would concentrate on a topic for 2-4 weeks for the bulk of the school day but they would have a little time each day to read and do math.
I guess I want to see them want to learn and to take charge of their learning rather than me being the one to push things along. I've always admired the unschooling movement and really wished that I could do that but I have control issues.
Have you tried any sort of different way of teaching or encouraging independent learning and how did it work for you?
I'm going to think about things some more and get back to you when I have next week pulled together.
I do like the boxes for organization because I am able to put everything we need for a subject in the box and I don't have to hunt for items that we need. So I am thinking about the boxes. And I am thinking about the order that we do school. And I am even thinking about the location of school.
If we changed the order, I would do something like this:
read aloud
math
reading
grammar
spelling
history
anything else (science, geography, biomes, lapbooks, 4-H, art, music, etc.)
Sometimes, I wonder about going to a more free-flowing system. Like one used in the Montessori schools where the children pick and choose what they want to do. They have to do the list but they can choose what order to do things in.
I've also thought about the Waldorf block scheduling. Where we would concentrate on a topic for 2-4 weeks for the bulk of the school day but they would have a little time each day to read and do math.
I guess I want to see them want to learn and to take charge of their learning rather than me being the one to push things along. I've always admired the unschooling movement and really wished that I could do that but I have control issues.
Have you tried any sort of different way of teaching or encouraging independent learning and how did it work for you?
I'm going to think about things some more and get back to you when I have next week pulled together.
A Hard Week
I know it is a bit early for the weekly update but this week was different. Monday morning I got a phone call to come back and have more pictures done because there was a dense spot on my baseline mammogram. This call came in during math and I called off school for the rest of the week.
Friday morning I had a mammogram and then we had McDonald's and playgroup at the park. It was nice to finally be back outside to play after all the rain and cancelled play dates. We do have an indoor location this winter at the gym of a local church. The kids had a great time and then they went to another child's birthday party that evening and had even more fun. My husband and I used that time to go out to eat with just the two of us. It was nice.
Saturday was fun. I had a fairy bunny and a pink cowgirl. They were so cute. We trick-or-treated in the neighborhood like always and they came home with 4 pumpkins full of candy. It was a lot.
Monday went OK and I am scheduled to have more pictures done on Thursday morning. We spent the rest of the day watching "Bee Movie" and going to the library. Luckily, I have stumbled across a bunch of good books after a bit of a dry run.
Tuesday, wasn't so good. We found some good deals at Target and Walmart. I got 2 GE light bulbs and 4 bags of marshmallows for $1.39 at Target. But my youngest was acting up and my oldest was emotional most of the day.
Today was good though. We went Krogering and I got 9 containers of snuggle for free and 8 boxes of Cheese-it for 25 cents each. Yeah.
Then it was off to horseback riding lessons with my youngest. She really does a good job and her instructor says that she is making a lot of improvement. I could see it today as she got her horse to go where she was supposed to. In the past the horse has led my daughter more. We also got to see the new horses and greet the baby horse (6 months old). My oldest spends most of her time there playing with the dog. She has really gotten over her fear of bigger dogs.
I am nervous about the tests in the morning but my husband will be with me. From what I have heard and read, a lot of people get called back the first time and most of the time it isn't cancer for some one as young as I am. I'll let you know how it goes.
So did you have a good week? We've enjoyed our break and I may be revamping things when we come back to school. I am thinking that the workboxes are nice for organizing but they are also a bit stifling.
Friday morning I had a mammogram and then we had McDonald's and playgroup at the park. It was nice to finally be back outside to play after all the rain and cancelled play dates. We do have an indoor location this winter at the gym of a local church. The kids had a great time and then they went to another child's birthday party that evening and had even more fun. My husband and I used that time to go out to eat with just the two of us. It was nice.
Saturday was fun. I had a fairy bunny and a pink cowgirl. They were so cute. We trick-or-treated in the neighborhood like always and they came home with 4 pumpkins full of candy. It was a lot.
Monday went OK and I am scheduled to have more pictures done on Thursday morning. We spent the rest of the day watching "Bee Movie" and going to the library. Luckily, I have stumbled across a bunch of good books after a bit of a dry run.
Tuesday, wasn't so good. We found some good deals at Target and Walmart. I got 2 GE light bulbs and 4 bags of marshmallows for $1.39 at Target. But my youngest was acting up and my oldest was emotional most of the day.
Today was good though. We went Krogering and I got 9 containers of snuggle for free and 8 boxes of Cheese-it for 25 cents each. Yeah.
Then it was off to horseback riding lessons with my youngest. She really does a good job and her instructor says that she is making a lot of improvement. I could see it today as she got her horse to go where she was supposed to. In the past the horse has led my daughter more. We also got to see the new horses and greet the baby horse (6 months old). My oldest spends most of her time there playing with the dog. She has really gotten over her fear of bigger dogs.
I am nervous about the tests in the morning but my husband will be with me. From what I have heard and read, a lot of people get called back the first time and most of the time it isn't cancer for some one as young as I am. I'll let you know how it goes.
So did you have a good week? We've enjoyed our break and I may be revamping things when we come back to school. I am thinking that the workboxes are nice for organizing but they are also a bit stifling.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
