Progression

I don't know about you, but one of the great rewards of homeschooling is watching your kids work through something they found difficult and coming out on the other side having made progress.  Handwriting for us isn't necessarily the most fun part of the day... but it's starting to be.  The girls are getting better by the day with holding their pencil correctly and having good control over what their tiny hands are doing.  It used to be a big area of frustration, but over the past week they each seemed to have flipped a switch in their brains and are doing so much better.  They also LOVE to color and draw on the animal picture on the back of each of their A Reason For Handwriting worksheets which has also helped. 

Aside from our handwriting lessons I've been working with the girls on writing their names and writing their numbers.  We usually do this at least once a week in their notebooks.  Poor Av just hadn't been able to write a good 3.  She always made an extra loop in the middle and felt like she would never get it right.  I worked with her to try to make 2 c's backwards and touching but she continued with her little extra loop.  Then a few days ago while doing her math worksheet she jumped out of her chair and proclaimed, "I did it mama, I did it!  I made the best 3 ever!  Take a picture, take a picture so we can show daddy!"  So here she is, my proud little peanut with her Best 3 EVER!  Her smile doesn't get more genuine than this and I will always treasure this image!

School Away From Home

The Wynn - our gorgeous school away from home.

For the past week we've lived, schooled, and worked away from home.  Every year handsome hubby has a trade-show in Las Vegas, and since it's close enough for us to all drive and his hotel expenses are covered by work we've always gone along.  My thinking a few years ago was that even though he was super busy with work and we hardly saw him... it was easier to be there doing something different with little ones than to just stay home and be alone for the week.  Now that they are older they enjoy going becuase we can swim, shop, and play during the day and they are much easier to handle regardless of where we are.  Daddy is still busy and going from morning until the wee hours of night, but us girls have fun girl time and enjoyed our week. 

 I brought along a mini white-board which was perfect for our lessons.

I brought our school stuff along and we just pounded through our work which took about an hour each morning and then we were off to enjoy our day.  I did our reading in the afternoon to give us something to do during the heat of the day and break things up a bit.  Poor peanuts came down with a cold the day before we left so we couldn't swim as much as I had wanted, but I'm glad we went because while they still had a cough they were feeling much better after a few days and really enjoyed the trip.  It's always nice to change up the routine a bit but now it's back the grind.  We're home now and I'm looking forward to a relaxing weekend before it all starts again!

August in Review

I'd have to say we've had a wonderful first month of Kindergarten. I love that we started a bit earlier than our local public school so I have some flex time for a longer Christmas break and or some day's off near the end of the year.

 

Lacing Cards, Math-U See practice, Alphabet Writing Review, Snack Time, Alphabet Order Review

We spent the first week doing mostly alphabet and number review to reacquaint ourselves with everything we learned last year. We went right into all our curriculum and the girls are doing really well with everything.  They love art, singing, and our fun activities, and put up with the worksheets that round everything out.  They've started gymnastics once a week for an hour and it's a great outlet for their energy.  It's also been wonderful for them to work on their flexibility, coordination, and ability to follow directions from someone other than me.

 Practicing first names with capital and lowercase, A Reason for Handwriting Letter Worksheets, Number Writing 0-9

Both girls are slowly but surely improving their handwriting.  This is still by far the area that gives them the most frustration.  I'm having a bit of trouble getting Avalyn to hold her pencil correctly, and she's all about being quick and sloppy so it's something we'll have to keep working on.  I'm hoping that repetition is the key though so along with their handwriting worksheet each day I have them write their names and numbers once a week as well as put their name on the top of everything they are working on.

Math-U-See Worksheets & Review

Math is continuing to go really well, and it's still almost too easy for them.  They know their numbers up to 100 from last year, can count by 10's and recognize and write their numbers pretty well so I'm continuing to plug along with 2 lessons each week since everything is still basic counting 1-10.  It almost feel silly at times, but I'm hoping this is just giving them a great base for math and that they will just stay ahead as it gets harder.  I might get an extra workbook that goes over time, money and some other simple things to give them something to learn that they don't already know.  At least they are loving their math and haven't complained about the fact that it's easy and they think it's fun... so I'm just going with it!

A Day in the Life of Our Kindergarten - Part 2

Yesterday was A Day in the Life of Our Kindergarten - Part 1 where I went through the overall schedule of our day.  Today I'll share the details and breakdown of a typical day of school...

For calendar time we talk about days/weeks/months/years.  The girls take turns marking our day and then counting how many days we are into the month.  They have to say the day correctly, "Today is Wednesday, August 15th 2012" and then they say what yesterday was and tomorrow will be.  We then sing our days of the week and months of the year songs.  The person who didn't mark the calendar gets to go outside and tell us what the weather is like.  Living in Southern California it's usually just hot and sunny so I plan to change our weather area a bit so it's more than just the actual weather, but seasons, etc.



After our calendar time we go into song and movement (one of the girls favorite times of the day.)  I choose an old Sunday School song that we sing and do the hand motions to, and then M/W/F we do a movement song as well where they get to follow directions and dance around the room.

We then sit down and have our Bible time (in my eyes the most important part of our day) where we go over our virtue of the week and then I read a passage from the Bible that covers that virtue and ask questions to the girls about what we've read.  Once AWANA starts we'll do their weekly Sparks lesson and memory verse Mon-Wed and focus more on our Bible lesson that teaches the virtue on Thurs-Fri, but we'll review the virtue and talk about it all week.

After Bible we do our handwriting worksheet and whatever activity I've planned to round out our day.  Sometimes it's an extra writing activity, shape & pattern builders, or even a game.  Sometimes it's more art related like lacing cards, drawing, and other times we work with numbers. I try to keep this fun and very hands on though.


First day of school: Dancing for song and movement time. Reviewing our lowercase alphabet recognition with Confessions of a Homeschooler's K5 alphabet tree.  Math-U-See worksheet. Virtue of the week. TYCTR phonics lesson. Handwriting alphabet review.

After our snack we do our Math-U-See lessons.  I started the girls in the primer book, and although they are way ahead of where it's starting I want to make sure they have the foundation they need to move on.  I'm doing 2 lessons a week for now until we get to point where it isn't so easy and then we'll move to a lesson per week.

We do art next and work on things like cutting, pasting, and basic art terminology.  We do projects about once a week using different mediums.  After art we do our language which happens to be ASL since my brother is deaf and we want the girls to be able to sign to him.  We review our alphabet and then each week we learn a variety of vocab words that correlate with the letter we're working on.

This ends the time in our schoolroom and we head to the family room to do our phonics and reading snuggled up on the sofa.  Now that the girls are advancing in their reading I'm doing their phonics lesson separately so I really know what they are individually learning and they can't help each other.  Whoever goes first comes with me to do their reading lesson and the other one stays and uses their leapfrog TAG reader or our Britannica science pen to read on their own.

After I've finished with both of their phonics lessons we read a few library books together.  We always start with the science one they picked out from the library and do a few pages of that and discuss it together before reading a few books for fun. 


First Day of School: Cutting practice. Name handwriting practice. ASL Alphabet flashcards. Snack time.

Linked up with "Day in the Life" Week at the Not Back to School Blog Hop over at iHomeschool Network.

 

A Day in the Life of Our Kindergarten - Part 1

Do you ever wonder what those of us who decide to homeschool do with our day?  I can tell you it's not all soap opera's and bon-bon's.  In fact, I didn't sit down for more than 20 minutes of "me time" all last week.  It's actually a lot of work, but the rewards of watching your kids learn make it more than worth it.  While I may not have much time to myself, we do have much more time as a family which I feel is one of the biggest perks!

Here's a schedule of what our typical day in Kindergarten looks like...

6:00am - Daddy is the morning person in our family, so he gets up with the girls and makes them breakfast. Sad for me (I'm SO not a morning person) they have always been up at 6am on the dot raring and ready to go. They spend a little daddy time helping him, reading with him, or just hanging out in the morning. 
8:00am - Daddy leaves for work and I get up and start my day.  The girls are allowed to play or watch some TV during this time while I shower, dress, and do my Bible study.
9:00am - The girls have to pickup the downstairs and then get dressed while I make myself breakfast and get everything together that we need for school.  The rule is, if it's not picked up and put away by school time, it gets taken away to the time out toy bin for a week.  Surprisingly they always get this done! :-)
10:00am - Pledge, Prayer, Calendar Time, Song & Movement, Bible, Handwriting, and Activity
11:00am - Snack
11:15am - Math, Language, Art, Phonics, Science, Reading
12:30pm - Lunch
1:00pm - After lunch the girls are free to play while I use this time to check email, blog, and do any lesson planning I need to for the next day.  I prep any crafts we have and figure out my schedule for the rest of the day. I then use this time to get some of the housework done, work on any of the photo sessions I have for clients, take the girls out to play, run errands, go to the farmers market, or get things together for us to leave if we have plans for the afternoon or evening. 
4:30pm - Our days where we don't have to be somewhere I usually get started with any pre-dinner prep I have to get done and then make dinner.
6:00pm - Daddy's home and it's dinner time!
7:00pm - The girls get to spend some time with daddy and then at 7:30 it's showers and getting ready for bed.
8:00pm - We try to get the girls in bed by 8:00 and then the evening is our down time to relax, watch TV, read and just spend time as a couple.  I often do my photography work during this time while we hang out together in the family room.
11:00pm - This is my goal bedtime, but it doesn't always happen.  I try to be good about it though becuase it definitely catches up to me if I don't.

Our afternoons and weeknights are pretty busy as well.
Monday - Library
Tuesday -  Bible Study, Family Dinner
Wednesday - Gymnastics, Farmers Market, AWANA
Thursday - Crafts and dinner with Nana - Date night for mommy and daddy every other week
Friday -  Family Movie Night

I firmly believe that our schooling takes place just as much out of the schoolroom as it does in it.  For this reason, we do lots of hands on learning as we go about our week.  We learn about science as we explore at the park, cook together, or just talk through things the girls are interested in.  We learn daily Bible lessons as I regularly bring up Bible stories and verses that support the behavior the girls should have.  We learn to read as we're out places and I ask girls to sound out words they see, and we learn math as the girls help me decide what the best deals are when we're grocery shopping or at the farmers market. Overall though, they learn how to behave and act respectful when out in public, and how we need to treat others with love.  I value our time in the schoolroom, but I value teaching them life lessons they wouldn't get anywhere else if they weren't with my husband and I learning them on a daily basis.

Check back tomorrow for the details and breakdown of our typical school day. A Day in the Life of Our Kindergarten - Part 2.

I love seeing what everyone else considers a day of homeschool, and this week is "Day in the Life" Week at the Not Back to School Blog Hop over at iHomeschool Network.

 

Ballerina

I don't know about you, but one of the perks to homeschooling... you can let your kids wear dress up over their PJ's to school.  We're really good about getting dressed in the morning and starting our day fresh and ready, but sometimes when the girls have been playing they ask to stay a princess or ballerina... and I say why not!

Our {Home} Schoolroom

This is the full view of our classroom.  Our schoolroom doubles as a playroom so it holds all the girls toys, crafts, books, games, etc. We decided when we moved in and the girls were just babies that it made more sense to make our front room a playroom instead of a formal living room.  It's the first room you see when you walk in the front door, but we had no other space to hold the girls "stuff" so we felt it would be best for our family.  It's naturally progressed into the schoolroom so it's been perfect!

The majority of our classroom furniture is from IKEA.  LOVE!!!  We have a Billy Bookcase on each side of the window with ab Expedit Bookshelf on it's side under the window.  The girls and I all have the Vika Amon Table Top (mine is larger) and I have the Vika Alex Drawers on one side.  The shelf organizers are either from IKEA or Target's $1 Spot.

Now let's go on a tour of the room...

On the back wall I have my cute vintage alphabet cards.  I still can't part with the girls toddler table and chairs, becuase they still use it for messy crafts and it's so marked up I don't care about it getting ruined.  The left wall has my whiteboard, their toy bin, and our calendar area as well as my desk, printers, and craft/toy/dress-up cabinet.  The right wall has the girls desks, barbies, and doll house. 



The left shelf holds our school supplies, manipulatives, curriculum, workbooks, and some of my craft and sewing supplies.



The right shelf holds all our games, books, and toys on the bottom.



The Expedit hold all our craft supplies, puzzles, leap pens, library books, play-doh, and misc toys.  On top we have our roll of paper from IKEA which is great for the girls love of art and drawing.

My desk holds 3 IKEA magazine holders which house our completed worksheets and daily curriculum.  It also holds my lovely sewing machine, color printer, and my laptop which has my lesson plans.

Our teaching/calendar wall is still in the works.  So far I have our whiteboard, a pocket chart with our ASL alphabet, our day's of the week cards, our calendar, weather and virtue of the week cards.  I plan to add more to our calendar area, but wanted to at least have this for the start of school to get us started.




The girls do the majority of work at their desks, and then we do our reading time in the Family Room snuggled up on the sofa. It's the perfect setup for us and where we are at this point in our education!

Linking up this week with iHomeschool Network!
Check it out for a ton of other amazing homeschool rooms!

First Day of Kindergarten

I'd have to say that today was a fabulous success!  After much grumbling from the girls for the past week in response to the fact that summer break was over and we'd be starting school today... they had forgotten how much they loved it and enjoyed it so much!  We started our day with school pictures and then went into a similar routine as last year.  The girls looked adorable in their new back to school outfit from Gama and had fun modeling for their pictures.  We got started on most of our new curriculum and I really think they are going to love it all.  I'll know more once we've really gotten into it all in a few weeks, but I'm excited to see how much they learn.  Here's some first day of school pics of my big Kindergarteners!

Avalyn

  

Brinley

  

Love my happy smiley girls!

 

Visit iHomeschool Network to see all the other "Not" Back to School Photos!

 

Twas the Night Before Kinder...

How did Kindergarten get here so quickly???  It seems that just yesterday we were enjoying our carefree summer days with school nowhere in sight and then suddenly the girls are school age and preparing for real school to start.  I can't believe my babies are 5 1/2 and starting Kindergarten tomorrow. 

I feel lucky that I don't have to have the big, sad sendoff moment that many mom's have.  I don't have to drive the girls to a strange new school and walk them to the gate where they'll stand and wave at me before walking into a new class full of strangers.  I don't have to turn away and hope and pray that they'll be okay and God will bless them with not only a great teacher, but nice kids to befriend them who will be good influences in their lives.  I instead get to serve them by being the example I should be and helping them to learn not only school subjects, but how to be the little people God wants them to be.  I don't have to be sad that I'll miss out on everything they are learning and experiencing and instead get to see it unfold first hand and I'll be the one rewarded when I watch it click.  I'm so very blessed to be able to homeschool these girls and I can't wait to watch this year unfold!

So tomorrow we'll wake up, have our breakfast, get dressed in our new first day of school clothes, take some back to school photos, and then start Kindergarten.  It's official... we're a homeschool family... and I couldn't be prouder!

Our 2012-2013 Kindergarten Curriculum

I've been doing non-stop research the last few weeks knowing I had to make some final decisions for our upcoming school year.  I wanted to keep it simple and only get what I thought we would need to get started.  I'm hoping everything I have planned works out for us, but in the event something isn't working I'm more than okay moving on and trying something else.

Here's my plan for our Kindergarten Curriculum...

• Bible: We Choose Virtues and AWANA Sparks
• Reading: Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons
• Writing: A Reason for Handwriting - K
• Math: Math U See - Primer
• Art: How to Teach Art to Children, Kumon Cutting and Kumon Pasting
• Language: American Sign Language
• History & Science: - Library Books

Calendar Time & Bible: Like last year I plan to start our day with the pledge, calendar time and singing.  We'll then go into our virtue of the week and continue to rotate through these all year so they really get instilled in the girls.  We'll practice our verse for Sparks and do the lesson together over M-W and then Th/Fr we'll work on our virtue verse.

Reading/Writing/Math: These are the only set curriculum's I'm using.  We've already started our reading lessons over the summer and they seem to be going well.  As soon as the girls are reading a bit better we'll incorporate easy readers into this time as well.  Depending on how long it takes us, when we complete the 100 lessons I'll evaluate what to move to next.  We'll work on our handwriting and math each day and I'll also bring in some of our fun activities and manipulives that are more hands on from last year mixed in.

Art:  I'm hoping to do Art twice a week and it will mostly just be for fun, allowing them to try different things and techniques.  Nothing too structured here.  I already have all the books listed so we'll just use them here and there as needed along with all our other art supplies.

Language:  Since their Uncle Josh is deaf I had already decided that ASL would be a great language for them to learn.  I don't have any formal plans other than doing what we did last year and learning a few new vocab words each week that correlate with the letter of the alphabet we're working on.

History & Science:  Again, I have nothing specific planned here.  The girls are really interested in science and learning, so like last year each week we'll plan to pickup a book from the library on a topic of their choosing and we'll go through it.  Topics like: dinosaurs, insects, sharks, planets, animals, the US map, etc. will more than likely all be touched on over the year.

I'm hoping we can fit our school day into 2 hours using the last 30 minutes to read library books together for fun.  That will allow us to have lunch and then the afternoon free for playing, running errands, going to the library, park, cooking, etc.  I'm looking forward to a great year and I'll definitely keep you updated with how each subject is going and what's working for us.  The countdown begins!!!

Linking up with iHomeschool Network for the "Not" Back-to-School Blog Hop Curriculum Week!