Ok - so I know it has once again been too long since I posted on here!
To catch up - I am so excited to say that WE FINISHED KINDERGARTEN!!! Whoo hoo!! I can't tell you the feeling of accomplishment to finish your first year of homeschooling! It was a super fun year!!
Seth was approached at church by a member who said "Congratulations for finishing kindergarten. Did you get a diploma?" and Seth's reply was "Nope! I got pizza!!" Yep! We went out for pizza that night!
So Summer has started. We have taken a couple of weeks completely off but starting next week we will be doing some handwriting and sight word review every couple of days or so...he was really just starting to really make strides in his handwriting at the end of the school year and I don't want to lose that! Plus it will not hurt him to continue to do a little school work through the summer!
I am currently working on a new chore system for us! I am taking the things I like from several different programs and coming up with my program. I am really excited about it and hoping and praying that it works! Once I get everything nailed down and get the system started I will make a post of what we are doing :-)
I am also diving into the first grade curriculum and planning out our first grade year! Oh how I love this curriculum! It is going to be such a fun year!
Oh we are also enjoying weekly play dates at the park with our homeschool group!! The moms are enjoying spending some time fellowshipping with one another and sharing in all of our couponing and price matching experiences and learning how to be better at that while the kids enjoy playing with one another! We have done it for 3 weeks now and are already wanting to make sure that this continues all summer! It is the highlight of our week!
Ok - so I think I got you all caught up now LOL!
Until next time!
Kellie
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
An Update on What We Have Been Up To
Ok - I admit it! It has been WAY TOO LONG since I posted on this blog! We just get so busy doing normal life that I sometimes forget to share! We are really winding down on Kindergarten!! It is EXCITING to be so close to finishing our first year of homeschool!! It's a lot of fun too when you realize you have just completed the last page of a workbook!!
Seth has had an awesome Kindergarten year! He has learned to count to 100, knows all the sounds of his alphabet, can read 3 letter words, and even has started recognizing some of the blends such as ck, double letter sounds, ch, and st! He can do simple addition and subtraction with the help of math manipulative (such as counting bears). He has also learned almost 100 sight words!!
We have learned this year, and I am a FIRM BELIEVER, that the best learning comes just from living life! Here is a picture of Seth learning how to read a ruler while he was out playing in the shop with his dad.
I had an opportunity to attend my first Homeschool book fair and convention!! And it was an added bonus that my mom was able to go with me!! I really enjoyed seeing all the different options that are available to homeschooling families!! What an encouragement that was! And no, I did not get overwhelmed. I researched beforehand and knew what I wanted to specifically look at and I spent a lot of time in prayer that morning before I went and asked for God's leading and guiding! And man He did!!!
I have decided to continue with My Father's World as our core curriculum! Their first grade material just looks so awesome!!! In fact I have already started reading over the teacher's manual and my mind is already flooded with ideas! It will be a fun time this summer planning for this!
And Aaron has been choosing to participate more and more in "school". Of course it is very much when it is his idea! (which is still ok for now...he is still quite young!)
But I did find some good, cheap, simple workbooks for Aaron for pre-k next year! I am hoping that he will think they are fun and they will help him to want to get involved more and more with school. But it will be very relaxed still...I may be totally wrong, but I have a feeling that he is going to be one of those "late bloomers" when it comes to school. But he may surprise us all! I am just telling myself over and over in my head to take it slow and easy with him! That is the beauty of homeschool! He will do a lot better if he is not forced or rushed! I know without a doubt that he is super super smart! He is going to excel! I just don't need to push it!
Of course he will also participate in a lot of the activities with Seth, especially when it comes to science, art and even reading time (I plan on making the read aloud time suggested in the MFW manual a time when all 3 of them will be read to!)
Oh, and speaking of reading...have you heard of Hank the Cow Dog?? I have been reading about these books for a while and have thought my boys would love them! Well I bought the first 5 books at the fair and I bought each of the kids their very own little stuffed Hank! We are all excited to start reading about Hank's adventures!!!
Seth's 1st grade year is going to be a fun year! I have no doubt about it!!
Oh and did I mention that our little princess turned 2??
Seth has had an awesome Kindergarten year! He has learned to count to 100, knows all the sounds of his alphabet, can read 3 letter words, and even has started recognizing some of the blends such as ck, double letter sounds, ch, and st! He can do simple addition and subtraction with the help of math manipulative (such as counting bears). He has also learned almost 100 sight words!!
We have learned this year, and I am a FIRM BELIEVER, that the best learning comes just from living life! Here is a picture of Seth learning how to read a ruler while he was out playing in the shop with his dad.
I had an opportunity to attend my first Homeschool book fair and convention!! And it was an added bonus that my mom was able to go with me!! I really enjoyed seeing all the different options that are available to homeschooling families!! What an encouragement that was! And no, I did not get overwhelmed. I researched beforehand and knew what I wanted to specifically look at and I spent a lot of time in prayer that morning before I went and asked for God's leading and guiding! And man He did!!!
I have decided to continue with My Father's World as our core curriculum! Their first grade material just looks so awesome!!! In fact I have already started reading over the teacher's manual and my mind is already flooded with ideas! It will be a fun time this summer planning for this!
And Aaron has been choosing to participate more and more in "school". Of course it is very much when it is his idea! (which is still ok for now...he is still quite young!)
But I did find some good, cheap, simple workbooks for Aaron for pre-k next year! I am hoping that he will think they are fun and they will help him to want to get involved more and more with school. But it will be very relaxed still...I may be totally wrong, but I have a feeling that he is going to be one of those "late bloomers" when it comes to school. But he may surprise us all! I am just telling myself over and over in my head to take it slow and easy with him! That is the beauty of homeschool! He will do a lot better if he is not forced or rushed! I know without a doubt that he is super super smart! He is going to excel! I just don't need to push it!
Of course he will also participate in a lot of the activities with Seth, especially when it comes to science, art and even reading time (I plan on making the read aloud time suggested in the MFW manual a time when all 3 of them will be read to!)
Oh, and speaking of reading...have you heard of Hank the Cow Dog?? I have been reading about these books for a while and have thought my boys would love them! Well I bought the first 5 books at the fair and I bought each of the kids their very own little stuffed Hank! We are all excited to start reading about Hank's adventures!!!
Seth's 1st grade year is going to be a fun year! I have no doubt about it!!
Oh and did I mention that our little princess turned 2??
I found SO MUCH stuff about princesses and raising your Godly little princess at the book fair!! OH MY!! When she is a few years older I am going to be in BIG trouble!! LOL!! (but it sure will be fun!!)
Monday, March 21, 2011
Flat Traveler!
We have recently joined a cool facebook homeschool group - Homeschool Swapping Adventures - and one of the main projects of the group is flat travelers (which is just like the flat stanley project if you have heard of that).
Basically you hook up with another family from another state and you send your flat traveler to them and they send theirs to you. The traveler will spend the entire month with the family. Journal pages are sent with the traveler for the family to fill out information about their family and their state. You take pictures of the traveler in your home and out and about around your town. Then at the end of the month you send the traveler home and get ready for the next state for the traveler to visit!
Our family is jumping in and getting involved with this project for the month of April! We are so excited. I showed the boys several sites on the internet that explain the flat stanley project and showed pictures of what a flat traveler was and stuff and then I asked them what they wanted their flat traveler to look like. They both yelled out "Wild Kratts". For those who don't know this is a new show on PBS that my boys are in love with right now!!
So here is the flat traveler I came up with for them :-)
And we have made him a passport and he is ready with his passport and his journal to head to Ohio! He will be heading out tomorrow!! And our visitor from Ohio should also be headed our way tomorrow!
If you are a homeschooling mom and you have a facebook account you should really check out this group - Homeschool Swapping Adventures -(just click on name for link to group page - you can request an invite to join the group). It is a really big and active group! They also do birthday card swaps, geography box swaps, and even swaps just for the moms :-)! It is another exciting resource for homeschool families!
Have a great day!
Basically you hook up with another family from another state and you send your flat traveler to them and they send theirs to you. The traveler will spend the entire month with the family. Journal pages are sent with the traveler for the family to fill out information about their family and their state. You take pictures of the traveler in your home and out and about around your town. Then at the end of the month you send the traveler home and get ready for the next state for the traveler to visit!
Our family is jumping in and getting involved with this project for the month of April! We are so excited. I showed the boys several sites on the internet that explain the flat stanley project and showed pictures of what a flat traveler was and stuff and then I asked them what they wanted their flat traveler to look like. They both yelled out "Wild Kratts". For those who don't know this is a new show on PBS that my boys are in love with right now!!
So here is the flat traveler I came up with for them :-)
And we have made him a passport and he is ready with his passport and his journal to head to Ohio! He will be heading out tomorrow!! And our visitor from Ohio should also be headed our way tomorrow!
If you are a homeschooling mom and you have a facebook account you should really check out this group - Homeschool Swapping Adventures -(just click on name for link to group page - you can request an invite to join the group). It is a really big and active group! They also do birthday card swaps, geography box swaps, and even swaps just for the moms :-)! It is another exciting resource for homeschool families!
Have a great day!
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
A Fun Exercise and A Fun Book
Aaron is slowly starting to want to be more and more a part of school. I will admit this has probably been the hardest thing about homeschooling, trying to figure out how to incorporate all the kids, especially when it comes to Aaron and Alyssa. It's a bit easier with Alyssa, we just try to do school when she is sleeping. But Aaron pretty much has the same sleep schedule as Seth now so it's a bit harder. Sometimes he is happy just playing with his toys while we do school, but sometimes he wants to be included.
This morning was one of those mornings. But thankfully I had a new idea :-) We were at my parents' house this weekend and were able to pick up the Christmas presents that we left down there at Christmas time. One of those gifts that we left were giant Toy Story coloring books for both of the boys. I saw those sitting in the kitchen this morning and thought of a cool idea (at least I thought it was cool)
I thought we could have a lesson on following instructions. I set out the books for the boys and opened them to a picture of Rex the T. Rex (Aaron's favorite character of the movie). I told them they were going to color the page by following my directions. I would say such things as "Ok color the crayons at the top of the page blue". This helped both boys work on their following instruction skills (which Seth is actually having a problem with right now so this was a good exercise for him). It also helped Aaron work on identifying his colors, which I figured out through this exercise that we have finally accomplished this task! :-) The boys seemed to enjoy this simple activity and I am planning on using it again in the future. I need to think of ways to do it on their different levels so that it can be a bit more challenging for Seth.
Alyssa happened to wake up a bit earlier today so she joined in on the coloring. Thankfully she was happy to just color on a notebook I gave her.
I also want to share something else today. We read one of our literary selections for our MFW curriculum today. It is a book that we have read before but love it every time we read it! It is "Animals Should Definately Not Wear Clothing" by Judi Barrett.
We spent time discussing why it would be silly for each of the animals in the book to wear clothing. We then, according to MFW instructions, discussed other animals that were not in the book and why it would not be a good idea for them to wear clothing. Well, one of the boys favorite shows right now is Wild Kratts on PBS so they had LOTS of animals they thought of, remembering episodes from that show. We could have written a whole other book about why animals should not wear clothing! I was amazed at the number of animals that the boys came up with and the creativity in Seth as to why it would be silly for them to wear clothing.
A couple of my favorites were the dog. Seth said that a dog should not wear clothing because he would make the clothes stink as bad as he does after running around outside (referring to our dog of course). Another one I liked was the octopus. Seth said that the octopus had 8 arms and that shirts only have a place for two so he would have to wear more than one shirt and it would look silly!"
I know I have said this before but I have really enjoyed how this curriculum works to foster and develop creativity in your child! I am beginning to believe that Seth is going to be a story writer. I can't wait to start reading stories that he writes!!
Oh - and I don't think I have put an update on our handwriting situation. We did in fact order additional handwriting curriculum "Handwriting Without Tears". I have seen quite an improvement in Seth's handwriting after starting this curriculum. He seems to enjoy it too. It is not as much of a chore anymore getting him to practice his letters! So I give this curriculum big kudos!!!
This morning was one of those mornings. But thankfully I had a new idea :-) We were at my parents' house this weekend and were able to pick up the Christmas presents that we left down there at Christmas time. One of those gifts that we left were giant Toy Story coloring books for both of the boys. I saw those sitting in the kitchen this morning and thought of a cool idea (at least I thought it was cool)
I thought we could have a lesson on following instructions. I set out the books for the boys and opened them to a picture of Rex the T. Rex (Aaron's favorite character of the movie). I told them they were going to color the page by following my directions. I would say such things as "Ok color the crayons at the top of the page blue". This helped both boys work on their following instruction skills (which Seth is actually having a problem with right now so this was a good exercise for him). It also helped Aaron work on identifying his colors, which I figured out through this exercise that we have finally accomplished this task! :-) The boys seemed to enjoy this simple activity and I am planning on using it again in the future. I need to think of ways to do it on their different levels so that it can be a bit more challenging for Seth.
I also want to share something else today. We read one of our literary selections for our MFW curriculum today. It is a book that we have read before but love it every time we read it! It is "Animals Should Definately Not Wear Clothing" by Judi Barrett.
We spent time discussing why it would be silly for each of the animals in the book to wear clothing. We then, according to MFW instructions, discussed other animals that were not in the book and why it would not be a good idea for them to wear clothing. Well, one of the boys favorite shows right now is Wild Kratts on PBS so they had LOTS of animals they thought of, remembering episodes from that show. We could have written a whole other book about why animals should not wear clothing! I was amazed at the number of animals that the boys came up with and the creativity in Seth as to why it would be silly for them to wear clothing.
A couple of my favorites were the dog. Seth said that a dog should not wear clothing because he would make the clothes stink as bad as he does after running around outside (referring to our dog of course). Another one I liked was the octopus. Seth said that the octopus had 8 arms and that shirts only have a place for two so he would have to wear more than one shirt and it would look silly!"
I know I have said this before but I have really enjoyed how this curriculum works to foster and develop creativity in your child! I am beginning to believe that Seth is going to be a story writer. I can't wait to start reading stories that he writes!!
Oh - and I don't think I have put an update on our handwriting situation. We did in fact order additional handwriting curriculum "Handwriting Without Tears". I have seen quite an improvement in Seth's handwriting after starting this curriculum. He seems to enjoy it too. It is not as much of a chore anymore getting him to practice his letters! So I give this curriculum big kudos!!!
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Monday, February 14, 2011
The Homeschool Way of Doing a Valentine's Party!!
As kids in public schools today were having tons of fun with Valentine's parties, we also were having a fun Valentine's Day!
One of the homeschool groups that we are a part of had a Valentine's Party at Chuck E Cheese today!! At first I was dreading it, even though I knew the kids would have fun. I just felt like it was going to be a headache for me!
Well - I actually had a lot of fun with the kids! They had a BLAST!!
First we had some pretty good pizza (it wasn't the best but it was edible).
Also every family brought items to help the kids decorate valentine's bags. The kids had fun decorating their bags.
One of the homeschool groups that we are a part of had a Valentine's Party at Chuck E Cheese today!! At first I was dreading it, even though I knew the kids would have fun. I just felt like it was going to be a headache for me!
Well - I actually had a lot of fun with the kids! They had a BLAST!!
First we had some pretty good pizza (it wasn't the best but it was edible).
(Seth was super proud of his Valentine's man he made on his bag!)
Here are all the bags lined up waiting to be filled with valentine's!!
Of course the kids had a blast with the games and loved earning tickets! (sorry for the quality of the pictures - I forgot my camera so I had to use my phone. I was a bit bummed when I got home and discovered some of my pictures didn't turn out!)
And the kids had a LOT of fun dancing with Chuck E Cheese and dancing on the video stage! (if you are reading this post through email make sure you go to the blog to view the videos - they won't come through on the email)
(3 videos)
And here are some pics of the dancing fun!
(Alyssa was fascinated with the disco light)
It was a fun fun day! But this momma is EXHAUSTED now!!!
We also received valentines from other homeschool kids all over the United States. I will be doing a post about that on our family blog. I will make sure to put a link on this blog when I do for those who don't follow that blog! :-) It was a neat project!!
Happy Valentine's Day everyone! I hope you all celebrated the day in some special way! :-)
Friday, February 11, 2011
Animal Masks
What? Co-op is suppose to be for the kids???
Hee hee!!! They had fun too! :-)
Aaron and Alyssa love their storytime and craft class!! Today they made animal masks!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)