Getting into the Groove

I've started to develop a little system for my lesson planning. Starting next month we'll have a monthly theme. On a manila file folder, I've written the month and the theme (January's theme is "God Made the World" and February's theme is "God Made Me"). Inside the folder I have a blank piece of paper divided into four sections, which are labeled: Language Arts, Math, Science and Social Studies. Under each section I jot down our objectives for that subject. Under the Language Arts section I also make a list of books that we're going to read, vocabulary words, word families, sight words etc. As I come across patterns, worksheets and other resources, I just stick them in the folder. This has worked really well for December. We've met almost all of our objectives and we still have a week to go. When my January plan is finished I'll take a picture of it - and of course I always write it in pencil!

Another thing that I'm excited about is Scholastic! When I was teaching, I loved doing the scholastic book orders. Their prices can't be beat, and teachers get so much back from the students orders: free books, bonus points, posters and more. So I called Scholastic and got myself signed up as a Homeschool Teacher. We're getting ready to send in our first order and I feel like that makes our homeschooling real and official somehow! I also just received an issue of the Mailbox for free. I can't say how much I love their product. I used it in the school system and I find their graphic organizers and ideas to be very helpful with the little ones.

I'm about to make my first purchase for our homeschool from Oriental Trading. We're buying upper and lower case letter cutouts and will be using them as we start the kindergarten scope and sequence. We've been collecting items for decorating them - apple stickers for the letter "A", blue buttons for "B", candy cane stickers for "C"...it's amazing what you can find in the clearance section of any store!

Centers

For the past couple of weeks I've been busy making "centers" for the girls. In a regular classroom, centers are an important management tool, allowing the teacher to work with small groups of students, while the other groups work independently on activities that are designed to be review or enrichment. I'm using the centers as independent work, so while I'm working with the girls individually, the other one has an activity to do. Sometimes the girls do the centers together while I get materials ready for our lesson or deal with the baby.

This is the center I just finished putting together. I got it from The Mailbox. The idea is to match the number words (learning our number words is one of our objectives for December) to the correct gumball machine. This is a self-checking activity. On the back of each gumball machine and on the back of each number card is the numeral, so the girls can check their work by flipping over the cards and making sure the numerals match.

This Month - December

We spent the first part of this month doing activities related to Hanukkah. We read lots of stories, made crafts, did some adding with candles, and talked about miracles! Here is one of the crafts we did - a star of David made out of popsicle sticks and little flames to make it look like a menorah.

Now that Hanukkah is over, I've been teaching the girls about writing letters, specifically thank you notes. We've been working on writing our full names and address, and I also added in learning our phone number. We've been doing lots of work with our map. Since we're done working on the alphabet, we have a new opening routine. We say the Pledge of Allegiance and then we take out our big USA map. We start with Arizona (I ask one of the girls to point to it) and then we find the states where we are sending our thank you notes. We're also learning the states that border ours, and we're looking at some of the landmarks, bodies of water, capitals etc. For math, we're working on sorting, patterns, naming numbers in a set, reading number words and identifying numbers 0 - 25.

Happy Thanksgiving!

We hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving. We certainly have much to be thankful for! We took a week off of school to take time to just play and be with family, and I was pleased when both girls kept asking when we would be having school again because they missed it! We've been moving right along with the Pre-K scope and sequence I'm using, and I plan to have Sophie ready to start working towards Kindergarten standards in January. It's so exciting to see their progress. Sophie is reading now, and Zoe and is recognizing more and more sight words.

Of course in prep for the holidays, we did lots of Thanksgiving related activities. I'm not going to post everything that we, but this craft I had to include. We made turkeys by stuffing paper lunch sacks, tracing hands for wings, adding a turkey head and feathers. On each feather the girls wrote something or someone that they are thankful for. They were so thoughtful. Sophie put all people on hers and Zoe included things like toys as well as people. They made great decorations for our table!

The Mailbox

I've been pulling a lot of ideas from The Mailbox website lately. They have a great free resource area, and you can sign up to get daily emails with ideas specifically for your own kid's age/grade level. I still have not spent money on anything except craft supplies (although I do have a wish list going - mostly storage solutions!).
After reviewing the letter "S" and practicing writing our "T's", the girls began working on the above worksheet. Sometimes I think the color by number or letter pages are too easy, but it is really good practice for following directions and working carefully, which Zoe (my "I finished first" child) needs to work on. We did alter this worksheet a little. Instead of having the girls color the leaves, we are crumpling tissue paper and gluing it on. I think they're going to look really pretty. We're also going to write a fall story to go with the picture. I will have them dictate the story and I'll do the actual printing.
We ended our day with the game "What's Your Move". It was fun to see the girls pick movements that we don't usually practice, such as leaping and taking giant steps.

Snack today was pbj triangles (made on those thin sandwich rounds), grapes and bananas.

Overwhelm Sets In

I didn't post any of last week's lessons because I just couldn't seem to find the time or energy to do it. We did do school all three days last week, but it was a challenge. The baby (now 8 months old) has been this little angel from heaven since the day she was born, and last week she decided to try on being a little devil! The fussing and crying and non-sleeping through me for a loop, so one of the things that got dropped (as happens when survival mode sets in) was this blog. I was beginning to think that I would have to start posting the whole week's lessons at the end of the week, because I just didn't see how I would manage to do it after each day's lessons. But now my baby girl is back to herself and I realized it was just one of those glitches and it will probably happen again in the future. I'm just rolling with it!
I didn't want to blow off all of my posting from last week though. On Election Day we did a lesson about voting. It was a fabulous lesson, not just because of the topic, but because both girls had one of those "aah ha!" moments during the phonics portion. I asked the girls why we say "vote" and not "vot", and Zoe said, "Because there's a silent "E" at the end.", and then Sophie said, "And the silent "E" makes the "O" say it's name!!" That right there was enough to keep me going for the next few weeks! For the voting portion of the lesson, I made up a story about a King, a Queen and a Princess that lived in the Kingdom of Colorful. One day the princess decided that everyone should wear the same color clothes. She declared that there would be a vote and that the people could choose either red, purple or blue. I elaborated about how the people talked for days about which color they would choose, and then the voting day came and the people lined up to cast their votes. At this point the girls had their papers ready (see above) with red, purple and blue squares. I had already gotten a bunch of Candyland cards ready, and now I let each girl take turns pulling a card. Whatever color they got, they had to put a tally mark under the correct square. We did talk about tally marks and what they mean, but I did not teach them to strike through the four tallies when they got to five. Once the votes were all tallied, we discussed which color won, which came in second and which came in last. We also talked about why people voted the way they did (they already had a lot of clothes that color so they wouldn't have to go out and buy more, they have shoes that match that color, they think that color is pretty, they think that color looks good on them....) We ended the lesson by talking about the election that was taking place that day. We also checked the news throughout the day and watched as the results came in. It turned out to be a fun lesson for all of us, even if some of our local results of the election were disappointing!

Pumpkins Everywhere!

With Halloween just days away, it seems like there are pumpkins everywhere! Today we did some pumpkins worksheets that I got for free on The Mailbox website.

The first one had pumpkins of different sizes on it. I had the girls color and cut out the pumpkins. Then I instructed them to paste the pumpkins onto the green construction paper starting with the smallest and going in size order. After that, I asked them a series of questions such as: which is the biggest/smallest, which is first, second, third etc., which one is in the middle...We spent a little extra time discussing the ordinal position of each, and then I had them label the pumpkins ordinal position with the smallest being first. This worksheet gave the girls practice with their fine motor skills (coloring, cutting, pasting) and their number sense. It was also fun and makes a great fall decoration!
The next worksheet was about practicing visual discrimination. Initially this paper looked too easy for the girls, but then I thought that it was still good practice. Noticing the differences between the different pumpkin faces and being able to match them is an important prereading skill. Think about the subtle differences between a lower case b, d, p and q. So we decided to do the sheet and the girls thought it was fun, and I extended the lesson by having them tell me about the pumpkins. I asked them questions such as: how do you think this pumpkin is feeling right now, what is this pumpkin thinking about, is this pumpkin scary? why or why not? etc....

Snack was in the car again - on the way to the zoo this time! It was Chloe's first visit to the zoo and she loved it. Hope everyone has a fun and safe Halloween!

The Teachable Moment

While getting ready this morning and packing up our stuff to take Chloe (almost 8 months) to her first baby storytime at the library, the big girls decided to dump out their piggy banks and combine all of their money. Initially I wanted to be annoyed with them, but then I realized that they didn't care that Sophie's bank had a year's worth more money than Zoe's, or if they ended up with more or less than they had before dumping out the money. So I scrapped the lesson I had prepared for today and capitalized on the teachable moment at hand.

We all sat down and sorted the coins and paper money. I had the girls identify the different coins by name, and then I showed them that 5 pennies and 1 nickel are worth the same. We got out their little cash register and they took turns "buying" erasers. I told them the erasers were worth 5 cents. They had fun choosing whether to pay for their erasers with nickels or pennies.

Next we worked on getting all of the money back into the banks. We started with one pile of coins and I asked the girls how we could divide the pile in half (this ties back to our lesson on fractions). Sophie suggested that she get 5 and Zoe get 5, so we counted out 5 for each. Then we counted out the leftover coins until they were all gone. For the next pile, we decided on the "one for me, one for you" method of dividing. For the pennies (which there were a lot of), Zoe came up with the idea of "drawing" a line down the middle and pushing one side to her bank and the other side to Sophie's bank. We discussed that to be fair, we should count the pennies in each pile to make sure they were the same.

Overall, this turned out to be a fun lesson for the girls. After the storytime (which Chloe loved) I took the girls to the store to buy something with their $5 that they took out of their banks. They were surprised at the cost of the different toys and items they were interested in. Zoe picked a lollipop and a book. Sophie picked a lollipop and some bunny costume accessories to add to her dress up collection.

No snack today - the girls snacked on crackers in the car on the way to the library!

Making Words

Today I decided to mix things up a little. We started our work on the floor with alphabet blocks. I took out the letters I wanted to have the girls practice their "at" words. I put the "a" and "t" off to one side and lined up the other letters to the left. We did a routine that went like this: Sophie, move a block to make the word "pat". Zoe, did Sophie make the work "pat"? Then I would move the letter back and repeat until we had made all of the words. We also did this with "it" words.
After we spent time making the words by moving the blocks around, I had the girls practice writing the words in their notebooks. I left the set up the same and just told them which word to write. Sophie had no trouble with this, but Zoe froze when it was time to write the words. I told her that if it helped her to move the blocks around she could. So when I said, "Write the word "hat" in your notebook", she moved the "h" over and then copied it. I still have to remind myself that she is only 3!!

After our writing, we moved back to the kitchen table to review our lesson from last week on making halves. I got out some of our Melissa and Doug toys - the birthday cake and the cutting fruit set. I gave the girls various items and told them to cut them in half to share. We talked for a long time about how to share the banana (which is made with 3 pieces) and the girls finally decided that we couldn't do it without cutting the middle piece into two. I think they have a very good understanding of halves, which is as far as we're going to go with fractions for awhile. In an upcoming post I will discuss the math scope and sequence I plan to follow starting in January.

After the cutting halves lesson, we reviewed the numbers 1-12. Using a set of princess cards with numbers on them, I had the girls stand side by side on our tile. For each card they got correct, they got to move one tile forward. If 'm got it wrong, they had to stay on their tile. The winner (the one who moved the most tiles forward) would get a prize. It was a tie...and they still are not consistent with numbers greater than 9. I'm going to have to just really focus on those numbers in lots of different ways. I notice that I don't spend as much time on reading and writing numbers as I do their letters. I think it's because we spend a lot more time in life dealing with letters than with numbers, but I am vowing to make more of an effort to get some number time in there! On a more personal note, at bedtime Sophie read almost an entire Biscuit book by herself (I helped with just a few words) so that was a thrilling experience!

Rhyme Time

After practicing writing the letter "Q", the girls did a worksheet about rhyming. I read the words for them, and then they had to circle the two that rhymed. They did a great job, but towards the end I could tell Zoe's brain was getting tired, so I modified the page for her by giving her a choice between two words. For example, instead of reading all three words (wish, win, fish) and asking which two rhyme, I would say, "What rhymes with wish? Win or fish?" One of the advantages of working one on one with a student is to be able to immediately modify the work or provide accomodations that allow the student to be successful and have the experience of completing the work and achieving that sense of accomplishment.
Next we did some math. Today we focused on the properties of basic shapes. We identified the numbers of sides and angles in each shape and also spent a lot of time discussing the difference between squares and rectangles. After that we did a worksheet in which the girls got to draw different shapes.

While I made snack (goldfish, strawberries and bagel bites with peanut butter), I sent the girls outside to practice drawing their shapes with sidewalk chalk.

Let's Get Crafty!

There's something about the fall weather that makes me feel like doing crafts. Maybe it's the opportunity to make some homemade decorations for the upcoming holidays or all the great craft stuff that seems to be on sale right now. Anyway, I thought I would share some of our items as well as some resources for craft ideas.

This is a yarn winding craft. I got this idea from Kids Craft Weekly. All you need for this craft is a toilet paper roll, yarn and double-sided tape. Both girls really enjoyed doing this.

Here is a craft that I read about, but I don't remember where...it might have been Kids Craft Weekly also. To make this, I used a leaf-shaped punch cutter on different fall colored papers (orange, red and yellow). Then I took a piece of contact paper, peeled it back halfway, and covered the sticky part with the leaves. I then peeled back the rest of the paper and folded the contact paper over itself. I used a hole punch, tied some yarn through it and hung it on the window.

When I cut out all of those leaf shapes, I was left with lots of scraps of paper with leaf shaped holes! I immediately came up with all kinds of ideas for using those scraps. Zoe tried out one idea: glue fall colored tissue paper to the backs and hang it on the window!

Yesterday we got together with another homeschooling family to do this beautiful craft from The Homeschool Classroom. While back east, we went on a few walks and collected lots of fall treasures specifically to do this craft when we got back. I think they turned out great and they are now lovely centerpieces for our table.

Math?

Today we mixed it up a little bit and started our lesson with math instead of with reading and writing. First we used some worksheets to practice adding and subtracting. Then we did a worksheet about dividing objects into halves. I was surprised at how quickly the girls caught on to the concept of halves - maybe it's a byproduct of being such close siblings! I extended the lesson by getting out the playdoh. The girls each got a ball of playdoh and were told to smash it down to pancake size. Then I instructed them to cut the playdoh in half. They had to compare the pieces to determine if they were equal. If not, they had to start over. Zoe got hers on the first try, but Sophie took a few attempts. She was pretty thrilled to finally get her halves to be just right.

Here she is comparing two pieces that were not equal.

After the math lesson, we moved on to the letter "P". We practiced writing it, came up with lots of "P" words and used our playdoh again to sculpt "P's".

Today's snack included wheat thins, banana wheels with peanut butter and hard-boiled egg whites.

We're Back!

Our jet-lag is mostly gone so it was back to school for the big girls today. We started with a few worksheets from Starfall. We practiced writing the letter "O" (an easy one for sure!), did a connect the dots worksheet and a counting/numbers worksheet. After that, the girls decorated "O's" with tissue paper. This is a great prewriting activity. Encourage your student to scrunch/roll up the tissue paper with one hand - if they have a preferred writing hand, have them use that one to scrunch the paper. The act of scrunching and rolling the paper strengthens the muscles that are used when writing. Zoe complained that her hand was hurting, so I had her alternate hands. After the tissue paper activity, we played a round of number bingo. The girls are still inconsistent at recognizing the numbers 11 - 20, so I need to make more of an effort at including that in our lessons.
While we were away, a new issue of High Five arrived for the girls. This is a great magazine. I have great memories of reading Highlights as a kid, and my girls get so excited when their magazine arrives each month. Not only are the stories just right for preschoolers, but they also have fun crafts, action rhymes, games and recipes. This was what they picked to read while eating snack.

While I was making snack (grapes, melon balls, teddy grahams and pretzels), I had the girls go through the house and find 3 objects each that either looked like "O's" or had an "O" on it. They brought their items back to the table, and then took turns showing and telling about their objects to each other. I happened to mention that the pot Zoe found from her play kitchen could be traced to make an "O" on her paper. Well they loved that idea and started tracing lots of "O's" with their objects. It was cute to see them get excited and take the initiative to try out the idea.

Be sure to check back next week. We're getting together with another homeschooling family to do a super fun fall craft!

Taking it on the Road

We're taking our learning on the road until October 15th. Have a great week!

October Fun

It still doesn't feel like fall here, but we're trying to get into the spirit. After completing our "N" worksheet, we did a pumpkin cutting activity. I drew pumpkin shapes on orange paper and triangles and squares on black paper. First, the girls cut out the triangles and squares to make eyes and a nose, and then they pasted them on their pumpkins. Then they designed a mouth, cut it out and pasted it on too. Finally, they cut their decorated pumpkins and hung them on the window.

Zoe's pumpkin

Sophie's pumpkin

We also did some math worksheets today that I got for free from The Critical Thinking Co. We worked on number sense and operations. I extended the lesson a little by cutting out number stickers (1-9). I gave each girl a pile of the stickers in random order and had them put the stickers in order on the back of their worksheets.

Bananas, ham roll-ups, cheese and goldfish graham crackers.

What's Your Move?

Today's lesson got off to an interesting start. The girls were in their dress up clothes, Chloe wasn't down for her nap yet, and we were all a little bit tired. We started by reviewing "L" using a page out of this little Alphabet workbook I found awhile back at Target for only a dollar! It's nothing fancy, but it's great for practicing tracing letters. It also has mazes, connect-the-dots, color by letter and other fun activities that the girls can do independently. I keep books like this around to throw in my bag when we go to a restaurant, a doctor appointment, on an airplace or any place where I know the girls are going to have to be patient (aka waiting politely). After that we did two different "M" worksheets and made a list of "M" words. I noticed that it helped them think of words if I said, "Name an animal that starts with "M" or "Name something on the table that starts with "M". Sometimes it's overwhelming for kids when they have everything in the world to choose from. Sophie especially will go right into "deer in the headlights" mode!

Next we played memory with some of our index cards. I grabbed 8 pairs of upper/lower case letters, spread them out on the floor, and played your basic memory game. Once the girls made a match, they had to tell me the name of the letter and a word for that letter (again I made categories for them if they couldn't think of one).

Sophie dressed as Super Girl and Zoe dressed as a Barbie princess:)

For math today, I wanted to continue our work on number recognition, specifically numbers 11-20. I made up this game I call "What's Your Move?" To play, you need index cards numbered 0 - 20 and an open space. First, brainstorm with your child different ways you can move your body or different actions you can do with your hands. Some ideas are: jump, hop, skip, gallop, run, take giant steps, twirl, somersault, jumping jacks, clap hands, snap fingers and leap. Now, spread out your index cards face down. Have your student name an action that she can perform, then draw a card. Have her tell you the number on the card, and then instruct her to perform the action she named that same number of times. For example, Sophie picked somersaults, then drew a card. She got the number 12, so she had to do 12 somersaults. The girls had so much fun playing this, and by the time we had gotten through the cards, they'd gotten some exercise (try 20 push ups!) and I got to check where we are with our numbers - I was pleased to see that our practice has paid off. This is also a great opportunity to see where your student is with gross motor skills and milestones, such as hopping on one foot and balancing.

Zoe doing jumping jacks!

For snack we had strawberries, grapes, peanut butter filled pretzels and graham crackers with cream cheese. The girls are really into the Arthur books by Marc Brown, so we read several that we borrowed from the library. The books came with a CD and they had lots of fun listening to the stories again and following along with the recording.

Game Day

Today the girls were feeling a little under the weather, so after doing a quick "L" worksheet, we just played a couple of games.

For the first game, you just need index cards with all of the letters on them, both upper case and lower case. I spread out the upper case cards on the floor. I made sure all of the cards were facing the same way so there would be no confusion about the "M" and "W" or the "N" and "Z", and then I showed the cards to the girls. Next, we went to the other side of the room (it helps if you have a long space) and the girls stood side by side. I gave each girl a card with a lower case letter on it. I instructed them to look at the letter and picture in their minds what the matching upper case letter looks like. Then I said, "Ready, set, go!" The girls had to run, find the matching letter, and get back to me. This is where having more than one child is helpful because a little healthy competition is a good thing! Once they got back to me, they had to say the name of the letter and tell me a word that starts with that letter. This was a fun game, and also gave me some good information. Sophie mixed up her "J" and "F", and Zoe got stumped when she thought her "d" was a "p", which Sophie had already picked up. She stood saying, "Mommy, you forgot to put the "D" out!" My girls can easily sit at our table where we do school for an hour or longer, but games like this are great for kids who need to get up and move around, who are bodily/kinesthetic learners, or in between lessons when kids are getting a little glazed in the eyes.

After the alphabet game, we played a number order game. I took index cards numbered 0-15 and put them in a path in order. The girls had to follow the cards (kind of like a live connect-the-dots), and only if they followed them in order would they find the surprise (a special message from me).
Today's snack included whole grain crackers, cheddar cheese sticks, apple smiles and ham roll-ups. The girls had fun making different sandwiches (ham, cheese, cracker; apple, cheese; etc.) and commenting on how it tasted. We read some stories and then had some quiet rest time. Hopefully the girls are feeling better tomorrow - it's our busiest day of the week: dance/gymnastics, TOTS and yoga!

Let's Go Fly a Kite...

...up to the highest heights....So here we are again. This post is probably very predictable, but that's what kids (and I) love - routine and predictability.

For our review, we wrote the letter "J" in a plate of pinto beans. You can also do this with rice, sand, other types of beans, pudding or fingerpaint. The girls then spent some time writing other letters and playing while I got organized for our lesson.

We are on letter "K" now, so after practicing writing the letter, we played a game. Each girl got two index cards - one said "yes" and the other said "no." I would say a word, and if the word started with a "K", they held up the "yes" card, and if it did not start with a "K", they held up the "no" card.

After that we decorated kite shapes with Do-A-Dot markers and stickers. When they were done with their designs (Sophie did two), I had them cut out their kites and glue them to black paper. I was surprised at how well Zoe did with her scissors. Cutting with scissors is one of those skills that we don't get to as often as I would like, but I found these kite patterns on Preschool Express in their Pattern Station, and I think I'm going to include more cutting in our future lessons.
For Sophie's first kite, she wanted to make a pattern. For the second one she decided to just put colors all over in random places. She kept asking me if I liked her kite. I try not to overdo the praise, so after telling her twice that she was doing a good job, I asked her what she thought of it. She told me she thought her kites were beautiful and that she liked the first one she did better. I also try to praise the process more than the product by saying things like, "I like how you're working so carefully" or "I can tell that was challening for you. I'm proud of you for sticking with it."

For our math lesson today, we played with smaller kite cut outs that I had colored in a variety of different colors. I made patterns with the kites, and then the girls took turns extending the patterns. For example, I put purple, blue, purple, blue and then said, "What comes next?" Then I would have them extend the pattern a few more times. They also took turns making their own patterns (Zoe is much better at this than Sophie) and asking me to extend them. We ended our math lesson with a round of bingo.

And of course we can't forget about snack: banana wheels with peanut butter, clementines, raspberries and yogurt covered raisins. For storytime, Zoe chose a book about Rosh Hashana (Ari and the Rosh Hashana Train) and Sophie wanted to read a story out of her Curious George anthology. I tried my hardest to get her to pick Curious George Flies a Kite (an obvious choice given the lesson) but she chose Curious George Takes a Job. We had hoped to get to fly a real kite this afternoon, but by the time Chloe was up from her nap, the winds weren't strong enough. Oh well, maybe next time!

More Alphabet and Sorting Coins

We started today's lesson by reviewing the letter "I".

Sophie's lower case and upper case "I"
Zoe's lower case "I"
After that we did a short worksheet practicing the letter "J" followed by some stamping fun. Then we did this dot-to-dot page that I made. I learned this trick at the AFHE annual homeschool convention. I attended a seminar called "Occupying Preschoolers While Teaching Older Children." Since my older children are preschoolers, I've been using some of those tips and tricks now with them, and will get to try them again in a year or so on Chloe. To make the dot-to-do, you just need a lacing card, a piece of paper and a pen. Push your pen through the holes on the lacing card, and then assign each dot a letter or number.
Our math lesson today was about coins. My husband and I save all of our change in a jar and it's full, so I put the girls to work and made a lesson out of it! I explained to them that the bank won't take the coins if they're all mixed up so we have to sort them by putting the coins that are the same together in their own separate pile. Sophie sorted her pile of coins by finding all of the quarters first and putting them in a separate pile. Then she continued with the pennies and nickels, and she was left with a pile of just dimes.
Zoe sorted hers by picking any coin out of her pile and placing it in the correct "column." She had fun trying to predict which type of coin was going to win.

Sophie finished sorting much faster than Zoe, so I decided to extend the lesson with her. First we counted all of the quarters (there were 40). This made for great one-to-one correspondence practice. Sophie can easily count to 80 or higher, but that is just memorization and not nearly as challenging as counting 80 or more objects correctly without losing track. She did a great job of counting her quarters, so then I showed her that four quarters make a dollar. We discussed ideas about what you could buy with one dollar (a pack of gum, a small toy, four of those big gumballs in the machine at Toys R Us) and then sorted all of the quarters into dollar-sized piles. Then we counted to see how many piles there were, and hence how many dollars we had in quarters (10). We then discussed ideas about what you could buy with ten dollars (a small stuffed animal, a shirt, a game like Candyland).

This lesson was a lot of fun, and one that we will do again I'm sure. Maybe next time we'll sort the money in their piggy banks and then go out and spend some of it!

The Plan

If you've been following this blog from the beginning, then you might notice that there are posts about our lessons and posts about homeschooling in general, and in particular how our family is handling the homeschooling option for our children. Side note: some of what I write is purely to help me sort out all of the thoughts I have zooming through my head, and is probably not beneficial to anyone else besides me. I'm not offended, and actually encourage you to take what you like and leave the rest.

So today I felt like writing about our plan for homeschooling, which is really more like a vague idea at this point! Sophie is 4, and if we were to send her to school outside of our home she would start kindergarten next year. Zoe is 3 and is exactly 12 months younger than Sophie. Right now we are doing school on Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays for one hour. That does not include piano or computer practice, and of course all of the learning that goes on during our play time. That one hour is spent on prereading and pre-math skills. As mentioned before, I have not purchased any materials or curriculum. I make great use of free online resources such as Starfall and Preschool Express. We plan to continue with this type of schedule through the end of this year. During these next couple of months I will be gathering resources and creating materials (my wonderful husband is going to make me a beautiful felt board!!!). I've also been looking at different scopes and sequences, learning different methods of homeschooling (not sure what type I like best yet) and making connections with other homeschooling families (I'd like to work in a co-op).

After rereading what I just wrote, I'm suddenly both excited and nervous - that seems like a lot to do! Not to mention I still have all of the regular parenting of three little girls and a house to take care of and a husband to spend time with! *Deep Breath* Okay - so then what?? My vision is that come January, I will have a plan. I think that Sophie will be ready to start kindergarten, and Zoe seems to be keeping up with her, so she'll just do school right along with us, and I'll have to make sure that I remember she is a year younger and may not always be able or ready to do everything that Sophie does. I don't think I'll purchase any curriculum yet - I feel pretty comfortable creating my own at this point as long as I have a scope and sequence to work from. I'd like to plan my lessons 1-2 weeks at a time with some type of assessment at least once a month. I might increase the amount of time that we're doing school for Sophie and keep it at 1 hour for Zoe. Chloe is still napping for 2 hours in the morning (which is when we do school now), but over time that will decrease and I'll have to figure out how to occupy her while I'm teaching. We'll follow our plan, make adjustments as needed, and see where we are in May. At that point I imagine we'll have yet another family discussion about our choice to homeschool, and I'll probably be ready for a break!

Ice Cream and Bingo

Ice cream and bingo sounds like a fun night out, but not as much fun as our lesson today! We started by reviewing the letter "H", which we had practiced yesterday. I had the girls write several upper and lower case "H's", and then they chose their very best and favorite one to show me. I think it's important to touch on the previous lesson before delving into the current one. It didn't take us but a minute or two to review, but it showed me quickly what the girls could do. Sophie (4 years old) had no problem making her letters, but Zoe (3 years old) needed a reminder about her lowercase "H".

Today we practiced writing the letter "I". This is an easy letter so we were done with that very quickly. After that, we made "ice cream cones." I had cut out three different sized "scoops" for ice cream cones that I had drawn on paper. We talked about which was the biggest, which was the smallest and which was in between the two sizes. I told the girls to make their ice cream cones so that the biggest scoop was on the bottom and the smallest on the top. Then we discussed why that way would be best for making an ice cream cone. In hindsight, I think it would have been more fun to let them build their cones however they wanted and then explain their reasoning for how they put it together. Maybe we'll do that another time!

Sophie's ice cream cone

After making ice cream cones we played Bingo. This is a great game for practicing anything. I realized not too long ago that the girls could count forever, but they didn't recognize written numbers past 10. These bingo boards have the numbers 0-15 on them. When we played, I said a number, waited a little to give them time to find the number, and if they seemed lost I said the number again and held up an index card with the number on it. By the way, I have yet to purchase any sort of homeschooling materials. I made these bingo boards with construction paper, I used buttons that I got from my grandmother-in-law, and I wrote the numbers for calling on index cards that I have stockpiled in a drawer.

Our school time ended with snack (carrots and ranch, cheddar cheese sticks, crackers and hard boiled egg slices - I guess I was feeling orangey today!) and then Zoe got computer time to play Math Blaster and Sophie practiced piano.