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.

Today's Lesson

Before starting our lesson this morning, we reviewed our last lesson by tracing our fingers over our macaroni "G's". Then we worked on the letter "H". We started our lesson with this worksheet from Starfall. After finishing the worksheet, I had the girls turn it over to trace their hands. They then colored their hands according to the rainbow (the thumb was red, pointer orange etc. and the palm was purple).Next we did some crafty activities. I had cut out different sized hearts and traced them on paper. The girls had to match the cutout hearts to the traced shapes on the paper and paste them. Then we talked about which heart was the biggest, smallest, how many small hearts, how many big hearts and how many all together. This counted as our math lesson for the day.

Then we got out the playdoh to make some objects that start with "H". Zoe decided to make a hairy heart.

Sophie chose to make a playdoh guy wearing a hat.

I got in on the action too!

Zoe decided she was done doing playdoh, but Sophie wanted to keep playing. Zoe kept me company in the kitchen while I made snack (more on that in a minute), so I decided to try and extend the lesson. We talked about animals that hop, and then she practiced hopping on one foot. By then, Sophie had cleaned up her playdoh, so we hopped over (pun intended) to the family room for stories.

Why do I post pictures of our snack? For my own selfish reasons really. Sometimes I feel like I feed the girls the same things over and over, so it's fun to look back and revisit an old favorite. Today's plate included strawberries, bananas, grapes, homemade banana bread bites and cut up string cheese. They ate all but one smushed grape!

Why Homeschool?

Before being a stay at home mom, I was a teacher. When my husband and I found out we were expecting our first daughter, we talked about all of our hopes and dreams for her. We doled out responsibilities such as, Daddy will teach her how to drive and how to properly care for firearms, and I will teach her how to cook and make all of the decisions regarding her education. As Sophie got older, and was joined by her younger sisters, the responsibility for her education became a tall order, and the endless discussions about where to send her to school began to weigh heavy on me.

We discussed all of the options here in Arizona: our local public school (I hear great things about it), open enrollment to a different public school, private school, charter school, and of course homeschooling. We've talked a lot about public and private, some about charter and only a little about homeschooling. The truth? I've been looking forward to my children starting school in the hopes that I might get a little break!

As time went on though, it became clear to us that our options we fewer than we had once thought. Nonsecular private schools, such as a Montessori school, are expensive. We are an interfaith family (I'm Jewish and hubby is Christian), so religious schools were out of the question. I'm afraid that public school will bore my daughter to tears, and the charter schools are just too unreliable for us. We also have concerns about the content that is being taught in the schools. Even though my husband and I practice different religions, our values are the same and we both have a desire for our children to lead Godly lives, so it was important to me that faith-based character education be a part of our childrens' schooling.

In July I had the oppportunity to attend the Arizona Families For Home Education annual convention for free through their Parents of Preschoolers program. It was awesome. I was inspired, excited and convinced that homeschooling was the right choice for our family. Now, this doesn't mean that I don't have concerns. I have no idea how this is all going to work. I'm still wondering when I'm going to get a break. I'm not sure how this will affect our family financially (we've been counting on me going back to work once all the kids were in school), and can I really do this?? I mean, I can do this through 4th grade, but what about when the subjects get hard??
So here we are, dabbling in the homeschool thing before the girls are kindergarten age just to see if I can actually do this. And as has been my experience in all things, if this is God's will for our family, then I will be given everything I need for it to happen.

Playing with Macaroni

Today was interesting. The girls were very excited to do school, in fact they were waiting for me at the table. Once we got started however, Sophie started complaining that she was tired and hungry and it was soooo hard to pay attention. She declined the invitation to go to her room instead and eventually got to work. Zoe on the other hand was thrilled to work, but spent the first 5 minutes trying to perfect the "Z" in her name and trying to erase the marker that she was using. I turned around, closed my eyes, said a quick prayer, took a deep breath, planted a big smile on my face and got started with our lessons.

We started by practicing writing the letter "G", both upper and lower case. Today we used a printout from Starfall. We also went over different words that start with "G", focusing only on the hard "G" sound.

Next we played a game I made up called Alphabet Hunt. I have index cards with uppercase letters on them. I scattered them around the house and had the girls find them. Then they had to put them in a row in alphabetical order. Zoe then said, "There's so many. I don't think I can count them all." So we counted the letters, then the girls took turns racing to pick up the letter I called out.

Now that they had gotten their wiggles out, we ended our lesson by gluing macaroni to "G's". Once these dry, we can "trace" our fingers over them. I like gluing small things because it's another way to strengthen fine motor skills. And what kid doesn't like using glue?

After all of that hard work, we all snuggled up on the couch for some stories and snack!

Welcome!

So I didn't want to start publishing this blog until I had this whole homeschooling thing all figured out, but then I realized that will never happen! I have lots of ideas and hopes for this new blog. My main reason for creating it is to keep a record of what we are doing in our schooling. We have a family blog where I post pictures of the kids and our life, and I frequently refer back to it when trying to remember when one of the kids first crawled, or got a tooth, or had an illness. It's been helpful to have all of that info in one place on the computer, and probably not exactly what I had originally meant that blog to be - it's like an online baby book! So that is the purpose of this blog - to keep track of it all.

I also hope to make God's Grace helpful to other families. I will post pictures of the girls doing their lessons, links to resources, share our successes and failures, and hopefully create a few smiles and nods of understanding along the way!