Excited!

We've been having tons of fun with schooling lately. Seriously, it's the best. I do however still need to get a complete lesson plan figured out for the year.. If I'm going to be doing homeschooling again next year, I have to really figure things out before hand. Luckily, this is practice year. Emily isn't considered a kindergartner until next year, due to her birthday being in October. And Hannah still has two more years until she would be able to go to Kindergarten. But it's looking more and more like we'll be doing it for a few years.

ANYWAYS. We've been having a ton of fun lately. We've changed our calendar. We now have little velcro numbers (and idea I stole from our Co-Op Preschool). And we do a weather wheel instead of taping on the weather cut outs. I like it.. It's easy, and simple. And the girls got to make their own weather wheel.

Today we did some sorting and it was fun. Hannah gets bored/frustrated with too much cutting things out. And since we also cut out penguins, she didn't finish cutting out all her items, which was okay.

Reading lessons: MAJOR accomplished today. I've figure out that Hannah has to do her reading lesson first, before she is excited about other craft stuff. She has been doing AMAZING lately. I just write the word down, and she tells me what it is. For a little while, I figured we were going to fast and she wasn't getting it. So we back tracked and we're right where we need to be. She is challenged, but she also has a lot more sucess. Which makes me so happy.

Emily is still amazing me. Today she wrote a whole sentence just sounding out words.. and only missed ONE letter total in all 7ish words. She's been speeding through her book. She can read all the first set of Bob books.. We just got the second set.. And haven't started yet. But she opened the box quickly, and she read the title of the first book.. I'm thinking she might just fly through the second set.

I got a tracing book for Hannah. It's a wipe-off one. She needs more help with making more defined lines and circles.. I know she can do it, because sometimes she does. But she needs more practice. So she's enjoying them.

Math is fun. We haven't been concentrating as much on the numbers as we should. We've been learning more things like patterns, sorting, most/least, and the first 10 numbers words (one, two, instead of just 1, 2)
I need to plan more number items.. So I'm going to work on that. Emily is ready and has been doing addition. Though, not constant enough. So I'll be working on more of that.

We have also been decorating our house for Christmas. I'm trying to more crafts. We made penguins today. And I have many more Christmas related items, (though I'm waiting until after Hannah's birthday to really hit the Christmas crafts hard.)

We've been learning about differnt types of weather for science. And starting next week, we'll do more with ice and winter weather/temp.

I've really had a hard time with getting everything in that I want to do. We normally have about two hours to do everything. Which, isn't a lot of time. But that's how long Abby naps.

I hope to start Abby in Tot-school soon. When I do, we'll be taking more time to do schooling. We'll do some in the morning, and some while Abby naps.

To end, Right now I am really enjoying schooling. I love being able to watch my kids learn and figure out things. I truly feel like I am blessed to be able to teach them.

Math

We've been having fun doing math lately. Last week we made a "Math Ocean." We took turns rolling a dice and drawing a card. The card had the sea creature we had to draw, while the dice told us how many of the item we had to draw.

Today we did kind of the same thing. But it was with different pizza toppings. We then glued the pizza toppings on our pizza and compared the amounts of each topping. It was fun! Though, I need new ink so everything kind just printed pink.

To Homeschool or Not?!

So lately I've been thinking about if homeschooling really is right for us.. Mostly because we hadn't done it in a few weeks.

Lately the girls have been HORRIBLE. Seriously I wanted to run away. Lots and lots of whining.

It was weird because they were amazingly good for such a long time.. and then they just were starting to crash...

And then I figure it out. We weren't doing schooling. They were bored. They started whining not knowing what was wrong.

We started back up on Thursday. And all I have to say is WOW. MAJOR DIFFERENCE. I know it's only been two days back in a row doing it. But I think we've all realized how much we love it. Today we made weather wheels and did ocean drawing math. We played memory, and we read books. We also did a game with our states and taped up the and discussed sight words. Seriously. It was fun.

And now the girls are just so happy. They are back to their sharing and loving. I just love it!

And we get to learn together.

I do have to take a few days and really figure out a year lesson plan. But.. for right now we are taking it week by week. Maybe I'll make Bryan take two days off work in a row and disappear at the library for those days and get it all planned out.

Weather

This week for "science" we're learning about weather and seasons. For our projected dealing with weather on Monday, I decided that it would be fun to "Paint with clouds." It was fun! The girls liked it and I even joined in and had fun.

I have also decided to get back to doing sight words. Tomorrow we are starting our "Sight Word Wall". We'll add a few words on Tuesday and Thursdays, and also review each word during our circle time!

I've been thinking a lot about the whole homeschooling concept. Like I said at the beginning of homeschooling, I don't know how long we will be doing so.
But on my drive home today I was thinking about how it brings the learning back to the home. I've heard a bunch of parents complain that teachers give to much homework, and that they send kids to school for eight hours and how they should be able to do all their work at school. And yes, I feel there is a LOT of busy work. But I do think learning should continue at home. And homework is a guarantee that kids are learning in their homes. Though, I don't think it gets as much parent involvement as it should.

I've also been thinking about how our life has changed so much since June. Seriously. Once we took on the complete responsibility to teach our children so many things have changed. We now read EVERY night to our kids, and make it more of a priority. We read a lot more during the day also. We also get to explore so many different things together. So we're all learning as a family. Tonight Bryan and I watched a documentary together. Yes, it sounds boring. But we found it really interesting to watch. Something that months ago I would have said no to. Even Abigail is being affected by all this. I love it. She's starting to realize that books are fun and she'll even lay on her tummy and look at the pages.

I'm hoping this homeschooling stuff works out for a long time for our family!

My newest find.

We like to play games during school... But the number 1-6 dots.. were kind of boring.. So while shopping at my favorite store (here) I found these dice. One has the number 1-6 but in word form, some are the boring ones but in fun colors, I found one that had numbers 7-12, and another that had numbers 13-18. But my favorite so far is the 30 sided dice. What a fun way to learn the numbers.. and more then just 1-6!

Some things we've done with math

First of all.. Can someone tell me why all my pictures keep posting in words instead of pictures while I'm writing the post????

Anyways. Here are two activities we got from our fun book I posted about below.
The first pictures are of the size activity. We had two gardens. One was small and the other was big. We put the big yarn worms in the big garden and the small yarn worms in the small garden. I probably ought to make them count up all the worms in each garden.. But since the baby was awake.. It kind of threw me off. And no, Emily wasn't bored. We were talking and she wasn't really doing the activity at the point of the picture.

The other activity we "picked apples from a tree". And sorted the "apples" into different colors and then counted them. We then counted all the "apples" and found out how many apples were on our tree.

And yes, the baby was awake. I've decided to try and include her in on a few of the activities we do. We had some playdoh scissors and some scraps from the activity we were doing, so she joined in. No, she didn't actually use the glue, the lid was very tightly on. She also joins us for reading time when she's awake.. She just loves being part of it!

Book Review

(We have the Grade K book... since that's the age of my oldest)
I've been piecing together our homeschooling program. There have been some books I've just absolutely loved! Luckily I haven't purchased any I didn't like.. Thanks to research, and lots of time studying the book before I buy it...

This book (tech. a magazine) is one I've recently come across. I had looked at some of the magazines that they had produced.. And I just wasn't interested. But this one caught my eye when I was looking for "the perfect" math book. With this magazine, I feel I actually found it!
It has TONS of different math activities, and covers so many different math concepts. In the front page of the magazine it says "The best activities are easy to prepare, easy to explain, and fun for your kids!" I completely agree that this magazine has done just that. Almost all the activities can be done with household items. As long as you have a printer and stuff laying in your house, this book will work. The activities are fun and creative, yet actually teach the concepts.
The best part... It is SO simple to plan for the activities. The activities require very minimal amount of items, and the ideas are all there. I can just look at the supply list, grab the items, and that the activity is planned!
I am planning on checking into the grade 1 book for the next year.

Busy Business....

We're still alive. It's been fun and challenging, yet rewarding, this homeschooling business.
The girls are learning so much. And I'm learning so much. A few more months of this, and I might have it all down.

I've recently decided that we aren't doing enough science. So, we're working on doing that more. I got a book that has different science projects for different seasons. We're going to start learning things about leaves and such. The other day we decorated a leave.. We discussed that trees were going to start changing colors.. We'll get more into the vocabulary of it soon.. It was just an intro really. This next week we'll probably start.

OH! And I'm really excited. This week we start the Preschool Co-op with some of the people from our church. It's really going to be fun! We'll each take turns teaching preschool at our homes. It is just right for the social aspect of school. I'm excited! A new little adventure in our homeschooling journey!

Puzzles!

I like to try and quiz the girls informally when we've learned something new to see if they really are grasping the concept. Hannah, always fails my little "tests." She's not a performer. So when I ask her to tell me the sounds of letters. Or if I ask her to tell me the name of a number.. she doesn't even try. Emily's completely opposite. She is okay at showing off her mad brain skills.

Today however. We played with our new alphabet puzzle. She got to put one of the pieces in, but she had to tell me what sound it made in order to do so. She got most all of then right. I think we're going to be doing "puzzle time" for a little while until she remembers all the sounds of each letter, and the names of all the numbers up to ten.. She tends to get 8 and 9 wrong.. and I don't want to move on until she gets recognizing those numbers down. So we have a number puzzle too!

So.. Yep. I love puzzles, we'll be using them often around here.

I admit it.

I LOVE homeschooling so far. Honestly. I really do. We have our good days and our bad days.. But really, I love it. I don't think there is anything more wonderful when it comes to learning as watching your child learn something new and succeed at it. Seriously, just love it and it makes my passion for it stronger each (good) day.

Tomorrow I think I'm going to plan a 1-20 scavenger hunt. I haven't really planned it (my planning time is after the kids go to bed). But I see stickers, a map, and a prize all in it. :-D

A day in pictures.

We've been having lots of fun.
The first picture is of Hannah and her state book. We learn the state and capital, and do a little activity for it, all included in the little books I printed out.

Mommy and Daddy get to go away for the weekend. That means they get to have Auntie Pammy over for a sleepover. We're doing counting chains to count down to our... i mean their special weekend :-D

Each day we look at the calendar. We figure out what the days name is. What the number is, and what the weather is like. The girls take turn writting a day of the week. Then whom ever doesn't write the number gets to tape what the weather looks like on it. Then we discuss what they have and will do for the day. I love this activity. They learn writting, weather, past-present-future, numbers, learning months and days.

Emily was getting bored just reading out of the Ordinary Parent book. So I created this fun sheet. We read the line, and then get to draw what the line was about. She loves it because she gets to read and draw. I love it because it helps her learn to read and draw :-D

We just started this last thing. I've been writting a L and R on the girl's hand so they can start learning right and left. I really think it's working. We're probably going to continue for another week or so. Hopefully they'll have it down by then. Hannah was actually really excited about this.. I don't know why the picture looks like she doesn't like it.. Just a bad picture.

Almost Overwhelmed, but then not at all.

I've been reading a bunch of homeschooling sites.. Everyone seems to have the whole next year planned out. Opps. I guess I'm not on top of things. Actually I thought I was a little overdoing things....and then I read about all these people with their Curriculums all ordered and stuff.. he he eh.

I've decided my approach is a lot different. We are doing the basics like Reading, Numbers, Math, Sight words, and all that stuff. But I am doing it they way I have planned. I feel I am probably creative enough to get it all in. If I feel we aren't hitting on something, then I'll just added it in. I have researched where kids in school are at certain grades, so I will know if I have to step up the game.

I have a few goals, and then I just add in what we want. The girls have been curious with where places are. So we started memorizing the USA and all the states and capitals. We've loved it. The girls have learned a ton so far (we're on like the 10th state). I made a cute little book to go with it. (got it from a book and turned it into an activity book)

Right now we plan on homeschooling for Preschool. Who knows how far it will go. We might homeschool forever, or just for preschool. We'll see. I'm taking it day by day.

One of my goals it to make it fun for all of us. I know that it won't always be fun. But there are so many good resources to make it fun. So, that's what we're working on now. It takes a lot more planning. But it's a lot more rewarding.

Fun Times

We've been having some fun. I should add a picture, but I haven't been taking them as often.. So, let me Google.. One Second....

We've had given up completely on having TV watching in our house for the girls.. Until I got this movie. I love it. It's pretty short, 35 minutes, give or take. But it really has helped re-enforce the letter sounds. Today I'm going back to Costco and hoping to buy the next two that follow this one.

Anyways. What have we been up to? We've been doing lots.
I'm working on letting the kids decide some of what we are going to be doing. I let them choose the craft usually. I give them a few ideas. And then sometimes I ask "what do you guys want to do for fun?" And usually we paint. The girls love to paint, and use stickers, and just draw. I'm working on being a little more relaxed and seeing what they really are interested in.

We've also been studying the USA. The girls have been talking about the city we live in, and trying to figure out where their cousins, great-grandparents, and other family members are. We have been memorizing a new state and capital each day. The girls LOVE it. We so far have 7 states and capitals memorized. They just love it. Each day we review which ones we know, and then we add a new one.
Learning moment: Today we were out and about, and Emily saw a cactus. She goes "they have those in Texas." ... it's fun seeing them learn and grow.
Another Learning moment: We saw a Washington state flag and she goes "HEY! that's a state flag!!"

We've still been doing this book. I love it so much. I'm sold. I have been doing it with both girls. And I knew Emily was ready to read. So we moved on and kept going with the book. But I decided that I needed to review the letter sounds with Hannah. Man was I wrong. She's pretty on top of it.

Learning moment: Hannah came up to me and was like "OUT... and then said the sound of O.. and was like "Out starts with O!" Yep, she's got most of them down. I'm so proud of her. I hope to have her reading the bob books in the next two weeks or so.

It's been really rewarding teaching them so far. I'm excited for the fall when we do our Co-Op and have friends join in on all our fun of learning

Sorry my computer is doing something and i am no longer able to put periods at the end of the sentence or any sort of punctuation
So i guess im done for now

Emily reads.

Today Emily read her first two books. It was the first two bob books.

This is going to make preschooling a lot harder. Hannah is not quite ready to read. I think once we go over the sounds one more time (each letter sound).

But I'm way excited for Emily.. Mostly since she's been ready to read for a while! It's so cute hearing her read.

Update...

The last week or so, we've been having way to much fun.. So i haven't posted... Hopefully I'll get a new update in a day or so.

Some more stuff..

We got some pattern blocks and they are probably the best investment I've made so far. They help with creativity, counting, adding, patterns, shapes, and individual time. I love them, the girls love them, and even daddy loves to play with them!

I also made some math file folders. The girls love them. And it helps with helping them on more their own level, but they can do it at the same time.
Hannah has the counting cupcakes one.

And Emily has the Math adding Acorns (got them both Here)

Abigail wanted to get in on the fun.. It has been kind of UNhelpful that she's giving up morning naps.... But here she is getting into the block action... (ignore silly, yet still cute, face she's making)


We've done a ton more fun things! But I'll just keep posting some of them... Or else I'll have to make like 5 more posts...

Also we've been slowly keeping up on the Tour of the Parks.
We've gone to Bloedel, Birchwood a few times, Cornwall twice, and I think it's only fair to add Boxx Berry farms in, since tech. it did have a play area on it :-D

Some of the other stuff we've been doing..

We've been working on recognizing numbers. Emily can count pretty high, and does pretty good at this.. She had a problem with 13 and 15 for a while.. but i think she has it now. I still need to work on Hannah a bunch more with them.. But this is one of our many math activities.. Lining up the flash cards.

I found this online somewhere (i need to remember better so i can give credit to other people..) But we cut out and glued the numbers in order on the squares.. It was a little difficult for Hannah.. Not at all for Emily, but i let her do it too because i thought she might like it.

With Hannah we are working on spelling her name. She loves the frogs and is getting so much better at it.

Q is for Quilt

Q and U stick like glue. That's what we learned today (thanks to smarty-pants Emily) We made quilts out of paper. It was fun. We were going to make them out of cloth which probably would have been cooler.. But I fell asleep last night instead of finding and cutting out different cloth material. So this worked just as well! I just took some different type of scrapbooking paper and cut them into two different sizes, and the girls got to use their creativity and make a quilt.

P is for Popcorn

The girls especially loved this one. Hannah didn't end up covering much more of her P's then is in the picture... She loved eating the popcorn instead.

N is for Noodles

They really liked how the bowl full of noodles felt. Hannah just kept putting her hand in over and over without even grabbing any..

M is for Mouth..

So, we used our mouths as stamps and stamped the pictures. The girls really enjoyed being able to use my makeup... And I laughed and laughed at them as they did it! Learning was lots of fun today!

L is for Leaves

We took a little walk outside and reached for some leaves off the tree.. It's hard to tell in the pictures, but there are leaves all over the paper... They were darker covered leaves... The green tree leaves were WAY to far up for me to reach.

K is for Kleenex

The girls loved that they were allowed to shred apart Kleenex and glue them to paper.

J is for Jellybean.

For the letter J we made Jelly bean J's. It's as easy as it sounds.. And the girls LOVED it. They of course had to try a few.

H is for Heart

I happen to be at the dollar store and saw the perfect foam hearts.. So that's what we did. I like stickers, especially individual stickers. I like to think it helps develop small motor skills.. Emily was making a H out of hearts (but i didn't get a final picture). I like these little crafts because I just say "here's the stickers" and they decide exactly what they are going to do with them. Helps the develop their creativity..

G is for Glitter

We made Glitter G's for the craft when we were learning the letter G. The thing I like the most, is all the crafts for the letters are done in a journal. They are ALL together, I don't have to worry about taping it all over my house.. And it's easier to review what we did the previous day. I also got foil pans to put them in.. That way they catch all the mess.. After the craft is dry, I just empty the foil pan in the garbage and that's clean up. It's great!

F is for fingerpaint

This one was a little tough for Hannah. She is a clean little girl. She loves to be clean. I provided a towel so that she was able to wipe her hands off whenever she felt she needed to. By the end she was okay with getting paint on her fingers. Emily however, loved EVER second of painting with her fingers. She painted with her fingers, with her palm, with her arm, and so on. She had so much fun getting paint all over her. Luckily in one fast run to the bathroom sink it all washed off. And we were able to do the rest of school.

D is for Donuts

We're working on cutting out as much "Junk" (as Hannah calls it, aka junk food) so we didn't use real donuts.. I had some adhesive paper.. So I cut out donuts and they thought it was so fun that I had donut stickers.. So they put the stickers in their journals and we put some Elmers glue on it and they were able to add real sprinkles. Again, it was fun and easy. Yet it made me a cool mom :-D

Finished project (almost.. the glue wasn't dry yet)