School Is More Fun with Typing Cows

Well, I think that our unit on Click, Clack, Moo Cows That Type was the funniest yet. Both of the girls really got into it. We got to paint with water colors and write our own note to Farmer Brown. It was very memorable. We also used the idea of notewriting and made a birthday card for our sponsored child, Yeimi. That was another good way we could involve Lily. The whole thing went really well and was well received. It was a lot more laid back, and some of the activities were very basic. I'm not sure Kayla learned a ton from it, other than that grown ups can write really silly stories about cows and that electric blankets are warm and cozy.

We finished up our Math unit on fractions and measurement this week. There were no difficulties there at all, other than the motor skill task of lining up items at the end of a ruler. The only thing we have left in this book is addition and subtraction, so we are taking this next week to review. The one complaint I have about the Modern Curriculum Press workbook is that material is not often revisited after a chapter is done. My plan for next week is to determine where we need to focus more attention. We will review time, money, patterns, number words, ordinals, and place value. Then I will add these activities in during our addition and subtraction work.

Reading lessons are also going well. The biggest change I see is that Kayla has started picking up more books and reading them on her own. She will come and ask for help if there's a word that she cannot sound out, but she wants to read to herself. She also still wants to be read to, especially if there is much more than one sentence per page. She has also started reading some books to Lily, and that is really cute.

Weekly School Update - a few days overdue

Lily is going through a crying/whiny spell when she can't have your undivided attention, and that is trying to suck the joy out of our school days. However, it's not totally successful. It's still fun to watch things click in a Kindergarten brain, even if you're having to raise your voice over a toddler who is crying all the way to her room. This week, we started talking about measurement in Math, and that has been a lot of fun. We didn't actually touch a ruler until today, but it was still fun to watch her measure crayons in different units like paperclips and dinosaurs. Teaching Math is so much more fun than I learning it, at least from as early as I can remember. I'm pretty sure it's her favorite, too.

We also made a little more headway in our reading book, and Kayla is reading a lot more on her own. Some of it is context clues from the pictures, but a lot of it is all her. I can't say that she loves the reading lessons, but she does love being able to pick up a short book later in the day and read it to herself without my help. And I think she knows that the lessons are what allows her to do that. We also read Harold and the Purple Crayon and did some activities that went along with it. Both girls really enjoyed reading it, and they never got tired of it during the week.

There are a few things that I hope will go differently this week. First, I do hope that Lily relearns the rhythm of our school mornings and entertains herself more. I would also like to do more Math activities this week that are not in her workbook. I think we're coming to a good time to go back and review some of the earlier things that the book covers in more real-world ways. I'm also looking forward to finding more books that Kayla can read by herself. I think she is really finding that to be empowering, and I don't want it to fade quickly. I also want to start some copywork for a little change in pace for handwriting. I'm looking forward to a new week.

Weekly School Update

I've decided to start documenting our school happenings on Fridays, just to document then fun, what has worked well, and things that I would like to change. This week was a little different, because it was the week after vacation. Kayla had requested that we do school during vacation, but when we got there, she changed her mind. This meant that I had a week's worth of school already completely planned when we got back. What I didn't foresee about skipping a week was how good it would be for just letting things settle in Kayla's brain and how bad it would be for Lily just by getting that far off of routine.

This week, we started talking about fractions and equal parts. It came much easier for Kayla than I had imagined. She actually hasn't struggled a bit with the whole concept. We also hit the halfway point in our reading book, and we were pretty proud about that. If nothing slows us down, we should finish the book by Christmas, so it's time for me to start thinking about what to do for the new year. We finish our Kindergarten math curriculum sometime in December, too. I don't expect every year to go this smoothly, but it is obvious that she was just really ready for this jump into Kindergarten level work.

Since we were at the beach last week, I had planned an Ocean themed lapbook . It has been a lot of fun talking about the different things we find at the ocean I have learned a few things, too.We aren't quite finished since we took a day off yesterday for that whole socialization bit that various people keep harping on. Maybe I will post a picture of it after we're done. Now if I could just decide what to do next week.

This Is the Day

A friend who is also new to homeschooling borrowed an idea from one of her boys' teachers to have a "morning meeting", where you lay out your plans and expectations for the day. I thought it was a great idea so I borrowed it from her. On the first day we started Kindergarten, I explained the idea of a morning meeting to Kayla and started telling her what we would be doing during school and after. Even though I didn't plan to, I found myself telling her that the best thing about morning is that it's a new day, made new and clean by God, without any mistakes or disappointments. "This Is the Day" had been rolling around in my head for a few days, and I still don't know why. I didn't plan to, but I taught it to them. Well, it stuck.

Now we do it every day, along with some variation on that same conversation we had the first day. She is talking about a new day even on days we don't have school, and I think she's starting to understand what I'm talking about. The more remarkable thing is that I'm beginning to see this idea seep into my own thick skull. Five-year-olds aren't the only ones who need a clean slate every morning. They also aren't the only ones who learn by repetition. Teaching is a tricky business.


"This is the day the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it." Psalm 118:24

Babble On

There's a lot rolling around in my head right now, and very little of it even goes together. Still, I feel like I'm losing momentum here, and I feel like putting anything in this little box will clear my head of this one need. Apparently my head is prime real estate right now, and there are a lot of competing thoughts.

We finished Day 4 of Kindergarten today. Kayla is loving it, but she says I'm making the Math too easy. I really hope she keeps finding it easy, but I doubt it. I'm also finding (well, remembering because I already knew) that she doesn't like correction at all. Apple = Kayla, Tree = Me I'm trying to come up with new ways to give feedback. "No" is definitely a four-letter word to her. However, she is still having a lot of fun and asks to start school in the morning. I also am trying to figure out other things for Lily to do while we're having school. She was purposefully disrupting today just to get my attention. We read and played later, but the coloring books that held her interest last week failed me during school today.

I had my first phone training as a Compassion Advocate last night. It was a lot of fun, but it let me know how much I still need to learn. I'm going to try to find an event to volunteer at over the next couple of months, since that was recommended by the trainer. There are also podcasted training sessions that I can listen to and other calls to sign up for. I now know more about malaria than I ever thought I needed to know.

And I'm really wondering if one-day fasts really are a little too easy. Today really hasn't been bad at all. I am hungry, that I don't deny, but not that hungry. I do find hunger pangs to be the best reminder to pray. I think it's something about having a perceived physical need. I will definitely be excited about my watermelon and waffles tonight, but it isn't as hard as it once was. I think next time I may need a full technology fast as well. I am far too easily distracted by the technology in my house. This is another reason I need to keep a dumb phone. I really can't afford to add another distraction.

And then there's bills, lowering bills, saving more, giving more, planning things to do with the kids, finding new things to send to my faraway kids, finding time to spend with Sonny, kids' songs that won't leave my head, the lack of time management skills I seem to possess, and, oh yeah, did I mention waffles? Oatmeal waffles to be exact. Topped with baked apples with a little date honey on the side. My brain is like a cartoon whirpool.

Homeschool Planning

I'm starting to plan for our biggest adventure yet, Kindergarten. A friend sent me this blog by Ann Voskamp. I really had compartmentalized school in my head, and I love the way she just describes it as something integrated into their lives. I think I will work on that, but I do think it will be hard for me at first. I'm slowing buying things I want to use next year and finding articles that show me that I really don't need to buy much at all. Planning is my thing, so I'm having fun with it.

This year, we are focusing more on phonics, reading, and counting. I want to add a few shapes to Kayla's vocabulary, just to make things easier later. She already loves to count everything and read numbers, so none of this is really forced on her.

I'm thinking about trying to start a book borrowing group with friends who have kids similar ages, in hopes of all of us saving money buying the books we can't find at the library. I'll have to think and pray about this more, but it just occurred to me that this could be pretty helpful to everyone involved.