He is Risen

We did a craft yesterday where we took a half sphere of florist's foam, carved out a little tomb in the "rock", and put 3 crosses of craft sticks up on the hill.

We left the stone over the tomb last night and I wondered if one of the boys would want to roll the stone away this morning... I didn't say anything. Then this morning Ian says at breakfast, "Mom, can I roll away the stone?" :) It was so cool... and of course our tomb was empty.

Unexpected Benefits

So we're on week 11 of our Sonlight curriculum. It's not exactly week 11 in the school year, but we've been adding in extra bits here and there, supplementing the "official" curriculum as we go along. We've taken breaks to do unit studies on Thanksgiving, Christmas and the Olympics.

When Ian hits a bit of a roadblock in a particular area, I slow things down a bit and focus a little more on that one subject, taking extra books out of the library, using extra worksheets, manipulatives, videos, games, whatever. Then we get right back into the "official" curriculum. This was a conscious decision from the start, as I was really hoping to stretch out the curriculum over two years, if possible. Sonlight is really packed with so many options that you actually have to pick and choose which things you will include and which you will leave out. They suggest various options to add in to round things out, but you're always free to throw in a few of your own.

This week we have been focusing on money in our Math time. Usually we use Horizons Kindergarten, which we ordered from Sonlight, but it's kind of short in the instruction area, and we needed a little extra work in the "value of money" department. Being of Scottish decent, money is very important to us, so we have to get this right! LOL...

Our local library has a subscription to The Mailbox magazine, so I picked up a couple of copies for the months of Feb/Mar in various years, just to see what they had to offer. I was delighted to find that because of the Presidential Holidays and St. Patrick's Day, coinage figured heavily into the worksheets and activities, so naturally, I made lots of copies to incorporate into our school time!

This little digression has been a nice break from the usual program of Math and Reading for both of us! The nice thing about copying worksheets is that The Little Man (3 years) can enjoy the cutting, pasting and coloring right along with his big brother. Sure, Little Man is doing his own thing, but he feels like a big shot because he's using the same papers and tools. :) An added benefit that I didn't really consider is that Ian sometimes finishes his work and comes over to help his brother with his "work", explaining it to him the whole time.... All nicely reinforcing the lesson of the day.

Challenging Seasons

In homeschooling there's all sorts of challenges and seasons. The most recent challenge? Homeschooling while purchasing a new house, fixing it up, and packing up the apartment... during the holidays! Yeah, when it rains, it pours!

We put in an offer on a house the beginning of December. By the middle of January we were first-time home owners! Exciting stuff! Thus began the process of painting, minor repairs, sanding, staining and polying the floors. We had no idea that this process would take over 3 weeks! Looking back now, it doesn't seem like that's a lot of time, but at the time we were itching to get into the new house and get settled in.

Question: How do you decorate your house for the holidays, and pack up all your belongings at the same time? Apparent answer: you don't...

Second question: How do you pack up all your belongings, while spending every waking moment updating your new house?
Answer: See above

Third question: How do you homeschool your Kindergartner during all this?
Answer: You get creative! :)

Our answer to the third question has been to focus largely on reading and writing and math.... During this time we haven't been closely following our Sonlight curriculum, which makes it feel like we're not doing schooling, but perhaps this is what the unschooling people do.

We've been reading signs everywhere we go, making cards to send to friends, handwritten and drawn by my son. Either I spell the word aloud that he wants to write, or I write the words down for him and he copies them. Other times we talk about how things are spelled, and what rules a word follows. We've been reading books, going to the libraries, doing puzzles and mazes, and doing some math work.

We've been using some workbooks as well. Last year we bought Hooked on Phonics, Hooked on Math and Beginning Sounds. They aren't terribly deep for his level, but he enjoys them and they are good for reinforcing some concepts. In particular, the Hooked on Math book has been great for getting him to practice his writing skills, which has been HUGE. A couple of weeks ago, writing the number 4 or 5 had caused meltdowns. This week, he sat down and wrote out about fifteen 15s and 14s in his HOM book, independantly... for fun!! LOL... Can't beat that!

And I've been learning too. He can read words, I haven't taught him!! Yeah, it's kind of freaking me out, actually. And his handwriting is actually quite nice for a Kindergartner! I've actually been impressed by this, because usually for school work, he's writing on lined paper and a lot of it is tracing. We haven't done much copywork.... Now, I'm kind of thinking that we need to start doing copywork!

And art? The boy's got skills!! Mad skills! Yeah, we need to be doing more art. LOL... Speaking of which, he had a blast doing the Nutcracker photo with pastels, which we mentioned in the previous post. Here it is:

'Tis the Season to be Crafty!

With the onset of the holiday season, we have been doing a lot of Christmas reading, crafting and listening. I love arts and crafts and anything that remotely falls into this category, but have been a little at a loss for ideas as to what I can do with the boys and what is appropriate for their ages. Thankfully, earlier this Fall, I joined a the Sue Patrick workbox group, never realizing the wealth of ideas and links I'd find there at this time of year. Thought I'd share a couple of the links to projects that we have done or will be doing in the coming days.... Enjoy!

• Art Projects for Kids - we're planning on doing the Nutcracker project and the Gingerbread Project
• Cinnamon Dough Ornaments - made these the other day! Have wanted to tackle this project for years, and finally did it. The boys loved it.
  

How do you spell GRACE?

Wow, is it November already? Great!

We spent the month of October taking turns fighting off a cold, which has made school a bit challenging. We've had sick days, whiny days and days of exhaustion... and that was just ME. LOL. It sure is hard to enjoy reading aloud to the boys when every sentence makes you cough! Fortunately, we have been sneaking other school work in, using the previously mentioned tactics so we are not as behind as we feel we are.

My big concern was that the area that was hardest to keep up with was our reading work... Since Ian is new to reading, and the curriculum is more advanced, it has required me "tweaking" some of the activities, adding in some extra work for reinforcement. How difficult would it be to pick up where we left off? What would Ian remember? Turns out, quite a lot! And it seems that he actually has improved. How is that possible? :) Maybe we are sneaking in more than we realize.... Or maybe he is connecting the dots on his own without my realizing it. And maybe it is just another way that God is pouring out his grace on our lives! I'm hoping it's all of the above, because as of this weekend, we are fighting colds again. :/

Unschooling or How I Sneak School into Sick Days.

So here in our little Homeschool Academy, we've been ill for the last 3 days. First it was the boys, and now I've also succumbed to the ick. So I've been (with some level of anxiety) taking a break from our "official curriculum". I figure, you know, there is such a thing as a sick day. Let's show the Kindergartener a little compassion, right? And if I have a migraine and am nauseous, we're also not having school, and that too is showing compassion to the Kindergartener. LOL...

Anyway, we have been sneaking some unofficial school stuff in.

• We did a bit of reading in The Boxcar Children, and a little handwriting on Monday.
• I also had been away for the weekend and Dad had read out of The Boxcar Kids, so I asked Ian to tell me about the story that I missed. He did a really good job of recounting it!
• Also we went to the library yesterday and he spent some time on the computer there, doing some puzzles.
• I found a neat little phonics book at the library, that we looked at today.
• We took out the Leapfrog Talking Words Factory from the library and spent time watching that today. Ian was thrilled that he could read all the words that rhyme with "at", and I think he learned a few more.
• In the bath, I broke out the bathtub crayons and we practiced writing our last name, and did some artwork.
• Ian colored a postcard for his cousin's birthday, and wrote a message on the back.
• We started taking part in Sonlight's OneVerse project, which teaches kids about other cultures and the difference having a Bible makes in the lives of people.

And so, even though I feel like I'm now behind with the homeschool timeline, I can at least feel that Ian is still learning. And thus, I have salved my conscious for the day. :)

Sonlight, Reading and Writing

It's been a little over a month since my last post, which can only mean that I've been scrambling trying to research, brainstorm, organize, de-clutter and invent... AND loving every minute of it. LOL.

We love the Sonlight curriculum. Truly love it! But I will say that we bit off more than we could chew when we chose the "Readers 1" for my Kindergartener. To be fair, I thought this might be a possibility, so it was not really a surprise. My back up plan was to continue using "My Father's World Kindergarten" to teach reading until we came up to speed. I figured at that point we would begin with Sonlight's reading program and just be able to stretch it out to next year. No biggie.

But here's the deal: we liked Sonlight so much that I found myself looking back over the Reading program, trying to figure out how to incorporate SOME of it into our schedule. When it really came down to it, I felt like he could follow the readers, but not the activities. For instance, our handwriting program (Handwriting Without Tears)cautions against having the student writing letters he hasn't learned yet. Makes sense to me!! But the Readers 1's Activity Sheets immediately direct you into "copywork", requiring the copying of sentences right off the bat. My DS would've erupted into tears at the thought, I can assure you. There's a reason that we chose Handwriting Without Tears, believe me.

So the solution, if you care was this: I did the copywork for him, and used the copywork to ask him questions. This way, he simply had to underline the capital letters at the beginning of the sentences and circle the capital letters that began proper names. Still teaching him about capitals, but without requiring the writing.

Another thing we've been doing is slowing down the course of the lessons, stretching them out over 3 weeks, and teaching the words in different ways, using the reading to reinforce the learning of words. I've created flashcards that we review every day. We also use Leapfrog's Word Whammer to make the words on the flashcards. I also expounded up an idea from Handwriting Without Tears by writing the words on our blackboard while Ian watches and allowing him to trace the letters with a small wet sponge!! Love this idea, and so does he.