• Explode the Code – G has worked through book 4 and is almost finished with book 5.  This is phonics, spelling, and vocabulary all in one.
• Writing with Ease, Level 1 – G is halfway through this book.  In this level, we are working on reading comprehension and copywork and it is a fantastic introduction to great works of literature as well as a back door introduction to good writing skills through copywork.  Did I mention the great handwriting practice?  This book sometimes induces many grumbles from G.
• First Language Lessons, Level 1 – This book works hand-in-hand with Writing with Ease.  It introduces grammar through verbal conversations, scripted lessons, and includes memory work.
• Math-U-See – We finished up the Alpha Level a month or so ago and started the Beta level.  (I think this would be equivalent to 2nd grade?)  G is halfway through the Beta level already.  He loves his math.
• Horizons Math – I know, I know.  It seems strange to use two math curriculums but I use this book to reinforce math concepts, extra practice and to slow him down (although that clearly hasn’t happened).  The combination works well for him.
• Homeschool Art (Artelier) - G is taking blocks of this art program as a class with a dear friend and homeschool mom who is an amazing artist.  There are 8-10 kids per class and he thoroughly enjoys it.  They end each 6-8 week session with a trip to a local art museum.  It is very hands on.  I’ll do a separate post later with pictures of the work he has done.
• Piano – Yes, yes, G is doing piano lessons.  But with me?  No.  Why?  (I know you’re asking yourself.)  There are several reasons I can get into later, but in short, it just works better this and is very common in the music field.  I take G to another teacher and he is doing really great.
• Reading/Literature – G loves to read!  His favorite books are currently the Magic Tree House series.  We read lots of different books together as well – history, geography fiction, missionary stories, etc.  We just finished reading Wizard of Oz together as well.
• Classical Conversations – This is a homeschool “group” that we are a part of this year.  They follow the classical model of education, their purpose being “to know God and make Him known.”  Both G and S are thoroughly enjoying this group.  They each have their own small class (approx. 8 kids) and a tutor.  Each week they learn material in geography, history, American history, Latin, math, Science, and art/music.  G has soaked it up.  Ask him states and capitals – go ahead!  It’s remarkable what he has learned through this system.  More later on this as well.

This past weekend, now that Upwards Basketball is over, Chris did some research and then we spent a considerable amount of time at our local Ace Hardware Garden Center with a most helpful staff in their butterfly garden section (really!) and invested in some flowers and a bird bath and got to work.  Before you wonder about the bird bath, apparently butterflies need places to rest and some water.  More on that later…

Here are the results.  Keep in mind that we are no way gardening design experts and I will be super excited if these things grow and flower and stay alive, much less draw butterflies.  I really am determined turn my thumb from black to green.

 

One of the pretty flowers we put in...

This flower is my favorite - it'll have a pretty pink bloom and it smells like, hmmm, citrus tea I think? Love it.

Then this morning while doing some school work, we look outside and see not one but two birds enjoying the bird bath!  I ran to get the camera and got the following shots:

Our first bird visitor, preparing for his morning bath

I'm divin' in, I'm goin' deep, in over my head, I'm gonna be...

How fun is that?!  We had a ball watching the birds.  No butterflies yet but if I were a butterfly I’m not sure I’d get near that craziness.  Our plan is for Chris to get a couple of large rocks to put in the garden as well – warm resting places for the butterflies also.

The Body (Teacher Created Resources) by Patti Carratello

I traced each of the kids bodies on butcher paper on hung them on the wall.  Then this book provides life-size black-and-white sheets of the organs and body parts pictured above for the kids to color, cut out, then paste or attach to the body using brads.  Specific instructions were provided as to what colors to use and exactly where to place and paste so that parts can be lifted to see organs underneath.  While they colored and cut, I would read the basic explanations of what each part did.

The kids loved doing this and looked forward to it every day (well, every day that we got to it in this season of the plague hovering over our home).  And what great parental practice for explaining the, ahem, reproductive organs.  If you have subscribed to my private family blog, you can see a detailed picture there.  I keep my kids’ off of the public internet for privacy purposes.

Another science topic we have embarked upon is plants and seeds and birds and bees.  In the very literal sense.  We have studied how pollen travels from flower to flower to make seeds, and how seeds sprout to make seedlings and grow to plants.  With that in mind we used supplies provided with Sonlight’s science kit (well, these are supplies I could’ve easily procured around here), we grew some bean plants!

First we put some kidney beans in a jar with wet paper towels and watched them sprout.  Amazingly cool, by the way, how plants grow with just water and sunlight like that.  What a miraculous God we have!  We left those to grow for about a week (um, or more, because of someone-who-shall-rename-nameless’s laziness) and then today we planted them in little peat pots!  The result:

Now, consider that I traditionally have a “black thumb” so this will be a serious challenge to keep these alive in the name of homeschool education.  I think I can, I think I can, I think I can…

We are also reading Usborne books about Caterpillars and Butterflies (my favorite!).  Our plan is to turn the flower bed in front of the window where we have our homeschool room into a little butterfly garden.  (Read:  the husband’s department.)  *big grin*  Chris has already researched and designed the project, we just need the time to put it in.  I can’t wait to look out and see beautiful flowers and fluttering butterflies!

We finally ventured out of the house after yet another round of the flu for G and Daddy.  It is an absolutely beautiful morning this morning.  After walking around the neighborhood with Huntley, we played in the front yard and drive-way.  G suddenly runs up to me while I was talking with a neighbor and he was holding a dandelion in his hand, with the seeds partially blown away…

“Look Mommy!  Just like we talked about yesterday!”

In school yesterday we had continued our discussion of seeds and flowers and (literally) birds and bees and how pollen moves from plant to plant to form seeds and how animals and the wind (and other things) help move seeds to new places for plants to grow.  One of the pictures was of the wind blowing dandelion seeds about.  It was truly a joy to see G discover this for himself in our front yard this morning.  I demonstrated blowing seeds for him and let him try, then we took it inside and compared it to the picture in the book and then looked at the parts of the plant we had been studying, too, and of course followed that up with more seed blowing.

It’s just fun blowing those seeds around – such a child-like wonder even if you are an adult!

G also picked a weed-flower plant from our front yard ran in and put it in a glass of water.  After we settled back inside, he grabbed the book and said, “Here Mommy, let’s find it in the book.  We need to discover it!”  Again, heart a-flutter, I went to work, completely unsure of how in the world I would identify this weed!  Of course, it wasn’t in our little Usborne book “How Flowers Grow” so we turned to Google, or as G says “Goooooooooooooooooooooogle”  Ha!

Eureka!  Amazingly, I found it.  Wanna see?  Of course you do.  Because I’m impressed I found it myself.  And it was pure joy seeing his eyes light up at finding it, too.

It is an Asiatic false Hawksbeard.  I personally think it sounds like a pirate flower with a name like that.  Here is a picture:

Asiatic False Hawksbeard

We LOVE homeschooling.  I wouldn’t trade anything in the world for these precious moments of learning with my children, seeing his eyes light up at his excitement of discovering these new things, seeing him enjoy science and math, and learning to read.  I’m already picking our curriculum for next year.  :D

• We have taken a break in Math-U-See (Alpha level) because of G hitting a road block in the subtraction department and have branched out to flashcards and to the Horizon Kindergarten level to reinforce/reintroduce the same concepts from a different direction.  I really like the curriculum so far.  I have started S at Lesson 1, in fact, since it is at her level currently and G really is closer to book 2 of that same level.
• I have introduced a more organized art curriculum called “Draw – Write – Now” that combines handwriting with drawing lessons.  It either has students draw a farm animal (book 1) and then handwrite a few sentences about it, or uses a word or letter or number and build a picture around that word.  For example, writing the number “2″ then using that as a basis for drawing a swan.  I enjoyed working through all the drawing lessons myself last week as I watched a tv show, then this morning I did the first lesson with the kids (S just drew without doing the handwriting part) and they loved it!  G got the hang of it right away and S enjoyed adding her personal unique touch to the rest of the picture.
• G started asking questions about how the human body works.  ”Mommy, what happens when you breathe in?  Mommy, then what?  Mommy, then what?”  At our local homeschool store, I was pointed to a cute little book called “My Body.”  First, it has you trace your child’s body on a butcher paper, then each page has a “life size” cut-out and coloring page of each body part and organ and easy explanation for how it works.  Once your child colors it, then you glue it or use a brad to tack it on to their own “body” you traced for them.  At the end, they have a life-sized image of their own body with body parts.  How cool is that?!  I started this lesson today also.  We traced their bodies and (somehow) found space on the wall to tack them up, then colored the picture of the brain (specific instructions provided), cut it out, and glued it to their “heads.”  I read them the information about their brains, but also had G copy as a handwriting exercise some of the same information.  At the end, he will have a booklet on the human body in his own handwriting.
• They have both started Upwards Basketball.  This is a nationwide Christian sports organization.  They do devotionals at each practice and game.  Both S and G are playing and they had their first games this past Saturday.  Very cute indeed.  No refs needed as the art of dribbling and other fine details just haven’t happened yet.  They have jerseys and everything.  And both kids have the number 14!
• G is doing great in reading…loves, loves, loves to read!  Anything and everything.
• I keep S busy with various puzzles, writing her name, coloring and she absorbs a lot from G’s lessons.  More than realize actually.  She has been accepted into the same preschool G was in and hopefully will have the same teacher that G did.  She is very excited about that, as am I!  Then, for the year after that, I look forward to homeschooling both kids.  I love homeschooling more than I ever thought I would and cannot imagine doing anything else now.  I absolutely love it!

Everyone does their thankful trees a little differently I found and my chosen method was to gather some of the small fallen branches from the back yard, then arrange them in a pottery pitcher I had for a small “tree.”   Next, I drew some small basic leaf shapes on colored paper and let the kids cut them out.

And when I say basic, I  mean basic.

Now for the “thankfulness” lesson.  S was quick to grasp thankfulness and G was too once we got past the fact that this tree wasn’t a wishing tree and that being “thankful” wasn’t the same thing as “wishing” for something.  Then we were off!  G enjoyed writing his own items down and included his sister and his yellow class at church (one of his kindergarten classes there.)  I wrote things down for S then she resorted to writing random letters.  We punched holes in the leaves and hung them on the branches.  After awhile, S abandoned the leaves and started using a little note pad.  She was having too much fun.

As piano students and parents ventured in and our of our house, S, a.k.a my social butterfly, was quick to invite everyone to participate in hanging a thankful leaf on our tree.  We enjoyed having it sit on our classroom table to add to it as we felt like and I enjoyed reading the leaves throughout the day.

But would the lesson “stick”?  This is always a concern for this first-year homeschooling mama.

Thanksgiving Day arrived.  We were visiting Grandma and Granddaddy’s house in North Carolina.  As we sat down to eat, I asked G to tell Grandma and Granddaddy about our Thankful Tree.  He explained the tree, then without prompting from these parental units, he turns and asks Granddaddy, “So, Granddaddy, what are you thankful for?”

*sniff, sniff*  I promptly turned into a puddle of goo.

And for that I am thankful.

Here is our thankful tree:

Our Thankful Tree

By choosing to use Sonlight curriculum, I was thankful that the lesson plans for History, Bible, Science, and Language Arts were already laid out for me.  This took off a significant amount of stress!  Of course, seeing the giant sized binder that contains lessons plans for 36 weeks of school is enough to cause an ulcer but there are ways to handle this.

Meet the giant binder:

The *gulp* Instructor's Guide

Meet the handy binder:

The Mini-Binder

For the latter binder, I have merely taken seasoned Sonlight moms’ suggestions and removed approximately four weeks’ worth of lessons and put them into a smaller binder that is easier to tote and flip through.  Genius.  A significant amount of note-taking and checking-marking and date-marking occurs during the school day by mommy/teacher so this was a handy piece of advice.

One week's schedule

I also loved how empty rows were provided for extra subjects – such as the Math-U-See that I pulled in.  I merely hand-wrote it on the chart and away we go!  What I have learned so far is to follow Sonlight’s advice and advice mom friends who also homeschool (whether they use Sonlight or other methods or curriculums).  They are gold mines of advice!

• Do not let the Instructor Guide rule our day, merely use it as a guide.  We do not have to do everything in it.  It is merely a suggestion.
• G is really just in kindergarten and our state only requires math and language arts.  Perspective is king.  I know where to place emphasis and what to let go when needed.
• I can take each subject at G’s pace  - often he moves quickly ahead in one subject and we may stay in one place in other subjects until he is ready to move on.  And that’s perfectly great and exactly why we homeschool.

Since July 1, we have tackled and completed:

• Handwriting Without Tears, Letters and Numbers For Me
• Math-U-See, Primer
• The Boxcar Children, No. 1, by Gertrude Chandler Warner
• Kumon’s My First Book of Money:  Counting Coins

We are currently in the midst of:

• Explode the Code, Book A (Language Arts)
• Handwriting Without Tears, My Printing Book
• Math-U-See, Alpha
• The Jesus Storybook Bible (replaced Egermeier’s Bible Story Book – seemed to far above his level at this stage)
• Memorizing one scripture for each letter of the alphabet, currently up to letter D.

History, Geography and a large part of language arts are done through read-alouds and discussion.  Currently, we are reading:

• Living Long Ago (history and geography)
• The Usborne Children’s Encyclopedia (for science, history and geography)
• I Heard Good News Today (missionary stories, history and geography)
• The Llama Who Had No Pajamas
• The Arnold Lobel Book of Mother Goose
• The James Herriott Treasury for Children
• My Father’s Dragon by Ruth Stiles Gannett

We use word lists and reader books provided by the authors of the Sonlight curriculum, also well-done.  The huge list of books that we haven’t even touched yet continues.  I’ll do pictures of the room and bookshelves another day.  Spelling is incorporated as well.  G is not as fond of this part of homeschooling and would prefer to do math and science all day, but we get through it with motivators.  Namely, more math.  Strange, I know.  ”Hey, G, if we complete these spelling/reading/word lists, we can do another chapter of math!”  Strange child.  He IS his father’s son.

Science uses a combination of read-alouds from Usborne books to cover so many areas of science, then you complete various experiments.  G and S both thoroughly enjoy the experiments and G so quickly grasps the science concepts that it stuns me.  This is Chris’s area and I enjoy watching them all interact at science experiment time one or two evenings a week.  I even caught S trying to replicate an experiment about wind and air the next day on her own.  It was SO cute.

I know.  It seems like A LOT, but when you look at the list, we read from some of these books only once a week, only a few pages or only one page at a time.  We do math every day (of course, G would expect no less) and learning how to read every day, as is handwriting practice.  Science so far is about once or twice a week.  The rest I remain flexible on as it fits our family schedule with a goal to complete all the week’s activities by the end of the week.  We incorporate games as well as weekly speech therapy.  (I can play Chutes and Ladders in my sleep.)

And the best part?  On a good day, we are done in a couple of hours.

I love homeschooling.  I really, really do.

I read and researched, read and researched.  I asked endless questions of friends in real life and online who I knew homeschool.  I called friends who lived far away, and if I met or heard of friends at church who homeschool I said, “Hi, I’m Tara, I hear you homeschool, I have some questions!”  I was fearless and determined.  If I overheard conversations about homeschooling, I approached and boldly offered my services to continue to listen in.  Everyone was so friendly and ready to offer information and advice.  I loved it!

There are so many excellent curriculums out there for so many subjects that it was hard to choose.  There are even books published on how to homeschool for free!  Entirely possible with your public library and some footwork and the internet, I am sure.  The trick to all of it is figuring out what is right for my family. What are my educational priorities?  How much time can I put into preparation?  What about my teaching/learning style and G’s learning style?  And lesson planning?  I have zero experience in lesson planning on this level!  Piano lesson planning, sure, but this?  Nope.

I had two options:  put together some curriculums for all the needed subjects and then put together lessons plans each day from those subjects or buy an all-in-one type of curriculum that does it for me.  I was leaning heavily toward the latter for this first year especially because of my lack of experience – to ease any frustration level, and to give us the best possible advantage as we get started.

That said, we chose Sonlight.  Sonlight is a literature-based Christian homeschool curriculum that lays out the lessons plans for you (yea!!) for all your chosen subjects.  You can read about it on their website, rather than me detailing their selling points here.  I was very impressed with everything I read about them and heard about them.  Any negative comments came from families who said that Sonlight just didn’t work for their family, but that it was a great program.  This was very encouraging.  And we have 18 weeks to decide if it works for our family and if it doesn’t – full refund!  Can’t beat that!  They even have an article on their site detailing 27 reasons why Sonlight might not work for us.  Did you read that?  Might NOT work for us.  Very interesting reading and honest.  I was impressed.  Yes, it’s pricey, but we believe it’s worth it for us at this time.

One thing I am going to change is the math program.  We are going to opt out of their math program and instead choose one called Math-U-See.  This program was developed by a homeschool dad and I have heard nothing but rave reviews about it.  It uses math manipulatives for a very hands on approach and we think G will really enjoy that.   Not to mention Dad.  And Mom.

So what about art, music, PE?  No worries, G is very artistic, and we’ll get that covered.  I have great artist friends and there are art courses in the homeschooling world I can take advantage of, even classes I can enroll him in.  Don’t forget I am a piano teacher, and we have soccer, swimming, and lots of sports options.  These children will not be neglected in any way!  :)

I hope you won’t tire of reading about my homeschooling thoughts…this topic isn’t going away anytime soon!  It’s going to be a very big part of our lives in the next year!

We are excited, perhaps a little nervous, but more excited than nervous, about this new adventure that will be our school this year!  I look forward to sharing all the details with you be they fun, exhausting, nerve-wracking, maddening, or exhilarating.

I am already anticipating your questions!  Your first question?   Why did we decide to homeschool?  This is a unique decision to every family – just as there are unique personalities in this world, there are unique homeschooling families.  If you are curious about this topic, I highly recommend the book So You’re Thinking About Homeschooling by Lisa Whelchel.  This book portrays fifteen unique families, their situations and why and how they homeschool.  Excellent reading.

We are taking this year by year, month by month, and day by day.  We are taking G’s kindergarten year as it is – his first year – and see how it goes!  G is a very sensitive, personable personality who loves to work one on one with whoever is around him.  This, plus other personality factors, a mild speech delay, and my personal teaching philosophy and other convictions led us to choose homeschooling.

Your next question?  Ahhhhhh, yes.  The Big S.  SOCIALIZATION.  Let me stop you right there.  Every child, public school or private school or homeschool is as socialized as each parent or guardian determines.  Think back on your school experiences.  Some children participated in nothing, some in everything.  The same goes for homeschoolers.  As a parent, there are numerous opportunities to socialize with people of all ages throughout the day.  Just because we do school at “home” does not mean we stay at home all day!  School can happen anywhere!  Think of your day running errands:  Target, the grocery store, the bank, changing your oil, the doctor’s office, etc.  Some many chances to talk to people of all ages and personalities!  Field trips, sports, dance classes, piano lessons, church – the opportunities are really endless.   Excellent social skills for children, no matter how they are schooled, happen in every day situations with people of all ages.

Your third question?  How does G feel about this?  That kid is excited! We have talked with him about it several times and he is so excited he can hardly stand himself.  As soon as we told him we were setting aside the “formal dining room” of our home for a “classroom”, he immediately went and got his “Bob Books” (early readers) and his toys and ran to that room and sat down and said we had to start class.  ”Let’s go, Mom!  We have to have class now!”  He routinely calls me “teacher” and wants to have class.  I have already started buying workbooks (Kumon Workbooks) and he loves them, soaks it all up like a sponge.  My goal in doing small activities like this in our classroom is to start planting the idea that that room is the classroom, a work room, and not a playroom.  We have our old breakfast table in there now, a bookshelf (and plans for more), some posters on the wall, plans to move G’s computer in there, and other decorating ideas.  I can’t wait to share pictures with you all as we go!  The room is not clean at the moment so “before” pictures will have to wait.

Ah, your fourth question!  I can hear it already.  What in the world are we going to use to teach him?  I’m so glad you asked!  Initially, I was overwhelmed with the plethora of information out there about homeschooling – books, the internet, more books, more internet, blogs, oh my!  Where did I even begin??  Well, by jumping in…so I did.  I checked out some books from the library and started reading.  I surfed the internet and googled endlessly.  Until my eyes crossed and uncrossed.  Now, if I had just started with this book, I would have saved myself a lot of time:  100 Top Picks for Homeschool Curriculum by Cathy Duffy. Genius book.  Truly.  Ms.

Duffy first examines your own learning style, teaching style, philosophy of education, then your child’s learning style, reviews homeschool curriculum styles (unit studies, Charlotte Mason, literature-based, Classical, etc.) then has a chart for you

complete to reveal what styles match yours the best.  Very revealing.  Next, she reviews the most popular curriculums out there for the various subject areas, listing various other resources as well.  I saw several websites and blogs list her book as a top resource for parents to purchase and it didn’t take me long to see why!

Continued tomorrow…

PS…I need a “G” category for homeschooling.  Ideas?  :)