Homeschooling September 2013 Part 1 First Week of Pre-K Homeschool!!!

Inspiration…

Vacation Roadtrip: Las Vegas

We went to Las Vegas for Labor Day weekend to visit my husband’s grandparents. They are 90+ years old and, since my mother-in-law was visiting them, we thought it’d be the perfect time to go see them. The last time we saw them I was still pregnant with Baby Girl, so they had never met her. Another big reason to go visit.

Below are the pictures of a couple of books that I finished recently. Very insightful. I am working on a blog post about my reads with reviews and thoughts on each. Hopeing to have it ready soon.

Montessori Sensorial: Matrushkas (Russian Nesting Dolls)

My husband’s grandparents invited us over for lunch and after we ate, great grandma broke out her Matrushkas for the kids to play with. Boy, did they have fun?! While they were so focused on putting them together in the right size and order, a lightbulb went off in my head… the Montessori lightbulb, of course! I could use the ones I have at home for our Sensorial section!

Below, left to right:
Hanging out with great grandparents in Las Vegas.
We received a postcard from our dear friends, who recently moved to California. We miss them so much!

Below, left to right:
K fell asleep in the living room the other day like this! Hahaha
Something went wrong with our oven and it stopped woking. We called a technician to come fix it. Immediately, K got his toolbox and sat next to him, pretending to help him. Adorable!

This is it! Our First Day of Homeschool (Officially, anyway)

I actually love the idea of going year-round, like we have been for the past 14 months, with shorter breaks, but more frequent. But I guess we jumped in on the “First Day of School” bandwagon. I hope you enjoy this picture (pun intended).

You’ve heard the saying, “Expect the unexpected,” right? Well, I was expecting something to “mess up” our first school day (maybe I’ve heard of too many first day horror stories), but didn’t know what. Turns out, Baby Girl woke up at 4:30 am and woke brother up. They were up for a while and quieted down for about an hour and then they were up again. I was ok with it, but was really tired. What I immediately thought was, “Baby Girl will need an earlier nap, which means that she won’t nap while I’m supposed to be homeschooling K, which means I might not be able to homeschool (at least not get as much done) or K will be so tired that he’ll need a nap himself. And I’m not even taking into consideration that I might be extra tired and need a nap, too.
We can only plan, but the Lord (sometimes through early bird babies) directs our steps. I was like, “so much for our first day!” But after praying, I am excited to see how things will rectify themselves (or not).
I simply keep telling myself, “Things will be fine. Chin up. The most important thing is relationship. Content isn’t the most important thing. Enjoy this time with him that you AREN’T missing out on because he’s right there with you. “
The picture below shows a shot of my devotional for that day. Coincidence? I think not!

Bible: Devotions

Here, K is singing the part of “Be careful little ears what you hear,” and “A was swinging her legs during the part of the song that say, “Be careful little feet where you go.”

Oh, be careful little eyes,

what you see (2)
For the Father up above,
is looking down in love,
So be careful little eyes
What you see.

Oh, be careful little ears,
what you hear (2)
For the Father Up above,
Is looking down in love,
So be careful little ears
what you hear.

Oh, be careful little mouth,
what you say (2)
For the Father Up above,
Is looking down in love,
So be careful little mouth
what you say.

Oh, be careful little hands,
what you do (2)
For the Father up above,
Is looking down in love,
So be careful little hands
What you do.

Oh, be careful little feet
where you go (2)
For the Father up above,
Is looking down in love,
So be careful little feet,
Where you go.

Oh, be careful little heart
whom you trust (2)
For the Father up above,
Is looking down in love,
So be careful little heart,
whom you trust.

Oh, be careful little mind
what you think (2)
For the Father up above,
Is looking down in love,
So be careful little mind,
What you think.

Singing worship music, reading the Bible and Bible story books is one of our favorite things to do together every day.

Gym Co-op: Ballet, Sports and Developmental Activities

As you know, several homeschooling families and us get together at the gym on Tuesdays. I take the girls and teach them ballet. My neighbor takes the boys and does sports, yoga, and other activities with them. My other neighbor takes the youngest ones (1.5-yr olds) and does developmentally appropriate activities with them (rolling balls, kicking balls, run around, etc). We all get our workout done and we all love what we do. I am really happy that we have decided to get this co-op going! 🙂 They are fabulous people!

For ballet, we worked on strength, flexibility and listening for instructions. We warmed up really well, we practiced the 5 positions with arms and we learned demi-plié and grand plié. They did great. I love this class!

French

For French, we reviewed our greetings and now, they know how to say their name! Bonjour, je m’appelle …. We are taking it slow, but keeping it fun, just to make sure everyone learns concepts well.

Vocab they know so far: bonjour (hello), au revoir (goodbye), salut (hi and bye), madame (Mrs.), monsieur (Mr.), ça va? (how are you? – informal), oui (yes), non (no). Today, they learned je m’appelle … (my name is…).

They made a drawing of their family members with their names. I wrote “Bonjour, je m’appelle __________.” The object of the activity is to go through each member of their family and read the sentence filling in the blank with their names.

Just as suspected, K was too tired to homeschool. He was woken up too early
by his sister and so he passed out on the couch. I decided to follow suit for a few minutes.

First Day of Pre-K

This is a super delicious recipe I made. They’re Brie Puffs.
To see the recipe, click here.

Assessments

Confessions of a Homeschooler has a great free planner called Arrows (in her blog store). In it, there is a sight word assessment. It goes from K all the way to 3rd grade. K only missed two words out of the entire list! I was so impressed, but then again, I knew he was pretty advanced for his age.

I didn’t realized that I had kept a copy of the DIBELS booklets (2nd and 3rd grade) from when I was a 2nd grade teacher, so I gave K the 1st part of the 2nd grade one. Whoa! Throwback! He did better than many of my second graders! He averaged 53 words per minute! It was kind of unfair because I was supposed to do the 3 stories and his “grade” is the grade of the middle story. He did 52, 53 and 57. I had to take 53! I’d like to give him a 55, but oh well. It’s only a 2-word difference. Sooo proud! Glad DIBELS was put to good use.

Circle Time and Desk Work

We had a great and fun MOPS (Moms of Preschoolers) meeting this morning on the book “The Five Love Languages” and a very productive homeschooling time! After we did all our lessons (2.5 hours straight), he wanted to keep going! I said (with a Nacho Libre Spanglish accent), “Dude, take it easy!” Hahaha

Chore: Watering Plants

This was our dinner tonight. Crockpot lasagna.
Very easy and very delicious. To see the recipe, click here.

Good night!

On Thursday morning, we went to our church’s women’s group. It was the kick-off to the semester. It was awesome! Not only was I able to meet great ladies and learn some incredible stuff, but the kids were able to hang out with other kids and learn something about the Bible and God, too. Win-win, I say! I was hoping to go every other week because our church is far away, but I loved it so much that I really think it is worth the drive every week.

Circle Time and Desk Work

First, I used the Spindle Boxes to start on the Concept of Zero. It is a hard concept for young children. K grasped it really well and fast. Yes, we have talked about it before, but not formally.

Then I used the Sandpaper Numbers to talk about the Concept of Zero. The green and red stickers on the Sandpaper NUmbers are to help him remember where to start tracing the numbers and where to stop. We didn’t do that this time, though.
I gave him mini erasers and had him put the correct number of erasers on each Sandpaper Number (one eraser on the number one, two erasers on the number two, etc). He did really well. He was excited to tell me that there were no erasers on the number zero!

Finally, I took the Sandpaper Numbers (from 0 to 4) and turned them over. K was supposed to pick one to turn over, say the number and put on it the correct number of mini erasers. He had fun and got them all perfect, even zero.
K: “Uno plus dos is tres.” Hahaha. Well, ok! I’ll take that!

Montessori Practical Life:

1) Rolling a Mat and Putting it Away

2) Walking in a Straight Line

He started out walking on the wide line (red) and then he walked on the narrower (orange) line. The orange line took more concentration and he had to slow down because he had to put one foot in front of the other.

Teach My Toddler Portfolio

As I have mentioned before, I use the “Teach my Baby” portfolio with Baby Girl and she loves it. I was using the “Teach my Toddler” and the “Teach my Preschooler” portfolios with K. It had been all Summer since we had worked on them, so when we started on the “Teach my Toddler” one, I immediately knew he had outgrown it already! It was so cool to see. Now, It will go into Baby Girl’s homeschooling materials.

Teach My Preschooler Portfolio

This one was much better level-wise. He started tracing shapes, letters and numbers on a magnetic wipe board. He had a lot of fun. Right now, I am letting him trace while on the mat, but next time, he will sit at his desk or table and trace while sitting properly.

One hundred chart and book.

One hundred train. It was a really, really long train! We had a blast putting all the numbers in place and then putting them back in a pile in order.

Here, he’s counting from zero to ten and then putting together the numbers I’d tell him (fifteen, thirty-nine, forty-four, one hundred). He was particularly excited about the one hundred. He is definitely ready to go beyond one hundred.

Play Time

I know that today was only the 3rd day of the “official” homeschool year for us, but K is seriously impressing me more and more. I just have to brag (I’m sure you understand). He loves it! He asks for more (even after 2.5 hours straight)! I promise you, I am NOT pushing him at all; he just really and truly loves it (better than play, almost, because to him it IS play…productive play). He is thriving and we love the one-on-one time. Yes, I sacrificed my “quiet time” to homeschool him while A is napping… best decision ever!
Today, one of the lessons was Montessori Mathematics, teaching the concept of zero. According to the recommendations, this is to be taught at 4 years of age, the earliest (K is only 3.5). But he understood it completely and excelled in all 4 activities we did to reinforce it. He is really grasping AND retaining the material!

Random Thoughts

This morning with her stuffed horse from Aunty:
Baby Girl said, “Horse. Ma. Horse. Ma.”
By the way, “Ma” is horse in Chinese. She’s getting it!

This is a letter K wrote to his Great Grandparents for inviting us over for lunch.
It has been mailed. I am sure they will love it.

We had been staying away from processed foods as much as possible, but I couldn’t resist buying these when I saw them. So easy to make for lunches on homeschooling days and much healthier than regular (fried) nuggets.

Inspiration…

So, every morning, when K comes to my room, he finds me sitting in bed, reading my Bible, my devotional book and praying; basically, spending time with God. Now, being the chatterbox that he is, it has taken a little while to get him to stay and be quiet and respectful of my time with God. Sometimes, it got so bad (bouncing on my bed, talking, yelling back and forth with sister from her room, etc) that I even contemplated taking him out of my room and closing the door until I was done. But that wouldn’t work. I want my kids to grow up seeing me spending time with God and to have that inspire them to do the same.

This week, it got a lot better. Today, when he walked in, I said a quick prayer under my breath, “Lord, reveal yourself to him.” Immediately, he said, “Mom, we don’t talk and talk and talk when we spend time with God because He wants to talk to us and we need to listen.” And then he was quiet the rest of the time. I could’ve melted right then and there! He gets it!

That is what it’s all about, my friends! If learning to spend time with God every day is the only thing my children learn from me, then I would’ve done my job. Thank you, Jesus!

Montessori Culture (Geography): The Globe

This was a much shorter lesson than the Presentation lesson a few weeks ago. It was more of a review. K really enjoys finding countries on the globes and learning the names of the oceans.

Montessori Sensorial: Pink Tower

This is how we found Baby Girl when it was time to leave. She was sucking her thumb and lying on the teddy bear. Adorable!

Tae Kwon Do Trial

We went to a homeschooling tae kwon do group. He loved it! I hope they find a time when we can go because he would really benefit from the discipline, the courtesy and the strength of character that they teach and enforce.

Diagnostic Assessments

I gave K an online diagnostic test for Math and English. This assessment is from the curriculum that we will be using in January (more paper and pencil). To my amazement, in Math, he scored in the middle of first grade and in English he scored in the middle of second grade. Keep in mind that he is only 3.5 years old! I could not believe it! I bought him the Kindergarten material for January! hahaha! I will try it for a few days, but if he is too advanced and is breezing through without a challenge, then I will have to order the more advanced materials.

Play Time with Dad: Lincoln Blocks

Montessori Sensorial: Brown Stair and Pink Tower

Montessori Practical Life: Weaving with Laces

He learned to weave two ways: around the outside (tortoise) and stitch (hare).

On Saturday, he went to swim lessons and passed out after he got back.
Thank you, Coach S, for helping him with this skill!

Montessori Sensorial: Matrushkas

I got one from my boyfriend (now my husband) when he deployed to Kyrgyzstan years ago
and then my mom got me one when she went to Russia. One was decoration in baby girl’s
room (because it matched her room) and the other was boxed. We visited the kids’ great
grandparents (90+ years old) and g-gma broke out her Matrushkas for the kids to play with. I had an “Aha!” moment and got mine out. They are now in our homeschool room. They love
them. After reading your comments and assessing my shelving space, they have found their
home in the Sensorial section. Lovely! You should’ve seen them put them together and the
excitement they felt when they finished! Such a sense of accomplishment!