Homeschool Room Tour 2014

Welcome to our homeschool room! We are happy that you have chosen to pay us a visit. We hope you like what you see.

Homeschooling Journal: April 2014 Part 3

 We loved babysitting this sweet guy! :)

                   

Field trip to the Farm

We picked our own artichokes and had a delicious lunch.

                  

                 

                   Read on.

Homeschooling Journal: March 2014 Part 5

Cursive Practice (sort of)

This is an awesome printables packet from 3 Dinosaurs. And it is FREE!

K had been showing a lot of interest in cursive and can read it now, so I asked some blogger friends for resources. Cassie responded with this. Wow. How amazing! That very evening, I printed it all off and put it together, even the dice.

The next day, during homeschool, I presented K with it and he loved it, but once he tried to write in cursive a little bit (after begging me to teach him how to write cursive), he said he didn't feel it was time yet. Sigh. Ok. That is what I had thought, but since he insisted so much, I didn't want his interest to wane. So it is there, in our homeschool room, looking all pretty, waiting for the day K wants to give it a go again. Thank you, Cassie! :)

  

                              

Homeschooling Journal: March 2014 Part 2

A.C.E. (Accelerated Christian Education)

Homeschooling Journal: February 2014 Part 6

Take a look at what we did at the end of February. :) Better late than never, right? :)

A.C.E. (Accelerated Christian Education)
To learn more, CLICK HERE.

K and I have been absolutely loving A.C.E. I adjust it to our needs and schedule and it is working out so well that we will continue using it indefinitely. As he finishes his PACEs (booklets) and memorizes Scripture, he gets a golden star each time and that is an encouragement to him. He is doing great with this program. It isn't individualized yet (as it is in the older grades), but that is ok. It gives us an opportunity to develop a special rapport that we couldn't if he were just working on his own.

The best part about it is that I grew up with this program and now I get to use it with my child. Eventually, A will use it, too. :)

Homeschooling Journal: January 2014 Part 5

Montessori-Inspired Language Arts: Forming words and pre-writing

This activity is a Melissa & Doug birthday gift that K got last year. He is enjoying it very much and is really getting into it.

Homeschooling September 2013 Part 5

Bible: Dear God Books

These books were given to K by my mother-in-law. I think it was a Christmas gift last year. These are really fun to read because the writing is fun and so child-like. I really liked this one.

Montessori Culture (Geography): Penpal and Postcard Exchange

We got this postcard mailed from a family we know that recently 

moved away to live in Wisconsin.

This is what our US map looks like with the postcards we have gotten so far. We started strong, but now we have slowed down. It was fun getting so many postcards in a row, but it was a whole lot of work to write and get that many mailed (it is an exchange, after all). I think we'll be requesting a postcard per week. Much more doable and it keeps this project going for a while instead of finishing quickly and then the map is no longer interactive. I don't want it to become just a wall decoration.

Homeschooling Baby Girl

Baby Girl is now 20 months old. She is developing so well. Right now, she is getting all 4 canines in at the same time, but she has been a trooper. Her speech is better and better every day. I can understand a lot of what she says now. She loves homeschooling, too.

This is one of the baskets I have for her materials. I used them with K when he was her age. Slowly, I collected stuff and put them (a little bit of everything) in these sturdy zip bags, which I bought in an education store for about $2 each. I got one for each day of the week and labeled them.

I made sure that in each bag I had at least one activity/game of each of the following categories/subjects: Math (shapes and numbers 1-10), Language Arts (alphabet and sight words), Science (animal names), Bible (Bible story cards, scripture verse cards),  Art (colors), Music (nursery rhymes and nursery songs), and there's more in there, but I can't think of it right now.

          

          

          

          

NOSE (touching her nose)

She was waving here, but I didn't take the picture fast enough.

          

          

               

Bible: God Made the Plants

We talked about different kinds of plants and how they are alike (the are all alive and they need sun, water and nutrients to live) and how they are different (some are big, some are small, some have flowers, some have thorn, some have both, etc).

                     

We looked at each plant up close.

                           

We said a prayer to thank God for making beautiful plants in His world for us to enjoy and to clean the air.

Then we planted some beans in mason jars. We used cotton instead of dirt (to keep it cleaner and for us to see the seeds germinating a bit easier.

We poured water on the cotton and put the beans in. Each got 10 beans.

   

We added colored popsicle sticks with their names to put in each jar and placed them by our pots out front.

Dinner: Chicken Enchiladas with green salsa (yummm)

I found this recipe at www.allrecipes.com. It was relatively easy to make. I'll definitely make it again, except that the Anaheim peppers ended up being super spicy this time. We have never had them this hot before. I forgot to take a picture of the finished product. I started off well taking pictures of the pepper roasting process.

Bible: Kidz Klub at the Chapel

 

Montessori Sensorial: Pink Tower

She is building the (Montessori) Pink Tower all by herself.

Spanish: Rosetta Stone (Latin American Spanish) Homeschool Edition

                    

French: Les Coleurs (Co-op class)

In French, we watched a French video (about 8 min long) that introduced vocabulary in the following categories: the universe, means of transportation, insects, musical instruments, in the city, my body. There is also a short monologue of a girl describing her family members in French. The kids love it all, but it isn't just fun; it is training their ear to listen to spoken French with its unique pronunciation. 
Then we read the color book, talked about what colors we are wearing, found objects in the room that were those colors, etc. 
Finally, we went over the color flashcards. Mack was disappointed that I didn't have a flashcard with pink (awww), but the book did have pink. The book didn't have brown or purple, but the flashcards did.  They all did awesome! I'm so glad we're doing this!

                              

    

                      

Yummy!

Music: Woodwinds

We had a great class today. Everyone was really focused. We reviewed Crescendo, Diminuendo, Fray Felipe, and the orchestra. We then talked more in depth about the Woodwinds. We watched videos of each instrument (Bassoon, Saxophone, Oboe, Harmonica, Clarinet, Flute). We had two worksheets, one was tracing the names of each instrument and the other was matching the word to the instrument. Finally, we decorated our homemade pan pipes, and played them. We talked about how the longer straws had a deeper pitch and the shorter ones were high.

Art: Texture

We learned some more about texture today by using different utensils to "paint" with and looking at the different effects they created. Everybody seemed to have a good time

Spanish: Los Colores

In Spanish, we reviewed everything we've learned so far. We sang all the songs, said all the rhymes, practiced all the signs, reviewed all the vocabulary. We also focused the last third of the lesson on the colors in Spanish. We sang the color song, went over all 11 colors and made our own cards that read, "Mi color favorito es ....." as well as drawing something that is that color. The kids had fun. We will be moving on to shapes next week.

   

Letter of the Week (My Father's World): Sense of Hearing

Field Trip with Dad: Flying a Kite

Wow! Wow! Wow! Baby GIrl has started talking in full sentences!

At lunch today, she had had enough papaya and when I tried to put more on her plate, she said, "No, I don't want it. Stop."  Lol. And now, she says, "Go on boat." She points at sunscreen and says, "Put it on face." Ahhhh, such a sweetie!