Homeschooling Journal: May 2014 Part 1

 

Spanish Lessons: My Favorite Things "Mis Cosas Favoritas"

Homeschooling a Toddler: What 3 Learning Sessions Look Like

Have you ever attempted to homeschool a toddler? If you have, you have probably realized how they are extremely tactile, how they love to explore new and exciting things and how they have a short attention span. To maximize this precious one-on-one time with them, it is important to focus on one thing and one thing only: flexibility.

With toddlers, as with infants and newborns, it doesn't matter how prepared you are or how much you have planned for this time. It will happen in their time and in their way. As stressful as that may sound, in the end, it is best to follow the child because that is how she learns best.

Here, I present to you three easy review lessons to keep things short, fun and moving along. This is not to tell you what to teach or how to teach it, but rather how it works for our family in hopes that this will inspire you to get ideas and come up with your own fun and easy activities that your toddler will simply love and enjoy revisiting when you invite her again to join in. 

These lessons are geared for toddlers that are 2-3 years old, but you can start some of these activities sooner and make them more complex as they get older and/or master the skills. 
The amount of time each session takes varies. I follow her and keep an eye on her attention span for that day. I usually have more material than what we use, just to be ready. Usually, our lessons are about 30 minutes long, but sometimes as little as 15 minutes, so we break up our lesson into two parts and come back later for the other half.

Homeschooling Journal: March 2014 Part 1

What a great weekend we had! First, it rained on Saturday (which we don't get very often) and second, we had a fun Mardi Gras party on Sunday.

Montessori Math: Numbers and Counters (Introduction to Odd and Even)

                                         
The purpose of this activity is to verify that each number is a quantity on its own, that numbers can be sequenced, and that there are odd and even numbers within the alignment of numbers 1-10 and beyond. In addition, children will begin an informal lesson on division.

This activity is recommended for ages 4 and up (preferably after working with the spindle boxes). I started my son with these when he was 3 years old and did very well. So, if you are unsure, try it and follow the child. If he/she isn't ready yet, try again in a month's time.

French Lessons for Preschoolers and Kindergartners (Basics: Greetings, Colors, Numbers)

This is our window. I made it into functional space, where I

have a high bulletin board and a low bulletin board. The middle

part has a mesh (sun screen) fabric that lets good light in. We

used up the two walls we had and this was a good way of making

good use of the third wall. On the top, I put the colors in 7

languages (English, Spanish, Chinese, French, Portuguese,

German, and Italian) and on the bottom, I posted the

numbers (0-10) in 7 languages as well. We read these about 3

times a week and yes, we do them all. I tried to do one language

a day (colors and numbers), but K always wanted to keep going,

so ok, we keep going. :)

Here, you will see lessons on Greetings, Colors, and Numbers (1-10)

I am currently teaching Spanish and French in our homeschool co-op (ages 1-5) and additionally Mandarin Chinese to my children.
The only thing I stress is that I make sure they notice and know which language we are working on at the time. They switch gears rather easily and do very well. Even those who do both French and Spanish with me (on different days) haven't had a problem. I haven't thought of a strategy on how to teach languages to youngsters because I haven't really encountered the need to have one. 

My 2 year old was mixing letters. She knew all the letters in the alphabet in both English and Spanish, but she'd say some in English and some in Spanish. She is now getting better at differentiating them a bit more.  I hope this helps.

Homeschooling June 2013 Part 5

Good morning! I love it that we can hang out and chill in the mornings.

Today, K had a trial piano lesson. He did well, but I think I'll be  teaching him at home. There is a lot to do before actually learning to play the piano (finger dexterity exercises, patterning, notes and "values" of notes, etc). We have three or 4 play pianos, so we will work on all this stuff and look for a reasonably-priced piano in the meanwhile.

Homeschooling Baby Girl

Sight words

Painted toenails and anklet (yes, it has nothing to do with homeschooling, but it was too cute to not share)

Learning the letters in the alphabet.

Sight words and matching pictures

Basic shapes

Big and small basic shapes

The colors

Learning the colors and shapes in those colors

Numbers one through five

Bible stories. I make them short and sweet and dramatize with my voice a lot.

Letters A though E. She pretty much knows all of these.

A few times a week, she watched educational DVDs that teach her sight words.
These are Your Baby Can Read. They have been very successful with K
and his reading skills, so now we are using them with A.

Homeschooling: Circle Time

Continents, calendar, months of the year, days of the week, memory verse, etc.

Montessori Culture (Geography): Landforms

Nomenclature

I forgot to color the nomenclature cards (I only colored the answer keys),
so I improvised and made it part of the lesson. K helped color the cards with me.

Not perfect, but anything kid-made is wonderful.

Showing K bays and lakes on the inflatable globe.

Showing K peninsulas, islands, capes, etc. on the globe.

Showing K straits, isthmuses, etc. on the globe.

Sandpaper landforms

Sandpaper landforms and nomenclature cards.

Sandpaper landforms and nomenclature cards.

Sandpaper landforms and nomenclature cards. Suite and archipelago

Household experiment: going paperless

I bought 14 hand towels for $4 at Wal-mart to begin our experiment. I wanted to try it out before spending a ton of money on good quality cloth napkins. We have been using these instead of paper napkins and it for a couple of weeks and the experiment is a success! If the napkins don't get too dirty, we can use them multiple times, so it even save us money by not having to wash several a day. We have only had to use paper napkins once (when we had guests come over). Now, I'll be on the hunt for good quality cloth napkins that we can use.

Homeschooling June 2013 Part 1

Spanish: Los Números 1-5

Materials: toilet paper rolls, construction paper, double-sided tape,
black marker, pipe cleaners, cardboard, hot glue gun.

Use the cardboard as a base. 

Cover the rolls with construction paper. 

Write the digits and number words in Spanish.

Hot glue rolls together and then to the base.

Fold pipe cleaner 2/3s of the way.

Make flowers with the numbers.

Use leaves that are color-coded to show where they belong.

Number one vase has one flower, the number two vase has two flowers, etc.

End product. The child can play the game of taking the flowers out and matching them up again and again.

Homeschooling Baby Girl (She is 16 months old now)

I do a little bit of everything with her, from Mathematics to the Alphabet to Animal Names.

Basic Shapes

Basic Shapes and Real-life Objects

Sight words.

Aa Bb Cc Dd Ee

She a quick study. Points at the correct letters sometimes.

Numbers 1-10. Today, we practiced 6-10

Four colors and matching words

Montessori Sensorial: Brown Stair

The Brown Stair has 10 prisms. 

Length and Width of the biggest prism are 10x10cm. 

The length and width of the smallest prism is 1x1cm.

Presentation: Show child the 10 prisms in the right order.

Show child how to hold/carry them (with both hands and slowly, carefully).

Extension 1: Put Brown Stair together, ask child to close his/her eyes and remove one of the prisms. Push all prisms together to not show the gap that the prism was taken out of.  Show it to the child and have him/her say where it belongs.

Extension 2: Same as Extension 1, but this time, put the prism behind you so the child will rely solely on the rest of the stair, not on the prism removed.

Extension 3: Place prisms out of order and place them back in order.

Extension 4: Place prisms far apart in a big area on the floor and then put the Brown Stair back in the right order.

Extension 5: Place the Brown Stair in the right order horizontally and then match it up with the Pink Tower next to it.

Extension 6: Place Brown Stair and Pink Tower side by side (like Extension 3), but vertically.

Extension 7 (Part 1): Alternate the Brown Stair prisms and the Pink Tower blocks on each level.

Extension 7 (Part 1)

Extension 7 (Part 2): Slowly remove all of the Pink Tower blocks, starting at the top.

Extension 7 (Part 2)

Extension 8: It's called the "Shadow." Build the Pink Tower vertically and then the Brown Stair  flat on the floor, tip to tip, making a long shadow effect.

Montessori Practical Life: How to Pack a Lunch

We talked about what is easy to eat at a picnic and we gathered all food items together.
Sandwich, chocolate almond milk, cheddar cheese, gouda cheese, yellow bell pappers, strawberries, placemat, lunchbox.

Then we had a lovely picnic at the park.

Homeschooling Baby Girl

Basic Shapes with name cards

She now points correctly most of the time.

Number cards and matching digits 1-3

Body parts poster

We sing the Twinkle, Twinkle lyrics together.

We also went over other colors, not just the basic ones.

Alphabet cards

Sight words