Homeschooling Journal: May 2014 Part 1

 

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: April 2014 Part 2

Getting ready for Easter and going in style

 

Interesting choice of evening attire.       Here, we were in beautiful San Diego. :)

 

Homeschooling August 2013 Part 1

Montessori Mathematics: Number Rods

  

Number Rods  (info taken from this wonderful site: click here)** Personal Note: I also use the extension that you can see in the second picture, the one with the number tiles. It is super simple for him now that he can count up to 100+, but it is still a good and quick practice activity.

Montessori Culture (Geography): Land, Air, and Water

First, we reviewed the differences between land, water and air. 

We talk about why they are all important for life. 

Then, I open the envelope with living things and K sorts them out (animals that are in air, water and land).

After that, we clean up and I open the envelope with methods of transportation and K sorts them out (airplanes, helicopters, etc go by Air, boats, ships, canoes, etc go by Water, cars, trains, trucks, etc go by Land).

Desk Work

Reading and sight word practice

Gym Co-op: 

Ballet for girls, sports for boys and developmental activities for tots

I have started a Kombucha brew. It is a much (MUCH) slower process than water kefir, but I am hoping it'll be well worth it. I am now working on rehydrating the scoby in black tea, sugar and vinegar (to balance the pH).

A wonderful anniversary present and the kids' first sleepover

My friend, Stephanie, was so sweet and gracious to offer to watch my kids OVERNIGHT so hubby and I could go out on a date to celebrate our 5-year wedding anniversary! She's such a generous soul!

Hubby and I had fun going to dinner to a fancy restaurant. The food was delicious. Then we went to see a movie. We hadn't been to a movie (just the 2 of us) since before K was born (that's 3.5+ years)!

Needless to say, we needed that. And like that wasn't enough, we got to stay up late and enjoy some cheesecake and sleeping in without someone waking us up (another first for us). 

And now for the kids: they got to hang out a friends' house, ate dinner, played, watched a movie, slept over, had breakfast there and played some more. It was a great experience all-around, I'd say. Definitely owe Stephanie...big time! :)

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.