First Week of a New Curriculum

Well, I thought I would be quicker at posting ideas from the previously mentioned home school library book, but I received a new kindergarten curriculum in the mail and I've been a busy bee this week making it happen.  Something about Halloween with a sick kid, 9 piano students a week (with a recital coming in 2 weeks!), helping my husband with math for several sessions this week, school with the kids, and a day and a half of severe pregnant emotional instability-not be mention the washer hose busting off again this week- have kept me from updating as soon as expected.  Sigh.


So rather than update right now on more ideas from said book, I will share a few things about this new curriculum we started.  It's called "My Father's World."  We started a 100 jar, a 100 chart, and a calendar, that will teach patterns and writing #'s.  The theme of the week was the Moon, so each day of week we discussed the moon.  We talked about and colored phases of the moon: new moon, crescent moon, half moon, and full moon.  It was so fun to have my 4 year old see the moon yesterday and know it was a half moon.  We showed the relative size and distance of the earth and the moon, made a mobile with the sun, moon, earth, and stars, and made our own version of the children's book, "Goodnight Moon."  Through out the week we discussed how, like the sun, Jesus is the light of the world, and like the moon, we reflect the light Jesus gives us.  These were all spelled out ideas from the new curriculum.

So far I intend to stick to our reading lessons from "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons" rather than adopt the reading included in the new curriculum.

Next week I plan on gathering some different color leaves with the children and pressing them for the covers of thankful books that we can work on through out November, and hopefully share with whomever we end up sharing Thanksgiving with.

I also had an idea about making service stars for each day in December before Christmas.  Each star would have a small act of service the children could do for someone, with or without my help.  I had that idea in the temple and am not sure if I would want to make wooden, painted stars to decorate the tree, or make paper stars to put all over the house reminding us of the Christmas star....first thing of course is coming up with 25 easy service ideas!  I thought that would also be a cute gift idea, or item to sell.

Now I feel like brainstorming on service star ideas, so that's all for now. :)

Fun Learning Ideas

I checked out a book from the library this month, The Ultimate Book of Homeschooling Ideas.  As you may guess, it has a million good ideas and I've been writing down my favorites in my little homeschooling spiral notebook.  I thought it would be lovely to share some of these ideas on here.  I think I'll list a few at various times to break it up a little.

I'll start with ideas I am already implementing.

For teaching Spanish:  Use commands and/or actions to make words more memorable.  For example, "Veo un avion!"  I see an airplane!  We know a little bit of sign language at our house, mostly from Baby Signing Times, so we are going to throw in some signs to help us remember the Spanish.  For, "I see an airplane," we put our hand to our forehead (looking into the distance) and then sign airplane.  I plan on carrying "veo" through and using it with other nouns.  I also think it will be good to use words they know signs for, so the sign can tell them the word without Mom having to tell them the word in English. :)

Make your own books.  My kids LOVE reading books that they colored and put together themselves.  A new variation on this idea that I had not thought of is to have your kids create their own easy readers.  Make a list of words they can read and help them create a story from it.  Put it together and illustrate.  Super fun.

Creative play: One creative learning activity this book gave me, we tried today.  I gave the kids little tupperware containers and measuring spoons in the bath and filled each container with food colored water.  It was super novel to the kids to end up with colorful bath water and my 3 year old enjoyed seeing what colors he got from mixing different colors together.  My one (almost two) year old seemed to absorb the colors I am trying to teach him a little better than usual in this environment.  I realized after they were already in my bath tub that I should have used the tub that is not bordered with carpet.

More ideas to come! :)

Our New School Set Up

We went to the Alpine School District Surplus store last week and got a white board and desks for school.  The kids think it's so much fun to have their very own area for THEIR school things in their desk.  Just having this set-up has made it feel more structured to me, so I will have to do my very best to preserve creativity and also to keep the kids from isolating "school time" as the only time we learn.  We've only had 3 days of this super structured school and I am already feeling the need for some outdoor unstructured play/discovery or some painting.  We might just have to have 3 days a week of the structure!

Here are some pics of "Superman" and "Spiderman" in their room with the new school things. :)

Wonderful New Discovery

I had a wonderful new discovery today that I added to my blog list.  It's confessionsofaslackermom.com.  She has posted most (so far) of a free LDS preschool curriculum with 8-11 worksheets per week.  I just printed off the first week I want to do.  I chose to print about 2/3 of the pages in different multiples, depending on which children I felt would be interested in each page.  Thought I would share this little gem!

P.S.  I looked at my nursery manual to see if I could add to the creation lesson from that, and it looks as though that is where she picked her song and scripture! :)  Or at least she happened to pick the same one.

Fun geography game and Gospel ABC's

                         WORLD GEOGRAPHY GAME

So this week we discovered a website with a game on it that "Superman" (4) loves.  It would be great even for much older kids.  On the game, they fly an airplane to different countries in the world.  It only includes about 10 countries so they can learn them well through repetition.  It also teaches one fact about each of the countries.
Here's the website....go to Andy's room and click on the checker board for games.

www.andysairplanes.com




Here's what I have so far for our ABC principles.  Many letters have several options I will need to either choose between OR decide to do one word a day for that letter when the time comes.

A-ATONEMENT
B-BIBLE/BAPTISM
C-COVENANTS, CONSECRATION, CREATION
D-DISCIPLES
E-EARTH/EXAMPLE
F-FAMILY/FAITH
G-GOLDEN RULE/ GRATITUDE
H-HOLY GHOST
I-IMMORTALITY, INFINITE
J-JESUS CHRIST (maybe make life time-line that week), JOURNAL
K-KNOWLEDGE
L-LOVE, LIGHT
M-MIRACLES, MUSIC, MILLENIUM, MISSIONARIES
N-NEW TESTAMENT
O-OBEDIENCE, OLD TESTAMENT, OPPOSITION IN ALL 
P-PRAY, PLAN OF SALVATION, PROPHET
Q-QUIET
R-REPENT, RESPECT
S-SACRAMENT, SHARE, SERVE, SABBATH, SCRIPTURES
T-TESTIMONY, TEMPLE
U-
V-VIRTUOUS, VISIONS, VIOLENCE
W-WORD OF WISDOM
X-
Y-
Z- ZION

Change of Purpose

To any dear soul. who may be reading this: :)


I am changing the purpose of this blog as it didn't really take off as a community collection of ideas and upcoming events.  I will probably list some events anyway in case anyone DOES look at this. :)  Mostly, I am re-starting this blog as a vent for myself concerning my children's learning.  I am super proud of them and love being their mother and their teacher of spiritual as well as academic things.


I have recently decided to change the main intent of the homeschooling in our home.  All of my children are little and I do believe that the most important thing at this time in their lives is to learn Gospel principles, i.e. to learn to live in a Christ-like way.  I feel that focusing primarily on a principle every week will help them AND me to behave more as Christ would have us behave.


I have too much to say, so this first entry might be a bit long!  


We have been focusing on learning one letter (and the sound it makes) per week.  I have decided to make the word we focus on for the week with that letter a gospel/principle focused word.  This week we are learning about Gg and the "golden rule."  Today I told them the story of the good samaritan and we discussed how Jesus wants us to treat other people as we want to be treated.  We don't have school every day in our house. We run kind of loosely around here.  My goal is to have school at our house around 3 days a week.


Last week I bought the LDS Nursery Manual, "Behold Your Little Ones," and I will be using this ideally one time a week to develop a lesson on our current topic.  There was no lesson specifically on the golden rule, so on Wed this week we will do parts of the lesson entitled, "Jesus Christ Showed us how to Love Others."  I am excited about this game plan and I think it will bring the spirit more into our home and it will make me keep myself in line with the principle I am teaching for the week.


The other resources we are currently using for our learning are: the library :)
        -  Superman's V-tec computer for additional letter games
         - Alphabet on the wall-we sing the song as the kids point to the letters
        - the calendar on the wall-we count and point to the #'s
        - www.IXL.com for Math for 4(Superman) and 3(Spiderman) year old (it only lets them work for about 10 minutes,      but that is perfect for them and they are always excited to do it because it's on the computer)
         -Teaching Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons (Joshua only)
         -the magnadoodle--they LOVE practicing their letters on it
         -Slow and Steady Get me Ready--occasionally to focus more on Avin (1) and Austin (3)
         -songs for learning (days of the week, Articles of Faith, and soon months)
         -Prophet pictures from the back of the Friend magazine
         -stories from the Friend magazine
         -UEN-K12 Core curriculum (Kindergarten) for ideas on other fun lesson plans and kids books that go along with the lessons
          -Article of Faith cards with pictures that are on the wall, so they point to each card as we sing through the songs we have learned.


Proud Mother Time

Superman and I are about to finish our first chapter book together, "My Father's Dragon."  Superman loves learning about maps and this book was listed under the K12 curriculum and maps.  It has been super fun to read together.  He is also doing SUPER well with his reading lessons since I decided to just do parts of each lesson so it is less time consuming.  I also surrendered the need to progress quickly and am not moving on from one lesson to the next until I really feel he is ready.  This approach has made it a much happier experience for he and I both and he is ENJOYING learning and feeling smart.  I am considering reading Charlotte's Web with him next, but I will need to scan through it first and see if I think it's too complicated.

Spiderman is loving being a part of school.  He loves learning letters and has a GREAT memory,  He also loves his preschool math on the computer.  He spontaneously asks me if he can do letters on the magnadoodle through out the week.  Right now I focus on giving him letters to trace that are in his name.

I love starting school with a song, prayer, and spiritual teaching on a principle.  It always brings the spirit it and that is so hugely a part of the reason to homeschool for me.  We need to learn and teach by the spirit right!? 

We have a fabulous homeschool group in our neighborhood and we have field trips, P.E. and sometimes science together.  The kids definitely get the socialization they need.  

THIS WEEK: We are going to the Lehi Post Office for a 10 minute tour at 10am Wednesday the 28th.  All are welcome!

(For our little family this will contribute to the learning we will do through out the whole year on geography, maps, cities, states, countries, etc.)

Tuesday-P.E.11am Westlake HS track-Run 1/2-1 mile depending on kid size

Soon I will post the alphabet along with my plan of potential principles to teach for each letter. :)