The First Year in Review

It's hard to believe summer is almost over and it's back to school time again.  I actually started this post quite sometime ago and am just now getting around to finishing it.

Our first year of homeschool was...well, interesting!  We had some great times and some not so great times.  We had fun, but on some days, quite honestly, I thought I might run far, far away and never come back.  Trying to do this school thing with a toddler into everything was sometimes a little more than my poor brain could handle. But we lived to tell about it, and although at times was a very bumpy ride, I am very pleased with the goals we accomplished.  Cole's reading really took off, his writing improved, and his math skills blew me away. We dabbled in a few other subjects, such as science and geography, and I am really pleased with the progress we made. All in all, I'd say it was a successful year!  And now I have some experience under my belt to help year number two go a little smoother (or so the theory goes).

Here are a few pictures I managed to take along the way...

This was a favorite of the boys.  It's called My First Science Kit by Scientific Explorer.  You can check it out here.

Puzzle-time was always a winner:

The Magna Doodle was fun for casual writing practice and spelling games.

Cole takes after his daddy and has a fantastic math-oriented brain.  By March he was on to 1st grade level math.

Seth had lots of fun, too.  He loved sorting all kinds of things into different containers.

Max made a good start on learning his letters.  We had some fun activities that really helped, including this fun little game of Letter Bugs. The letters look like bugs and I stuck them all over myself.  I would ask Max to help me get the bugs off one letter at a time.  He liked to stick them on himself, too. (And yes, he is still wearing his pajamas. We did things casually around here!)

These magnets were lots of fun.  I got the idea and the printables from the Letter of the Week curriculum I bought for Max.  You can find it here at a great blog called Confessions of a Homeschooler.  I would really recommend poking around there for lots of wonderful ideas and a ton of free printables.  It's good stuff.

And the magnets are multi-purpose, too!

 Cole got lots of reading practice in, mostly with me, but occasionally he would read to Max.  It was neat to see them spending time together this way.

We also played this fun little reading game that Max could participate in too. Max would draw a card out of a pile. If it was a word, he would hand it to Cole to read.

But if it was a bug, he would put it in his little box and shut the lid quick(!), so it wouldn't get out.

Well, this certainly isn't everything we did, but it's a sampling.  And I'd have to go back and check, but I actually think most of these pictures came from the first semester.  Maybe one day I'll do semester two, but with school starting in a couple of weeks, I'm not sure that will happen!

I am really excited about our new school year coming up.  Not only do I have a new curriculum which I am super excited about, we also have a school room now!  Hooray for school stuff having it's own place and not taking over my whole house!! Bring on the new year!

What do you do with boys...

...when it's been over 100 degrees outside for a month and there is no end in sight?

You let them treat their bed like a trampoline.

Until one of them starts bleeding, of course. Then you make them stop and figure you'd better act like a responsible parent and go back to the age-old rule of not jumping on the bed.

But man-oh-man, is it ever hot.  I'm going to need to be a bit more creative on what to do for these energetic youngsters to get their wiggles out, or we will all go crazy before summer is over. 

I'd love to hear what you are doing to beat the heat and fight stir-crazies in your house!

A Dinosaur Birthday Bash

So, this post is only about 7 months late, but I figure better late than never, right?

This year (or last year; however you want to look at it), we decided to combine Cole and Max's birthday parties since their birthdays are only a month apart, and their interests are (or were at the time) pretty similar.  This probably won't work next year, er...this year, but it was fun for this year...wait, last year. (Wait, what?) Anyway, whatever year we're talking about, at this party we celebrated Cole turning 5, and Max turning 3. Phew; intro over, now on with the pictures!

The Cake - Each boy had his own volcano with the appropriate number of candles on it, as well as his name spelled out in the lava. It was fun to make!

Dinosaur coloring pages kept the kids busy while 

waiting for the rest of the kids to arrive.

Everyone had an opportunity to make 

their very own erupting volcano.

You can't have a dinosaur party without a Dino dig! 

And, if they wanted to, the kids could use the mini dinosaurs

they found to decorate their volcanoes.

Here is one of our guests, Jonah, with his finished volcano.

The big moment!

Hmm, pink lava. And, actually, the lava sort of "oozed quickly" 

out the top, rather than "exploded." 

(Note to self: next time use LOTS more red food coloring and baking soda)

Time to sing!  By the looks on the boys' faces, you'd think they'd never done this before.

Gift time

At long last; a Hamilton t-shirt!

Cowboy Max

And every cowboy needs his very own pair of boots!

The boys got lots more really fun gifts, but for some reason, I didn't get many pictures of them opening them. (Note to self: next year (this year!), take more pictures. Never thought I'd have to tell myself THAT one!)

The sandbox was a big hit with the little ones.  Here's Seth hanging out in it with one of his cousins, Luke.

 We wrapped the party up with a fun game of baseball in the backyard for anyone who wanted to play.

 

What a fun day!

What happens when you let your 3 year old pick out his own clothes...

 

I've heard you can pull anything off if you just "own it."  I don't think I've ever known how to do that before.  Maybe I should take lessons from Max.

 

 Seems to work for him.

What do you think?

Our Little Paleontologist

One of the very cool things Cole got for his birthday, was a kit for budding paleontologists (or any kid who loves to use tools and dig!)

First, he had to use the tools to dig out the dinosaur bones.

This took HOURS. I kept thinking he would get tired of it, but he was so into it, he only stopped for a couple of short breaks for food and then went back to work.

Once the bones were free, he had to put them all together. And then he had his very own Velociraptor Skeleton!

Very fun!

Homeschool Curriculum 2010

Kindergarten

The "core" subjects that we do everyday are:

Bible: My ABC Bible Verses: Hiding God's Word in Little Hearts
Math: Horizons Math
Phonics/Reading: Phonics Pathways and Explode the Code
Handwriting: A Reason for Handwriting

The rest of our subjects we rotate each day (i.e. Science on Monday, Music on Tuesday, etc.):

Science: A collection of experiments and activities from the internet and various resources
Music: Nothing too formal in the beginning, but we may add Musikgarten curriculum as the year progresses.
Art: Various projects from the internet and various resources.
Geography: I wasn't planning on doing anything formal with this yet, but Cole got a globe for his birthday and he seems so interested in the details that this week I ordered Beginning Geography.

And, of course, we supplement with lots of books from the library, games, and my personal favorite, field trips! Our first one was to the Science Museum last week. (Wish I'd taken my camera!)


Preschool
I'm not doing anything too formal for Max, but I did want him to feel he had some special "school" time, and not feel left out of all the learning fun. So, besides including him whenever I can in Cole's work, I'm using some ideas I have found online, mostly from this site: Letter of the Week preparatory Curriculum. Also, I found some great books on Amazon that he loves to work on. We bought three:
Let's Cut Paper
Let's Color
Let's Sticker and Paste

And don't worry, I haven't forgotten about Seth! He's still in the wonderful world of morning naps and that's when we do most of our school work. It won't be long, though (sniff, sniff) before he'll be dropping that nap. Then he'll join in on more of the fun, too!

So that's it! At least for now. I'm sure I'll learn all kinds of things this year, and at the end of it I'll know all the things I should have done differently. But that's ok. I'm having fun in the process, and more importantly, the kids are too!

The First Week

After months and months of research, planning, and preparation, our first day of Kindergarten finally arrived! I thought I might be a little nervous, but actually I felt so prepared, I couldn't wait to just begin already. Enough planning; let's get this show on the road!


It went pretty well, I think. At least, we did everything I had planned to do and lived to tell about it, so I consider that a success! I already feel like I've learned some things; things about what motivates and encourages Cole when he thinks something is too hard, things that keep Max interested and excited to learn new things too, things that keep Seth entertained for awhile, and things we could add as the year progresses.

Week 2 is underway, and while I don't intend to chronicle every detail of this year, I do hope to post highlights occasionally for memory's sake, as well as to update family and friends who have expressed interest in how it is going.

Along those lines, I'm going to try and get a post done soon about the curriculum we are using, for those who have asked.

With that said, here are a few highlights from our first week:

Greater than/less than practice

Concentration!

One of Max's favorites for the week.
The rice was fun to play with...I kind of like it too! :-)
(Except for the mess it made!)

Seth is in that "putting things in things" phase.
Moving blocks from one container to another keeps him busy for quite a while!

Max's shape of the week was a square, and our theme was cows.

So we made square cows!

This little experiment came from a "Science in a Bag" packet I bought at the homeschool book fair I went to earlier this year. It's pretty neat; the alligator grows in water, and we measure it every day to see how big it will get.

Graphing the results of Day2 with Mr. Alligator.
Cole's hypothesis is that it will grow to be 48cm long. We'll see!

And of course, what day of homeschool would be complete
without a break for a bit of T-Ball practice in the backyard?