Okay, so homeschool... We are now starting our second week. I've discovered a few things.
1. The writing curriculum I bought for D. is way too hard for him right now.
2. The math curriculum that came with it has a lot of writing involved.
So, back to the drawing board. I think we will try and stick with the phonics portion of it. It's "American Language Series." I've been impressed with the Saxton math so far. I know that no one likes Saxton math after kindergarten, but I like that the kindergarten curriculum uses all manipulatives. D. responds well to hands on, and badly to coloring.
I thought it was interesting how my lesson plan compared with what we actually did today. I just thought I'd share. It was a very "unschooling" day :-)
My lesson plan
for D. - math, read the pictograph we did on Friday
and give him a handful of counting frogs and pattern blocks to play with together.
(he made a "family boat" out of the pattern blocks for all of the frogs to be on)
- phonics sheet
- write the letters, l, o, i, and d on the white board
- unit study, decorate the cover of the lapbook we're making and look at body part cards
(he pretty much refused to color it. he hates coloring. I made him color one letter. but, unprompted, he tried to write "by (his name)" on the bottom of it. He wrote "Bi (his name)" I was really impressed!)
- a math game with beads and pipe cleaners
- theraputty. i just had him pull and push it a while to strengthen his fingers
H is doing the letter of the week curriculum. You can find it here. http://www.confessionsofahomeschooler.com/letter-of-the-week
We finished up the letter A and started the letter E. Just as with D, he hates to color; wouldn't do it. But, he pasted A's on a tree, matching them to capital or lowercase. We made an A aligator for his letter book. He matched the letters of the word elephant with the word elephant, capital and lowercase. He played with stickers: his favorite thing in the world. And, something else I can't remember.
All of the above only took about 30 minutes. Our calendar time before that, took 30 minutes.
So, I know you're wondering what we did the rest of the day.
These are the things not on my lesson plan that we learned/did today: all before naptime at 2.
(breakfast, lunch, a snack, morning chores)
- did a puppet show to the song "Manah Manah" by the Muppets
- the next song on D's ipod was "The Fox," by Nickel Creek. So, he made a fox puppet from a paper bag.
-did a puppet show with his fox puppet to "The Fox." Then, we wrote the word "fox" on the puppet. He sounded the letters out for me.
- all 3 kids played pretend in the kitchen area. I "ate" lots of soup and ice cream.
- created a train track that spanned the length of the house and played with the plastic thomas trains.
- I read books aloud: "I Wanna Iguana," "My Friend , the Monster," and "Support Systems: How the Bones and Muscles Work Together."
- The last book led to an explanation of joints using playdough and popsicle sticks. Then, they played with that for about 10 minutes.
- D. looked at "The Interrupting Chicken" book and H. listened to Wee Sing Dinosaurs, Bugs, and ABCs.
- Oh, and after H and E went down for their nap, D listened to me read 3 chapters of "The Bobbsey Twins' Wonderful Secret."
After naps, we have snack, more read alouds, afternoon chores, and then the boys will watch "The Magic Schoolbus: The Human Body."
Whew. I sure am worn out from sitting around all day eating bon bons ;-)
