Monday, August 27, 2012

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 ;-)