Unit 6

T is for Turtle.

 

Well, things kicked up a notch during this unit. We are finally reading words! Hannah and I have been practicing this for a while now, at her request, so it was nice for it to finally be included in the curriculum so I can get some guidance. I had no idea what I was doing before and was basically just letting her sound out words I thought she could handle. While I’m sure this wasn’t hurting anything, I’m glad to have a guide now for doing it in the best order.

Turtle snack on the first day. We were supposed to use bread, but I thought it would be easier to cut out a tortilla. Hannah’s response? “That’s ok, Mommy. It’s better anyway because T is for Tortilla!” Good point :)

 

Our super fancy set up. I keep most of my papers, the counting straws, and her word picture box in the blue crate on the side counter. Crayons, pencils, paint, etc. are kept above in the cabinets. My teacher’s manual and the current unit’s folder live in my red bag (which you can’t see, but it’s like a laptop bag) along with some fun stickers and such that are only for Mommy to dole out. That’s about it!

We learned, “I don’t quit. I persevere!” She’s been telling me she’s persevering all week, always in the correct context. You go, girl!

 

Working on her Beginning Sounds worksheet. You can see remnants from our Nest Unit behind her on the wall. The orange paper is a book about Robins that she ‘wrote’. It was adorable.

 

Making baby turtles out of egg carton and construction paper. I may need to buy stock in the construction paper company.

 

 

From today, the 2nd to last day in the unit:

Making a mommy turtle out of construction paper, tissue paper squares, and REALLY big googly eyes. She looks awesome.

 

Showing off BOTH colors of tissue paper.

 

Although there are 6 days in each unit, we’ve been completing them in just 5, and occasionally 4. The last two days are very simple, especially Day 6, which is mostly just some sort of make believe (which Hannah does on her own anyway) and listening to music and reading books. Well, we read books and listen to music every day, so…yeah. At this point it seems unnecessary to make a point of taking a whole day to do that.

This has been nice, as we’ve lately gotten into a groove and are actually moving at a pace of one unit per week. We’ve got U for Us (5 senses), D for Dinosaur, O is for Octopus, and W is for Water that I’d love to get finished before the baby comes. We may not manage to do the last one, depending on what comes up, but technically I have 4 weeks left before his arrival (via planned c-section, so it’s more predictable than most!), so if we maintain our current pace, it’s possible. If that is the case, we’ll have completed 10 of the 26 units for Kindergarten.

That thrills me! If we don’t start again for who knows how long after baby brother’s arrival, we should still be able to get through the Kindergarten curriculum by a reasonable end date. Knowing my girl and how much she enjoys this, I’m sure she’ll be asking when we can start long before I think I can handle it and a newborn (not to mention my 2 yr old little rascal!). I’m hoping her excitement will be my motivation. Who needs a clean house when you’ve got an inquisitive and excited little girl around?

A is for Apple

Now we are in a groove! No more packing, no more vacation (although I’d totally be willing to adapt if something came up!), no more moving, etc. We completed Unit 4 yesterday. Yes, it was Saturday, but when you have a 3-day weekend coming up and your daughter is begging for school, well, you go for it :)

Letter sounds worksheet. She rocks these out.

 

So pretty :) I love her diligence with these worksheets. She is very careful to do them properly. The only worksheets we sometimes have a ‘fight’ over are the handwriting ones. She’s getting better though and as she sees herself improving, it’s less and less of a fight to get her to finish.

 

Getting ready for an apple graphing project. I told her the basic gist of how it should go and let her figure out the rest. Critical thinking + problem solving skills?! Yes, and thank you.

She changed her method after a few minutes because she thought the first way she had come up with wasn’t the best.

“Is that ok to change my plan, Mommy?”

“Do you have a better plan?” “

YES!”

“Then, go for it.”

 

Posing with her wall o’ projects (and her snack-y apple!).

 

Closeup of her awesome apple graph. I told her about how graphs show information to other people. “Daddy can come home and look at your graph and will know how many of each color you had. He won’t even have to ask you or look in our apple bowl.” “Wow! That’s cool, Mommy!” I love her.

 

Fruit of the Spirit Tree. I had her tell me what they were (which she already know b/c of a song! yay!) and then I wrote them on the apples. She wanted them to be in order (naturally); I told her that was fine, but she had to figure out for herself which apple was which. I saw her carefully look for first letters and sound out parts of the words. She did a fabulous job!

Final shot of my girl munching on her apple :) You can see by the look on her face how much fun she was having!

This was probably my favorite homeschool day yet. We just kept coming up with new ideas, so we continued! Little sister was cooperatively napping and Mommy was happy to put off housework a bit longer. I couldn’t believe how long we’d spent once I glanced at the clock! Time well spent.

L is for Leaf

So the M for Moon unit was a success. We did some at our old house, some at my parents’ house while we were homeless and ended when we got to our new house. Needless to say it was pretty spread out! But, my big girl did great.

 

We’ve kinda sorta gotten back into the swing of things with the leaf unit. Here’s our fun from this week.

Leaf man from leaves collected during our leaf walk (I felt all Charlotte Mason-y when we did that). Underneath you can see the ‘badges’ we’ve been making for each unit along with the biblical concept we learned that relates.

From today (a mish mash of days 4 and 5, as we did not have a few of the supplies needed for day 4…good job planning, Mom):

 

We dried leaves last week and then did a few fun things with some of them. We taped some down and measured them with a ruler (which one is longest, shortest, which are the same, etc). Here she is lining them up and counting them (durh, but still important).

 

“What are we doing next, Mommy?!?!”

 

“Show me the third leaf” We did first, last, second, fourth, seventh, etc. She did great! I try to remember when MFW covers stuff she already knows that that’s a GOOD thing and to just let her review and be successful.

One of the beautiful things about homeschooling is that when this happens, we review briefly and then move on. In a kindergarten classroom, I’m certain she’d be sitting through this stuff waiting for some of the other kids to figure it out for the first time. Which is fine for them, but honestly a huge waste of time for her brain! At the same time, if there is something she struggles with (perhaps even something I thought she had down pat, but I was wrong), we can stop and take our time with it without worrying about a schedule or anyone else’s abilities/boredom. Crazy, right? :)

 

Looking forward to Day 5 tomorrow and starting the A is for Apple unit on Monday!!

Fun finds

Went to the Dollar Tree to pick up a few things for freezer cooking and got distracted by the ‘back to school’ section.

I have been there in the past and found several things, so I was trying to resist getting too much. However, I could not resist these two posters!

We are learning to read (completely through Hannah’s initiative, not mine) much more quickly than MFW curriculum suggests. I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing, but I figure I can’t mess up too terribly, as I do, in fact, know how to read :) I’ve just started teaching her that when certain letters are beside one another, they make a new sound. So far we’ve done “sh”, “oo” , and “ee”, mostly because those are in certain words we’ve encountered that she wants to read.

The other poster will be super fun when we get to our B is for Butterfly unit. I have been trying to collect little things here and there for upcoming units, to supplement, just for fun. Somehow the butterfly unit has gotten a lot of attention. I guess because they are so fun :)

 

So, anyway, I was excited to find those for $1 apiece.

I was even more excited when I got in the car and flipped them over and realized that they were also nifty on the back.

Ending sounds and the perfect addition to our F is for Frog unit (about life cycles) that immediately follows the butterfly one. AWESOME.

Unit 1 – S is for Sun

We did this back in June, before we moved, before we went on vacation, before my feet swelled to the size of balloons. Can you tell we took a break (or 7) for a while?

Here is the day where a math worksheet is included. We incorporate math into everyday life and have for a while, but one day per unit it is specifically covered in the curriculum.

Covering 1 cent and circles, as well as the number 1 (which is kind of ‘duh’, but still a good review, I suppose).

We made the circles by tracing around the glass, which she thought was super nifty.

 

Looking out the window to see if we can see the sun. Nope – too many clouds today!

 

Back to scissor practice and ‘first sound’ worksheet. Since this was the first unit, only “S” was covered.

 

Art to end the unit. Draw a sun making a circle and then make a pattern with orange and yellow sunrays. She declared that the best way to do it would be to hold both markers and switch hands back and forth instead of setting one down in between rays. Love the way she is thinking through things, even if they are little things.

Creation days 2-4

Days 2 and 3 went off without a hitch. The intro unit is incredibly basic and simple. It has really been a nice way to ease both of us into this. Hannah is very enthusiastic each day to begin and I have no fear of not being prepared. Win win!

Since she knows all the ABCs as well as their sounds, I have been getting her to sound out words at the beginning of the lesson instead of teaching “what is A, what is B, etc.” She has been getting a kick out of the fact that she is reading. And frankly, so have I!

Day 2 we learned that God made the sky and the water and we had blue and white marshmallows for a snack.

Day 3 we learned that God made the earth and the plants and we had pudding with crushed up cookies on top to signify the ‘land’.

The following pics are from Day 4, where God made the sun, moon, and stars:

Coloring her number 4. So sweetly serious.

 

Then she sang the alphabet song and pointed to each letter as she sang. Sometimes she forgets and does LMNOP too fast and has to start over. Fortunately, it just amuses her and she happily starts again.

 

Then I decided we were going to read a simple sentence. And then, the child blew me away. She figured this one out with very little effort. So, naturally, I wrote out another and another and another. All together she read four 6-word sentences and did a GREAT job. I know this is mostly her personality and intellect as opposed to the curriculum (at least at this point), but she sure is a good little one to begin this homeschooling venture with :)

 

Working on the sun, moon, and stars page.

Contemplating where to put the star stickers. Feel free to laugh at my banana moon. An artist, I am not.

 

Cutting out her Day 4 words.

 

Finally, a fun lunch to go with our lesson:

And, my smart cookie ate part of the sun and then declared she had made a moon. It was indeed a crescent. Love it.

First day!

Today, my little Cinderella told her grandma, “Mommy is going to HOMEschool me! I’m so EXCITED!”

My Father’s World starts with a 10-day Introductory Unit on Creation. It is lighter and simpler than the rest of the units (from what I’ve observed via skimming) and a very nice way for this mama to ease her way into this whole thing. My post does not include every thing we did, but it is at least half. She already knows how to do a lot of the things they want you to teach in the intro unit, which also helped me ease in :) We reviewed those things, just to be certain, but it was a breeze.

Creation Day 1

Pumped about getting started!

 

On the first day, God created the earth and the light. He separated the light from the dark and call the light ‘day’ and the darkness ‘night.  

Supposed to teach her the alphabet, but since she already knows all her letters, we played a game. Place the bean on the letter Mommy calls out as FAST as you can! She thought it was awesome and did great, of course.

Getting into the ‘fast’ part of the game, which is what I was hoping would happen.

Waiting for Mommy to call out a number now.

Cutting out her story line for the first day of Creation in the book we’re making. She did great with the scissors today because she was very serious about it. Amazing what focus can do :)

 

Finished up with a snack I saw suggested online. Oreos and milk – dark and light! She was impressed ;)

Naturally, even when we were done, Hannah wanted to know what was next. I assured her there was more to come tomorrow. And then I distracted her by reading her (approximately) a bazillion books. Love this kid.

I found myself scrambling for a few items here and there, but I’m confident that will get better with time. Fortunately, my student is super sweet and said, “It’s ok Mommy, this is your first time homeschooling me. I will help you.” I could just EAT HER UP.

Got it!

The curriculum arrived today! I am so excited. God has truly turned my heart towards this. If you had asked me 2 years ago if I was going to be a homeschool mom, I would have laughed and declared that that would never be me!

I opted to order the basic package (Teacher's Manual, Student Sheets, Tactile Letters, ABC Flashcards), Cuisenaire rods (manipulatives for both reading and math) and the activity book that goes with them, and an inflatable globe. There are other items on their website as well as suggested books. I decided that for the money we'd make it work with these items (for now) and I'll be using the library extensively for the books! We have a very good library system here in Wake County and I plan to take full advantage of the book request/delivery service!

I had so much fun looking through all the students sheets a bit ago. I am planning to drop the girls off at my MIL's house tomorrow so we can go house hunting in the afternoon. I think I shall drop them off a bit early so I can do some digging and planning and then we can get started soon!

Look at this face. Who wouldn't want to teach this precious child??

She's been learning her whole life. It's just going to get more official now :)