The End of 1st Homeschooling Week

It was a very busy week. We had four days of school with A. and we had to spend Friday on getting ready for J.'s Birthday Party on Saturday (which was a success!).

We did not finish what we planned on completing, which I am fine with. We are still getting used to the homeschooling schedule and just a habit of bring disciplined and studious. We keep referring to the set schedule though, and continue doing our work. When we are not done with our work before we need to pick J. up from his preschool, we finish after naps (or instead of naps. Unfortunately, kids have been skipping naps a lot lately. Our Utah trip has significantly changed our daily schedule and habits.).

I gave A. a chance to do her "Subtract from 11" worksheet twice and on the second day she did marvelously quickly! So, I let her color the stars of the Fact Family members and she was so quick and just did great.

Language and Writing are going well as well. She loves her history lessons. I tried doing the same history lesson with an actual 2nd grader (he just barely started) and the boy had no patience to listen to me, he kept interrupting me, and he couldn't answer on any of the questions really. This is very impressive that A. snuggles up to me on the couch and listens to her history lesson! She answers almost on all the questions correctly and she is eager to participate in the projects! This week we completed a Family History book and drew a cave painting.

Matching Fact Family Members

Counting by 5 while waiting for story time at B & N

Reading at B & N

History lesson on First Farmers

Cave Painting

I have received more books this week. We will be starting our Science curricula.

On Tuesday we will be hunting through our local libraries for Artists and Composers books. 

Plan for a Second Day of Homeschooling

First, I want to put together a plan for a week. Yes, I starting homeschooling without a plan!


Math: Counting Backward from 20, Subtracting from 11, Counting by 5 up to 100

Spelling: Learn how to spell and write words:  Shirt Shoe Dress Pants Sock
I really liked the reviews of several Spelling programs, such as All About Spelling and Abeka Spelling, but financially restrained from purchasing their workbooks. Thus, I have decided to follow this website instead and will continue to look for more enriching manuals.

Reading: A. sets her own goal each week and this week she set 20 min for daily reading. She absolutely loves reading!

Language: Our goal is to complete 5 lessons from the First Language Lessons this week.

Writing: Our goal is to complete 4 lessons from the Writing With Ease this week.

History: Our goal is to complete Chapter 1 from The Story of the World this week.

Science: Our goal is to complete 1 lesson from A Reason For Science Level A

Piano/Typing: I am not ready at all to teach piano this week, so we will have 1 typing lesson.

Composers/Art: not yet



Tomorrow I will be guided by this schedule: 

8:00 Scripture, Song, Prayer
8:15 Math:

•  1 sheet from Gifted and Talented workbook (A. loves this book, because activities are not so challenging and pages are very neat and colorful.)
• 1 sheet Subtracting from 11 (A. is very good in subtracting from 10 and somewhat good from up to 20. She recently told me that the math was too hard when doing 2nd Grade Work, so we decided to slow down a bit and work on subtracting from 11). 
• 
• 1 sheet Counting by 5 (just found a fun sheet on google images)
• Counting by 5 Song Video 
• Connect the Dots Picture (Pronouncing each number, go backwards from the highest number 20.)

8:45 Finish history lesson - Introduction - and complete her Family Book. Start on the 1st Chapter.
9:15 Language Lesson 2. (1st poem to memorize! We will see how that goes.)
9:40  Story Time at Barnes & Noble (where we will complete our reading for the day after the story time), pick up brother, and lunch.

12:00 Writing Day 2 exercises.
12:20 Spelling Words - typing?
12:40 Science lesson for both kids. I will do a Sight Sense tomorrow (bright light, darkness, coming out into the light, closing one eye at the time and what do you see on the picture? does the picture move when you switch eyes?)
  Looking Through a Hole experiment is very fun! That's how it goes: You take a average size picture and cover it with a blank larger piece of paper with a hole in it. Kids can move the black piece of paper around, trying to guess what do they see a picture of.

Naps!

Our First Day of Homeschooling

Hello, all!
Today was our first day of an exciting and terrifying journey of homeschooling. We sent our brother off to Pre-K and took advantage of a quiet home and ready-for-learning student attitude.

I say "terrifying" because I did not feel like I was completely ready yet. I have not read all the manuals yet, I have not yet received all the books I have purchases, I have not even bought all the books I need yet! A friend of mine told me that I will never feel like I am ready, that I just need to start and little by little things will fall into places.

A. was a little sad that her brother got to go to a fun Pre-K school, which she attended for a semester last year. Pre-K is different from a regular school. There more playing and socializing than learning, so A.'s opinion about school is that it's all fun. Nevertheless, she was a good student and we almost completed all our assignments for today.

Our plan was:
8:00 Scriptures
8:15 Math
8:45 Spelling
9:00 Handwritting
9:15 Language
9:30 Writing
9:45 Break
10:00 History
10:30 Reading

 I did not prepare Science, Piano, Typing, Composers, Artists, and Classic Literature lessons prior to today. We did everything on this schedule except for Reading and we did not complete our first History lesson. We had to stop though to pick our brother up from school. Then it was lunch time and nap time. Now I am updating this blog, preparing for tomorrow's school, and soon heading out to work that I've been trying to quit for the last two weeks.

Things to note from today: 
* Tomorrow I will spice things up with some videos, subject related and non-subject related (say, a funny home video to put a smile on my daughter's face)
* I will also get some yammy healthy treats to snack on, such as grapes, watermelon pieces, strawberries
* I am considering changing the order of my lessons.