Day Four, Afternoon

This afternoon, we did a math test for first graders. I didn't really expect the kids to be able to answer all that many questions, but they seriously exceeded my expectations. Mike got 22/30 questions correct, with no guesses, and the only help was to define some of the math symbols he hadn't seen before (greater than, less than) and to help read the questions. I didn't coach, explain, or direct. Kayla got 18/30, though she declined to answer or even guess some of the answers, and that dragged down her score. The fact that both of them answered more than half of the end of year first grade math test stunned me! I'm so proud of our kids.

After our math test, we started making our chicken soup. I'd already made the broth up with the remnants of last night's roast chicken, so all I had to do was pick the meat off the bones and add in the veggies and such. Mike carefully peeled and coined the carrots (he was posing for that picture, by the way; he was very good when doing the cutting about keeping fingers out of the way), and then poured them into the soup.

Kayla was responsible for the potatoes, and carefully picked off all the eyes, then peeled and cut up the potatoes into cubes. She did it all by herself, and did a very good job, I must say. Her cuts were even, smooth, and she was very careful about her fingers. I reminded both children that knives are designed for cutting meat, and that they are made out of meat, and therefore they must keep their fingers out of the way. Neither of them wanted to make "kid soup" and so they both paid very close attention. LOL!

After the veggies were in (I diced the onions and garlic), they then measured out the barley and the split peas. Each one measured out a cup worth of their dried legumes, and poured it carefully into the soup. We then added the last few items (cabbage, extra water, a bit of salt) and they stirred it. We brought it to a rapid boil and then reduced it to a simmer.

The smell is now wafting around the house, making everyone drool. We have some leftover bread in the fridge which I'll warm up in the oven and serve hot with butter. It's a simple dinner, but delicious and hearty. On top of that, the children have the knowledge that they helped make this meal, something they truly enjoy doing.

Day Four, Morning

The picture isn't from a home schooling day, but I didn't take photos this morning, and I wanted a visual. That's me as Pastor Pickle in our local Pickle Parade last weekend, along with Kayla on her bicycle. We were getting lined up to ride in the Pickle Parade, a big deal in our little neighborhood. We were right behind one of the marching bands, and that kept us paced up nicely. I wish more of the church members had been available to walk with us, but the six of us who did had a great time.

This morning we took it a bit easier yet again, because we got a lot of work done yesterday. We watched The Last Starfighter, and went through several "wh" questions about the movie. Since comprehension and pacing are things that both kids need work on, I stopped the movie several times to ask questions, see what they were thinking about, and get predictions about what would happen next. I was very impressed with Kayla's noticing that the main character's doppelganger was a robot and not a scary alien per se. When Mike mentioned that the aliens looked kind of frightening, Kayla said, "But they're just different types of people, Mike!" I'm so proud of them!

This afternoon we'll be making soup, something that uses measuring skills. We'll be dealing with teaspoons, tablespoons, cups (and portions thereof), pints, quarts, and gallons. I am thinking I can figure out a way to get all of those in some combination into our chicken and barley soup that we're having for dinner. This gives them practical use of their study unit, which is measuring. Yay for me.

This week has been very challenging for me. I do not think I could homeschool for an entire year, or at least not at the level I have kept up this week. Our kids are total sponges, and they were eating up everything I threw at them. I'm exhausted, and a bit strung out. I have always had a great respect for Miss B, who is a full time educator (and a special educator, no less) with 25 years of experience. Right at this very moment, though, my utmost respect goes out to those who have homeschooled their children full time. Between keeping up house, cooking, teaching, and trying to find time for my own things (um... yeah that's what I didn't do this week), my head is spinning. I'm overwhelmed.

It's not all bad; I'm so proud of the twins for all they've done. They've just been incredible little students. They have such a love of learning, and I dearly hope the public schools don't manage to rip that out of them. Watching them discover things, seeing the little mental light bulb go on in their minds, has been so fulfilling! I wouldn't trade the week for anything.

Still... I want to do our math unit (making dinner LOL) and go lie down. Thank you to ALL our teachers out there. You have my respect, and you have my sympathy.

Day Three, in review

Today's recap will be largely pictorial because I am exhausted for some reason. School got started on time this morning, and we said our pledge and started off the day's lessons with a short discussion of the words 'pledge' and 'allegiance'. It went fairly well. They're still struggling with allegiance, but the more we use it in sentences the more they're getting it. After the pledge, we decided to take a look at maps for a while. I used Google again, showing them both an overhead view of the state between our current residence and our new house. We then used the maps function to map out the drive between the two places, and followed the road at fairly high resolution, so they could see exactly where they were going. It was rather neat, and they seemed to enjoy it. 

After we'd finished up with that, we settled down into math. Yesterday was heavy on the language arts, so today was more math oriented. They started out by using a "color by number" math problem sheet that we found for them online. Each section of the picture had a single digit math problem, and the answer led you to the correct color in the key at the bottom. They had so much fun doing that! They did the math portion first, and then went on to the coloring (after I'd checked their math facts).

As you can see, there was a frog picture and one of a flower and sun. Their math facts were spot on, and I was very proud of them. I didn't give them a number line or a graph to use, so they had to resort to counting up using their fingers.

Kayla was exceptionally proud of her flower picture, and so was I. The math questions were not easy ones for her, and it took her a bit of working on it to finish it up.

Mike showed off his picture, too. He had less problems with the math than she did, but had to have several of his numbers turned around (they're both writing some numbers and letters backward, inconsistently).

This is the home school station, where I pull up information and games, and get many of my ideas from. The children enjoy seeing themselves on the blog, and so I have been trying to take a lot of pictures as we go along.

After the coloring activity, we proceeded to do a measuring booklet. Kayla did the "measuring things around your house" book, while Mike chose to "measure me!" (well, himself actually). His was relatively simple, and he caught on very quickly with how to use the tape measure. Kayla got the more difficult one, and it asked for length, width, and perimeter of each object (though it stuck to largely rectangular objects). I was incredibly proud when Kayla figured out that you didn't have to physically measure all four sides of each item. She told me to just add up the length twice and the width twice and then add them together to figure out the perimeter! I did the writing for the larger numbers, but she did all the adding of the columns (I helped with "carrying the tens" and such, a concept that she's not quite ready for yet).

Because there was only one tape measure, while one child was measuring, I took the other aside and we read our "kindergarten level" books. They both did very well, although Kayla was a bit resistant to reading out loud. She refuses to look at the words, choosing instead to guess them from the images. I had to really work to keep her attention on the book itself.

Last night we had an applesauce explosion that required me to make a trip to the laundromat. I decided to take the kids with me and do our language arts lesson there. We made little word cards of all the kindergarten sight words, and I mixed them up to be random. Then they rolled a die and I shuffled that many words forward. They had to sound out or figure out the word on their own, with no help. If they got it right, they got the slip of paper. If they got it wrong, they both reviewed it and it went back in the pile. We continued this until all the words were answered correctly. They had a blast playing the "game" I'd invented, and they got relatively close numbers correct, although Mike was definitely ahead.

Here are the munchkins at a folding table in the laundromat, working on writing out their alphabet. I wanted them to write out all the capital and lower case letters, plus the numbers 1 through 0, so I could see which letters were getting more reversals. Surprisingly, Mike had a lot more reversals than Kayla did. They both have excellent printing skills for their ages. When they were done with the writing, I set them free to run and play.

Mike chose to climb the poles outside the laundromat, which I found incredibly adorable. Kayla read books and puttered around in the building. They both seemed to have a ton of fun. And now I've uploaded the pics, told the stories, and I think I'll go fall over. I am NOT a natural teacher. LOL!

Day Two, Afternoon

Well, I'm posting this at 10:15pm, so I guess you can figure out how this afternoon's lessons went! We enjoyed another moment of, "thank goodness we're home schooling!" Our realtor called and we had to run out the door to the bank to get some paperwork finished. We put all our school things away, popped the kids into the van, and went streaming out into the day. The best moment of this afternoon was Kayla asking, from the back of the car, "Daddy? Are we still in school? Or not?" I almost choked with laughter.

We didn't waste time in the car, though. The kids spent quite a bit of time doing back seat drama with their stuffies. They created a whole scenario where the stuffed dragon was belching out fireballs and the mini Hello Kitty pez dispenser was a flying cat that was caught inside a bouncy house. The whole thing was just fascinating!

While we were out, I picked up a few things to allow the kids to make autumn wreaths, and that was our "art special" today. Kayla ended up doing it on her own, using flower wire to peg leaves and crab apples and such to the foam wreath form. It's a bit on the bare side (look for pictures tomorrow, perhaps), but she spent a lot of time and effort on it, and is very proud of it. Mike, on the other hand, went out with daddy to learn a few things about gun safety.

Mike has a plastic toy gun, and we allow this as long as he follows real honest-to-goodness gun safety rules. The number one rule is never EVER point a gun at someone. This rule was broken several times over the past few days, and so C took it into his own hands. Off they went to the range, where he showed Mike just what happens when you shoot a gun. Then they went over all the safety rules again. It seems to have made much more of an impression this time, now that loud noises and earphones and safety gear was involved! Mike came home and rattled off all sorts of new things to us. Don't ever pick up a gun that you find; get a grown up right away and show them where it is. Don't ever pick up shell casings unless a grown up says it's alright to do so (they can be hot, among other reasons). Don't ever touch bullets or any other gun tools without a grown up right there with you. He seemed very impressed by the whole thing.

Both kids completed their autumn books, complete with colored pictures, vocabulary words, and their own sentences using words rhyming with "fall." Miss B was thrilled with what they'd done, and very happy that they had the opportunity to work on that kind of a project in a single day rather than over a week.

Tomorrow we have some math sheets to do on measuring and volume, and some language arts to go over. It's also library day, which always makes the kids happy.

Day Two, Morning

This morning we got started on time! Go me! At 9am, we were standing by our table, hands on our hearts, reciting the Pledge. We've retained the idea of pledge as promise, but need to keep working on 'allegiance.' Still, not bad. It's a big word! We did the date and the weather (including running outside to check what the actual temperature was), and wrote them on our big white board.

I gave the children the choice of doing math or language arts this morning. They chose language arts, and were happy for the choice because it involves coloring as well as reading. They're coloring and assembling a Fall booklet with vocabulary words. The beginning of it is fairly simply, but it gets more complex as you go through the booklet. Near the end there are places for them to write their own sentences about autumn.

Mike was making a lot of sounds (whistling, clicking, etc) and it was bothering Kayla, and so I came up with the idea of putting KIdz Bop on using Pandora Radio. This was a very popular response to excess classroom noise. Now they're bopping and singing along with kid friendly music while they work happily and quietly on their seat work. Then, of course, "Move It" came on and we abandoned all pretense of quiet work and jumped up to dance and get our wiggles out. It was really fun, and it gave them an interesting break from their sitting work.

Miss B last night told me that I basically did a week's worth of curriculum with the kids yesterday, so I'm taking it a bit easier today. This afternoon I'm hoping we can gather up some autumn leaves from the yard, and then make a couple of pretty wreaths. I think we're also going to take a garbage bag with us to pick up junk as we walk, because there was an AWFUL lot of it yesterday. We can talk about cleaning up after ourselves, recycling, and being good stewards of the Land.

Day One, Afternoon

This afternoon was wonderful! One of the things that I feel is best about home schooling is that if the kids have a burning interest in something, we can pause and address that interest. After lunch (oh, did I mention "our cafeteria" served trout for lunch? yeah... yum!) C and I sat down with the munchkins and talked to them about our "Fall Senses." They hypothesized what they might experience with their five senses while out on our afternoon walk. When we went out, they were primed for exploring the fall world with their various senses.

The first thing they discovered were colored leaves (sight). Then Mike noticed that the leaves crunched and crackled as he walked through them (sound). As we went down the street, we could tell the fir trees were dropping twirly-birds from the scent (smell). They compared and contrasted between the softness of milkweed fluff and the rough hardness of squirrel-dropped nuts (touch). We ended our walk at a friend's house, where I knew they grew apples in their front yard. I have carte blanche to pick there, and so I let the kids each pick an apple, and the minute we got home, they described apples as juicy, sweet, and delicious (taste). Yay kids!

On the walk, not only did they make excellent observations ("Hey, we can HEAR crickets in the autumn!"), they also collected samples of things to bring home and look at closer. Along with our apples, we brought back a stick, some twirly-birds (maple seeds), a handful of silky fine milkweed fluff,  some nuts (both in and out of their casings), and some red leaves.

Upon returning home, we got drinks and sat down to discuss what we'd seen. We made a list of all the things we discovered using our fall senses.

FALL SENSES

Fall looks like: colors, flowers, nuts, morning-glories, leaves, sunshine, trees
Fall sounds like: windy sounds, crunching leaves, crickets, dogs barking
Fall feels like: fluffy, hard, soft, crinkly, bug bite itches, warm, breeze, sun, sharp prickles, bumpy
Fall smells like: sweet, fir trees, candy, skunk
Fall tastes like: juicy yummy apple, sweet grapes, blueberries (we saw ornamental ones; they didn't eat them)

AUTUMN ACROSTIC POEM

Apples are juicy and sweet.

Under the trees there are twirly-birds. They twirl and twirl when they fall down.

The apples are ready to pick.

Ugly mosquitoes bite me.

My mouth crunches yummy apples!

Nuts fall down because the squirrels eat them.

by Mike and Kayla

We finished up the school day by trading off on the math sheets they did earlier. Each finished up what the other had done, thereby keeping them "even" on academics. Now they're running around the house playing with balloons and laughing and enjoying life.

Day One, Morning

Great start to the first day - I slept in and didn't get started until an hour after I intended. Ah well, that's part of the joy of homeschooling, right?

At 10am we began our morning routine. We started with weather and the date, which we wrote on the white board for everyone to see. Then we pulled up a picture of the flag on my computer, and stood with hands over our hearts and recited the Pledge of Allegiance. I am surprised and pleased to see that our children know the Pledge fairly well. Their comprehension of all those big words was rather low, though, and so we spent about 15 minutes going over what the words "pledge" and "allegiance" mean.

I explained that "pledge" means promise, but a legal promise, a "big P promise" as we call it around here. They understood that. We practiced using "pledge" in sentences, like, "I pledge to help mommy make pancakes next weekend," and things like that. They did pretty well. "Allegiance" was harder. I explained it as "working together" and "helping one another." So we pledged allegiance to our family.

After we were done with that, we tackled the idea of "the United States of America." They really didn't know what the USA was, as an abstract idea. I used GoogleMaps (thank you GoogleGods!) to bring up a graphical map of the world, and then carefully clicked in closer and closer, showing them first our continent, then our country, then the states that their grandparents live in, and their older brother and sister, and eventually our own state, district, and city. Thanks to the Maps function I was actually able to zoom in enough for them to see recognizable features of our new house, and the beach that is just up the road. They thought that was really exciting! Tomorrow we'll be doing the same thing, but backwards, working out from our house to our country, and talking about the different levels of things.

After saying a prayer for help in learning, we moved on to math. I did one on one with Mike, working on a number line to add and subtract numbers between 0 and 25. It took him a couple of moments to understand the process, but he rapidly figured it out and began zipping ahead. I left him to work on the math sheet (out of the first grade book, I might add!) and helped out Kayla with her math. She was doing a worksheet that touched on phone numbers, full name, age, and such. I corrected her backwards numbers, but other than that she figured it all out.

I'm using the white board and a large post it pad (huge) to go over things. I wrote out the Pledge, a general timeline for the day, and the outlines for an Autumn Acrostic poem and a Fall Senses walk. I think it's going pretty well! Recess is on right now, and they're bouncing around blowing up balloons and tossing them back and forth, as well as letting the air out to propel them around. There is much giggling going on here!