note: Along with English, we are currently learning Spanish, French, German and Chinese. Spanish is my first and native tongue, and my husband already knows French. We are having a lot of fun learning these languages with the girls. When I post "Foreign Language" I am only writing about which topic we are going to do. We are learning all of these languages AT THE SAME TIME.
Monday: bookwork: Hh, is, counting up to 12, shapes, sorting, nickels, our home address and telephone number, living things; foreign language: yellow and body arts; bookwork: Gg, review Aa-Gg, stop/go, yellow, sort 'same', the kitchen, habitats, trace lines, patterns; tummy and standing time, play with different textures, read: nursery rhymes
Tuesday: bookwork: Ii, are, count to 12, shapes, the arts, dimes, clean community, mammals; foreign language: green, body parts; bookwork: Hh, stop/go, green, same/different, what does not belong in a house, habitats, trace lines, patterns; tummy and standing time, play with different textures, read: colors
Wednesday bookwork foreign language: blue, body parts; bookwork ; tummy and standing time, play with different textures, read: nursery rhymes
Thursday bookwork foreign language: purple, body parts; library; bookwork ; tummy and standing time, play with different textures, read: colors
Friday bookwork foreign language: white, body parts; parents as teachers; bookwork ; tummy and standing time, play with different textures, read: animals
Note: if you have noticed from my weekly wrap-up posts, I don't always stick to my "lessons". most of the time I just wing it and do something they suggest or I'll end up with a headache, but I find that writing these down and at least having some form of idea what I'm going to do that day helps me acquire less stress.
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Weekly Wrap-Up
QUICK NOTE: I am currently in a hurry as we are about to have lunch and then head to the Henry Doorly Zoo, but I have tons of pictures and videos to add to this post. Check back later tonight to view them!
Monday: Iris finally traced curved lines! It was our first day doing bookwork, straight out of the book, and she did such a great job I was in a great mood all day. Lily did her workbook review and journal and we worked on shapes and colors in Spanish.
Tuesday: It was Dr. Seuss's birthday! We had a pretty lazy day at first, just reading a bunch of his books. Then, after reading Bartholomew and the Oobleck, we made our own oobleck. Iris pretty much painted herself with the non-newtonian fluid while Lily decided to play in the cornstarch. Rose was our supervisor.
Wednesday: more bookwork and workbook review. Nothing too exciting.
Thursday: We did the color of the day, Green, in French (vert), Spanish (verde), and German (grun), and they hollered it every time. They even said it in Chinese (lyu). After that I decided I REALLY needed to clean my house because it was a wreck, so they helped me out in that department. Note to self: they are terrible sweepers. So after I fired them from using the brooms, they sat down and played video games on their computer and their Leapster2.
Friday: We did not a damn thing. I was horribly ill and stayed in bed all day. My husband stayed up and watched the kids for me and they horse-played.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Secular Thursday: Patience is a Virtue...
...especially if you're a homeschooler.
Last week, my husband made a chart of colors with all the colors written in different languages. After the girls sat down on the couch, he pulled out the color blue and said the colors to them in English, French, Spanish, and German. Rose is 7 months old. She didn't care. Iris, who is two, had gotten up in the middle, gone to the toy box, and had begun to play with something random. Lily, being four, had stayed put, but had totally spaced out. So when their dad repeats the color and then asks them what that certain color is in a specific language, Iris isn't paying attention and Lily's automatic response is "I don't know." My husband: "Did anyone else just get a sudden headache?" I snorted at that moment, trying to supress my laughter. He then goes on to say, "You know, each day I keep getting more turned off on the idea of homeschooling." "Why? Because how frustrating it is that they don't want to pay attention?" "Exactly."
Like I said, I could only laugh. I deal with this every day. Every day, when we sit down for an activity, Lily spaces out in the middle of doing bookwork. You can ask her to draw a rectangle, and it will seem like she's doing just that, until, halfway through the rectangle, she's doodling. You ask her what she's doing and she stops and stares at her doodle and responds with her usual "I don't know." *head-desk* Iris gets distracted almost immediately after given an instruction. A simple "can you draw a circle for me, please?" and as soon as she picks up her crayon she's completely forgotten what you just asked her. Most of the time they sit down to do a certain activity that involves their undivided attention, like writing or math, I have to snap my fingers in front of their eyes and go "FOCUS!" or it will never get done. I've learned to be patient.
I am a very impatient person. I was kind of spoiled as a child. Materially, I wasn't given everything I wanted, but my emotions were always tended to immediately. If I was angry, you had to console me, NOW. If I was hungry, you had to feed me, NOW. If you had upset me, you had to apologize, NOW. So when I work with my girls and they don't do it NOW, it can get quite frustrating, especially when it's not just spacing out but downright defiance. There have been days when I just want to pull a Homer Simpson and throttle them, but I always try and leave a room when I get too irritated.
Patience was something I had to learn when I began staying with my children full time. If I got too angry or frustrated with them, I usually had to put my own self in time out. I'm not saying I don't get angry now or that I'm anywhere near perfect where patience is concerned, but I do my best, and I have gotten better over the past couple of years. It's not easy and a constant work in progress, but every homeschooler knows how much patience is needed.
Last week, my husband made a chart of colors with all the colors written in different languages. After the girls sat down on the couch, he pulled out the color blue and said the colors to them in English, French, Spanish, and German. Rose is 7 months old. She didn't care. Iris, who is two, had gotten up in the middle, gone to the toy box, and had begun to play with something random. Lily, being four, had stayed put, but had totally spaced out. So when their dad repeats the color and then asks them what that certain color is in a specific language, Iris isn't paying attention and Lily's automatic response is "I don't know." My husband: "Did anyone else just get a sudden headache?" I snorted at that moment, trying to supress my laughter. He then goes on to say, "You know, each day I keep getting more turned off on the idea of homeschooling." "Why? Because how frustrating it is that they don't want to pay attention?" "Exactly."
Like I said, I could only laugh. I deal with this every day. Every day, when we sit down for an activity, Lily spaces out in the middle of doing bookwork. You can ask her to draw a rectangle, and it will seem like she's doing just that, until, halfway through the rectangle, she's doodling. You ask her what she's doing and she stops and stares at her doodle and responds with her usual "I don't know." *head-desk* Iris gets distracted almost immediately after given an instruction. A simple "can you draw a circle for me, please?" and as soon as she picks up her crayon she's completely forgotten what you just asked her. Most of the time they sit down to do a certain activity that involves their undivided attention, like writing or math, I have to snap my fingers in front of their eyes and go "FOCUS!" or it will never get done. I've learned to be patient.
I am a very impatient person. I was kind of spoiled as a child. Materially, I wasn't given everything I wanted, but my emotions were always tended to immediately. If I was angry, you had to console me, NOW. If I was hungry, you had to feed me, NOW. If you had upset me, you had to apologize, NOW. So when I work with my girls and they don't do it NOW, it can get quite frustrating, especially when it's not just spacing out but downright defiance. There have been days when I just want to pull a Homer Simpson and throttle them, but I always try and leave a room when I get too irritated.
Patience was something I had to learn when I began staying with my children full time. If I got too angry or frustrated with them, I usually had to put my own self in time out. I'm not saying I don't get angry now or that I'm anywhere near perfect where patience is concerned, but I do my best, and I have gotten better over the past couple of years. It's not easy and a constant work in progress, but every homeschooler knows how much patience is needed.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Unit Ideas for March
- St. Patrick's Day
- Dr. Seuss's Birthday
- Spring
- Ostara/Easter
- bunny and Easter eggs
- Forest Animals
- bears
- deer
- raccoons
- wolves, foxes, coyotes
- Simple Machines
- pulleys
- wheels
- ramps
- lever
Lesson Plans for the week of Mar 01- Mar 05
Monday: trace lines; workbook exercises: letters A-C, Big/Small, color red, sorting same, things to do at home, alive/not alive; music: quarter note; Spanish: colors; write in journal; workbook review: draw shapes
Tuesday: DR SEUSS'S BIRTHDAY!! spend day reading books by author and playing with ooblech! (non-newtonian fluid)
Wednesday: trace lines; workbook exercises: letters E-f, open/shut, color orange, sorting same, things at dinner, plants; music: quarter note, half note; Spanish: colors; write in journal; workbook review: hours
Thursday: trace lines; workbook exercises: letter G, review upper- and lowercase letters A-G, stop/go, color yellow, sorting same, things in the kitchen, habitats; music: quarter note, half note; Spanish: body parts; write in journal; workbook review: pennies
Friday: trace lines; Spanish: colors & body parts; write in journal (haven't thought up of what else to do today, thinking simple machines for the both of them)
Tuesday: DR SEUSS'S BIRTHDAY!! spend day reading books by author and playing with ooblech! (non-newtonian fluid)
Wednesday: trace lines; workbook exercises: letters E-f, open/shut, color orange, sorting same, things at dinner, plants; music: quarter note, half note; Spanish: colors; write in journal; workbook review: hours
Thursday: trace lines; workbook exercises: letter G, review upper- and lowercase letters A-G, stop/go, color yellow, sorting same, things in the kitchen, habitats; music: quarter note, half note; Spanish: body parts; write in journal; workbook review: pennies
Friday: trace lines; Spanish: colors & body parts; write in journal (haven't thought up of what else to do today, thinking simple machines for the both of them)
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Weekly Wrap-Up
This is my first "wrap-up" post so bear with me. :D
Monday: Lily has gone through most of her Bran Quest Kindergarten workbook. So to make sure she was retaining information, I decided to do "workbook review" with her the entire week. We back-tracked and did everything she had done in the book by memory this week. On Monday she worked on writing the letters A through G in both upper- and lowercase. She also wrote number 1 through 12. Afterward we took some time out and wrote in her journal.
Iris worked on tracing. She did vertical, horizontal, and diagonal lines. When i got to curves, she wasn't feeling it and decided to play with blocks. So with the blocks we worked on creating patterns. I was trying to show her to just put it next to mine in a new line, but she wanted to continue the pattern adjacent to the line I had created. Worked either way. At least she was understanding the pattern concept. We then spent a half hour coloring in books. :D (me included)
We've been trying to introduce musical rhythm, and today was the day we did the most work. Unfortunately even though we worked with only a quater note, Iris just had fun saying "ta" and Lily retained 0. After 15 minutes of trying, I gave up for the day and moved on to basic Spanish--which thankfully they took on with no problems.
Tuesday: We had a playdate over at a friend's house today! We were there for three hours just having a good ol' time. We didn't get much done but had a lot of fun.
Iris worked some more on writing lines. Again, she refused to even TRY writing curves. Lily wrote some vocabulary from memory. I, my, you, a, the. When we got home, we did some basic Spanish.
Wednesday: We had an appointment with the Early Learning Center here in town for the Child Fair. The Child Fair is actually held for vision, hearing, dental, and speech/language screenings. They all passed with flying colors. Lily and Iris are 'ahead' by two years, each. Rose is only 6 months, so as long as she's squealy and healthy and happy, I'm not worried about her. Having three kids, we were there for at least an hour, maybe two. So again, we didn't get much done. Iris worked on body parts. Lily practiced basic adding/subtracting skills with a game of Monopoly, Jr.
Thursday: I had a whole big day planned that was put on the back burner because my husband had forgotten to print out all of the lapbook activities. (I would really like a printer that isn't taking up space as a paperweight like our current one) So instead, we hung out in our pajamas ALL DAY. I took the girls to the library where I printed out our activities (and it cost me 2.40$), played outside in the snow, and practiced some basic Chinese.
Friday: We had a visit from our "teacher" through the Learning for Life program provided by our Department of Public Health. So the girls got to play and interact with Carla by having a picnic, reading some stories, and playing with some random toys. Afterward we did our If You Give a Mouse a Cookie lapbook that I had gotten from homeschoolshare.com. It took the ENTIRE DAY. :) Iris did the shadow matching game (she got all of them right on the first try!) and the mouse paper craft (building a mouse). Lily did the 'bookwork' by writing all the circles she found in the story and telling me what we knew about mice. Both girls did the cookie-match and math mat activities. We shared some mouse-themed songs and poems and then we sat down and baked cookies. We had a LOT of fun doing this. I loved that it covered math, science, art, and language arts. Not to mention we ate some delicious cookies.
It was a crazy week. We kept getting visitors, AND it decided to snow again. Thankfully this weekend has been very nice and we've been able to leave the house without slipping on ice every five seconds. We actually left the house today in tennis shoes instead of snow boots. Tomorrow I'll be posting my ideas for the upcoming week's lessons.
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