Tuesday: September 8, 2009

Disclaimer: This is a long post on the details of our first full day back into homeschooling. I before mentioned that I wanted to blog more about our homeschooling experiences. I know you won't read it if it doesn't interest you. I'm doing it more to track our progress and memories...

Today was our official day of full blown school. I loved it. Granted I am not always going to be on top of things, but not only were we able to finish school work, I was able to get the things that are important to me done. I read my scriptures this morning. After breakfast the boys wanted to play outside with the badminton that we set up yesterday. So while they tried getting the birdie over the net, I was having quiet time inside. Sarah had not yet woken up.
I had the boys come in for morning devotional.
Morning Devotional
Prayer
Children's hymn
Article of Faith memorization
Chapter from Children's Scripture Stories
Family Prayer

Next on the list of thing to do is Choirs. Okay, the boys had help this morning. Some how, and it's not that hard to imagine, they had clean AND dirty clothes scattered all over the floor. I was not going to rewash clean clothes, so they got lucky and the job was easier for them. Besides picking up their floor, they make their beds, get dressed and brush their teeth.

Our morning school schedule varies slightly from day to day as does the afternoon. Today's schedule was Math, Handwriting and Phonics.

Math- We are using Singapore math. This is the first year we are really getting into math. I got Jacob level one math. He "should" be on level two, but I do not want to rush through and have him miss important concepts. I had had Jacob take a comprehension quiz that the Singapore math website had online and found that there were certain things he had no clue how to solve, like word problems. We started working on his math when we got it this summer. Today he did Exercise 25. He had to write four different number sentences from each picture problem. It think for tomorrow we'll do some more of this together outside of his workbook, something more hands on.

Handwriting- The program we are using is called Handwriting Without Tears. For Jacob this is a once a week assignment with exceptions. He is given a handwriting assignment on Mondays. If he completes it neatly he is done for the week. BUT, if I find sloppiness I'll put an arrow next to it and he gets to erase the sloppy letters and redo them the next day. With no school yesterday he did it today and he gets to redo some of it tomorrow.

Phonics- Last year I used a book called Alpha-Phonics and LOVED it. We started out using Hooked on Phonics and both did not enjoy it. The Alpha-Phonics was very effective in teaching Jacob how to read. He is reading well, but I still want to continue with these lessons once a week.

While Jacob worked on his math and handwriting Michael sat next to him and did his "work". His grandma had given him a kindergarten workbook this weekend. He'd have Jacob read to him what is was supposed to do. This little boy still has not decided what hand is his dominant hand.

While they did their independent work I got to unload the dishwasher and start a load of wash. Woo-hoo. These are important for me to get done or the house blows up.

After we finished our morning school work we had the rest of the morning to do whatever. After lunch we had, what I'm calling Geography, and History.

Geography- 50 States Under God. I really was unsure of whether I would like this curriculum, so I wasn't as prepared as I'd have liked, but I was happy with today's work. I had prepared by called Delawares Tourist department and had the boys sent information on their state. They really liked getting something in the mail from a different state and were excited to start. They have been getting things from the first few states we'll be studying in the mail and I haven't let them open any of it. My plan for that was for their note booking. The plan backfired. Jacob did not want to cut up what he just got in the mail! What was I thinking? We did some map work, looked closely at Jacob's Delaware quarter from his Sate quarter collection, learned about Caesar Rodney and Peapatch Island, cut out pictures of the state's bird, flower, tree and painted the state flag. I really liked how Michael was involved in doing his own note booking. He created his own flag and glued the symbols he wanted on the back. He was funny. I was showing him the different pictures off google of the Blue Hen Chicken and he wanted the Bluest of blue chicken picture, whereas Jacob liked the realistic picture. We really didn't follow the curriculum, but found it a good source of information.

History- I am using Story of the World. Volume 1-Ancient Times, by Susan Wise Bauer. Today's lesson we learned about the Nomads. I love how this book is written, very engaging and from a christian perspective. For the activity, the boys had fun wrinkling up a large sheet of brown paper and painting "cave drawings" on it and fashioning it into a cave. We had to bring it inside because it started to sprinkle. (I did take a few pictures and will add them soon)

That brought us up to watching a bit of Monster Inc. and dropping Jacob off at Scouts at 4:00 while Michael, Sarah and I went grocery shopping. Jacob learned about emergencies and needs to learn his address and important phone numbers before Scouts next week.