Spelling Word Box

An important part of Spell to Write and Read is doing enrichments. Enrichments are activities designed to reinforce the words and phonograms in interesting ways. One of D-Man's favorites is his box of spelling words. Each week, he writes his words on 3x2.5" cards. Then we file them in a box according to each list. This has turned out to be a great activity. First, he gets to practice spelling the words when he writes them on the cards. Then, we can use the cards in a couple of ways. We use them as flashcards to practice reading the words. This helps D-Man improve his reading fluency. We also arrange them into sentences. This is a sneaky way to introduce grammar gently. When we form sentences, we learn about nouns, verbs, pronouns, and adjectives. Of course, once we form a sentence, he reads it and practices fluency. So much work in a simple activity. I'm sure I'll come up with more ways to use these cards as we go on with the program.

For D-Man, his box is a physical reminder of what he's accomplished so far. He likes to look at and read "his words" and insists that they are filed in order. So far he has 80 words in his box and we add 10 words per week.

Week in Review- Week 8

We had a really great week, but it was a week of change. The main focus for this week was to figure out what kind of schedule works for us. We had it down during summertime, but Tx public schools started on Monday which is throwing us off a bit. The biggest reason it affects us is that I'm watching a friend's son, Big C, after school 3 days/week. We have to go pick him at 2:20 and we don't get home until 2:55. The school is just around the corner (less than a mile away from our house), but we have to wait in line. I've been told it gets better as the newness of the school year wears off. We may walk occasionally after it cools down. After we pick him up, Big C comes to our house until about 5:30.

The boys typically nap/rest between 2 and 4. That won't work with Big C here so we moved rest time to 12. That's a big adjustment in itself. That doesn't leave us much time to do school and go to the gym. We can do it, we just don't have a lot of time to waste. I also discovered that we can use the time we're sitting in line to finish school. D-Man did 6 pages of math last Wednesday while we were waiting.

With respect to academics, it was a great week! Here's a run-down by subject:

Math: We're finally getting to lessons that are a little bit harder. D-Man hasn't been enjoying math as much as I'd hoped because it was too easy. I really should have started in Horizons 1. This week, he was introduced to word problems. There were only 3 of them in the lesson on Tuesday and he begged for more. He was so excited that there were more on Friday. I don't own the Challenging Word Problems level 1 from Singapore Math yet, but I added it to my Sonlight cart. I'll have to order our new math program from them in the next couple of weeks anyway. We finished lesson 106 out of 160 on Friday. We should be finishing up in the next month or so. He doesn't really need to practice word problems at this point, but I won't deny him if he wants to do them for fun.

We also did a lot more with time and money. We learned about the half-hour which prompted D-Man to figure out how the rest of the minutes work. He's not a pro by any means, but I was surprised by how fast he got it. The funny thing is that he gets more confused with digital clocks even though we're learning both at the same time. I think the visual of the hands going around makes more sense to him.

Language Arts: D-Man loves marking silent e words. We learned all 5 rules for silent e's last week and the novelty hasn't worn off. We finished list D this week and he scored a 90% on his test. He forgot the m in jump. He told me that he'd like to retake the test next Thursday so he could get a 100. He promised to carefully sound out jump so that he wouldn't forget the m. I was having a hard time not laughing as he was telling me his plans. We don't retake tests and I'm not sure why he'd want to wait until next Thursday if we did. Maybe he wants to study.

Sonlight: This week, I tried to stick to the instructor's guide. Normally, we do about 7-9 IG days/week. I wanted to see how it would go if we did only 5. Well, it wasn't enough for D-Man. He complained that we didn't have enough "school stories." In fact, I let Shawn read them two school stories tonight at bedtime because D-Man really wanted to read from our Sonlight books. Next week, we'll go back to reading them in order, but at our own pace. I still won't start the next core before next April. We'll just re-read some of our favorites until it comes time to start Core K. I also think that I need to add in some other classic literature that Sonlight doesn't schedule. I'll keep you posted.

Science: Technically, this is part of Sonlight, but it warrants its own paragraph. This week we discussed matter. We were supposed to finish gases next week, but the suspense was killing us, so we went ahead and read it. To top it off, we did an experiment tonight where we melted ice cubes (solid) into water (liquid), and boiled it to make steam (gas). They loved our little experiment, so I'm declaring Saturday experiment day. We're starting energy next week, so I'll have to figure out a suitable experiment. I'm surprised by how much both boys retain just by reading our Berenstain Bear's science book. I'm sad that we only have 10 pages of that book left before we move on to the next book. Here we are watching ice melt. You can also see my new short haircut. Little J was also in on the action. He wasn't allowed to get too close.

Bible: We are WAY ahead in our Bible reading. We're supposed to read 1 chapter/day, but that's not enough for D-Man. He wants to know all of the stories NOW. I figure we'll get through it at least twice this year, maybe 3 times. I actually own another Kenneth Taylor children's Bible so we might switch it up when we finish this one. We are also still memorizing our verses. Today, the boys recited all 8 verses to Shawn in the living room. This is required for D-Man, but C-Monster voluntarily participates. They love performing. We've been doing all of the memorizing, but got out of the habit of reciting them each week. I'm going to make sure we do that every week. C-Monster continually amazes me with his ability to memorize. He doesn't ever seem to be paying attention, but he'll just spout off the verse when I ask D-Man. It makes D-Man laugh because it seems like C-Monster can't help but recite the memory verse even when he knows it isn't his turn. It's just an automatic reflex. Here are some pics of our Saturday night recital:

Life is Hectic

Yes, homeschooling life can be hectic. It took us an hour to do LA the other day because the littles were into EVERYTHING and trying to persuade D-Man to come play. It was a particularly crazy time because of exterminators, short nap times, and mixed up schedules. I know it will get harder as they get older and I have more to school.

However, as I'm drinking my coffee in front of the computer with my boys snuggled upstairs sleeping, I am watching all of the kids go to school at 7:15 out my front window. 7:15!! That's what time D-Man would have to be out the door. I know some have early risers, but God has blessed me with late sleepers. I can't imagine having to feed and dress 3 kids to drive one to school everyday at 7:15!

Preparing to homeschool

I didn't just wake up a couple of months ago and decide to homeschool. I started thinking about it before D-Man was born. While we lived in North Carolina (2002), I met some amazing hs families. It was my first close-up experience with homeschoolers and it convinced me to do some research. While living in Boston (2004), I became friends with 3 more homeschooling families. They exposed me to different styles of homeschooling. Once I realized the type of education I could provide my children, I was hooked. Since then, I've read every homeschooling book I could find at the library and spent many hours online looking for curriculum.

So here's what I've come up with for K-2nd grade:

Home School Curriculum Plans K-2

My style of schooling is mainly Christian classical with Charlotte Mason and Principle Approach influences. I'll go more in depth on those in a future post.

I've planned my curriculum up to 6th grade. It isn't set in stone, but it gives me a direction. It would be difficult for me to plan one year at a time. I really need to know what we're working on now will be compatible with what I want to do in the 4th grade.

Do I have some form of OCD? Probably...I just wish it would show up when I clean my house now and then.

SWR Schedule

I've had a few requests for my SWR schedule lately, so I thought I'd post it for everyone.

We don't follow it exactly. I try to get all of the activities done during the week, but it doesn't always happen and I often switch what's going on day-to-day. The schedule's more to keep me on track. SWR isn't just about dictating words on Monday and testing them on Friday. What happens in between is equally as or even more important.

To create this schedule, I basically took the example in the SWR book for first graders and extended it twice as long since we're only doing 10 words/week instead of 20. I had to add some extra enrichments to fill in every other week. Between the game package I bought, the WISE Guide, and the SWR Yahoo group, there are plenty of enrichments for me to fill our schedule.

SWR Schedule Kindergarten-Updated

Math

Math is a fun subject for me. I'd love to teach high school math someday, especially advanced math. Shawn is also pretty mathy himself, so it was not surprising when D-Man declared math a hobby instead of a school subject. Math is fun for him, too. After tutoring a lot of my friends while I was at the Academy, I came to the conclusion that you either get numbers or you don't. Some that I tutored got numbers and just needed a little help understanding the concepts that we were learning, no big deal. Others just didn't get it. They struggled through almost every course...it is an engineering school after all. D-Man, however, is the kind of kid that asked for addition and subtraction flashcards for Christmas when he was four and is currently trying to re-invent multiplication at the age of 5. Because I don't really think it is necessary for kids under 5 to do formal academics, I haven't worked with him to advance his math skills, but we have played lots of games and I answer any questions that he asks. Plus, he likes to pick Grandpa D's brain for new math concepts whenever he visits.

When I went to research math curriculum for this year, I had to keep five things in mind. D-Man loves to do math, he's a visual learner, I didn't want math to be overly challenging this year (we're focusing on LA), and I didn't want him to get too far ahead of his grade level, but I didn't want him to be bored. After a lot of research, there were two programs that stuck out to me: Horizons and Singapore. They are both considered to be great at teaching the concepts and challenging for the grade-level. I decided to use both with D-Man. Since he does like to do math and we school year-round, I knew that he would likely finish a math program in less than 6 months. Just going through a math program at lightning speed doesn't have the desired end results for me. Sure, I might have a 14 yo who has been through Calculus, but so what? What I would rather have is a 14yo in Geometry who really has good foundation in arithmetic. Depth rather than breadth.

The two programs are also very different in their presentation of math. Horizons is a fast spiral teaching concepts in a traditional workbook fashion. Right up D-Man's alley. He won't get bored, but will get the eye-candy he likes. Singapore specializes in mental math...really thinking about the process. The depth I'm looking for. I'm also excited about doing both of these programs with D-Man so that I can decide which one I'd like to use with C-Monster and Little-J. I don't want to push two programs on them if they don't have the desire and one program is definitely enough to provide an excellent education.

Right now, we are doing Horizons. The general consensus is that Horizons runs about 1 grade-level ahead of the norm. D-Man tested into Horizons 2 (could be considered 3rd grade math), but I didn't see any reason to start him that high. It would have been pretty challenging for him which I didn't want. I decided instead to do Horizons K and go through it as fast as he wants focusing on concepts that he hasn't been introduced to like skip counting, money, and telling time. He loves Horizons K. It does include a lot of number penmanship practice that we skip (it's just busy work), but overall, it is great. It only takes him about 5-10 mins to complete a lesson so we do at least 2/day. We are already on Lesson 85 after working on it for about 6 weeks. Looking back, I could have easily started him in Horizons 1 and it still would have been easy for him, but I'm happy where we are. Here's a sample of what he's been doing:

Once we're done with Horizons K, we'll start Singapore 1A. After that, we might go on to 1B (1A and 1B make up a full year program) or go into Horizons 1 and do 1B/2A in before Horizons 2. I'll just have to get a feel for it. Both programs go up to level 6 which I'm hoping not to finish until D-Man is at least in 5th grade. Then, we'll see about Algebra for 6th maybe pre-Algrebra. The one thing I love about homeschooling is that I can be flexible and change the plan whenever it needs to be changed.

Our Current SL Reading List

Part of school for us is reading great books. For D-Man's Kindergarten year, I chose to use Sonlight's P4/5 curriculum. Yes, technically it is for preschoolers...sort of. The recommended ages are 4-5 so, even though Daniel is in Kindergarten, he falls into the intended age range. After using this program for the 8 weeks (and making it through 10 weeks of reading), I know I made the right choice. We love the book selections and Daniel is getting a lot out of them. P4/5 is titled Explore God's World. It includes books that discuss different cultures and stories from many countries as well as some great storybooks. It is a gentle intro to reading aloud, geography, science, and social studies. It is the fun part of our schoolday. So here's what we're reading right now:

This is our Bible. It is a children's Bible that includes many of the stories that other children's Bibles omit such as Balaaam's Donkey or the Bronze Snake.

This is our science book for about 15 weeks. So far we covered the year including months, seasons, and holidays and nature. Next up, the science fair section. Dad-this section includes some physics.

Our Mother Goose collection for the year. Considering the ages of the boys, I'll probably be reading from a Mother Goose book for the next 10 years. At least I have a few of them to keep it interesting.

This book is a good example of why I chose to use Sonlight. I would not have picked this book to read to the boys. I'm just not a fan of poetry so it's a good thing that Sonlight thinks poetry is important. The boys love this book. We read some of the poems over and over. I know that they don't understand them all yet, but that'll come with age. The poems are accompanied by beautiful Eric Carle illustrations. I will admit that while poetry isn't my favorite genre, these poems are good and the artwork is breathtaking.

This is the little people's version of The Book of Virtues by William Bennett. It takes exerpts of different stories (mostly classic literature) and uses them to illustrate virtues. We haven't read much from it yet, but I think that I'd like to create a mini-study of virtues from this book when we're finished with this core.

This is by far my favorite book in the core. It is a storybook filled with stories of a helpful bunny gentleman. Even though these stories were written 75 years ago, the boys can't get enough Uncle Wiggily stories. They are written in a completely different style than today's children's literature and stretch the boys' listening ability and vocabulary.

We haven't actually started this book yet, we'll start it tomorrow. I'm pretty excited about it, though. I don't really know anything about art so I'll be learning about it along with the boys. D-Man, however, really enjoys art, so I think this book will inspire him. I plan to start an age-appropriate art program with him later this year as well.

This book ranks among D-Man's favorites. He loves the Rabbit and Tiger stories. Unfortuately, outside of few in this book, I haven't been able to find anymore. This book compiles several stories and myths from countries around the world. We'll be rereading many of them when we start our geography curriculum soon.




This book introduced us to the Island of Banilla and all of the people who live there. Everyone on Banilla has a different job and each week we explore one. This week we are covering the pilot which D-Man should like.

Some of these books we'll read throughout the year; others we'll finish and then go on to the next topic. D-Man really enjoys our reading time. I don't require C-Monster to sit with us during our reading-time but he usually does. It is a nice, quiet time for us each day.

Bananagrams

This is my new favorite game...and it's educational, too. It is a word game, but not like Scrabble. I do not like playing Scrabble. It is slow and I don't know all of those crazy words that one only learns in order to win Scrabble. Bananagrams, on the other hand, is a fun, fast-paced game that will challenge your vocabulary, but not force into memorizing a bunch of obscure words.*

The object of the game is to use all of your tiles to create your own crossword. Each time a player is able to use all of their tiles, each player draws another tile from the pile. This continues until all of the tiles are used. The first to finish their crossword without enough tiles for everyone to draw is the winner.

Family and friends introduced us to it on vacation and I'm hooked. You can play it for 5 mins or for hours...with 1 player or many. One of my favorite things about the game is that even when I don't win the round, I still feel very accomplished because of how many great words I've been able to include in my board. That's saying a lot since I'm an ultra-competitive type.

The boys already like playing around with the tiles, but D-Man could actually play the game. He would just use words that he knows. We'd pair him with an adult just to make him more competitive, or he could play solitaire (with my help). It would be a great exercise for him to figure out which words to make with his available tiles. Since there isn't any scoring, he wouldn't be penalized for only using small words or getting rid of letters that he can't use. The variations on this idea are endless. Maybe we'll try it out tomorrow.

*It worth knowing a few "q without a u" words in case you get an unusable q.