Monday, July 28, 2014

First Week of Homeschool for 2014-2015!

Last week we started back to our full homeschool schedule.  We decided to go with My Father's World : Learning God's Story for Shania for First Grade.  Kenzie is following along and completing the activities she's able to do, with additional handwriting practices and basic math skills.  Cole, who will soon be turning 2, is doing a whole lot of coloring, playing, and fine-motor skills work! 


Shania (Squirrely Girl) -1st Grade
Kenzie (Bear)-Pre-K
Cole (Bubba)-Tater-Tot Tot School

We were doing a lighter school load during the rest of the summer, but we wanted to have part of November and all of December off for the most part to incorporate a lot of seasonal activities so we thought we'd start the school year a bit early.  Here's what our daily rhythm looks like.

Start the Day Together Basket
This is sort of our families circle time.  We usually start by singing a few songs together and praying.  I also have various flash cards that we use some days in our basket.
 
  • Bible:
    My Big Book of 5 Minute Devotions by Pamela Kennedy with Douglas Kennedy if in the MFW schedule, or a story from 365 Read-Aloud Bedtime Bible Stories by Daniel Partner. 

  • Poetry/short stories:
    Folk Tales from Many Lands by Hazel Gertrude Kinscella. 
  • Science:
    This varies.  On Mondays, we read from one of the science books from MFW (Things Outdoors, Science with Plants, and Science with Water).  The rest of the week, we read from one of our other science books to dig deeper into our topic.  This week, we used Life In a Bucket of Soil by Alvin Silverstein and Virginia Silverstein and Fun with Nature: Take-Along Guide by various authors to learn more about things that live close to or inside the ground.

     

     
  • Kids Choice:Each child takes a turn in choosing a book or two to read each morning.
  • Calendar time. 
  • Number of the Day

Language Arts
  • Handwriting and Phonics:
    This week, and for the next week or so, MFW has worksheets for ABC handwriting practice as well as some phoneme blending worksheets for Squirrely Girl.  I also gathered some for Bear to do along with her.
  • Spelling:
    Squirrely Girl then does her Spelling work.  This year, I simply downloaded a master list online for 36 weeks worth of word lists.  Each weeks list has 8 words.  Monday-Thursday she does different spelling practice pages, and on Friday she takes a test over her words.
  • ABC Work:
    Bear continues to work on ABC words and colors the worksheets while Squirrely Girl is doing the rest of her work.
  • Reading:
    Squirrely Girl reads the same three leveled readers daily for a week, along with any other books she picks out.  She also reads and fills out a reading comprehension sheet once a week.


                                     Math
  • Math Lesson:We go over the math lesson, practicing together using manipulatives. 
  • Practice:
    We then complete any activities or worksheets that are in the MFW, or some days we simply play one of our games (Like Chutes and Ladders, Candy Land, Go Fish, Chocolate Chip Math, Math Bingo, or the Math-o-Matic game).



                                                                         Science
  • Worksheets:
    Some days, we will do worksheets pertaining to the weeks topic.  I got some of these from various workbooks, the rest I printed off from sites online.
  • Lapbooks:I sort of out together a lapbook of sorts to go along with this weeks lesson.  I include a lot of fill in the blank type work for Squirrely Girl to complete, and Bear has added some pictures of a few bugs that she colored.  I'm hoping that as the year goes on that Squirrely Girl will be able to put these together herself.  I am helping with at least the first few, especially since they are mostly handmade pieces rather than printouts.
  • Games:I've put together a few games to review a few of our topics so far, and am hoping to make a few more.  This week, the girls played several rounds of the "Parts of an Insect Game".  We used dice, and they had to say the name of the body part before they could place their pieces in the correct place on their insect.  We had a lot of fun!|
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Finally, we may do some art projects, color, and play some more in the afternoon.  Before bed, we also read a Bible story from one of our storybook bibles.  Right now, we're using these two!
 




















 That's what our day looks like as of now!  What does your homeschool day look like?




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