Another successful day!

But I have a couple questions for any veteran homeschool moms that may be reading this...

1) Our lapbook pieces aren't staying on very well with an Elmer's gluestick...what do you use?!

2) Marshall is plowing through the dinosaur unit! I planned on it taking about 2 weeks, but at the rate he's going (3 1/2 hours today!) we'll be done by Friday. Do you slow it down, or let them go? I guess I better get my tush in gear for the next unit study!

Also...a Dinosaur Unit Resources post is in the works!

First Day of School & Dinosaur Unit

I could not have asked for a better first day of kindergarten for Marshall! There were no tears shed as we hugged goodbye outside his classroom door, no wondering if I was making the right decision, or if I would regret sending him. Nope, not here! I loved every minute of it and I know he did too!

Marshall started with a little attitude this morning, he wanted to play a computer game instead of start school. After getting dressed, with teeth brushed, and all ready for the day, I promised him if he worked hard he could earn time to play Reader Rabbit.

We started off with a prayer and that really seemed to set the tone for the day. After that things came together pleasantly and we had a fun day full of learning! After gospel study we moved onto Moving with Math. I am loving this curriculum!

We would have done our calendar/nursery rhyme memorization, etc. in between gospel and math, but it's not finished yet. Or even started. I fully intended on making a calendar board but was sick the better half of last week :P

Despite being unprepared for that, our new morning routine went as well as could be expected with a destructive toddler on-board.

comparing sizes

Coen, our toddler, wanted some hands-on play too!
Here he is lining up the teddy bear counters.

After math we took a break for playtime with mommy and the computer time, as promised.

special playtime with mommy

let's see how high we can make it!

After lunch and more playtime, Coen went down for nap so Marshall and I could focus on reading and our new unit study - Dinosaurs!! Marshall is really resisting our phonics instruction - Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons - so I resorted to a flash card phonics quiz and having him read me Bob books. He only missed "u" in the flash cards, he gets it mixed up with "n." After reading a Bob book he asked to read another! He is a great reader, just doesn't like 100EZ for some reason. Any suggestions? I don't have the money for a new program right now.

Thanks to PBS's "Dinosaur Train," Marshall has shown a huge interest in these terrible lizards lately. I decided to go with it and make it our first unit study, a fun way for him to get into school and get used to the routine. I also wanted to introduce him to lapbooks. So we read 6 books about dinosaurs. I sent my hubby to get the books I had on hold for this unit last week and he was convinced I had cleared out the dinosaur section, hehe.

here he is tracing a skeleton and the letter b for bones

he assembled a toilet paper tube paleontologist

Coen woke up as we were doing the lapbook and wanted in on some coloring action

as he put the colored pencils back in, he was very precise about having all the tips pointed out

We drew a T-Rex using the book "How to Draw Dinosaurs" by Rob Court. Marshalls turned into an "everything dinosaur" and he used it for the art on the cover of his lapbook.

ordering some sequence cards - eggs, hatching, baby, grown-up

Coen learning how to cut with the "shar" for sharp, his word for scissors. And knives.

We read 2 books about how big the dinosaurs were. As we got to each dinosaur in the book, Marshall would fill in the graph.

Tonight we read the chapter book "Dinosaur Detectives" by Ted Enik as our read-aloud. It's a Magic School Bus Science chapter book.

That about wraps up our first day of school!

Update

Between travels and moving across the country the first half of the year, I didn't make much time for this blog. But it doesn't mean we haven't been doing any school!

I have been working like mad to get stuff put together in time to officially start Monday, August 16th as that is when public school starts here. I probably won't always follow their schedule but it seemed like a good official start date. My husband and I only made our final decision last Friday, a week ago. So while I've been bursting with ideas and curricula for several months I am only now getting around to gathering it all. It is quite overwhelming but so exciting at the same time!

I made up a weekly schedule of sorts last night using Homeschool-ideas.com's outline. I tailored it to our needs but liked the overall look of it and ability to just write in the lesson # or book we will be reading.

I love that I can just fill it in each week, print it off to look at, then store it in our portfolio. Easy peasy! I also updated my Curriculum Page as well as About Me, so check those out if you're interested. Thanks for reading!

We took a little break..

but we're back to it this week! I was tired, stressed, and Marshall was fighting me about school time every day. But we started up a couple days ago and I think a little break was a good idea. Marshall is always excited about Math, but even reading became easier this week. He stuck to it until the end! Yay! It's so much nicer not to have to constantly remind him to sit up straight and calm down, and eyes on the page and all that. Today I reminded him how well he has been doing and told him I would wait until he was ready to do it nicely. It worked and a second later he was focused!

Math has been a breeze. I still am really loving MWM and all the accompanying library books. He loves the reading component, it makes for good snuggle time with mom, too. He chooses to start with Math each day and when he's done he knows reading time is next. So far he's mostly learning about colors, sorting, classifying, etc. We've also been reading and doing activities to introduce the calendar and weather, which we do every day now. And today we learned sequencing of events: first, next, last and read about Jesse Bear's day. The books we've been getting from the library help introduce and reinforce what he is learning.

This week we also added a Social Studies theme. Chinese New Year falls on the same day as Valentine's this year, February 14th. So we're reading TONS of library books about Chinese New Year and culture. We did a Tiger puzzle yesterday (2010 is the Year of the Tiger) and learned some words describing people born in that year (supposedly). Today we read about the "dragon dance" in the Chinese New Year celebration and so he did a dot-to-dot printable I found of a Dragon. I had some more activities ready but the baby woke up from his nap.

We've been working straight through nap time, 2-3 hours, which means Marshall's attention span is getting longer and he can focus and get through it all. I think the schedule helps too though. Letting him choose what to do first (Math) then reading and he knows as soon as it's over we do more fun reading and projects (which he really loves). Right now it's a good set-up and we'll continue to add to our day. We seem to be running out of time but I'm nervous about how it will go if we do it while we have a toddler around. I guess we'll cross that bridge when we need to!

Day 1

Today we started Moving with Math - Kindergarten. My son loved it! I like that it includes picture books into the curriculum, although I didn't really see a connection between the book and the lesson other than bears and caves. I guess that's enough and if you wanted to you could plan a whole unit on bears (which is actually a great idea). Once I had read the books and done the lesson with him, he was able to do the worksheet on his own, which was nice. Afterwards he played with the bear counters by making them dive into a pretend swimming pool.

Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons is always a bit more of a challenge to get him to do. We started back in summer, but he told me he didn't want to learn how to read until he was 5. So the day after his birthday he was ready. I made him a "Road to Reading" poster with 100 squares along a winding road. Every 20 squares he colors in he gets to choose a "date night" with mom and dad to any place he wants. His first choice was Jungle Jims, similar to Chucky Cheese. Today we did lesson 31 and his next outing will be to a sledding hill with a tow rope. He also earns TV time each afternoon after he completes his 100 EZ lesson and writing practice.

Every homeschool source I read said "start where you are." So I took it to heart and that's what we've been doing. I am adding one subject at a time, hopefully each month. We're doing a mix of preschool and kindergarten learning. I've gathered what he should be learning from the state's scope & sequence as well as The Core Knowledge Foundation's two books: "What Your Preschooler Needs to Know" and "What Your Kindergartner Needs to Know."

In February I hope to do a few mini-unit studies. We'll be reading about and doing activities for Valentine's Day, Chinese New Year, and of course The Olympics! Right now I'm getting whatever I can for free online and at the library.

I hope to develop a good reader base so I can get good tips and suggestions. I am also hoping that by blogging about our homeschool experience I will someday help someone just starting out, like myself. I can't even tell you how many blogs I have read in the last 6 months or so all having to do with homeschooling! I've read countless curriculum reviews to decide what direction to take with my son. I am so excited about this journey we are about to embark on! (Although really it's a continuation of what I've been teaching him from birth.)

Enjoy!