Felipe and Cassandra on their scooters.
Cassandra
Carolina
The kids enjoying their valentines and treats after the party.The kids have been to a few activities in our group like this one. We also are in a Spanish group with 3 other families. We have a little lesson in Spanish together and then play and encourage the kids to speak Spanish while they play. The kids also were on a soccer team in January and we are planning to get them into soccer a little more since they really enjoyed it.
As for school we are doing well at being consistent with having school everyday and completing the planned work. We have been having school around 10 am though because we have been up until 11 pm every night watching the Olympics. The kids have learned a lot about different winter sports and about Canada and a few other countries. It will be nice to get back to our regular schedule though.
We are learning about biomes in science. We made a model of a desert with some sand and little plastic snakes and lizards. The kids made a few cacti out of pipe cleaners and put them in the sand. We are going to read about various biomes and make corresponding models.
Cassandra is doing Kindergarten work now. She knows her letters and sounds and is working on word families like -at, -an, -ap, -it, etc. She can sound out most of the three letter words and likes to try to sound out big words.
Felipe is doing mostly first grade work and has just started on a second grade math book that I love. He loves reading in Spanish and has been speaking Spanish a lot more lately.
Now that Cassandra is doing lessons more than just letter practice and preschool work I need to separate the kids more to work with them individually. Before we all worked at the same time but I mostly would work with Felipe while Cassandra practiced writing letters and coloring next to me. We still do a lot of work together though. We bought a kid-size picnic table last year that fits nicely in our school room and I let the other kids sit at it to work on various activities while I work with one individually. I put a set of plastic drawers next to it with things like white boards, construction paper, art supplies, geoboards, lacing cards, magnadoodles, etc. It is kind of like working at centers. We also have been interested in stamping after we made stamped valentines at a primary activity. So I have ordered some stamps for the kids to play with and make pictures (I love them too and I love using my -I need them for our homeschool excuse- to buy them:) So they have to do a "center" for at least one of their breaks (which can include other things not at the table like the flannel board, magnetic board or just reading on a bean bag) and they have to do some sort of exercise for another break. After that they can do whatever they want on their breaks. I also have to do exercise :P so usually we just put on some music and exercise together before we start school. They always want to exercise to our Solecitos CD with Spanish kid songs that I have in my head the rest of the day.
I did a few assessments on them about a month ago. I don't like the idea of "teaching to the test" like so many schools do but at the same time I think kids need to learn how to take tests and do well on them so I do not shun tests in our homeschool. I have always liked tests and testing days were always my favorite in school and even in college. I want my kids to like tests too because I think a negative testing attitude often makes people do worse on tests than they would if they were excited about it.
My favorite thing about our school is that the kids like it. On most days they are excited to go to school. We have been sick this last week but we managed to get about an hour of school done each day. They even wanted to have school when they were sick. Carolina, Samantha and I are still pretty sick though with the flu :(
I get my scripture study done during school too and try to study a little Spanish or do a little reading while they all take a break.
We are really enjoying our homeschool!!
As for school we are doing well at being consistent with having school everyday and completing the planned work. We have been having school around 10 am though because we have been up until 11 pm every night watching the Olympics. The kids have learned a lot about different winter sports and about Canada and a few other countries. It will be nice to get back to our regular schedule though.
We are learning about biomes in science. We made a model of a desert with some sand and little plastic snakes and lizards. The kids made a few cacti out of pipe cleaners and put them in the sand. We are going to read about various biomes and make corresponding models.
Cassandra is doing Kindergarten work now. She knows her letters and sounds and is working on word families like -at, -an, -ap, -it, etc. She can sound out most of the three letter words and likes to try to sound out big words.
Felipe is doing mostly first grade work and has just started on a second grade math book that I love. He loves reading in Spanish and has been speaking Spanish a lot more lately.
Now that Cassandra is doing lessons more than just letter practice and preschool work I need to separate the kids more to work with them individually. Before we all worked at the same time but I mostly would work with Felipe while Cassandra practiced writing letters and coloring next to me. We still do a lot of work together though. We bought a kid-size picnic table last year that fits nicely in our school room and I let the other kids sit at it to work on various activities while I work with one individually. I put a set of plastic drawers next to it with things like white boards, construction paper, art supplies, geoboards, lacing cards, magnadoodles, etc. It is kind of like working at centers. We also have been interested in stamping after we made stamped valentines at a primary activity. So I have ordered some stamps for the kids to play with and make pictures (I love them too and I love using my -I need them for our homeschool excuse- to buy them:) So they have to do a "center" for at least one of their breaks (which can include other things not at the table like the flannel board, magnetic board or just reading on a bean bag) and they have to do some sort of exercise for another break. After that they can do whatever they want on their breaks. I also have to do exercise :P so usually we just put on some music and exercise together before we start school. They always want to exercise to our Solecitos CD with Spanish kid songs that I have in my head the rest of the day.
I did a few assessments on them about a month ago. I don't like the idea of "teaching to the test" like so many schools do but at the same time I think kids need to learn how to take tests and do well on them so I do not shun tests in our homeschool. I have always liked tests and testing days were always my favorite in school and even in college. I want my kids to like tests too because I think a negative testing attitude often makes people do worse on tests than they would if they were excited about it.
My favorite thing about our school is that the kids like it. On most days they are excited to go to school. We have been sick this last week but we managed to get about an hour of school done each day. They even wanted to have school when they were sick. Carolina, Samantha and I are still pretty sick though with the flu :(
I get my scripture study done during school too and try to study a little Spanish or do a little reading while they all take a break.
We are really enjoying our homeschool!!
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