First Two Weeks

We are loving homeschooling! I am still learning how to balance and tweak our curriculum, but overall I think everything is going well. Here is a highlight of our first two weeks.

Bible
Not much has changed in Bible this year. I am still not sure what I think of the Vos Story Bible. I love her descriptions but I am struggling with whether I think she is compromising accuracy of the text with story telling. I am still praying about direction in this area.

Math

After reading Developing Number Concepts Using Unifix Cubes by Kathy Richardson and Math Their Way by Mary Baratta Lorton, I have decided to revisit some concepts that I think that SharkMan already has mastered. Both of these books stress that young children need multiple exposures to how numbers physically look. For example when you think of the number eight, most people don't "see" eight items in their head. They may see a combination of 3 and 5 or 4 and 4. These two authors contend that unless children really solidify what numbers under 10 (and especially 3-5) look like, they will struggle with math. So while SharkMan can easily count with one to one correspondence beyond 20, I decided that it couldn't hurt to review. We took one week to create a book of 3. Each day, I used 5 sheets of paper and a new manipulative to look at different combinations of 3. We used toothpicks, wooden cubes, pattern blocks and Do A Dots as manipulatives - one each day. We enjoyed looking at all the different ways we could make groups of 3. At the end of the week, we stapled all the pages together and made a book for our book basket.

We also have enjoyed using other manipulatives. We have copied patterns on our hundreds board.

We continue to use our Cuissennairerods and alphabet book. Sharkman is getting better at recognizing the lengths of the the different color rods. We use the same letter that we cover in phonics with the cuissennaire rods in math.

We also played a great game with Tangrams. We were each different colors and tried to cover the most dotted areas of the board. We played several times and SharkMan quickly picked up some strategy!

Literature/Phonics/Science:

We have enjoyed reading about the ocean the past two weeks in preparation for our beach trip. We continue to use the Phonics Road to Reading's plan of alphabet introduction with Phonogram Activity Sheets by Cindy Franklin. Basically, this program introduces all the sounds that a letter makes at one time. Most phonics programs introduce all the short vowel sounds then long vowel sounds. This is SharkMan's favorite part of the day. At the end of phonics time, I ask him to tell me the correct sounds the letter makes and the he "earns" a card with that particular letter on it. He loves earning his letter and it is typically the first thing he tells Papa Shark about each day.

I did decide to change our handwriting component of phonics. SharkMan just doesn't have the fine motor to control the pencil perfectly on lined paper. He was getting frustrated that his letters didn't look right. After three days of frustration, I changed my plan. Instead of writing the letter, we are using manipulatives to form the letter. One day, we used dried beans and another day we used Wikki Sticks. I also pulled out my Montessori sandpaper letters to practice where to begin each letter. All of a sudden his resistance disappeared and he looks forward to see what new material we are going to use each day.

We also have enjoyed the literature rotation. We did a sort on things that you find in the country and the city when we read The Country Mouse and The City Mouse.

When we read The Crow and the Pitcher in Aesop Fables, we did an experiment to see if we could raise the water level in a dish by adding stones like the crow did. SharkMan loved it and did the activity twice.

History
We worked on the Pledge, sang songs about America and did a US map. We read a number of books about patriotics songs and a biography on Betsy Ross. We placed our first picture (Adam and Eve) in our time line book.

First Day!

We have finished our official first day of PreK 5 at home and it was a blast! All day long, I kept thinking this is too much fun. I wanted to share our first day highlights with you. (Don't worry, I won't do this everyday!) I wanted you to see what our day looks like. We did our official first day of school pictures like many of our friends heading to school today.

We started our day with Bible. God has laid on my heart that education begins and ends with Him. So, I want to make sure that our schooling always starts with the true source of widsom. We started a new Children's Bible today by Catherine Vos. I loved the first chapter and we had a great discussion on angels. The picture (below) is SharkMan coloring his Proverb card for the week. Our Proverb for the week is Proverbs 25:19. Our question is who is like a broken tooth? (Answer: Confidence in a faithless man in time of trouble.) Each week, SharkMan colors a picture that represents the proverb and then puts it in his own proverb book. During the week, we talk about what the proverb means, use Bible stories to illustrate the Proverb (this week we will talk about Haman) and then talk about current day illustrations. Once a week, Papa Shark reviews all the proverbs learned with SharkMan (mom and dad are learning a great deal also.) We also read the Proverb and Psalm for the day and worked on our long memory passage (Psalm 1.) I am so thankful how God calmed my fears today by reading His Word. I watched the news this morning and the coverage was all the kids returning to schools. I wondered, "Are we really doing the right thing?" During Bible time, God ministered to me. I loved Psalm 1 where the Lord says that the blessed man delights in the law of the Lord and in his law he meditates day and night. He will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water. My prayer for SharkMan is that he will be firmly established and homeschooling allows us to fill his days and nights with God thoughts.

While SharkMan finished coloring his Proverb, I started our Sonlight read aloud. For the next few weeks we will be focusing on the ocean. We read Chapter 1 of Dolphin Adventure. Then, we used our Markable Map to find Florida, the Gulf Stream/Gulf of Mexico (from the story) and Alabama (where we are going in a few weeks.) Sharkman loved the big map. After story time, we worked on our calendar. This month, we will work on identify week days and weekends (days Papa Shark goes to work and days he doesn't.) Each month we will add new components to the calendar.

We then took a break and watched Sid the Science Kid, did morning chores and played. Next, came Math. My approach this year is to do an extraordinary amount of hands on work with manipulatives. After much research, I think this is critical to later math success. We worked on logic and patterning using Reasoning with Teddy Bear Counters.

Then we used Cuisennaire rods to make the letter A. This activity was amazing. We used the rods in different proportions to fill in the letter A and then we found other rods that would fill the same area. We filled a second page of pictures that start with A. We spent about 15 minutes with lots of counting, comparing and sorting - not to mention the fractions. Of course SharkMan doesn't realize what all he's learning - he still thinks we are just playing.

Mondays are 100's Board Day! So we used today as an opportunity to explore the Hundred's Board. SharkMan made pictures and then methodically used different colors to fill in all the rows on the board. I asked SharkMan how many green tiles were in his row. We then "discovered" that all the rows had 10 and the columns too (yes we did a great deal of counting.) This will be useful information in the next few weeks with our activities on the board and it just came so natural in the converstaion. Amazing - no worksheet - just observation and discovery.

We spent a few minutes clapping patterns and then we started our book on three. My research from this summer showed that children need to have multiple exposures to how a number looks to really internalize this. Although SharkMan is great at counting, I figure this can't hurt. Today we played with wooden cubes and came up with different combinations (of colors) to make three. As if he had read Mathematics Their Way, SharkMan said, Let's draw this." All this week, we will use different manipulatives to come up with combinations of three (more to come on this later.)

We also did 1 worksheet today identifying the 3 sounds of A and practiced writing A a couple of times. We also read some books about how fish breathe and about how dolphins used sonar. SharkMan jumped up and started clicking like a dolphin around the house. So, cute.

I know it seems like we did a great deal, but really it only took about 2 hours with several breaks. I even made it to the gym today to workout!

I am awed at how much fun we had today. All of my education classes said learning should be full of hands on discovery. Today, I saw that realized. Having time to work one-on-one was fabulous. I realize all days won't necessarily look like this but I am so grateful that I was able to spend such a great day with my son!