Friday, August 8, 2008
2008 Back to School Party!
Today we took the kids to the Butler Aquatic Center for their back to school party. They had a lot of fun and asked if we could have a back to school party every year. :) Even Dad got to come along! Again, no pictures. Im becoming really bad at taking pictures. Later this evening we will finish our back to school hand print pages. Yay!
Thursday, August 7, 2008
Week One
This week was the official start of our 2008/2009 JOY Academy school year. I'm having computer issues so I've been using my laptop mainly. Perhaps I will take and download some pictures later. :) We started out really slow this week focusing on routine more than quantity of school work. Our first subjects were: Phonics, Math, Reading, Bible, and Language. Here is what we did.
Natalie grade 2
Math: Using Horizons 2 we accomplished 1 lesson per day. She learned a ton and actually had a smile on her face! Today we did two lessons because some how I wrote my lesson plans wrong and I didn't want to have to rewrite. :)
Phonics: Explode the Code #4. We accomplished one lesson and did quite well. I'm still up in the air about weather or not she "needs" ETC the rest of this year or not. She is pretty well versed in Phonics and reads well. So I'm gonna test Spelling Work Out B on her and see if it covers phonetic rules enough to skip doing ETC 5,6,7,8
Reading: We did read orally two lessons from her McGuffey's Primer but we only accomplished one day of independent reading and three days of my reading aloud. This week she will read for 30 min sessions and complete a little book report form I made for her (when she finishes a title). I'm having a hard time deciding what will be on her reading list because she reads so well, but she is "afraid" of chapter books. So we are sticking to 3 and 4 readers for now.
Bible: We only accomplished two days of independent bible reading. Although we did start her very own prayer journal. I'm hoping that next week we can improve upon the consistency with her prayer journal. during VBS last week Natalie expressed an interest in growing in her faith. She said "I feel the love of God growing in me, my faith is getting bigger. I wish it would grow all the time." :)
Language: We did two lessons (as scheduled) from Primary Language Lessons. She seemed to enjoy it, though she wasn't fond of the copy work. She did have a lot of fun with dictation. I noticed that we have some spelling issues like the word "ladder", "hollow", "squirrel", "tennis", "rabbit" and so on. But I think these are pretty tough words for a 2nd grader whose never written before. Last year for narration I did all the writing. I think we need to work on spelling.. And probably need our phonics to reinforce the rules. I didn't teach her to read phonetically.
Logan Kindergarten
Math: Logan is using Horizons K this year and will complete one lesson per day. He did really well this week. Some areas that needed instruction we're ordinal numbers (1st, 2nd, 3rd), days of the week and clock reading. But he caught on quick and learned that writing isn't as hard for him this year as it was last. Great! He had a rough time with small motor skills last year.
Phonics: My plan for phonics this year is for Logan to complete ETC 1,2,3,4. A little more of an accelerated pace from Natalie in years past. She only did ETC 1-2-3 from K to 1st grade. I thought they were graded then. Oops. :) For Logan he will do a lesson a week. ETC has been great for Logan. Really improved his reading ability. He can read pretty well, he just doesn't know it yet.
Reading: This week we only did 2 lessons from Logan's McGuffey's Primer. He did rather well. He didn't want to begin his lesson because he thought it would be hard. But once he realized that he knew the rules to read the "hard" words he was fine. I really love how McGuffey's uses the markings on the letters to teach short a, hard s, hard c and so on. Pretty simple for me to teach him. Next week we are adding other readers and short books for him to read. My goal is 15 min per day. Hopefully by the end of the year he can read independently from short word books.
Bible: Logan also started a prayer journal. He is using a sketch book and drawing prayers to God during our quiet time. His picture was of a rocket ship this week. He said and I wrote it down for him "Thank you God for rocket ships and monster trucks. They are so easy to draw." Cute.
Handwriting: I almost forgot. :) Each completed 1 lesson from A Reason for Handwriting.
We are leaving on Monday to Colorado for 2 weeks. We're all pretty excited about it. I plan to take along our studies and do them on the road. Surely there will be time in the car. :) After we come home my Sonlight box should be in and I will take a day to lesson plan that. Then we will add Sonlight (history and geography) and Astronomy. I'm so excited about Astronomy. I even have a solar system to hang in the school room and a neat little thing that lights up the ceiling like stars!! So hopefully week 2 and 3 will be done on the road. Then week 4 we'll add Astronomy. And week 5 we'll add Sonlight. :)
I'm also debating on weather to include Logan in Natalie's studies or hold him back (unless he wants to) and start the same course with him when he's in 2nd grade--2 years. That way I'm not stressing over two students but one. :)
Natalie grade 2
Math: Using Horizons 2 we accomplished 1 lesson per day. She learned a ton and actually had a smile on her face! Today we did two lessons because some how I wrote my lesson plans wrong and I didn't want to have to rewrite. :)
Phonics: Explode the Code #4. We accomplished one lesson and did quite well. I'm still up in the air about weather or not she "needs" ETC the rest of this year or not. She is pretty well versed in Phonics and reads well. So I'm gonna test Spelling Work Out B on her and see if it covers phonetic rules enough to skip doing ETC 5,6,7,8
Reading: We did read orally two lessons from her McGuffey's Primer but we only accomplished one day of independent reading and three days of my reading aloud. This week she will read for 30 min sessions and complete a little book report form I made for her (when she finishes a title). I'm having a hard time deciding what will be on her reading list because she reads so well, but she is "afraid" of chapter books. So we are sticking to 3 and 4 readers for now.
Bible: We only accomplished two days of independent bible reading. Although we did start her very own prayer journal. I'm hoping that next week we can improve upon the consistency with her prayer journal. during VBS last week Natalie expressed an interest in growing in her faith. She said "I feel the love of God growing in me, my faith is getting bigger. I wish it would grow all the time." :)
Language: We did two lessons (as scheduled) from Primary Language Lessons. She seemed to enjoy it, though she wasn't fond of the copy work. She did have a lot of fun with dictation. I noticed that we have some spelling issues like the word "ladder", "hollow", "squirrel", "tennis", "rabbit" and so on. But I think these are pretty tough words for a 2nd grader whose never written before. Last year for narration I did all the writing. I think we need to work on spelling.. And probably need our phonics to reinforce the rules. I didn't teach her to read phonetically.
Logan Kindergarten
Math: Logan is using Horizons K this year and will complete one lesson per day. He did really well this week. Some areas that needed instruction we're ordinal numbers (1st, 2nd, 3rd), days of the week and clock reading. But he caught on quick and learned that writing isn't as hard for him this year as it was last. Great! He had a rough time with small motor skills last year.
Phonics: My plan for phonics this year is for Logan to complete ETC 1,2,3,4. A little more of an accelerated pace from Natalie in years past. She only did ETC 1-2-3 from K to 1st grade. I thought they were graded then. Oops. :) For Logan he will do a lesson a week. ETC has been great for Logan. Really improved his reading ability. He can read pretty well, he just doesn't know it yet.
Reading: This week we only did 2 lessons from Logan's McGuffey's Primer. He did rather well. He didn't want to begin his lesson because he thought it would be hard. But once he realized that he knew the rules to read the "hard" words he was fine. I really love how McGuffey's uses the markings on the letters to teach short a, hard s, hard c and so on. Pretty simple for me to teach him. Next week we are adding other readers and short books for him to read. My goal is 15 min per day. Hopefully by the end of the year he can read independently from short word books.
Bible: Logan also started a prayer journal. He is using a sketch book and drawing prayers to God during our quiet time. His picture was of a rocket ship this week. He said and I wrote it down for him "Thank you God for rocket ships and monster trucks. They are so easy to draw." Cute.
Handwriting: I almost forgot. :) Each completed 1 lesson from A Reason for Handwriting.
We are leaving on Monday to Colorado for 2 weeks. We're all pretty excited about it. I plan to take along our studies and do them on the road. Surely there will be time in the car. :) After we come home my Sonlight box should be in and I will take a day to lesson plan that. Then we will add Sonlight (history and geography) and Astronomy. I'm so excited about Astronomy. I even have a solar system to hang in the school room and a neat little thing that lights up the ceiling like stars!! So hopefully week 2 and 3 will be done on the road. Then week 4 we'll add Astronomy. And week 5 we'll add Sonlight. :)
I'm also debating on weather to include Logan in Natalie's studies or hold him back (unless he wants to) and start the same course with him when he's in 2nd grade--2 years. That way I'm not stressing over two students but one. :)
Friday, July 18, 2008
Calendar for 2008
Updated School Calendar 2008
(starting earlier so we can finish everything we need to get done. :)
August 4 First Day of School
August 10-22 No School (Vacation to Colorado)
August 25 School Resumes
October 9-10 No school (Mom and Dad's Anniversary)
October 20 End of First Semester
December 22 End of Second 9 weeks.
December 29 Winter Break Begins
February 2 School Resumes if all goes well with baby #5
March 30th End of 3rd Semester
June 1 End of 4th semester. Summer Break begins!
(starting earlier so we can finish everything we need to get done. :)
August 4 First Day of School
August 10-22 No School (Vacation to Colorado)
August 25 School Resumes
October 9-10 No school (Mom and Dad's Anniversary)
October 20 End of First Semester
December 22 End of Second 9 weeks.
December 29 Winter Break Begins
February 2 School Resumes if all goes well with baby #5
March 30th End of 3rd Semester
June 1 End of 4th semester. Summer Break begins!
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Random Learning through our break.
Thursday July 10
Dad rented The Winged Migration Pretty interesting movie about some imprinted birds that were video'd through the migration process. Kids learned alot about different countries, birds and weather patterns. Dad also caught a baby frog that we observed for awhile. Didnt get a chance to nature notebook it though. Perhaps we'll catch another. Roughly 1 and 1/2 hours
Friday July 11
Top: Natalie's Picture
Bottom: Logan's Picture
Dad watched the making of the movie with the kids and had the children draw pictures of how they would imprint their birds. :) Natalie said she would dress in a duck suit and the ducks would call her "Mama" and Logan said he'd build a duck shaped plane. 1.5 hours
Tuesday July 15
Took the kids to the Ripley's Museum in Branson, MO. The kids learned alot of strange trivia. We spent about 2 hours there..
Random hours.. 5 hours.
*School is going on around us all the time.. The key is to take ahold of those teachable moments.
Dad rented The Winged Migration Pretty interesting movie about some imprinted birds that were video'd through the migration process. Kids learned alot about different countries, birds and weather patterns. Dad also caught a baby frog that we observed for awhile. Didnt get a chance to nature notebook it though. Perhaps we'll catch another. Roughly 1 and 1/2 hours
Friday July 11
Top: Natalie's Picture
Bottom: Logan's Picture
Tuesday July 15
Took the kids to the Ripley's Museum in Branson, MO. The kids learned alot of strange trivia. We spent about 2 hours there..
Random hours.. 5 hours.
*School is going on around us all the time.. The key is to take ahold of those teachable moments.
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Wednesday
This afternoon we worked on our 4th of July lapbooks again. We added several little items. Read the first lines of the Declaration of Independence, read from our book, and outlined the 13 colonies on our Map as well as the states of Virginia and Massachusetts. In our lapbooks we recorded the elements that make fireworks their different colors. Natalie finished her copywork. We counted 13 stripes and 50 Stars on the American Flag. We sang "God Bless America" and worked on our memory verse. We also colored Missouri blue on a little map and the rest of the states Red. We wrote the word Missouri.
Time for today: 2 hours
We did finish our lapbooks and our story this week. I got a little carried away and forgot to record our time. I would say that we spent another 2 hours or more on this lapbook before it was finished. And our firework show on the 4th really rounded out our study.
Time 2.5 hours.
Time for today: 2 hours
We did finish our lapbooks and our story this week. I got a little carried away and forgot to record our time. I would say that we spent another 2 hours or more on this lapbook before it was finished. And our firework show on the 4th really rounded out our study.
Time 2.5 hours.
Monday, June 30, 2008
Monday
We started our day with 20 min of Bible Reading from Dad. He read the story of the Rising of Lazarus. The children were really attentive this morning and answered questions well.. :)
This week we'll have a memory verse from Psalm 119: 45 "I have gained perfect freedom by following your teachings."
This afternoons homeschooling session was pleaseant and carefree..
First we did our lesson from Making Math Meaningful. Activity 1-D. We added equal and unequal signs to our worksheets.
Then, we read the first section in the 4th of July Story: The Birthday of Our Country. We made 3 little minibooks for our lapbook. One on "how we celebrate" where we wrote how we celebrated last year. Another with our Memory Verse on the inside. The last on the date of the first birthday of our country (July 4, 1776). Logan finished his copywork page on our memory verse. Natalie choose to do hers later.
Time: 2 hours
Update..
Right before dinner the Husband caught a mud-dauber wasp in our laundry room. Lucky for the wasp we are homeschoolers or it would have been sprayed! :) We put the jar on the table and the kids drew it in their nature notebooks. We also read about the mud dauber and wrote down its genus name. :) Roughly 20 min.
Updated Time for today: 2 hours 20 min.
This week we'll have a memory verse from Psalm 119: 45 "I have gained perfect freedom by following your teachings."
This afternoons homeschooling session was pleaseant and carefree..
First we did our lesson from Making Math Meaningful. Activity 1-D. We added equal and unequal signs to our worksheets.
Then, we read the first section in the 4th of July Story: The Birthday of Our Country. We made 3 little minibooks for our lapbook. One on "how we celebrate" where we wrote how we celebrated last year. Another with our Memory Verse on the inside. The last on the date of the first birthday of our country (July 4, 1776). Logan finished his copywork page on our memory verse. Natalie choose to do hers later.
Time: 2 hours
Update..
Right before dinner the Husband caught a mud-dauber wasp in our laundry room. Lucky for the wasp we are homeschoolers or it would have been sprayed! :) We put the jar on the table and the kids drew it in their nature notebooks. We also read about the mud dauber and wrote down its genus name. :) Roughly 20 min.
Updated Time for today: 2 hours 20 min.
Friday, June 27, 2008
Friday
Today we finished up our George Washington Study and on a whim I had them throw together a lapbook. I really liked doing the lapbook and the kids did too. I think I will think ahead and do one on The 4th of July Story we are doing next week. This project took about 1 and a half hours to complete. That was school for today. We have Tball tonight and are going to the movies tomorrow. Im thinking of setting up a movie theater field trip. :)
Not bad for throwing them together. :)
Not bad for throwing them together. :)
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Wednesday
Not a very exciting homeschool day for us. We have all been tired. We lazed around in the morning. We did get to see a neat Reading Rainbow segment on Pizza that the kids enjoyed.
Natalie and Logan worked a few pages in thier Explode the Code books. While I read from Caps For Sale and Barkley for the babies. Afterwards we read from George Washington, A Childs First Steps to Virtues, and Aesops Fables. The boys were pretty cranky so I sent them off to a nap before church this evening, there are lots of tears. *shrug* Natalie is in her room quietly reading from Romona Age 8.
Tonight I will be leading the Children's Ministry. I plan to talk about how the Old and New Testaments are connected and all are important for our gaining wisdom. The last phrase in John 5:39 says "And these very scriptures testify about me." (amplified version of the bible) That is my focus verse.
Total Estimated Hours: Roughly 3 hours.
Natalie and Logan worked a few pages in thier Explode the Code books. While I read from Caps For Sale and Barkley for the babies. Afterwards we read from George Washington, A Childs First Steps to Virtues, and Aesops Fables. The boys were pretty cranky so I sent them off to a nap before church this evening, there are lots of tears. *shrug* Natalie is in her room quietly reading from Romona Age 8.
Tonight I will be leading the Children's Ministry. I plan to talk about how the Old and New Testaments are connected and all are important for our gaining wisdom. The last phrase in John 5:39 says "And these very scriptures testify about me." (amplified version of the bible) That is my focus verse.
Total Estimated Hours: Roughly 3 hours.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Tuesday's Homeschool
We spent the morning outside playing while it was still cool enough for the little ones. Natalie caught two lightning bugs and made a habitat in a plastic cup for them. She tried to turn the cup into a ship and realized that it needed to have even distribution on all sides to float. Before lunch she let them go.. Outdoor Nature Study: 2 hours
After lunch we stayed at the table to try a new math lesson. The babies went down for a nap while Natalie and Logan cut out nearly 26 little stripes for comparing equal and unequal in their math lesson. The lesson took nearly and hour to finish.
Then the children got out their Nature Notebooks and copied a picture of a firefly from The Handbook of Nature Study by Amy Comstock. Natalie let the fireflies go or we'd drawn them from the real life models. Logan named his "Lighty". I had them copy the words Firefly, and Photonus Pyralis in their journals under the pictures. I read from the Handbook of Nature Study about Fireflies. We learned that 10 fireflies in a jar would make as much light as a small flash light, fireflies are actually beetles, and females light in the middle of their bellies and males on the end. Our Nature lesson took about 40 minuets.
A friend from town came over to play so our lessons were cut short. Socialization: 1 hour
Plans for this evening: Updated in Red.
Read from George Washington Check
Write down our vocabulary words from Monday in our notebooks
Natalie word and definition Found to be too difficult. Perhapes in a few weeks we'll try again. For now we just wrote the words an orally memorized the definitions.
Logan just the words He too found this discouraging so we skipped it.
Natalie will read to us from Aesops again The Littles were too distracting so we skipped her reading and I read it too her.
Logan will read from Hand Hand Fingers Thumb Check
We will read from A Childs First Steps to Virtues Check
Time estimate: 1.5 hours
Total Time for Tuesday: Roughly 5 hours.
After lunch we stayed at the table to try a new math lesson. The babies went down for a nap while Natalie and Logan cut out nearly 26 little stripes for comparing equal and unequal in their math lesson. The lesson took nearly and hour to finish.
Then the children got out their Nature Notebooks and copied a picture of a firefly from The Handbook of Nature Study by Amy Comstock. Natalie let the fireflies go or we'd drawn them from the real life models. Logan named his "Lighty". I had them copy the words Firefly, and Photonus Pyralis in their journals under the pictures. I read from the Handbook of Nature Study about Fireflies. We learned that 10 fireflies in a jar would make as much light as a small flash light, fireflies are actually beetles, and females light in the middle of their bellies and males on the end. Our Nature lesson took about 40 minuets.
A friend from town came over to play so our lessons were cut short. Socialization: 1 hour
Plans for this evening: Updated in Red.
Read from George Washington Check
Write down our vocabulary words from Monday in our notebooks
Natalie word and definition Found to be too difficult. Perhapes in a few weeks we'll try again. For now we just wrote the words an orally memorized the definitions.
Logan just the words He too found this discouraging so we skipped it.
Natalie will read to us from Aesops again The Littles were too distracting so we skipped her reading and I read it too her.
Logan will read from Hand Hand Fingers Thumb Check
We will read from A Childs First Steps to Virtues Check
Time estimate: 1.5 hours
Total Time for Tuesday: Roughly 5 hours.
Monday's School
Reading-
Natalie read to us from Aesopes Fable "Beiling the Cat." We also read from the "chearfulness" chapter in A Childs First Steps to Virtues.
Arithmetic-
We counted dogs and trees, and added groups of mice from our readings.
History-
Studied George Washington from the Beautiful Feet book titled George Washington.
Vocabulary-
From our text on George Washington
Serious
Studious
Soldier
Surveyor
Natalie read to us from Aesopes Fable "Beiling the Cat." We also read from the "chearfulness" chapter in A Childs First Steps to Virtues.
Arithmetic-
We counted dogs and trees, and added groups of mice from our readings.
History-
Studied George Washington from the Beautiful Feet book titled George Washington.
Vocabulary-
From our text on George Washington
Serious
Studious
Soldier
Surveyor
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