Friday, September 20, 2013

homeschooling, week 3

So....i actually had intended to do a week 3 preview post because i thought it would be funny to do a week 3 recap and show how nothing i planned actually happened. Not only did i not complete the preview post, but nothing i planned actually happened. Well, half of it happened, but it was quite a scattered week.

Sunday evening, I tore my house apart in search of the book, THE DOT. I thought it would be fun to do some dot related activities since it was International Dot Day (there really IS a day for EVERYTHING.). I enlisted everyone in the search, I offered reward and incentives. Of course I ended up finding it myself. Kind of. I don't actually HAVE that book. What I have, is PRESS HERE by Herve Tullet.  It was gifted to my daughter for her 5th birthday by one of my oldest friends, who teaches first grade now. It worked just as well.

There are some nice printables for the book from the publisher's website. The ones we utilized were the coloring activity and the create your own picture activity. On Tuesday we continued our dot fun. I glued a piece of printer paper onto construction paper and penciled SANJANA on it and then she dipped an eraser in paint to make her name completely out of dots. We also played with modeling clay, in keeping with the books color theme. We added to the sensory fun by adding cinnamon tea tree tooth picks.

Modeling clay and craft trays were on sale this week at our local
learning resources store. 

On Tuesday and Wednesday, we ready Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes.  I found some great resources to go along with the story. Truth be told, I thought she'd like the flower craft the best, but she still hasn't finished it, I think it's going to be a scrap.  I've decided that after we read a story, I will ask her to retell it to me and then draw a picture. These will go into her notebook. (Someone remind me that I want to start a notebook of her work!)  There were also some worksheets that I filled in based on her answers. (Her very minimalist answers, I might add.)  We split this over the two days, reading the story once each day. The flower craft be found here, and the story mapping sheet is here. This is the journal sheet we use for story retelling, scroll down to page 6.


What's in My Name? Activity found here.

This week we did only ONE math lesson in our program.  In all honestly, I hadn't been reading the lessons ahead. I was basically seeing it for the first time along with Sanji.  Today I read ahead and decided we will do the next lesson on Monday and will do it again on Wednesday. Maybe not in it's entirety on the second go around, but just enough to see how much she is getting it.  My intention was 4 lessons a week, but I am seeing that I do want to have more time for art, sensory experiences and stories, so twice a week might be more practical for us. I'm constantly learning that we can stretch and adjust as we go.  Homeschooling seems to be very much like yoga, in that way!

Thursday was a no school day for us! Well, no school at home, I should say.  Sanji had her first Magic Tales Theater class, at Village Home, nearby in Beaverton.  It was FANTASTIC. My review will follow in a separate post.  

Today, Friday, we did our calendar work, and 3 lessons in All About Reading. Then, I read her Big Bang, The Tongue-Tickling Tale of a Speck that Became Spectacular. We will be reading this again, along with books about evolution, next week.

I also read Sanji a chapter of Little House in the Big Woods, almost every evening and we plan to incorporate some fun activities into our day, based on the book.  Oh, and I decided to drop First Language Lessons for now. The expectation of the sentence structure for answers in just lesson 3, was way too much for my five year old and I could see her wilting (like Chrysanthemum!) every time we attempted to go over the lesson. We can always try again next year!

Have a great weekend!








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