Moving Right Along

Apologies for the gaps in the posts here.  I've been horribly side-tracked by FB lately and am just coming back into my own.  The recent changes there did it for me, and I've come to realize that I liked being able to come here and check out our progress and easily review things from the past.  So ya, I think I'm back to stay this time! LOL!

When we left off:  my 5 yr old was just beginning 1st grade materials.  She was not reading though we had begun 100 Easy Lessons.  Today I am pleased to say that she has just completed the 100 Easy Lessons book.

YAY!! CONGRATS Miss S! :) 

We have started working our way through the Explode the Code Books.  And I'm just pleased as punch that we've made it this far. She is reading way more fluidly and fluently than I did at her age! LOL!  So there in itself I consider our work so far a success! :)

She seems to love math.

Our first few weeks with 1st grade were a struggle.  She is a high energy kid, who loves to move and is never still for long, unless something so occupies her mind that she is too distracted to move! LOL!  I read a book over the summer "How to get your child off the refrigerator and on to learning" and OMG if S isn't that child!  Our first day of school she was on the chair, on the table, and the floor, falling off the chair, under the table, on the floor, before we had even gotten past the first page of what we were doing.  I spent far too much time wrangling her in the early days, trying to get her to sit and work with me, yelling and getting very mad.   Finally, I plead with my dh and my sis and my mum for ideas... and the best advice I got was from dh.  We decided to plan our school work in snippets of time, we started off with 15 minutes.  And then she got to play for 45, ya I know a little excessive but well it worked.  We are now down to 30 mins work and 30 mins of play!  (which leaves time for the other 2 -  15 for littlest and 15 for the oldest if she needs it!)  We do 3-4 subjects a day, depending on her attention span, and my ability to keep it together too!   So things are working out slowly and we are making great progress.  We do struggle some days.

We took all our school materials off to the beach for the month of September, where we had an awesome time.  The girls spent some good time on the beach enjoying the sand and surf, and learning so much about marine life and the stars, and so much much more.  I wish I could say I was glad to return home, but I was not.  I have much work to do here to get thing organized and feel better about this place.

So there you have it.  That is what we've been up to!

In the Jungle

So this week we begin our 2nd week of tot/prek with my littlest who turned 2 this June. We're following the Letter of the Week Prep for week 2, which is Jungle. DD(2) loves books, so the real aim of at the moment is to move away from the same old books she always stuffs in my hand while I'm typing and into a wider variety with a bigger subject base. Sheer entertainment value, I'm not expecting her to learn or retain anything that I teach her at the moment. It is just time dedicated to her for the purposes of having fun, outside our normal interactions!

So a couple weeks ago (yes I've been slacking,) we picked up a stack of books at our local library, which included but was not limited to:
"Slowly, Slowly, Slowly, said the sloth", by Eric Carle
"Dandelions," by Eve Bunting
"Hug," by Jez Alborough
"Jazzy in the Jungle," by Lucy Cousins
"Rumble in the Jungle," Giles Andreae

RR/ LS (reading readiness /listening & sequencing): We have read a couple of them already but, this week I'm aiming to read 1 a day to her.

CS (Colours/Shapes): I also printed off a booklet from Enchanted Learning on the colour green (I think it is in the member section), I had to readjust it so it would fit our purposes! But she loves using descriptive words like red, blue (fav word), green and pink so I thought it might be fun to show her what green really means!

Number and Size: I borrowed some ideas for a combo file folder game / Lapbook for her which I will assemble over the next couple days. It includes a counting book to 2. And will include a Size pouch so she can stack the cards from small to large!

Motor Skills: will include the activities suggested at LOTWPrep, and will include a sensory box found here

GOOSE (nursery Rhymes): which probably falls under reading readiness but I'm giving it, it's own heading, will be "I Had a Little Nut Tree", which I will dress up with maybe stick puppets or some kind of printable thing which can be stored in the lapbook!

So there you have it. While the bigs have summer vacation, the poor little has to do school work! The aim really is to get into a routine with her, and then add the bigs to that routine one at a time, so that I don't feel so overwhelmed come the start of school in August/September!

Toddler School / Pre K

Since I'm not sure when Tot School (Toddler School) ends and Pre-School begins, I figure as long as I'm working with the littlest things are good! So here is my plan

This is the 3rd and final time I race through age 2-5 materials with my kids, so you'd think by now it would be old hat! But no! Each time I re-invent the wheel having either discovered something new or trying a new method so of course this time is no different.

I'll be using Letter of the Week Prep to cover the basics
* Colours and Shapes
* Reading Readiness
* Listening and Sequencing
* Numbers
* Size
* Position and Direction
* Motor Skills
* Nursery Rhymes

I'm adding in sensory boxes like I have found on many Tot School blogs and other arts and crafts type things that suit dd's tastes. Hopefully I'll have more to share this year! :)

I will continue to update as we progress through this first year! :)

Grade 1 (2011/2012)

This is our 2nd time through 1st grade and things have changed a ton. The first time I did this, I had no clue what I was doing. This time around, I'm still winging it, but have a better idea of what I want, and how to teach my budding learner!

Where we live school commences in mid August and if you are not 6 on or before September 1, you would not be permitted to start 1st grade til the following year. S has a December birthday but is ready to get started. Again I'm not a stickler for time at this point and won't be cracking any whips to get her going, these items are a reference and my goal is forward progress no matter how big or small! At this point, I'm still learning about her learning style and things that work best for her which means things are apt to change through the course of the year!

I will continue to update as we progress through 1st Grade! :)

LANGUAGE ARTS
- Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons - DONE (Oct 2011)
- Various reading level books - read alouds and reading together
- Explode the Code (1, 1.5, and 2)
- (no spelling yet) - eventually Spelling Workout
- writing practice - some cards to family and various workbooks
- lapbooking nursery rhymes, folk tales and fairy tales
- (no Grammar yet) - Growing with Grammar 1

MATH
- Singapore Math US Edition (1A and 1B)
- Various online computer games

HISTORY/GEOGRAPHY
-K12 Grade K and 1st History

SCIENCE/HEALTH
- K12 Grade K and 1st Science

LANGUAGES
- Sign Language at home
- Possibly Rosetta Stone (French or Spanish)

ARTS/CRAFTS/MUSIC
- various projects
- Baltimore Curriculum Art and Music

EXTRACURRICULAR
- Swimming
- Soccer
- Possibly Dance Class
- Daisies (??)
- others as interests permit!

I will continue to update as we progress through this first year! :)

Grade 5 (2011/2012) - Current Plan

We're always fine tuning and making adjustments here and there.

LANGUAGE ARTS
- Growing with Grammer 4
- Various Reading materials.
- Creative Writing assignments from various topics
- Penmanship various letters and thank-yous to family

MATH
- Singapore Math (5A & 5B)
- Various online computer games
- Various Worksheets for practice

HISTORY/GEOGRAPHY
- K12 History (Grade 5)

SCIENCE
- K12 Science (Grade 5)
- various topics (including Junior Badges and other subjects of interest)

LANGUAGES
Considering either French or Spanish Rosetta Stone
Re-visiting ASL

ARTS/CRAFTS/MUSIC
- Extra Curricular Art Projects
- Junior Arts, Crafts and Music Projects
- extracurricular classes as appropriate

EXTRACURRICULAR
- Swimming
- Piano
- Junior Girl Scouts
- Soccer
- outside classes as interest deems necessary

*****************

If anyone out there reading has an absolute favourite program that they want to share, I'd love to check it out! :)

I will continue to update as we progress through this year! :)

K Science

Yes, i have been a bad blogger. My excuse is 3 kids keep me busy and schooling at least 2 of them has posed gigantic challenges this year! LOL! Its May now, and we're slowly settling into a routine (gufaw, gufaw - that's a tongue in cheek giggle for those of you that aren't familiar!) :)

So today I present you with our learnings. The middlest has been slowly working through her Science and History materials. We're doing Kindergarten this year, and on no set schedule, just when I feel that we've been slacking too much or she has been playing far too much time on online games.

Anyway, now that the formalities and apologies are over! We've been learning about the 5 senses courtesy of Aliki's "My Five Senses" book. We've been studying the sense of smell, so this morning I had her sniff the spice cupboard with her eyes closed and a few random selections from the fridge. We compiled a list of things she liked the smell of, and thing she didn't like so much!

So her 5 fav smells are Oranges, cookies, flowers, perfume and lemons
Her 5 not so fav smells are rotting apples, rotting food, paint, poo, and we put skunk on there because he was cute to look at! :)

We then experimented with how smells travel through the air. So one bathroom smells of bath and Body works Twisted Peppermint body spray (which I dislike!) and the other of lavendar Aromatherapy mist! She sat on one side of the room while I squirted the scent into the room and when she got a wiff, of it she let me know. It travelled slow and she has a stuffy nose... but it worked! :)

After that we made a digital collage of her fave and not so fav smells, which we glued into her notebook.

Changing Gears

So Middlest, would technically start kindergarten this fall, but she's smart as a whip already and highly distracted. I've known for a while that find a curriculum for her would be tough! we signed on with K12 for History and Science, and short of tying her to a chair, getting her motivated is tough! So I'm switching out again.

I've been looking out the Oak Meadow stuff that I had ordered, what now seems a century ago - for Oldest. I think it might be a good fit. It's definitely more open ended, short sitting times, and more hands on natural, which might work for her.

She hates reading (the process) but loves being read to, so this is a good opportunity for her. We're gonna run with it. I just need to get my hands on some beeswax and beeswax crayons. (the chick in the Blic, here looked at me like I had 5 heads when I asked for beeswax crayons, like what is wrong with the regular kind! and then wouldn't help any further.)

So that's where we're at. The oldest is gonna follow along with the art stuff, and keep on with her mixed bag of things, and if all goes well maybe we'll phase in what Middlest is doing for Oldest too. We'll see!

I'm actually excited again! :)