penmanship

Around the first of this year - when my K5-son was just five - I started teaching him how to write his capital letters. Though I had planned to use the Handwriting without Tears strokes because I had heard so many good things about the program, we kind of got off-base. He developed some really bad handwriting habits and then life happened and we totally set aside any kind of handwriting practice.

Because he had already written his capital and lowercase letters a few times, I thought that when we began Kindergarten we would go straight into copywork. However, once we started the year, it was evident he needed more training in how to form the letters. So, I took the plunge and purchase the Handwriting without Tears curriculum.

He has really enjoyed doing handwriting and his penmanship has improved. We are taking things slow - only 1 or 2 letters/numbers per week. We spend about 15 minutes per day on handwriting. My K3-daughter joins us for most days and is doing well with writing letters on a slate with chalk.

At first, I thought I could teach him myself just using the free resources that Handwriting without Tears provides, but then I realized it would be so much easier just to buy the workbooks and learning aids than to recreate them myself. (Time vs. Money decision)

You can see what we bought on the 2009-2010 Cost sheet.

poetry & "living" books

What are "living" books? Simply Charlotte Mason gives a good, concise definition:

Probably the most well known of Charlotte’s methods is her use of living books instead of dry, factual textbooks. Living books are usually written by one person who has a passion for the subject and writes in conversational or narrative style. The books pull you into the subject and involve your emotions, so it’s easy to remember the events and facts. Living books make the subject “come alive.”

So we are using "living" books instead of textbooks for the subjects we are studying. Many times I'm finding you can't fit a "living" book into just one subject. Take for instance, the Little House on the Prairie series. There's science, history, math...a whole lot of good stuff in there.

In their article, Ten Things to Do with Your Child Before Age Ten, Trivium Pursuit recommends reading aloud to your children at least two hours a day. Two hours a day!? At first I was thinking, "There is no way that could happen." But, we've set up our routine where we are reading to them about that much. Early on we established reading together as a daily before-sleep ritual and that has carried over. Right now, I am reading through the Little House series before afternoon naps (or "quiet time" for those who don't take naps anymore) and Don is reading through Stuart Little before bedtime at night. Don also reads aloud to the whole family during our daily Family Worship time.

During Family Worship, everyone must sit quietly and listen - Daddy will be asking questions at the end of the reading! This is also practice for sitting still in worship service at church. During the other reading times, however, we've taken the Bluedorn's advice:

Do not require your children to sit beside you on the couch perfectly still while you read. As long as they stayed in the room and were not distracting or interrupting, we allowed our children to play quietly with their toys or to work on cross-stitching or to draw or some similar quiet project, while we read aloud.

Just a note: Art projects during "story time" usually go much better when Corban (almost 2) is already in bed for naps. I usually read simpler stories with him before his morning quiet time and afternoon nap time.

We also have time one day a week dedicated to reading poetry. This year we are focusing on the works of Robert Louis Stevenson using A Child's Garden of Verses. This is an area of our home education that I particularly enjoy. The kids seem to like it as well and enjoy figuring out the imagery in his poems. We are working on memorizing "The Swing". I think the exposure to good poetry has increased my K5-son's creativity. Generally he's a very logical thinker, but he is beginning to talk about nature and other things with more poetic descriptions. I tell them a poem is like a painting made with words.


The books we are reading aloud this year:

weekly planning

Each Friday afternoon I get ready for the following week. So far, I like planning on a weekly basis so that I can tweak the plan based on what we accomplished the previous week.

At the beginning of the year I created a term-long Master Lesson Plans document that showed each lesson I wanted us to do in each subject. For instance, in Math, I put in each of the worksheet numbers for the Miquon Orange Book, but also added lessons in for introducing a concept (like subtraction) with time for playing with manipulatives and other games to help my K5-son grasp the concept before we went to the abstract work of reading and writing the math sentences (3-2=1).

I update the "Lesson Plans" document on Fridays to mark what we accomplished the previous week. I've taken care not to add dates to the lesson plans since I want to be flexible and go with my K5-son's flow and not force him to go with mine.

After noting our progress in the Lesson Plans document, I plan out what our goals are for the following week. I use a printed version of my Weekly Planner Template. I write the dates at the top and fill in which math lesson, history story, etc. he should do during the week . I check off each thing that we accomplish and put an X by the things we didn't do. (see completed version) On some subjects I have space for my K3-daughter, but lately I've just been letting her choose a folder game or two, letting her color a page in her shapes book or Handwriting without Tears Preschool workbook and letting her play with some math manipulative like Cuisenaire rods.

After making my Weekly Plans, I put the appropriate worksheets in my K5-son's folders. I have 5 manila folders in our file cabinet marked for each day of the week (Monday-Friday). (I got this idea from Preschoolers and Peace.) Usually we only have two worksheets in each folder - Nature Journal page and a Miquon Math sheet. My K5-son completes these during morning Table Time.

This weekly planning session usually takes me around 15-20 minutes and is working really well for us. Since his work is already organized according to day, he knows right what to get and usually gets started working without me in the room.

For archival purposes, I scan in the completed Weekly Planning sheet and save it on my computer. This will help me in subsequent years to see just how much we actually did day by day in Kindergarten and also provide proof that I am actually schooling should I ever need it legally.

planning for the school year

I found the workbook from Simply Charlotte Mason, Planning Your Charlotte Mason Education, to be extremely helpful. The book walks you through simple steps starting with determining your "Big Picture" down to planning your day.

I bought the hard-copy version and am glad that I did. However, a purchaser of the book can also download additional copies of the charts and forms.

I decided to make my own charts in Word, based on hers, but with my own tweaks.

Here are a couple of examples (I made them in July and they are now a bit out of date. They helped me get started though.)

2009 - 2010 Term Schedule

From home_education

Term 1 Weekly Schedule

From home_education

using Bob Books and At Last! A Reading Method for Every Child

From my post on how my K5-son learned to read:

Though Pecci did not recommend the Bob Books, I think they were a good start. At first, very phonics based - only words you could sound out. Then as we progressed there got to be more and more sight words as well as the opportunity to use the "sight families" we were learning from the At Last! book. I made some sheets that would help us with each Bob Book. The sheet contained a review of sight families we had learned in the previous book, an introduction to sight families to be encountered in the current book as well as review/intro of any sight words we were to encounter. We would go over this sheet together before reading each book. When he finished the book, he got to choose a sticker for the sheet and put it in his English Language Notebook.

Apparently, I didn't make the companion sheets until we were in the second set of Bob Books. Here are the links to the sheets that I did make:

Summer - Set B1 - Book 5
Kittens - Set B1 - Book 6
Funny Bunny - Set B1 - Book 7
Bed Bugs - Set B1 - Book 8
Bump - Set B2 - Book 2
Cat and Mouse - Set B2 - Book 3
Samantha - Set B2 - Book 5
Willy's Wish - Set B2 - Book 6
Jumper and the Clown - Set B2 - Book 7
Max and the Tom Cats - Set B2 - Book 8

teaching a child how to read

This is a quick list for my reference for other children coming up so I won't have to re-invent the wheel.

Materials Needed:

• At Last! A Reading Method for Every Child by Mary Pecci
• Bob Books - Sets 1 & 2
• concrete alphabet letters (magnets or foam letters)
• Pathway Readers
  

Process:

1. Teach the alphabet letters by name (Letter Hunt, Alpha-Bingo, singing ABC's)
   
2. Teach the Good Guys (the consonants who say their names like "B" p 70)
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
3. Teach the Tough Guys (the consonants who don't say their names like "H" p 78)
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
4. Teach the short Vowels (p 90)
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
5. Start reading Bob Books
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
6. Teach the digraphs. (p 84)
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
7. Introduce Sight Families (p 121ff) as needed
8. Help the child figure out words by underlining the parts of the words that they already know and reading in context (What's the clue? p 108)
9. Introduce new Sight Families and Sight Words before the child reads them so they are already familiar with new words they encounter in reading.
   
10. Pathway Readers - continue introducing new sight families/words until the child is confidently figuring out words on his own.
    
    
    
    
    

Cost for 2009-2010

Resource	Price	Source
Planning
Planning Your Charlotte Mason Education	$16.95	Purchased from Simply Charlotte Mason
General School Supplies (markers, paper, ink, colors, glue, scissors)	$50.00	Purchased from various discount stores
Reading
At Last! A Reading Method for Every Child by Mary Pecci	Free	BCLR Share & Swap
Bob Books (Sets 1-3)	$15.00	Purchased used from friend
Foam Alphabet Puzzle	Free	Hand-me-down
Alphabet Magnets	Free	Gift
First Steps, Days Go By, More Days Go by Pathway Readers	Free	PaperBackSwap
Busy Times, More Busy Times by Pathway Readers	$10.00	Purchased used from friend
Climbing Higher, New Friends, More New Friends by Pathway Readers	$19.50	Purchased from Rainbow Resource Center
Literature
Child's Garden of Verses - Thomas Kinkade version	FREE	PaperBackSwap
Little House on the Prairie Series, Chronicles of Narnia Series, all read-aloud books	FREE	Local Library
Charlotte's Web	FREE	Gift
Penmanship
Handwriting without Tears - Kindergarten Teacher's Guide	FREE	PaperBackSwap
Capital Letter Cards for Wood Pieces — Laminated	$14.75	Handwriting without Tears
Get Set for School (PreK workbook for my K3-daughter)	$6.85	Handwriting without Tears
Letters and Numbers for Me (K workbook for my K5-son)	$6.85	Handwriting without Tears
Mat for Wood Pieces	$3.00	Handwriting without Tears
2 Slate Chalkboards	$6.00	Handwriting without Tears
Wood Pieces Set for Capital Letters	$27.50	Handwriting without Tears
Science
North American Bird Encyclopedia	$1.00	Purchased from Garage Sale
Compost & other garden soil supplies	$10.00	Purchased from Lowe's
Square Foot Gardening book (older edition)	FREE	PaperBackSwap
Weather stickers, Nature Journal templates, Binders		Included in general supplies cost
Vegetable, Flower and Herb Seeds	FREE	From city-sponsored Going Green event or harvested from last year
Contributing Membership to Museum of Discovery	$110.00	Purchased from Museum of Discovery
Fine Art
Little Einstein episodes	$10.00	Purchased on iTunes
Music & Hymn Study
Lyrics and/or Music from internet	$0.00
Bible
Eager Reader Story Bible	$11.00	Purchased from SWBC Bookstore at church
God's Wisdom for Little Boys & Girls	$0.00	Received as gifts
Other Bible story books	$0.00	Purchased in previous years or received as gifts
Math
Saxon Math Manipulative set	$40.00	Purchased used from a friend
Miquon Math - Orange & Red Book	$13.00	Purchased from CurrClick.com
Cuisenaire Rods	$10.00	Purchased used from a friend
History and Geography
Timeline book materials, CD, etc.	$0.00	Included in general supplies cost
World & U.S. Map	$20.00	Purchased from Costco
Memorization
Truth and Grace Memory Books	$0.00	Gift from a friend
Sub-total 2009-2010:	$463.40