Before Five in a Row

One of my most favorite things that I've discovered since last year is the Five in a Row curriculum.  Delightfullearning.blogspot.com was where I first fell in love with this.  Five in a row means that you read the same book five days in a row and do different activities from ideas out of the book.  

We have started with the pre-school level called Before Five in a Row for our three year old.  This is a book compiled/authored by Jane Claire Lambert.  She has taken many classic children's books such as Yellow Ball, Blueberries for Sal, Goodnight Moon and The Snowy Day and came up with many ideas of teaching moments and ways to make memorable experiences with your kids.  Most of these books I can find at the local library.  We learn about countries, foods, animals, colors and bible verses.  All things pre-school.  I always make sure we cover a letter with each book using THIS website.  I also try to make sure we have a field trip, a food lesson, and learn a new poem with each book.  We have taken a lot more field trips this year than last year.  I had a hard time coming up with ideas for field trips last year, but with this curriculum it is easy.  This is not our only curriculum, but some homeschoolers use is as their sole resource.  I also don't do this everyday either.  We only do it on Tuesdays and Thursdays and instead of five days of activities I only come up with four.  I love how it has added so much more variety to our homeschool and the kids look forward to it.

This last week we "rowed" We're Going on a Bear Hunt.  I get a lot of my ideas from THIS Blog-Roll.  Here is just a few of the things that we did.

I'm not musically inclined, but this worked out anyway.  We sat at the piano and made up music to go with each of the obstacles the family in the book goes through on their bear hunt.  We made scary music for the cave and trills for running up and down the stairs and so on.

 I let the girls squerch and squelch in the mud like they did in the book since we have a lot of it around the house lately.

 We taught Aydri (our preschooler) about the letter U.  Kendi practiced her handwriting while Aydri did a do-a-dot from THIS site.

We did a sensory activity with cornstarch and water.  We are also learning about the water cycle and solids, liquids and gases.  I showed Kendi how corn starch can technically be both a solid and a liquid because of surface tension.  They loved this.

We took a field trip to the creek and took off our shoes like they did in the book. We got lucky with a beautiful day for wading.  The girls loved playing in the water.  We have done so many random activities as a family because of these books.  I love it!

We also made our own obstacle coarse and used the words from the book: over, under and through.  We talked about how every family is different and drew diagrams of a lot families we knew.  We watched this video of the author's rendition.

I like to have the kids narrate the story back to me and I type it out so they can add an illustration, but this time we decided to make our own video of the story.  I can't get it to work on youtube, but the kids had a blast with it.

For our food activity we made mud pudding and dipped teddy grahams in it.  While we waited for the pudding to set up we constructed a cave to eat in.  These are the kinds of learning activities that I've always wanted to do with my kids, but had a hard time coming up with them on my own.  This is how I always wanted homeschool to be.  I can't wait to move up through the Five in a Row and then on to Beyond Five in a Row with chapter books.  There are some people with really great ideas out there.  THIS LINK is a good place to start.

First Grade Science

This year for First Grade Science we have chosen to go with R.E.A.L Science Odyssey: Earth and Space.  So far we have done a Weather Unit and started a Water Cycle Unit.  The girls have had a lot of fun with this coarse.  It is the most hands-on curriculum I have found for science.  There is usually one lesson page followed by several labs.  We do about two a week and there are also suggestions for keeping a science journal along the way.

Here are the girls with the rain gauge we made.  We also made a weather vane, an anemometer (to measure wind speed) and recorded the temperature changes for several days.  We have also made rain, clouds and proved that there is water in the air.

Summer School

I'm a big supporter of letting kids play as much as possible during the summer.  Yesterday was our first official day of summer.  The kids played hard.  The house felt way too quiet.  I will have to get used to that.

I am also a big supporter of giving kids responsibilities.  Kendi has a chart that she has to complete everyday before she can play.  If she finishes before noon then she gets to pick an activity for us to do together.  There are hundreds of fun summer activities to do with kids on Pinterest.  We make our own huge, long list of activities to pick from.  

You can see her chart on the fridge in the picture below.  The four things she has to check off are: get dressed/comb hair, clean bedroom/living area, do a lesson/read scriptures and have a happy attitude.  Quite often Kendi doesn't want to do any responsibilities until she is compelled to.  Almost everyday a friend will knock on the door before she has done her checklist and I have to tell them to come back later.  Sometimes I think the kids on the street think I'm mean, but I don't nag Kendi to get anything done.  She knows what she has to do everyday.

 Kendi writing in her Journal about the scripture we've been talking about.

Everyday Kendi gets to pick what lesson we do together.  On the magnet chart below she can pick from four things.  Reading, Writing, Math and (other) Subject.  We are missing our M and W in the picture.  When she picks one of the subjects to do she puts the corresponding magnet on the "done" side and picks from the "do it" side the next day.  That way we rotate through all the subjects every four days.  We also have a list of four or five things for each subject that she gets to pick from.

I'm the kind of person that would let my house be a mess rather than nag and yell at my kids.  BUT, I go crazy if the house is messy and I don't have the energy to do it all by myself.  This system keeps everything pretty cleaned up and I know I'm spending quality time with my kids.  Today, we played hopscotch for an hour and we've gone for ice cream cones earlier this week.  I have to limit the kids to eight dollars a week on activities or they would want to go to the pool everyday.  haha.  I'm very happy and excited for summer.

A Day in the Life

It's hard to think that I just finished planning our last week of Kendi's Kindergarten.  This last year has been so great.  We have learned so much, not just academically, but about homeschooling, patience, work and how to inspire my kids to love learning.  We have come a long way and I don't think I would have learned a lot of the lessons  that I did if it wasn't for homeschooling.  My kids can be very enthusiastic which makes homeschool fun, but they can also be very intense which can make some days difficult.  I'm so glad that I am able to teach my kids, one on one, in an environment that can be tailored to them and their personalities.  

I wanted to write a post about how a typical day goes for us.  I'm sure things are going to continue to change and evolve over the years.  I want to be able to come back and remember how we did things at this stage of our lives.

Our schedule is pretty laid back.  I've tried to make homeschool feel like we are doing things that we would normally be doing at home together anyway.  Dad doesn't even have to be at work at any particular time so we don't stick to any time constraints.  I do like to get going as soon as possible so that lunch isn't too late in the day.  I only have energy in the mornings so the sooner the better for me.  We usually get started some time between 8:30 and 9:30 am.  

We start with Scriptures.  This year we've been studying the Book of Mormon.  We've been using materials from bookofmormondiscovery.com.  Instead of reading the chapters from Book of Mormon Stories we watch the videos on lds.org found HERE.  We watch the video and talk about the story one day, then do a page out of the manual and talk about the story more on another day.  We illustrate the story the next day and make a journal entry on the last day and then start over again with the next chapter.  We also go over the memory verses everyday.  Kendi amazes me with memorizing.  It only takes her about two days to memorize a verse.  I have really liked these materials.  They have been a good gathering activity to transition into doing school time.

After Scripture Time we do a reading lesson.  We've been using reading lessons out of How to Tutor by Samuel L. Blumenfeld.  Kendi learns a new "word family" or two everyday.  We talk about the new consonant blend and sound them out as I write them all on the white board.  After they are all on the board, Kendi erases them one by one as she reads them back to me and I make a flash card for each word.  After we've learned about four word families we play games with the flash cards.  Our flash card games include, but are not limited to:

Bang:  We start with our stack of new cards with a bunch of old ones mixed in too.  I take about eight cards with the word BANG! written on it and mix them in too.  I hold of the stack of cards and Kendi reads the one on top and we keep going through them until we get to a card that says BANG! (about eight or ten cards)  I hide the next word and Kendi has to spell it for me.  If she gets it right then she gets to keep the stack of cards we made since the last BANG card came up.  If she gets any of the words wrong or struggles with it enough that I feel like she needs to practice it more then I put in back in the stack of unread words.  When Aydri wants to join in then we put some letter flash cards in the mix and she gets to read those when they come up.

Dodge:  This one is Kendi's favorite games and is very good for her hyperactive energy level.  The girls have to stay on a rug.  They take turns reading either a word card for Kendi or a letter card for Aydri.  If they get it right then I throw the card at them and try to get them with it.  If they get it wrong it goes back into the stack of cards to be read again.  If I get them when I throw it then I get to keep the card.  If they dodge it then they get to keep it and we just leave it on the floor until we're done.  The person with the most cards at the end wins.  I limit the amount of cards we go through so we don't get burned out.  I always try to stop while it's still fun.

Relay:  I lay out five cards on the piano bench.  The girls have to stand behind a designated line in the living room.  We start a timer for one minute and I yell out a word (or letter for Aydri) from the cards on the bench.  They have to run and find the right card and run back to the line and I yell out another word.  They see how many they can get in one minute and then we try to beat their scores.  When it is Aydri's turn I have Kendi be in charge.  It's fun to see her helping and teaching Aydri.

Sentences:  Kendi and I take turns drawing two flash cards out of the stack and reading them.  Then we have to come up with a sentence with both of the words in it.  This is another favorite game of Kendi's and it can get pretty silly.

Those are the games that we play the most.  If we get tired of them, then we'll come up with new ones.  Once Kendi can read a word with automaticity I will remove it from the stack.  I've lost count, but we have made around a thousand flash cards this year.  Kendi also loves to read from some little reader books too.  We use books from The Family Literacy Center that Grandma gave us a few years ago.  Kendi also will pick up any random book and try to read it.

After the reading lessons we do read aloud time.  We read from the list of classics that Thomas Jefferson Education suggests for young children.  We are currently reading Charlotte's Web and the girls are loving it.  We stop and talk about morals that come up in the story, the types of characters in the story and how they impact what happens, and we look up words we don't know.  Kendi has learned to stop me when she doesn't understand something.  I love that.  When I would read a book as a child I would just get confused and not know what to do and the story would become vague and uninteresting.  I would just pass the words in front of my eyes because it was required.  Reading a book is not just about entertainment its about stopping to learn the lessons along the way.  After we've finished a book we will do a project about what we learned.  I will have the girls create or write something that shows what they learned from the stories.  I try to get them to share and talk about it with other people too.

When we are doing read aloud time I will let the kids so something quietly.  I'll print off coloring pages from the stories we read or let them play with a small toy.  Lately, they have been bringing in the kittens to play with on the floor.  These kittens are so much fun.  It will be hard to see them go to new homes in a couple of weeks.

 After reading from the classics we take a break.  I use this time to teach about nutrition and we have a healthy snack.  After they are settled with their snack I turn on a timer for thirty minutes just so we don't loose track of time.  The kids will go play outside and I fold laundry.  I have been able to keep up with laundry like never before in my entire married life because I stick to this.

After break time we usually do Math Time.  We are very slowly working our way through Math U See: Alpha.  Kendi doesn't sit and do worksheets very well so we mix it up by doing problems on the board and playing games and doing The Great Math Adventure activities.  This is a little advanced for Kindergarten so I'm not pushing it at all.  I hope that I never have to push anything.

About once a week instead of doing a Math Lesson we will do a History Lesson instead.  We've been using I Love America: part 1.  This material started out super fun, but we lost interest about half way through the year.  I just picked it up and found out that this month's lessons were about Pocahontas so we've been using it again. The lessons on the Preamble were just a bit over my girls' heads.  Maybe I should have waited a few years.  I really love them learning about America with the religious history included.

The last thing that we do everyday is always something different.  And it's usually more activity based and fun.  We try to end on a fun note.  Some of the things we have done lately are: put on a play of Goldilocks and the three bears, learned about feelings, learned about the five senses, physical fitness and nutrition.  We study all those things you typically learn in Kindergarten.  I plan these lesson myself.  I do a bit of research and decide what will be fun for our girls.  Planning these lessons is one of my favorite things about homeschool.  I love finding new ideas and the best ways of teaching my girls.  I'm a research junkie.  I guess that is a good thing for a homeschooler.

Here is Aydri as baby bear.

On Fridays we do Project Day.  Kendi and I take turns deciding what we'll do for Project Day.  On Kendi's week she will pick something that she really wants to learn more about.  In the beginning of the year she always wanted to do baking.  Last week she wanted to learn about clothing and make up design.  We happened to be learning their parts for Goldilocks and the Three Bears.  We put together their costumes and make up and had a dress rehearsal.  When I decide what to do for project day we work on something for the family or household.  We have painted door-jams, purged (dejunked) the house, planted the garden, organized food storage and put together 72 hour kits all the while learning why we need to do those things.

This last year has been full of abundance for us.  I really struggle with my health and am not able to be as active as I wish I could, but homeschool gives me a great sense of fulfillment.  We are already making plans for next year.  Kendi says she is excited for summertime and wants break from school, but I know that she will be begging to do something after one day.  We are going to make a simple summer school plan for her.

Parts of a Whole

I wanted to teach the girls about Parts of a Whole for a Great Math Adventure.  I started by showing them an orange and talking about what made it a "whole" orange.  Then I broke it in half.  At this point I realized that the kids thought that anything broken was considered "in half."  I had to explain that we were talking about two equal parts.  We went a little further by breaking it into fourths.  After they understood that and we went back and forth a few times, I was prepared to go further, but felt like I might loose them.  I quickly pulled out some measuring cups and two bowls of water and went over everything again.  They measured out water and predicted how many halves and fourths would equal a whole.  We talked about recipes and why we need to be able to measure the exact amount that the recipe calls for.

 Yes, that is a tamale on my plate.  We were eating lunch while we talked about Parts of a Whole.  You would be surprised at how much their listening skills improve if they can be doing something quiet while I talk.  I know that I'm the same way.

After discussing measuring cups and Parts of a Whole, we finished up our lunch and used our newly gained knowledge to bake an Angel Food Cake from scratch.  This was a fun recipe to do with kids because it doesn't involve a whole lot of ingredients or steps and they get to watch egg whites fluff up.

 This is my favorite kind of cake and I have never baked it for my family until now because it calls for about 10 egg whites and Aydri has been deathly allergic to eggs in the past.  She got to eat a couple of bites and so far she is fine.  HERE is the recipe.

Math really can be one of the funnest subjects to learn.

Fireball Meteorite

We joined NASA's facebook page and found out about the Lyrids Meteor shower last Saturday night.  We didn't know if we would see anything, but the weather was nice so we stayed out with the kids.  We live a little ways from the city and it was very dark.  We knew the kids would get tired and Aydri did eventually fall asleep outside.

At first, the meteors were so small and short that we weren't sure if we were really seeing them.  Kendi was getting frustrated because she always missed them.  As it got later and the the sky got darker and our eyes adjusted to the darkness we started seeing bigger and bigger meteors.  Finally one was long enough that Kendi was able to catch it.  We thought it was huge.  Then all of a sudden we saw one blaze clear across the sky with a long exploding tail.  I had never seen anything like it before and it felt like it was really close.  A few minutes later we saw another that traveled just as far, but without the fiery tail.  That made me want to go research the big one that we saw.

What I think we saw may have been a fireball meteorite.  The websites that I read made it sound like these things are very rare, but I couldn't find any news reports about the one we saw.  I wish I had gotten a picture of it, but I couldn't figure out how to take pictures of the night sky.  I know, I'm lame.  The pictures online of other fireballs don't do them any justice anyway.  Apparently, on the same night, there was a minivan-sized fireball that landed over California.  Yikes!

Solar System

We spent about a week and a half learning about the Solar System.  We didn't get too deep because it will be so much more fun to explore space when the kids are a little older.  We went over the basics. . . moon, sun, stars, earth, planets.  We made our first lapbook.  I printed off a packet about space from THIS link.  It was simple enough for Kindergartners, but I even learned a thing or two.  I had to watch a couple of youtube videos on how to make a lapbook and then again on how to fold the papers.  It wasn't as obvious to me as the creator of the packet assumed it would be. haha.

I thought Kendi would love making the lapbook.  She loves to color, cut and paste, but this didn't go over that well.  I think next time we'll do lapbooks more like THIS LADY. 

 If that doesn't work we'll give them up altogether.  What Kendi really enjoyed was painting a model of the Solar System.  I had to order one online and the moment it came she was excited about it.  She set up and painted the entire thing.  Kendi and Aydri spent hours in the closet looking at the planets glow in the dark.

Just as we were finishing up studying about space we took a trip to the local university's observatory.  The kids were so excited.  The students and professor there were able to answer all kinds of questions while we waited for it to get dark enough.  Aydri got a little bored and wanted to do her favorite thing, take pictures.

They warned us that it would get loud when they opened the ceiling and spun it around.  I thought the kids were going to freak out, but Aydri started yelling, "Yippee!"

 The sky was perfect for star gazing.  We got to see Jupiter and it's four moons.

 Mars.

 And Venus.

They told us to come back in a month or two to see Saturn.  And if you call ahead and ask them to bring an attachment for the telescope you can take pictures with a DSLR.  They also told me how to take pictures of Jupiter and it's moons with a 300 mm lens.  I'm going to try it one of these nights when the sky clears up.

There is also the Annual Solar Eclipse coming up on May 20. A lot of museums and parks are hosting events and providing solar viewing glasses to watch the eclipse with.

I also joined NASA's facebook page so that I can keep up on what's going on with Space Exploration and so that the kids can watch their upcoming events.

Shadows

We recently did a science experiment from the Big Book of Play and Find Out.  We talked about the sun and what shadows are and why they move throughout the day.  We did flashlight experiments in the closet and had a shadow puppet show.  We always do these experiments last so that the kids can play for as long as they want to.  This was a hit for sure.  They played for hours afterward making shadow puppets.  Sometimes after I put them to bed at night in the room that they share I can hear them making shadows until they fall asleep.

It's so fun to be a home-schooler.

Grebe Rescue

Today was a day that made me especially glad we homeschool. We woke up to a little bit of snow this morning. Snow was not the only thing that fell out of the sky. A very large flock of Grebe were migrating and ran into the storm and it literally knocked them down. They were all over town this morning. Apparently, they need water to take off again so they were stuck here. The DWR had been up all night gathering birds. My parents woke up to one on their deck and another on their roof and when they looked across the street to the horse corral there were dozens more. My dad called us to come help and we got there just after the DWR showed up. They let us help gather them up.

This lady was so nice to the kids. She told us all about the birds and how she'd been working all night. I was glad to see a female DWR officer out in the field because all through high school I thought I wanted to go into Wildlife and Natural Resources. In college I found out that the field was full of environmentalists and females usually end up behind the desks which was the opposite of what I wanted to do. Props to her. I think if I ever wanted to pursue that field again I would want to go more into Search and Rescue.
They are taking five truck loads down to Quail Creek to let them go. It would be fun to look more into this type of bird that I think is called a Grebe since we had a great experience with them.

We are taking a break next week until January, but I'm sure the kids will be begging to do school stuff. I've got Kendi making beanies for her friends so that will hopefully keep her busy.

Ripple with Skip Bo Cards

This is how Kendi learned her numbers. We started playing this game a few years ago. It's called Ripple and you play it with Skip Bo cards. I can't find the original rules anywhere and we've been playing a simplified version with the kids for so long that I don't remember all the correct rules.

We start by mixing all the cards in the middle of the table. Then we each make two rows of five cards. We line them up because the object is to find matching numbers on the top row and the bottom row. When we first started Kendi didn't know names of numbers or what they looked like, but it only took a few games for her start learning them.

Each player turns over two of their cards. Make sure they are not two that are supposed to match. Then you just take turns picking cards from the pile. If a card you pick up matches one of your numbers you put it on the corresponding spot and turn over the card that has been sitting there. If that card you just turned over matches another card then you keep going, like a ripple effect. If you pick a card that you don't have then you decide to either keep it in a spot that doesn't have either top or bottom card turned over yet (possibly starting another ripple) or you put it in your own discard pile and then your turn is over. You can take cards off the top of others' discard piles if they match one of your cards instead of drawing from the middle. Someone wins when they have matched up all their cards.

Sorry about the silly faces. Pictures always look so good on the camera phone. By the time I see it blown up on the computer screen its too late to take another one.

A Few Homeschool Days

Last year, on Veteran's Day, I took Kendi to our local Veteran's Day Assembly. I highly recommend taking your kids there. It was the first time Kendi asked questions about soldiers and war and we had some really good discussions. We heard local Veteran's stories and the high school band did a few numbers and we watched videos.

This year both of our kids were really sick on Veteran's Day so we stayed home and I felt bad that it was just going to pass us by. So, a week later, when we were in town to see the dentist I took them over to the Veteran's Memorial. We were lucky it was a beautiful day. The kids are pointing to the section of Bulloch's that served in WWII. My Grandpa's name is listed, but I don't think he actually made it into combat before the war ended. I had no idea that many soldiers served from our tiny little county. We estimated about 1400 names were listed.

My mom called while we were in town to see if we'd pick up some garden veggies before we went home. When we got there they were finishing up butchering one of the four animals (this one was an elk) they harvested this year. I let the girls stay longer to watch. Someone once laughed at me when I said I was a homeschooler. They thought I would hate to have to dissect a frog on my kitchen table. After all that my kids have seen of the anatomy of animals this year, dissecting a frog would seem silly.

The Great Math Adventure

Math is the subject, to date, that I have spent the most time researching and pouring over other blogs trying to figure out how to do it in our homeschool. Reading the math classics and learning about how formulas came about is something that I'm actually looking forward to, but I already know that reading Euclid to my five year old is not going to work right now.

I felt like it was an answer to prayer when I came across THIS LINK. It is a mathematicians lament on why math in public schools is so far from what it should be. Unfortunately, this essay doesn't go into great depth on how a person really should be learning math. At least, not specifically. My conveyor-belt-brain still needs step by step instructions to things like teaching math. But I know I want to do it the best way possible so I've been thinking and praying about what to do.

In a perfect setting, I would have math be an adventure and discovery process. I feel like if a child could be put in a situation where they were compelled to figure out math problems in order to accomplish something important then they would see the value of math and never forget what they learned. Coming up with these situations is not going to be easy, but I'm sure going to try.

I ordered the Math-U-See Alpha set, but have only done one lesson with Kendi. We are going to spend more time on learning how to write numbers really well and fine tune how to count to 100. The first lesson in Math-U-See Alpha is about Place Value. I wanted to follow a math curriculum to make sure we covered everything, but then include some adventure activities to make math become real and memorable. So how do you put a child in a situation that makes Place Value sink in? I couldn't think of anything and I wasn't sure it was even possible. Then I came across a math game on YouTube. Place Value Hopscotch. This was more of a game than a real life situation, but Kendi loves hopscotch and was willing to do it over and over until the information really sunk in. So while the math principals are simple I will include games as long as they work really well.

At this point I'm hoping we'll have math adventures two or three times a month. If anyone out there has ideas please, please, please let me know what you think. We will be calling this The Great Math Adventure.

Kendi's Love

Today was Kendi's Day to pick what we did for Homeschool. I love doing this because it lets me know what she is really interested in and wants to learn more about. She wanted to do cooking. We made pizza. I know that sounds like an overwhelming thing to make, but this recipe is so simple and fast. We even did this with a whole bunch of neighborhood kids one day. It's an easy bake oven recipe that I found online when Kendi started showing interest in baking a few years ago.

Each person gets a bowl and mixes together 2 Tbsp flour, 1/8 tsp baking powder, 1 dash of salt and 1 tsp margarine, until crumbly.

Then slowly stir in 2 1/4 tsp milk. Roll dough into a ball and then smash into a greased pan.

Top with pizza sauce and cheese. I baked ours in a regular oven at 350 for 10 minutes. Next time I will bake them another 5 minutes, but these turned out fine.

I would show Kendi what to do as I measured out my ingredients and then she would measure out her own. I showed her the difference between Tablespoons and teaspoons and how to recognize them on the recipe. It was fun to have her make her own pizza 100% by herself.

Aydri's pizza was much smaller than Kendi's because most of her flour ended up on the floor.

Sewing and Projects

TJed suggests teaching your kids about your own passions. One of the projects we've been working on lately is sewing Halloween Costumes. Kendi wanted to be a musketeer. She had never seen the Barbie Musketeer movie, but we thought we hit the jackpot when we found THIS link to an online tutorial on how to make this costume. I love October and the sewing projects we get to do. So fun!

We started out our days by doing about 45 minutes of sewing. That was enough time to make good progress, but short enough to stop while it was still fun. You know how sewing can get if it's too big of a project. In fact, by the end of this one, Kendi's excitement to work on it wasn't as enthusiastic as it was in the beginning. It became a good diligence learning project as well.

We've been trying to fine tune our daily and weekly schedules. I feel like we've figured out most of our curriculum and now we're figuring out how we spend our time. It's almost comical to think back on the curriculum I posted about and how much we've learned and changed things since then.

I've made Friday our project day. On Fridays we use our time exploring what Kendi loves and working on ongoing projects. We spend a lot of time on art and painting. We set up this outdoor oven that I found on ucreatewithkids.com. We baked s'mores while Kendi and Aydri worked on a few paintings in the garage. Our ongoing project we've been working on lately is organizing and accumulating food storage. Kendi has some great ideas and has been fun to include in this project that I would have felt overwhelmed to do all alone.

HERE is the link to the outdoor oven project.

Columbus Day

Mickey Mouse as Columbus. Barbie and Ken as Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand. Kendi looks sad, but she was just being very serious and respectful to the King and Queen.

Aydri sailing a ship. The kids really enjoyed acting out the events of how Columbus discovered America. You can tell she was really into it too by the look on her face.

Field Trip

We have been talking to Kendi about the history of reading and writing. We've talked a lot about petroglyphs. We are lucky to live in an area that is abundant with petroglyphs. On our way home from the Pumpkin Patch a few weeks ago we stopped by Parowan Gap. It is known for it's 1500 petroglyphs. Kendi was the first to spot some and was so excited.

(Someone once asked me if I highlight Kendi's hair. No! It is naturally like that.)

They call this the zipperglyph. It outlines the formation of the Gap in a long ridge of red cliffs. The sun sets down the center during equinox. It was a special place to the Native Americans who lived here. We were pressed for time and Kendi wanted to keep exploring. We had a hard time convincing her to go back to the car. She loved this. I can't wait to learn more about the history of our area and the people who made these.

I used to let Aydri watch cartoons for an hour in the morning while Kendi needed some peace to concentrate during homeschool. I noticed that Aydri was acting more ADHD at church and couldn't focus or sit still for anything. So now I don't put her in front of the TV anymore and it's made a big difference. Sometimes she will entertain herself with blocks and dolls or make a giant mess in her room and sometimes she will join us for homeschool. The messes don't bother me because she is using her imagination and being creative. I'm surprised at how much she joins in with homeschoo though.

On friday, Kendi and I sat down at the white board to brainstorm about a project we were going to start. We usually sit there to do reading first thing. Aydri sat down with us and started rattling off all of Kendi's sight words like we were going to do a reading lesson. She absorbs more than we realize.

Time Flies When You're Having Fun!

I can't believe it's been two weeks of homeschool already. We've had fun and we've had some tough moments, but only one bad day and I've learned a lot from this experience. Keeping this blog is mostly to help me remember the things that I've learned along the way. I'm sure things will just keep changing too. I'm a parent, I'm use to that.

Kendi loves the new, bright, shiny workbooks right now. I was surprised by that at first, but I think it's just because they are new and something different. I have a feeling that the newness may where off. I'm even more surprised that Kendi doesn't love some of the games that I put together for math and such. In fact she kind of hates them. haha. Math is something that I really need to make a priority of figuring out right now. I think she needs more hands on manipulative math to do. The math book that I ordered is way below her level and not even fun anymore.

Kendi loves art. What kid doesn't? I'm so glad that this subject is well taken care of. I just need to schedule it into our week to make sure that it happens. There is so much we can do everyday and so little time to do it. Kendi could paint for hours.

My aunt passed away a couple of years ago. She had been taking art lesson's from Jared and was really quite good at it. Kendi and my aunt had become really close when my aunt was diagnosed with brain cancer. I was also very sick at the time and Kendi spent a lot of time with my parents who were also spending a lot of time with my aunt. Kendi and Aunt Mary would go for walks, draw and just talk together. It's safe to say they were best friends. My heart has never broken so hard as when I had to tell Kendi that Aunt Mary was gone. Mary's family left her art supplies with Jared. She had accumulated a lifetime supply of water-color equipment. Jared doesn't water-color much, but Kendi loves it. It is so fun to see her painting with professional paints from someone she loved with her daddy in the mountains that Mary was so fond of.

Kendi loves projects. I'm trying to think of some on-going ones. She already wants to start a project for the county fair next year. I'd like to get started on some service ones too.
I need to really remember why I'm homeschooling in the first place and not get all caught up in the fun things to buy and do. I really want Kendi to socialize with all age groups which means I need to start getting those types of activities set up soon. I also want her to learn how to work hard with a happy attitude. Anyone needing work done at their house, let us know. I also need to make sure that I'm focused on teaching her how to think and not what to think. I need to be a mentor, not a teacher. Sometimes this is hard when it comes to things like handwriting. She taught herself how to write and really doesn't want to take the time to relearn. I need to come up with a way to inspire her to want to.

I figured out that it helps to have a short, fun activity to start the day. It gets us in a positive school mode to begin. I'm glad that I have that old Kindergarten resource book from DI for that.

I just found out that the Montessori school nearby may let her do a subject or two with them. I'm meeting with them soon to find out more details. I love so many things about Montessori and it would be hard to do it at home so this would be a way for her to have Montessori and work with groups of kids in more age groups.

So far, I've really enjoyed homeschool and Kendi says she likes it too. My only fear is that time is flying by so fast. I want to make sure that I cover all the things that I wanted this homeschool to do.