We have gotten into a better school routine since the olders started their new year. I have a goal for us to be home three afternoons a week (which only leaves us one school related outing a week) and that has been helping us to get stuff done as our evenings are pretty full right now with sports.
Joel joins us for morning devotions where we are reading through the full bible for Hannah’s requirements. We sing his assigned song of the week as well as each of us picking a worship or fun song and pray. We also read a selection from a kids bible as part of Joel’s school time and review a bible verse each week.
In history/social studies we have been reading through a book called Stories from Africa.
Read Alouds are the fun part. We have weekly selections from A Treasury of Mother Goose Rhymes, Uncle Wiggily’s Story Book, The Lion Storyteller Bedtime Book, an audio listening activity with American Tall Tales, The Children’s Book of Virtues, Stories From Around the World, Milly Molly Mandy Storybook, art selections from A Child’s Book of Art, and poetry selections from Eric Carle’s Animals Animals.
We started this set of weeks with no formal reading or LA, and were just watching some Leap Frog movies and playing on some educational games. We did have a workbook we are doing to determine his learning styles, looking over Dr. Seuss’ ABC, and a vocabulary book called First Thousand Words. But recently Joel declared that he could read now because he knew all the letters and their sounds so we decided to start LAK with him. We have a letter each week and work on its sound and writing the upper case and lower case version. We finished two weeks (letters F and B) so far.
Science at this level is so much fun. So many things to learn! Joel likes watching the olders do their experiments, but we have some pretty interesting books to read as well. What’s Under the Sea? kept us busy for awhile. Joel really likes the deep sea fish! We even watched a Blue Planet episode because he likes angler and hatchet fish. We also read Is the Blue Whale the Biggest Thing There Is?
Math isn’t formalized yet. He does seem to be remembering seven lately but 13 is still largely ignored. 😉 He does like getting his allowance each week so I’m sure math will come along when needed.
Extras are the icing on the cake. Joel decided to try soccer this season and it so fun to watch. The little guys get all excited when the score. He is pretty aggressive and has scored a few goals. We also have weekly Royal Rangers and he got his summer awards at the end of August.
Cathy T I sure wish you luved closer so Cooper our 9 yr old grandson could join you. He so intelligent and does remarkable in class but the class has 27 I think and how can you get undivided attention if needed. Anyway you’re doing a great job. You’re very blessed.
Rebecca Diltz Nate Moehring I think there are a lot of things that are very nice about homeschooling, but the very best one (today anyway) is being able to wait until your child is ready to learn something before trying to teach it. Everything is so much easier! We have the technology to do individualized education in public school yet we don’t do it, we still expect every child to be the same and learn everything in the same order at the same age.
Cathy T Rebecca Diltz Nate Moehring that’s it exactly.