Sunday, June 21, 2009

Let's Go Fly a Kite

Adam and Samuel took advantage of the windy days we've been having and spent the morning flying the kite.








Tuesday, June 16, 2009

2009-2010 School Year

Now is the time of year that I have been planning what we're going to do for the next school year. The school board counts the homeschool year as July 1st to June 30th and even though we aren't reporting yet, I'm trying to get us on that schedule.

We have enjoyed doing Little Hands Toward Heaven over the last few months, but Samuel is getting bored with the letter activities since he already knows all his letter sounds. He likes the Bible stories and activities so we are going to keep doing those until we finish, but drop most of the rest of the Little Hands stuff. Instead, we are moving on to Sonlight. I had planned on switching to Sonlight in Kindergarten anyway, but we just decided to go ahead and make the switch now.

So for the upcoming school year (starting July 6th) we will be doing:
We have also realized that Samuel does much better with doing some school each day and gets into more trouble when we have long breaks, so we are going to school year round at least for the younger grades. A normal school year is 5 days a week for 36 weeks. We are going to do 4 days a week for 45 weeks. That gives us a longer school year, but the same amount of days overall. And we can use our Fridays for trips to the library, field trips, etc.

This is probably way more info than anyone other than me wanted to know, but I was mainly just thinking and planning out loud.


Workboxes!

If you are not a homeschooler, this post probably will not interest you so feel free to skip it.

A couple of months ago, I started hearing alot about this great system to schedule your school day called The Workbox System. I have been trying it out with Samuel for the last few weeks and he has loved it! We get so much more fun stuff done each day.

Basically the idea is that you have a box for each school subject or activity that you want to do that day. You fill the box the night before with everything you will need for that project. So for instance if we want to do an art project, I go ahead and get all the paper and supplies together in one box and put them on the shelf. The boxes are numbered and you work through them in order, kind of like a visual schedule. It really helps Samuel because he can see what's coming next. It helps me because I actually get all our stuff ready the night before instead of scrambling around trying to make copies or find what we need in the middle of a project or activity.

Samuel usually has around 12 boxes each day because I put enough stuff in there to last all day. Our school stuff takes up anywhere from 3-5 boxes depending on what we're doing that day. Then the other boxes I fill with games for us to play together, fun stuff for him like playdough or coloring, library books to read, a DVD to watch, puzzles, etc. Most of the boxes are things for us to do together, but I try to give him a couple of things to do by himself while I'm trying to get other things done (like cleaning) so that he's not in the way.

Here's a look at workboxes in action:

This is our workbox shelf


Filled workboxes


Samuel loves to go get each box and bring it to me to see what we get to do. Eventually, there will be more and more independent items so that he can work on something and just move on to the next thing when he's done, but that probably won't happen for a few years :)


He stacks the workboxes in the floor when he's done and puts the books, games, etc in the chair for me to put away or back in the box at the end of the day. Keeping the workboxes off the shelf when they are done helps him visually see how much work he has done and how much he has left for the day.

If you want to read more, here's a list of other homeschoolers using workboxes.


Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Little Hands Toward Heaven - Unit 16

This unit was about Elisha and Elijah. We started off by reading the story of how the ravens brought food to Elijah. Samuel has also been doing great with his reading. He got another star on his reading chart for reading a new story!

The next day was tape day. This week we were learning the Letter M. Then we read about Elijah and the prophets of Baal and how God sent fire from heaven to consume Elijah's offering. We built a model of Elijah's altar out of playdough. Samuel had a lot of fun with that!





The third day we read about the widow who needed money and how God told Elisha to have her pour her remaining oil into jars. She began pouring the oil and was able to fill all the jars and get the money she needed. Samuel also did a Letter M craft.


The next day we read about how Naaman was healed of leprosy by washing in the river 7 times. Samuel thought it was funny that he had to take 7 baths in one day! Samuel also did his Letter M worksheet.

The last day we read about God sending angels to help Elisha. We read some other verses in the Bible about angels and talked about how angels are God's helpers.

We will be taking off school until after 6/12 because of VBS at church.

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