Weeks 10 and 11 Round Up

Week 10/11

Session A activities for these weeks:  primary colors, vowels, pledge

Session B activities for these weeks: #1-12 dot to dot & coloring, Consonant sounds project (a poster for each letter and we cut out pictures and pasted them on the right letter sound), READ Preschool (finished all the upper and lowercase letters Gg-Zz), Played missing letters or numbers games, played a math dice counting game, READ Preschool (mazes, dot to dots, rhyming words, etc...), Counting with Numbers Book p2-11 (#1-4 and counting practice), art card review, "A Harbor in Moonlight" painting, Nat Geo little kids, Cam Jansen,

Total time spent was approximately 7.5 hours structured time or about 4 hours per week.

Trusting Free Play

I'm not even going to post a "round up" for this last week because Jack and I had a sort of battle of wits so my patience was worn just a touch too thin to put on the patient awesome teacher hat.  And I was tired.  That never seems like a legitimate excuse for things but really, I was so tired I caught a bug and I'm just now feeling better.

So all the nothing we did this week reminded me of how important it is to understand that the times when you aren't *doing* something are just as valuable as the times that we are cramming activity after activity down their throats.  School and more school then homework and dance class. Soccer, music, spanish, and even structuring the play at home into "educational" activities.  The school year is in full swing now and it is hard to resist the urge to put my son in something because that is what people do with their children when they reach a certain age.

As I complained to my friend over the epic showdown we'd had over a cup of juice earlier that day, she calmly explained that it was because he was just too bored with me.  I got defensive and started naming off all the things he'd done that week without me but realized that we are just on two different planes.  She, and most others of our generation, believe that children must be dropped off somewhere for a structured activity, for which we must then excuse ourselves for the duration of, in order that they don't become bored and therefore stagnant in their development.

I disagree.  And I'm not alone.

Play is so important to optimal child development that it has been recognized by the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights as a right of every child, or so says a 2006 paper published by the American Academy of Pediatrics.  If you haven't read it, you definitely should check it out.

Yet we are increasingly paranoid about our very young children (ages 3 and 4) falling behind academically and constantly finding ways to put more stuff on their shoulders.  A mother once commented to me that her 3 year old was trying to get out of doing extra academic work at home by saying that she was "so tired."  This 3 year old goes to school from 8:30 - 2:30 pm Monday through Friday and attends 2 dance classes per week.

And then there is Jack.  We spend probably 8 hours a week on structured school activities and he goes to gymnastics once a week.  It sure does sound like he could be bored compared to his friends, who all have structured activities away from home for nearly 40 hours a week.

Sometimes he says "I don't know what to do" which is I think the same thing for him and I direct him into an activity.  However, most of the time, he is really busy.  Too busy to eat and sleep actually.  He is building towers and robots and setting traps for monsters.  He is pretending to be a garbage man or drawing himself a story.  He grabs a few things from the toy box and heads outside to play for hours in the dirt.  I hear him making up his own songs and singing them on stage at a rock concert.  We talk endlessly about topics that have endless "Why's" and he has time to fit the information into his worldview.  They aren't the games I would choose nor does he construct things the way that they *should* be but all his inventions are his own.  He is absolutely NOT bored and he is NOT getting behind by "missing out" on soccer or school.

And I have absolute faith in him that these things he is pretending and building with household items are teaching him what he needs to be resourceful and hardworking.  He relies on no one for entertainment.  He needs no toys.  Experts are now saying that boredom is GOOD for children and that unstructured time is just the thing.

I just have to keep reminding myself that I am giving him a gift here.  The gift of time.  He has time to explore the world and himself without anyone or anything telling him how to do it.

H is for Halloween

I don't have much to share this week.  We slogged through the phonics week but things still aren't clicking so I am sticking with my decision to step back a little and take the next several weeks as review on the reading front.  I'll talk more about that later.  First I'd like to show some of our art for the week!

Jack's favorite holiday is Halloween and he was really counting the days until October 1st on the calender because that is the day I promised we could finally decorate the house and begin halloween crafts.  We picked up a pumpkin and put a silly face on it with Mr. Potato Head-like pieces, put up window clings, and he chose 1 new decoration to add to our collection (a jack-o'-lantern with a plug in light).

We stamped feet and made them into monsters!  He is still giggling about the little rhyme that goes with it.  I decorated M's feet and he decorated his own.

Little Frankenstein's Monster Feet!

In other art news, our painting this week was Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte.  I was really impressed with how many elements he picked out of the painting.  Watercolor is exceedingly difficult to work with so in the end, all of his colors melted together but he talked about each color he chose and what piece of the painting he was working on.  When we were finished, he was upset that his painting hadn't "turned out" like he wanted and told me we were switching. Now when people ask, he claims he painted the one on the top.

Again, please excuse my hasty art work.

I don't want him to get frustrated with his work but I think that it is inevitable that as he becomes more aware of artwork the more he is going to compare what he does to what he sees.

We also talked about primary colors and color mixing.  I found this lovely little book by Leo Lionni (author of Frederic) called Little Blue and Little Yellow to use as an introduction to the lesson.  My goodreads review is here.

Anyway, Week 10.

We'll head toward math land and give the phonics a rest.  I've updated the homeschool links page with several resources that have free printables.  I have printed off several dot to dots and other activity pages for the week.  There are several number games to play and we introduced the idea of addition/subtraction at the end of last week so we'll practice that idea some more.  We'll be reviewing consonant sounds by going through magazines and finding pictures that begin with letter sounds we've worked.  We'll cut them out and paste them on the right letter board.  My walls are about to get colorful!

I also have several fine motor skills activities planned.  He'll be using scissors and doing some writing.  We'll be adding to his "Book About Jackson".

Week 9 Round Up

Day #1
Session A-  0    Calender X
Notes:  None

Session B- 45 min
Notes: Numbers Coloring "9" p. 22-23 , Alphabet Coloring "H" & "T" p18-19 and 42-43, Alphabet Animals "T"

Day #2
Session A-  5 min    Calender X
Notes: #1-20 cards

Session B- 60 min
Notes: FSR Book A Lesson 14 p.30-31 photocopy, Numbers Book "8" & "9" pp34-36, Primary Phonics Readers (Al, Ben Bug, Meg, Tim), Nature Reader (T for Turtle and others), Practiced putting #1-10 cards in order

Day #3
Session A- 5 min     Calender X
Notes: Pledge, Vowels

Session B- 60 min
Notes: Numbers Book pp37-39, Alphabet Animals "H", Halloween Craft, #1-10 game (put in order, find the missing #), Primary Phonics books

Day #4
Session A- 5 min   Calender X
Notes: Vowels, Geography

Session B- 60 min
Notes: Numbers book p40-41 (10), READ (preschool) H is for Hello p.85, Lots of read aloud books after a trip to the library

Day #5
Session A- 0     Calender X
Notes: none

Session B- 60 min
Notes: Numbers book p42-43, Number cards game 1-20, Read "Little Blue & Little Yellow" and discussed primary colors, practiced mixing colors with paint to see what happens, art card review, other library books

Learning is actually fun

Each week, we are completing more work than the week before but it has stopped feeling like a mad rush to cram everything in.  We are enjoying each activity and the progress he has made in just 8 weeks has given me confidence in my decision to make things much more informal in terms of the actual curriculum.  I have stopped trying to follow it closely and instead substitute in things that are more fun and reinforce the areas we are working on.

Art is still his favorite, and I am surprised by how well our method of introducing classic art pieces is working.  I tape up the piece for the week on the refrigerator and we talk about the painter.  Then sometime during the week we look at the painting and try to pick out elements to re-create.  He is getting more observant (even if you can't tell by his finished product - watercolor is really hard) each week, noticing more colors and features.  Last week was Mona Lisa.

Excuse my work - I really know nothing about painting

We are also continuing our letter crafts and it is so nice when the craft aligns with something that is happening in real life.  He did the letter P out of order when he pulled his workbook out but that's ok because we just got a pumpkin at the grocery store and he is so excited to carve it.  We painted pumpkins as well. 

He wrote the word "Pumpkin" free hand

We also started working on "A Book About Jackson", an activity recommended by the curriculum but they included it as just a thing to make in 1 afternoon.  I decided to make it more in depth and keep adding to it as the weeks roll by.

He tells me what to write about each topic we touch on and then he traces the words I have written in pencil on the lines.  He pastes the pictures on too.

So far we have added pages about his immediate family, his grandparents, and about where he lives.  I am proud of this page here:

All this really great work aside, he is a lot further from "reading" than I had thought he was.  He just is not ready at all.  It is maddening trying to get him to sound words out.  He knows individual sounds and does really well when we complete pages but he cannot rhyme and he cannot even "hear" what word is being said when he blends the simplest of sounds together.  This is the most frustrating thing about homeschool.  I can't even get him to follow simple instructions on sounding out the words.  Things haven't clicked into place yet and there really isn't anything I can do to move him further along.  He just has to make the connection on his own.  I just hope he makes it soon because sounding the same 15 words out all the time is making me want to rip all my hair out.  The thing making it even harder is how well the kid writes.  The writing normally comes much later but he can copy words out of a book like there is no tomorrow, left to right, in order.  He KNOWS but doesn't know.  Oi.

On we go to week 9, where we are going heavy on the phonics.  After this, I plan to just review for awhile and keep reading the primary phonics books, pointing to each word and having him read a few for himself.  After this week, he'll have worked consonant sounds P-, S-, M-, F-, H-, T-, N-, R-, the vowel -a-, and word endings -at, -am, and -an.  He knows more consonant sounds (for sure B-, J-, L- and D-) but they aren't officially logged yet.

Week 9 also marks the completion of numbers 1-10.  We worked their actual numeric value (counting), writing the number, and writing the word.  From here we'll also spend several weeks in "review" with math exercises that include drawing by numbers, number lines, counting and writing the correct number, and a few other activities.  Then we'll move on to writing numbers 11-20 and basic addition/subtraction exercises.

In recitation, I'll also be adding some different content.  We no longer need the ABC flashcards or numbers 1-10 cards every day (and haven't needed them for awhile).  He knows the full Pledge of Allegience, can recite our geography "We live on the planet Earth.  There are 7 continents.  We live on the continent of North America.  We live in the United States of America.  There are 50 states.  We live in the State of Texas.  Our city is Richmond, our street is xxxx, and our house number is xxxx." 

Week 8 Round Up

Day #1
Session A -  5 min   Calender X
Notes:  #1-20

Session B - 90+ minutes
Notes:  FSR Book A Lesson 21 "P" ALL ON OWN (p 44-45), Alphabet Animals p.32-33 "P", Pumpkin Stamps craft, Numbers Book P.1 p28-29 (7), Mona Lisa painting w/ watercolor, Art Card Review, FSR Book A Lesson 12 p.26, "This is Not A Pumpkin" x3, "Ben Bug" x2, "Al", "Mac & Tab" (reading all while pointing to each word, having him read some words like "man" and "ran"), Puzzle Book, Sea Creatures book

Day #2
Session A - 5 min    Calender X
Notes: Pledge

Session B - 60 min
Notes: FSR Book A Lesson 15 "Hh" started p 32-33 (ALL ON OWN again), Numbers Coloring "7", READ preschool p.50-51 (m,n,o), Primary Phonics (Al, Ben Bug, Meg, Mac&Tab), This is Not a Pumpkin x2, Started a "book about me"

Day #3
Session A - 5 min   Calender X
Notes: Pledge

Session B - 25 min
Notes: FSR Book A Lesson 15 cont'd, Phonics Books (Ben Bug, Al), Nature Reader "H is for Hippo"

Day #4
Session A - 10 min  Calender X
Notes: pledge, geography, ABC song, vowels

Session B - 45 min
Notes: letter sounds with cookie monster (p, f, h), alphabet animals H, book about me (where i live)

Day #5
Session A -5 min   Calender X
Notes: vowels

Session B - 25 min
Notes: FSR Book A Lesson 12 cont'd (p. 27), Scary Stories to Read in the Dark

Hard At Work

During week 7 we did a lot of writing.  My son has adapted so well to sitting down and "working".  I'm impressed.  He can completed whole lessons in a sitting and he really loves that school is his work.  We talk about daddy being hard at work while Jack is hard at work and how impressed he'll be when he comes home and sees everything that we've completed that day.

With all the talk of ADHD diagnoses in classrooms, zero tolerance policies, how little movement children get during the day, and how boys in particular struggle with the requirements of the modern school day, you can imagine how pleased I am to see that my son is completely capable of completing tasks and focusing on this "work".

So after all we have done together to establish a routine and get him to appreciate the value of practice and hard work, he does this amazing thing today:

The Letter P

This is a normal workbook page.  He has done very well with his letter formation here and done a pretty good job by the last line of staying inside the guide lines.  But all that is beside the point.

He got done swimming in the pool, went inside by himself while the rest of us remained outside, got himself completely dressed and came downstairs.  He then got into the school cupboard, pulled out his "First Start Reading" workbook, and began a lesson for himself.  When I came inside to check on him, he was hard at work, head bent over the page, carefully forming the letters with his avengers pencil.  He hardly noticed me so I pretended to need a towel from the bedroom.

When I came back, he announced proudly that he had completed his work all by himself!  And he had.  Not one direction from me.

What is the take away?  So many things.  

One is that our children can be so independent at such a young age when they are in an environment where their confidence can be built and when it is the work itself that is valued most.  I tell him always that it is ok when his letters don't turn out "right", that is why we practice!  

Another thing is that it is so much easier to ask him to sit still when I know all of his other needs have been met.  He'd been playing outdoors all day and had his fill.  He was ready to sit down for a quiet activity.  Maybe there is a way to integrate this into our schedule?  I can definitely make an effort to be more mindful of his physical needs before we sit down.  Now that the temperature outside is finally manageable, we will definitely be outdoors a lot more and I may try moving our "classroom" outside on some days.

This coming week will include less writing and more reading.  I'll be trying to choose simpler books and pointing to each word one at a time.  I'll ask him to pick out words I know we've practiced or that he can easily sound out.  Hopefully this will build his confidence.  When we do reading worksheets and books, he often simply makes up the words, which I'm told is very common this early on.

We'll also be doing more arts and crafts.  These are his favorite things and seem to help make letters and their sounds really stick with him.

I'm never cutting another circle out again.

We're having fun and I'm feeling confident.  This is working *for us* and seeing him learn first hand is very rewarding.