Just another reason I love homeschooling...

Today, we did school at the Butterfly Exhibit in Dallas
Math, Reading, Writing, Science, Art, and Recess
all wrapped up in one Field Trip :)

T working on his questions

E looking for butterflies on the "map"

It was so fun letting them explore and have the freedom to go wherever they wanted.

Don't miss the butterfly in this one...

T listening to the man describe the moth's camouflage

Outside to explore, snack, and let the stroller-bound boy out to stretch his legs

Thursday Three

...except I only got 2 pictures today :)

pre-writing practice

Melissa and Doug spelling puzzles

Just another day...

This morning

still wearing his pajamas

outside

in his fort

doing phonics


Just another reason we LOVE homeschool :)

Kindergarten

Well, we are in the swing of things here at Frye Academy :)

We have quite the schedule/routine down, and while I know it could (and will) change eventually, the boys and I are thriving in it for the time being!! We work on the following subjects and curricula throughout the morning and into the afternoon, during the little boys' naps if things get too rowdy. Every day is a little different, because the middle littles are in Mother's Day Out 2 (E) and 3 (T) days a week. We save some things to do WITH T, and we have certain things we only do when E is out of the house...or when S (the baby) is sleeping ever so peacefully (or at least playing and not screaming his head off) in his bed :)

Handwriting

Science (Creation Unit: The World God Made, Creation Crafts...and after that, I plan on starting a book of really fun experiments called The Backyard Scientist)

Language Arts/Phonics (Explode the Code, Vocabulary cards from RRSP)

Art (We are learning how to draw...and by we, I mean WE; I also just bought a book called How to Teach Art to Children and am hoping it is as fabulous as its reviews claim!)

Reading (Read Aloud: Pinocchio (the original classic) and next, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory; Scott Foresman and McGraw-Hill curricula; Bob Books; Animal Antics books)

Math (Math U See, Scott Foresman, Addition/Subtraction, 1-100)

Bible (Memory Verses that go along with our Science curriculum...all about creation: Col. 1:16, Gen. 1:1, John 1:3; Jesus Storybook Bible along with Read and Share Devotional, Hero Tales, Vol IV, always going back to the Village Church's 5 foundational truths)

Speech

History/Geography (Maps, America/Texas, and thematic units...We are about to start one on Pilgrims and Indians in preparation for Thanksgiving)

My main focus for both of the older boys is Handwriting, Reading, and Math (you know...reading, writing, and arithmetic, right?!) All of the other subjects are basically ways to incorporate those 3 foundations in new and exciting ways and fun excuses to keep their brains working hard! We also still love using our school drawers, but things are more organized by subject at this point in the game :)

P is for Pizza

Today we read the book, Pete's a Pizza by William Steig


Of course, we had to make pizza!






(can you see the number 65 in the flour above? Justus was practicing writing numbers.)







We also watched this video from YouTube (of course there is a video of a man making pizza on YouTube...you can find everything on YouTube):



And of COURSE I also threw our pizza dough in the air to impress my boys!! ;)

Tomorrow...

We begin our lessons!!

We'll see how it goes!!

BREAKING NEWS!!!!!!!!

My 5-year-old, J, is learning to read!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
He is sounding out 3 and 4 letter words, and I am so excited!! He is loving it, and the confidence he is gaining from reading these little words is opening the door to more and more stress-free reading lessons! Praise the Lord :) The irony here? My 3-year-old, T, is beginning to simply "catch" a lot of this reading business...so teaching him to read is looking like it is going to be a breeze. Now THAT is irony I am willing to live with :)

Our school drawers

This is how we do school nowadays:

We have 10 drawers (aka school drawers/workboxes) labeled with the numbers 1-10 on little circle disks with velcro attaching them to the drawers. J (and T if he is joining us) gets to pick any of the drawers, in the order of his choosing. He takes the number off of the drawer and places it in the basket on top, and we do that activity together. The catch is that we have to get through all 10 of the drawers before I will fill them with new activities and manipulatives. I LOVE doing it this way, and J seems to really be having a better attitude about everything. He has a say in what we do next, so it helps him to have a willing and teachable heart.

I fill the drawers with as many different things as I can think of. We have a set of shelves in our mud room full of different manipulatives and activities and arts/craft supplies, a file drawer full of worksheets, and sometimes I even throw in something from the kitchen (like when we sorted and ate jelly beans for the letter J.)

Here are some of the drawers from this week that didn't directly correlate with the letter K (I mean, I can only take so much of the letter activities...it just gets old!!)

In the drawer: a piece of chalk and a washcloth (our eraser)
J wrote 1-10 on the chalkboard

In the drawer: magnetic letters
J picked out vowels and put them on the chalk board
In the drawer: a notebook and a marker
J traced Genesis 1:1

In the drawer (from the Letter I): Inchworm counting cards from Confessions of a Homeschooler J counted the number of inchworms on each card and found the corresponding number

In the drawer: Inchworm clip cards also from Confessions of a Homeschooler
J placed the correct number of mini clothes pins on each card