Homeschooling

Homeschooling has been a bit lax around here.  We've always been pretty relaxed with our schooling (I just don't stress over the occasional missed day) but with as sick as I've been feeling, we've gotten a bit off track on a few of our regular subjects.  I'm super thankful for being on the TOS homeschool review crew.  It has helped keep us on track.  I make sure we are working on our review products.

Yesterday, I realized, my kids are old enough to be doing so much more on their own.  Well, I've known this for awhile, but I love sitting with them and reading to them and learning right along with them so most of our joint subjects are done together-with the three of us.  So I sat down with the kids and told them we are going to start a short ecology/pollution/conservation unit for our KONOS co-op.  (We took the month of Jan. off and the first part of Feb.)  I told them to look through a handful of library books I got and to write about what they learn. 

Here's what I love--my kids got started immediately.  They were both excited to be able to do what they want for a report.  It was fun to see them excited about learning something.  I did remind them that they needed to read the books and write down some new things-they can't just write what they already know.  Creative Princess eventually found her own animals book because she wanted to read more about the Panda and why it's endangered.  She brought the book in the car for our errands.

I've been thinking about what to do for next year.  With a newborn, I know I can't do exactly what we've been doing because of the amount of time it takes me.  So, next year, I plan to have one math and one language arts type curriculum for both kids.  I will choose an on-line math program.  The language arts is going to be harder to find what I want.  Then once a month the kids will get a subject to study on their own.  I'll give them a list to choose from (if I don't Creative Princess will always choose something with animals.)  Then they will have options of how to study and compile what they have learned.  Some ideas: lapbooking, oral report with a poster board, written report.

I'm looking forward to this. 

A Little Unschooling

Here's a bit of "unschooling" occurring in our house right now.

Creative Princess was putting away laundry in my bedroom. She said she heard a noise. I went with her and what I heard was birds outside. She said that wasn't the sound. Then she remembered the book I just bought this weekend at Costco. It is a book about birds and has a sound piece on the end. You choose a bird you want to hear, press the button and you hear a recording of that bird. It's a book that can easily be enjoyed by adults as well as kids.

Creative Princess got the book and set it up so it goes through all the bird sounds in order. She is listening to it while drawing pictures of birds (mostly ducks I think). She is then cutting out the birds and using a brad to attach the heads and bodies so they can bob their heads down to get food.

I love it when my kids are creative. I love when they find something educational and run with it.

School Time

I just read Denise's blog about back to school. Like Denise, I love going into an office supply store. I love organizing things (not that you can tell from the way my house looks. LOL) As a kids I liked the new school year for all the new paper and pencils and other school supply stuff. As an adult, I stock up on school supplies. Here's my confession-I have a big box of Crayola crayons (96, I think) in my closet, just for me. I haven't even used them yet. They've been there awhile.

The other thing Denise wrote about was curriculum. My blood pressure went up just looking at her list. Now, granted, she has one more child than I do and that extra child is a high schooler this year, but still...

Here is my curriculum list, ready?

Curriculum 1: KONOS, Vol 1: This is a unit based study. There are a lot of ideas and suggestions on projects so I will pick and choose what I want us to do, tailoring the majority of the projects to my kids needs, wants and interests. We'll do a lot of reading aloud with this curriculum

Curriculum 2: Math: But wait, you say, that isn't a curriculum, that is a subject. Yes, well, you are right. Math consists of me printing free worksheets off the computer or pulling worksheets from a Costco workbook and giving it to the kids to do. That said, I kept some pre-algebra and algebra textbooks for Precise Prince who really wants to learn algebra. So I'll let him work on those on his own. Maybe I'll bother with guiding him, maybe I won't. (I will if he asks but whether or not I will force some guidance, we'll see. The textbooks are a couple of grades ahead of him so there is no need to rush.)

Curriculum 3: TOS Reviews. Whatever we review will be part of our curriculum. I know we will be reviewing a cursive writing program next month. I'm excited about that. Precise Prince can write cursive but he is still slow at it and sometimes has to look at the chart to remember a couple of the letters. Creative Princess knows a little bit.

Curriculum 4: Oops. There is no fourth curriculum. That's it! Hey, three is more than I've sometimes used in the past.

Oh wait, maybe there will be a fourth curriculum. I will be working on spelling with Creative Princess, but I will most likely not use a curriculum. I will just work with her on the words she misspells the most.

Ok, another thing to mention. You may notice that there is no Bible in my list. I do not consider Bible a curriculum. I desire it to be part of our every day lives (we're still working on making this a reality every day).