Category Archives: Homeschooling

My Days ~School

We have now finished the abridged version of Sherlock Holmes and have moved on to Captains Courageous.

The boys were supposed to do patterns for their math but were not quite grasping it so I took a page from my friend and used M&M’s.

I really wanted M&M’s also…

Working on their numbers with rightstart math.

Last week we were learning about Leonardo Da Vinci.

I had several books about him from the library but most were too dry.

We looked at the pictures in some of them and then I read them “Who Stole the Mona Lisa”.

It was a great way to introduce him to the boys!

I love history so I love to teach it to the boys.

At this age though it is less about facts and more about an introduction.

On the left in the above pic is a replica of Da Vinci’s paddle boat.

I bought it from Hobby Lobby.

We put it together at the end of the week.

The boys really liked putting it together!

It did not say it was made for water but I figured they would get a lot more out if they got to see it work.

In the book “Who Stole the Mona Lisa” they talk about the paddle boat and the boys went on their first paddle boat ride a couple weeks ago!

I love it when things fall into place like that!

This boy was better at sinking it…

Then I had to put a stop to them trying to sink it with rocks.

Boys…

The Magic School Bus ~Human Body

I bought this kit because it is full of fun hands on things to do to learn about the human body.

The boys really like it but I would advise getting other resources to use with it.

It does not have as much information as I would like.

We are watching the Magic School Bus movie about the human body to go along with it.

I also borrowed books from the library to go with what we are learning.

This week we have been learning about our bones so I got The search for the missing bones to read at the same time.

I have loved reading it!

The boys retained a lot more information about bones with us doing both at the same time also.

One of the experiments in the kit has you put chicken bones in vinegar overnight to see what happens.

I did not think it did much so I did a search online and found this blog.

He says to soak them for 3 days and gives a really clear explanation on what is happening.

I would advise using his blog when doing this experiment.

We are loving learning about the human body and I can’t wait to continue the study next week!

That being said, if my boys come away from all we have learned this week and only remember they have bones in their body I am okay with that.

I have learned to not have my expectations too high with this age.

They are learning everything for the first time and it is amazing to them to find out they have hard bones inside of them.

I do not want to spend weeks on memorizing the name of all the bones in their bodies yet.

1st Day of School ~2012

I decided on Sunday that I wanted to have our school things in the library(that is what we call this room, I have always wanted one so that is what I call it!).

I am really good at last minute decision making.

My husband loves it when I say I want to go somewhere as we are passing the turn…

I sanded and painted the table Sunday afternoon!

On the left is most of the things we need for the school year.

On the right is the human body poster from the Magic School Bus anatomy kit.

We started the school day at 8:30am with a Memory Verse, the Days of the week, and the Months of the year(I found a song on youtube from this blog).

We then read from Great Illustrated Classics Sherlock Holmes.

I really like the classical education approach so I would have liked to read Greek Mythology but I did not want to introduce the boys to that yet.

My mom always started every school day with a classic.

I love how it helps everybody wake up slowly.

I wanted to wait until the end of the day to do science but I knew the boys would not concentrate until we had opened up the kit.

We put the poster up and the brain sticker.

We are learning about human anatomy this month.

Next came Reading, Writing, and Grammar.

I bought Handwriting Without Tears for writing this year.

I am already loving the way it uses little tricks to help you remember how to write letters.

It tells you to frog jump back to the top for F so you do not draw the line on the side twice.

We are using A Handbook for Reading by a beka for our reading.

One of my older sister’s names is written on this book from when she used it.

That might be part of why I love it so much.

It is such a great book to help teach reading phonetically.

I had my youngest play in his room for a little bit while his older brother read to me(he needed a break anyway).

I then got my oldest set up on the computer for his grammar lesson while I did reading with my youngest.

The online grammar is free and he really liked it!

At 10am we had snack time.

I have found breaks are needed with little guys.

We plunged into math right after snack.

This week we are doing a review of the math we learned last year(as well as catching my youngest up on anything he did not learn) and some math games.

Next week we will start back into the RightStart math workbook.

Then came History.

I have saved it for near the end of the day because it is my passion and I can teach it even when I am tired!

I use the timeline from History Through the Ages.

It helps the boys see when things happened instead of me just trying to explain that it was a long time ago.

This week is Aristotle to go along with Anatomy.

I could not find any interesting children’s books about him so I made one up instead.

I dressed the boys up in sheets and we walked around the house(Aristotle was known for walking around the city as he taught) while telling them about Aristotle through the eyes of a little dog named Bartamuss.

We are learning about Greece for Geography.

For the first day all we did was find it on the globe, I have books we will be reading about it also though.

I then let the boys finish the day with one episode from The Magic School Bus: Human Body dvd.

These are the main books we will be using.

Here are some of the library books we will be using as well.

This is a pretty standard amount for me to get for 1-2weeks of school.

I also have several education shows on Netflix that go along with what we are learning that I might use.

We ended before 12pm and I am really happy with how our first day of 1st grade and Kindergarten went!

Check out last years 1st day of school, here!