Summer Goals

I noticed this morning during school time that we only have 22 reading lessons left to go, much less on math, and are completely done our hand writing.  Not bad considering all the yuck, broken arm, and move our family had this past school year!

That has me thinking about our summer plans.

While we do take a break from "formal" school, we also think that learning is life long and more learning happens away from the school table than at it!  However, we also know that we have to be deliberate to challenge and stimulate our children each day - it helps them so much, especially in behavior and being kind to each other!  There is definitely a link in our family.

So my plans for this summer include reading that will actually follow the Rod and Staff introduction to science and social studies, drawing, and lots of reading!  This is in addition to lots of playing and just having fun, of course!

I also made some key goals for the summer, things I have been meaning to get back on track, and things I know will help us tremendously in the fall if we already have them in place!

1.  Read Aloud Time - this has completely fallen apart.  We love this time, and we know it is important!  My plan is to re-establish this time into our day.

2.  Chores - our girls want jobs around the house, and we certainly encourage them to help, even Baby wants her own jobs!  We have tried chore charts, and that just isn't working for us as the jobs needed change every day, and let's face it, I don't have napkins to fold every day!  So now that we are in our new house I am going to get my housekeeping binder updated with a cleaning plan, including daily jobs for the girls.

3.  Scripture Memory / Children's Catechism - we are doing this, but not consistently.  Actually, we are doing a fairly good job on scripture memory, and a terrible job on the catechism.  My plan is to get back to doing scripture memory each morning after Breakfast Bible time (instead of just 3 or 4 mornings a week).  I don't know exactly where to slot in Children's Catechism, I just know it is important to us and I need to find a place.

4.  Personal Bible Time - Miss Pear is turning into an excellent reader, and she loves God and His Word, so we want to encourage her to being a quiet time of her own.  I am thinking this will start at our table with the two of us having a quiet time together, we will see.

The last thing is that my husband and I are planning on studying James together this summer.  With the yuck we are off to a bit of a rough start, but hopefully we will be able to start this weekend.

What great habits are you trying to establish this summer?

Schedule Subject to Change

Our homeschooling schedule was just not working for us.

The key problems were that we were not getting all our morning storybook and chapter book reading in, I was not getting my work done, and frankly, by the time we were finishing up we were not having a whole lot of fun.

Old Schedule:

Breakfast, Bible, Scripture Memory and Catechism
20ish minutes of play while I get some work started
9:00 Math and Handwriting
Recess
10-10:15ish Start Reading and Phonics
Playtime
Lunch
Naps

The good thing was that we were done by noon.

New Schedule

Breakfast, Bible, Scripture Memory and Catechism
Storybooks and chapter book reading
9:00ish Girls to play, me to start some morning work, and often the girls "work" with me, but we are at least in the same big downstairs room.
10:00 Math and Handwriting (although we are not doing handwriting while Miss Pear has her cast on).
11 - lunch playtime, work with mom time
Lunch
Naps (yes, Miss Pear still naps)
After nap time and post nap time play in room time to finish waking up we do Reading and Phonics.

This is working so much better for us. The school time is going faster because there is not this feeling of drudgery that we will be here all morning, attitudes are better, my work is actually getting done and I am not feeling so far behind and like I will never catch up. Plus our days are just going smoother.

It was revolutionary to me when I realized that I could set the schedule any way I wanted, and that did not mean finishing everything before lunch when frankly we are not huge morning people around here, at least, not with projects that require a lot of thought!

Homeschooling Kindergarten

Homeschooling kindergarten is fun, almost as much fun as preschool. We started preschool because Miss Pear was begging to learn to read so she could read her Bible (still working on that, but making progress), and math so she could read recipes.

Definitely my girl.

We start the morning with Bible time at the breakfast table reading:

1. Everything a Child Should Know about God
   Excellent basic Bible doctrine
   
2. The New Bible in Pictures for Little Eyes
   
3. A chapter of the Gospels. We are in Mark right now, when we get to the end of John we head back to the start of Matthew.
   

We then have reading time, picture books first and we always start with God Knows My Name and then read about 3-5 others, and then have chapter book reading time.

We then take a break, I tidy the kitchen and get some things like laundry started and it is time to start school.

Baby tags along with us, doing what she can, playing with brain food toys in her highchair and reading books, playing under the table at my feet, sitting in Daddy's chair and coloring, then running off to play.

Or Core, or official like type stuff is:

1. Saxon Math 1 (we did K for preschool, it is fun math toys that sneak in learning, and so far Miss Pear is handling this easily).
2. A Reason For Handwriting A (Yes, the grade 1 level, we did the K one for preschool).
   
3. Rod and Staff Reading and Phonics Grade 1 (first level offered, and Miss Pear is handling it easy and asking to do more than the day's lesson)

(Daddy and Miss Pear have a "reading meeting" in the evening after supper and are going through Alphaphonics).

If we sat down and just plowed through this we would be done in 1.5 - 2 hours. But no body would be having any fun, and it would quickly become drudgery. So if the Math lesson was longer than usual like yesterday's one where we made a pictograph then we take our first recess there, otherwise we do math and handwriting, have recess and come back for reading and phonics. So this ends up taking us almost until lunch, but we have fun, and the fact that we don't rush seems to help Miss Pear get it much easier.

Starting in September, on Tuesday mornings we will be doing Classical Conversations.

After this is done we can be done for the day if we want, and usually we are as far as formal learning goes. After this the rule is to feed the curiosity. So we explore science topics, social studies things, read about art, craft, and learn to do things around the house. Miss Pear wants to know how to do everything, so when I do laundry I show her how the washer works etc. She also wants to cook, so I am constantly on the hunt for things she can make. Today at lunch she made banana yogurt salad and mostly assembled the grilled cheese sandwiches herself (I grilled them). It is fun.

In a lot of ways we fall nicely into the classical model of education, but our love for reading also ends up placing us in the Charlotte Mason method, and our practice of feeding the curiosity puts us a little bit in the unschooling method. I don't really worry about what method we use, I just concentrate on what works for my family and how we learn.

All in all, I am having a GREAT time!

Homeschooling At Our House

We started kindergarten last week in our house, and we started in August for a lot of reasons. While I have wanted to share about our plans for this school year, there is one thing I need to say first.

While I enjoy sharing about our schooling adventures, and yes, we are a homeschooling family, I sometimes get odd responses to this, and often it is of a defensive nature, which kind of confuses me.

So let me tell you my secret....

...If you don't homeschool your children, that is perfectly fine with me.

Seriously.

Just because we homeschool does not mean I hold it up as the standard for all families.

Although there is one standard I do hold up for Christian families - ask God and He wants you to school your children and then do it, even if you are unsure. If you have done that, and are doing that, then I will totally support your schooling choice, even if it is polar opposite of what we are doing. If you have not, I would encourage you to ask Him!

That is how we ended up homeschooling. And yes, this has been confirmed as the method of schooling for Baby too.

If my knee cooperates I will share some of our homeschooling plans starting tomorrow.

How do you school your children? What is your favorite part of that method?

School Mascot

Note to self: Never ask Miss Pear what our school mascot should be after she has been given a Zhu Zhu pet for Easter. If you do, she will suggest hamsters.

You will suggest something more ferocious.

She will suggest the obvious: the ferocious hamsters.

You will laugh so hard you cannot talk and she will take that as agreement and you will have the school mascot of ferocious hamsters.

The ferocious hamsters will be named Nugget and Winkie.

Twelve Days of Christmas

Sometimes it is hard to tell at Christmas what honors and points to God and what is our cultural surroundings. For a long time I did not realize that the Twelve Days of Christmas represented different deep truths about God, and I was missing out!

First off, let's just go ahead an listen to the version of Twelve Days of Christmas that I love and tickles my funny bone because I have to get this out of my system first:



(Thanks Donetta! Her review is here.)

How come when my rendition of the Twelve Days of Christmas falls apart it never sounds this good?

This year we are going to do something special during Advent with the Twelve Days of Christmas. Actually I am hoping to do it twice.

When this beautiful Christmas Carol was written way back when it was, at least according to legend, written to teach children 12 basic tenets of the Church and was written with the symbolism of the church waiting for her groom, recounting the gifts of the suitor.

With that in mind, here is my plan:

We will be reading: The Twelve Days of Christmas and will sing along.

We will be learning the twelve tenets we read and sing about which can be found detailed here at the bottom half of the post. We will focus on one each day, reviewing the ones that came before. While I have no delusions of my 4 year old memorizing the Ten Commandments, the apostles names, or the Creed this year, I do hope to work towards that.

And we will color that days coloring page from the Twelve Days of Christmas Coloring Pages.

We are starting this week after nap time and I am hoping to go through it twice before Christmas as our after afternoon reading.

We will see how it goes, but I have to tell you, I am hoping for a new family tradition!

Do you know of other great links for the Twelve Days of Christmas?

Morning Reading This Week

This week in our morning reading time we are enjoying:

Bible Time

1. Everything a Child Should Know about God
   Excellent basic Bible doctrin
   
2. The New Bible in Pictures for Little Eyes
   We finished it this week and started again
   
3. A chapter of the Gospels. We are in Matthew
   

Story Time

1. God Knows My Name
   At the end when I read "I will give glory to the Lord for ever for He loves me so much" both girls put their hands up - so cute! I have lost count of how many copies of this book we have given as baby gifts!
2. Baking Day (Rod and Staff)
   A sweet story about a little girl helping her mom bake
   
3. If You Give a Mouse a Cookie (If You Give...) a long standing favorite around here
   
4. Jonah & the Great Big Fish a great retelling of the Bible story
   
   

Read Aloud Time

We are almost finished reading Bunnies in the Bathroom. Miss Pear loves the Animal Ark series, and I love that she will beg for another chapter! We got our copy of this at PaperBackSwap.com.


What are you reading this week?

Morning Reading

Morning reading with the girls is a daily habit around here, and a cheerful one. If for some reason we miss there is great protesting, and reminders later that we still have not done our morning reading!

As soon as I finish feeding Baby we start Bible time. If Miss Pear is done she follows along in the first book and then colors and listens to the rest, otherwise she finishes eating. Baby eats Cheerios or some other finger food.

Bible Time

1. Everything a Child Should Know about God
   We read 2 or 3 pages in this book. It is basic Bible truths and doctrine, and when it gets to baptism, where churches handle this differently it tells about Jesus baptism and says to ask your parents about baptism in your church, so friends of many different denominations love this book. We have 2 copies of this, each girl has her own, so I read from Baby's copy and Miss Pear follows along in her copy.
   
2. The New Bible in Pictures for Little Eyes
   We call this Baby's Bible. We read one story and Miss Pear answers the questions for her.
3. A chapter of the Gospels. When we get to the end of John we go back to Matthew and start again.

Story Time
It is hard to read paper books to little ones, but we think it is important to introduce them to more "advanced" picture books early, so while Baby is still in her high chair we read paper books. Miss Pear pulls a chair around so she can see, and I pull my chair right up next to the high chair and hold the book so both can see. I read the same four books each day for a week, and then I switch all but the first book. We are reading:

1. God Knows My Name
   At the end when I read "I will give glory to the Lord for ever for He loves me so much" both girls put their hands up - so cute! I have lost count of how many copies of this book we have given as baby gifts!
2. God Gave Us Work (Rod and Staff)
3. Canada in Colours
4. If You Give a Pig a Pancake (If You Give...)
   

Read Aloud Time

We then leave the table, clearing it, starting a load of laundry or whatever just needs to be started without a large amount of time needed, and head to the living room for read aloud time. The girls play quietly while I read for anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour, depending on how much time we have before Baby's morning nap.

We just finished Anne of Green Gables (Unabridged Classics) which we enjoyed. It took us just over a month to read it because it was more advanced than anything we had read so far, so we went slowly so it would not be overwhelming, and Miss Pear enjoyed all the way through! Now we are reading Bunnies in the Bathroom. Miss Pear loves the Animal Ark series, and I love that she will beg for another chapter! We got our copy of this at PaperBackSwap.com

What are you reading? Do you have any excellent suggestions for us?

A Project for Miss Pear - Can you help?

The Post Office Book: Mail and How It Moves

(this is the book we will be using...)

Mr. Pear is on a business trip, and we need a distraction because Day 1 (yesterday) did not go great. So I decided to try to move up a homeschooling project I had been planning for later in the fall. But to do that I need your help!

Miss Pear has a very active curiosity, and once something piques her interest she keeps coming back to it to explore it until we have taken it as far as we can. She has an ongoing fascination with the mail. She loves getting mail, and if the postman has to actually come to the door to deliver a parcel, that is the best! (I blame the grandparents for this as they send her lots of cards and stuff). The funny thing about Miss Pear is that she does not actually care what comes in the mail, just as long as there is a piece for her! Recently she discovered that not everybody gets their mail the same way we do (a bank of boxes down the street), and this was very curious to her. So we are looking into it.

I was wondering if you could please help us look into this by leaving a comment answering a few questions for us:

1. Do you live in an apartment, house....? (If you could include the region or state you live in - whatever you are comfortable with - that would be fun too because I can show her where that is on a map...she loves maps)
   
2. Where is your mail delivered to? (Box at your house, post office, etc.)
3. Are letters delivered differently than packages?
4. Where do you mail a letter from? (do you have to go to the post office or do you mail it from somewhere else.)
5. Where do you mail a package from?

Some of these questions might seem the same, and in some situations the answers will be the same, but in polling our family we discovered that there are often very different answers!

Thank you so much!

Geography Fun for Hockey Fans

My husband and I were both born and raised in Canada. The small region I was born in has a proud and abiding hockey heritage, but that is essentially true of all of Canada to some degree or another. Each year we watch the hockey season as best we can, relying on news from NHL.com and the team sites to a large degree because Southern CA is not the cradle of hockey we are accustomed to.

For those of you not in the know, the trophy that the teams play for each year is the Stanley Cup, and it is the only sports trophy that tours the world each summer with members of the winning team as each player, coach, scout etc takes their special day with the cup. Most of the guys take the cups to where they grew up and it is a family celebration. The cup is often the proud holder of babies and breakfast...not at the same time.

Each year the Hockey Hall of Fame chronicles the adventures of the cup, and this year the adventures will be posted here. (If you want to read about previous years you can find them here).

Although it does not look like they plan on including the travels of the cup before it starts to travel with the players. To include that you would need to add at the beginning:

1. The Cup lives at the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto ON Canada when it is not traveling (and it travels a lot!)
2. The cup was in Pittsburgh for game 6, but the series went the full 7 games.
3. The cup was won in Detroit by the Pittsburgh Penguins
4. The cup then went back to Pittsburgh for the team celebrations, including the victory parade.
5. The cup was in Las Vegas for the NHL awards
6. The cup was in Montreal, Quebec, Canada for the Draft.
   

So this year with a North America and World map on the wall (the kind you can write on with dry erase markers), some hockey stickers, and some dry erase pens (and probably an atlas for greater detail to find those small hockey towns) we will be following the path the cup takes around the world and reading the accounts that will be posted Tuesdays and Fridays. The journal accounts require very little editing as the HHOF and NHL try to maintain a family friendly atmosphere. So this is a fun activity that we think Miss Pear will enjoy, after all, she loves hockey and maps!

This is also an inexpensive activity as we already have the maps, the stickers, the pens, and the internet connections!

What other unusual activities do you have planned for the summer?

Trace Font

Well, it is official, we have run out of number tracing sheets. We have finished up 10 and all my favorite tracing sheets are complete.

I was so disappointed.

So I started a search to see if I could find tracing sheets that went to 20.

Nope.

But I did find a free downloadable font for you to make your own! I recommend about a 48 font size.

So now, not only can I make number tracing sheets, I can transcribe Miss Pear's notes for grandparents, print them in this, and she can trace and mail them!

How great is that!

Early Math

We have the great privilege of being friends with an exceptional math teacher. While this might sound weird considering they are not homeschooling and we are, this is the same friend who said of our decision to homeschool, "That is great! Don't let anyone change your mind."

So she lets me ask her questions, and she gives me fabulous answers.

We often talk about science and math and those are key interests for both her children (all older than Miss Pear) and Miss Pear.

When we were talking about beginning in math, she said something exceedingly interesting to me:

One of the most important things to starting to teach about math is to teach your child about patterns.

She said this before she said to teach numbers.

I was pretty shocked by that thought, it messed with everything I knew about math. And I loved math. But I figured that it was important to learn your numbers and how to count first.

But the more I thought about it, the more it made sense! If you can think clearly in patterns, and identify them and extrapolate them, math is a way of thinking, not memorization.

So while we are working on our numbers, a huge part of our early math is looking for patterns.

I sort the counting bears red, green, yellow, red, green, yellow and let Miss Pear put them next.

I sort 4 counting bears the same color big little big little and let Miss Pear tell me what comes next.

We are always looking for patterns!

She thinks it is a fun game, especially when I use mini-marshmallows instead of counting bears and she gets to eat them when she gets it right!

Homeschool Week 8: H and 7

We made a couple small changes last week.

It has not been working to have specific books assigned to specific days because we are not doing picture book reading time with the school time and it never really goes together well any ways. Plus it seems like it is making it more stressful by feeling like I HAVE to read those books even if we read extra long in the chapter book, or got very distracted by the library bag of books. We read a lot in our family, so it was not like we were doing this to develop habits, we already have them! (We always laugh when we see the "Read to your child 20 minutes a day" advertisements and say that we will have to cut back!) So I am going to put books that go with our theme in the picture book basket for downstairs and just mix them in as we go through our day. Some days we read 12 or more picture books (not including bed time reading), and some days we may be doing other things and only read 3 or 4. So I would like more flexibility in this.

The second big change is that once I took out all the reading I realized that I was not doing as much for letters as I was for numbers, so I am adding in some new letter activities.

Another change is the desire to add some review time, so I am working on that. I always print extra tracing pages and will work that in somewhere, we will see.

Bible Reading Time (at the breakfast table):

• God Knows My Name
• The New Bible in Pictures for Little Eyes Gift Edition
  
• A chapter a day in Mark
  

Scripture Memory:

• Read Story for H in Teach Them to Your Children: An Alphabet of Biblical Poems, Verses, and Stories
• Memorize
  
• Review A, B, C, D, E, F and G verse throughout the day
• Review Lord's Prayer as we almost have it
  

Read Aloud Chapter Book:

• A Bear Called Paddington
  

Picture Book Basket:

• Helping Mother**
• Happy Helpers**
• Hannah is a Helper
• Baking Day* (another little helper girl!)
• The Magic School Bus Inside A Hurricane
• Plus a bunch of other great ones we love!
  

Everyday Activities:

• Alpha-Phonics: A Primer For Beginning Readers (Using the letter recognition in the back, and we love it)
• Number recognition - a little chart I made up based on Alpha-phonics.
• Bigger Steps **
  

Monday:

• Read "My 'H' Book"
• H is for Helicopter Tracing Page (Alphabet Buddies)
• H Coloring Page
• Alphabet Caterpillar (Upper Case)
  

Tuesday:

• Read Bible Count*
• Read "My Seven Book"
• Seven Tracing Page (number buddies tracing page)
• Acorn 1-5 Review
  
• Seven Number Buddy Coloring Page
  
• Fuzzy #7 (construction paper, glue, cotton balls)
• Game: Number Start: Fun Games for Learning About Numbers

Wednesday

• Read "My 'H' Book"
• H is for Helicopter Tracing Page (Alphabet Buddies)
• Hippopotamus Coloring Page
• Alphabet Caterpillar (Lower Case)

Thursday

• Read Learning My Numbers*
• Read "My Seven Book"
• 7 Tracing Page (number buddies tracing page)
• Acorn 1-5 Review
• Number in a Jar #7 - put 7 stickers in jar, do tracing, color
  
• Color and decorate #7 (Use large template)
• Game: Learning To Sequence 4-Scene Set, 48 Picture Cards, PreK-3
  
• Craft: Ice Cream Cone Scoop Craft for Numbers scoop #7 (in the evening, this is the Daddy craft and the ice cream cone is growing up my kitchen wall)

Friday

• Read "My 'H' Book
• H is for Helicopter Tracing Page (Alphabet Buddies)
• H is for Heart Bible Tracing Pages
  
• Heart coloring page
  

* From Rod and Staff
**Rod and Staff online is not the same company as the Rod and Staff catalog, even though they carry the same stuff as the catalog plus others. Often the best pricing and regular discounts on items published by Rod and Staff Catalog comes from the catalog, available upon request at 1-606-522-4348.

Names of Jesus Garland

I was so happy when we found the perfect Easter craft at Monica's! We made it, it turned out great, and it accomplished the purpose I had for it - to both decorate and help little ones learn the story of Easter.

Well, Easter is over, so it was time to take it down, but I really loved it! So I made another one using the I AM statements in John with the names on the front, the verses on the back (a couple have two verses, and the I am at the beginning has the Exodus verse), and the name of Jesus in the middle!


What I also love about this is that is keeps scripture in front of me all day. In the days before children time in the Bible of a couple hours was not unheard of. Obviously that does not happen anymore, but I subscribe to the theory that children are not a distraction they are the sermon! So now I get creative with how I feed myself scripture, and this is working great!

So not only is it a wonderful reminder of our Lord, and an excellent way to teach scripture memory to all of us, but it also fills the awkward spot about our fireplace! Really, what more could a lady want?

Homeschoolers? Why do you ask?

This is the menagerie on our kitchen counter right now.

In the background you can see two sweet potatoes sprouting to hopefully retry our gardening fiasco. Miss Pear thinks this is great.

In the front in the green cup we have the obligatory avocado seed set to sprout which was started when Baby started eating avocados and Miss Pear asked what the pit is, what it does, etc.

And in the jar is the experiment we started this morning...growing salt crystals.

Yes, we are just a bunch of science geeks around here....

Homeschooling Week 7: G and 6

We are reading lots of Little Jewel Books* because Miss Pear calls them the books about the girls.

Bible Reading Time (at the breakfast table):

• God's Wisdom for Little Girls: Virtues and Fun from Proverbs 31 (we love this book so much, it is based on Proverbs 31 and is affectionately known as Rubies to Miss Pear. If you have a sweet little girl in your life I cannot recommend this highly enough!)
  
• The New Bible in Pictures for Little Eyes Gift Edition
  
• A chapter a day so that we finish Matthew and begin Mark
  

Scripture Memory:

• Read Story for G in Teach Them to Your Children: An Alphabet of Biblical Poems, Verses, and Stories
• Memorize John 15:13 "Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends."
  
• Review A, B, C, D, E and F verse throughout the day
• Review Lord's Prayer as we almost have it
  

Read Aloud:

• Little House in the Big Woods Book and Charm (Charming Classics)
  

Everyday Activities:

• Alpha-Phonics: A Primer For Beginning Readers (Using the letter recognition in the back, and we love it)
• Number recognition - a little chart I made up based on Alpha-phonics.
• About 3 Workbook** (we should finish it this week).
• Bigger Steps ** (this is the next book in the preschool series)
  

Baking to work in: Granola bars, Great fudge, possibly gingerbread cookies
Meals to work in: Garden Supper Casserole, Granola Oatmeal

Monday:

• Read "My 'G' Book"
• Read ABC of Canada
  
• Read David and Goliath (Samuel 17)
  
• G is for Goliath Coloring Page and Tracing Page
• G is for Grasshopper Tracing Page (Alphabet Buddies)
  

Tuesday:

• Read God Loves His Precious Children: Safe in the Arms of the Good Shepherd (George, Elizabeth (Insp))
• Read God Knows My Name
  
• Read Bible Count*
• Read "My Six Book"
• Six Tracing Page (number buddies tracing page)
• Six Number Buddy Coloring Page
  
• Fuzzy #6 (construction paper, glue, cotton balls)
• Game: Number Start: Fun Games for Learning About Numbers (it starts out teaching patterns, which a excellent math teacher maintains is essential to helping children understand math easier, this was a gift/hand me down from friends with older children)
  

Wednesday

• Read "My 'G' Book"
• Read Helping Mother**
• Read Happy Helpers**
  
• Read Hannah is a Helper
  
• G is for Girl tracing page
• Make Paper Girls (paper doll chains)
  

Thursday

• Read Elsie Waits Patiently*
• Read Baking Day*
  
• Read Learning My Numbers*
• Read "My Six Book"
• 6 Tracing Page (number buddies tracing page)
• Number in a Jar #6 - put 6 stickers in jar, do tracing, color
  
• Color and decorate #6 (Use large template)
• Game: Learning To Sequence 4-Scene Set, 48 Picture Cards, PreK-3 (Yet another fun thing we already had around the house).
• Craft: Ice Cream Cone Scoop Craft for Numbers scoop #6 (in the evening, this is the Daddy craft and the ice cream cone is growing up my kitchen wall)

Friday

• Read "My 'G' Book
• A Little Girl After God's Own Heart: Learning God's Ways in My Early Days
  
• Baby Giraffe (San Diego Zoo Animal Library)
  
• G is for Grasshopper Tracing Page (Alphabet Buddies)
  
• Giraffe Coloring Page
• Giraffe Craft (if the day is rushed we will hold this until the weekend)
  

* From Rod and Staff
**Rod and Staff online is not the same company as the Rod and Staff catalog, even though they carry the same stuff as the catalog plus others. Often the best pricing and regular discounts on items published by Rod and Staff Catalog comes from the catalog, available upon request at 1-606-522-4348.

Homeschooling week...umm...6.5?

We are taking a week off. Just because.

We started homeschooling at this age (almost 4) for 2 key reasons.
1. We really feel like this is God's plan for our family and we wanted to start before we had to so that we had time to figure this out!
2. Miss Pear kept asking to learn to read (and knit). Nope, not kidding.

But we are taking a break because Miss Pear had a mental developmental leap, she is suddenly doing things she could not before that no one really taught her, just new stuff happening in that really sweet smart brain. So we are taking a week off to let her get stuff assimilated as we know from past experience that when this happens it is best to just let it happen and not try to teach new stuff.

So our plan for this week is:

Bible Reading Time (at the breakfast table):

• God's Wisdom for Little Girls: Virtues and Fun from Proverbs 31 (we love this book so much, it is based on Proverbs 31 and is affectionately known as Rubies to Miss Pear. If you have a sweet little girl in your life I cannot recommend this highly enough!)
  
• The New Bible in Pictures for Little Eyes Gift Edition
  
• A Chapter in Matthew
  

Scripture Memory:

• Review
• Maybe start learning the Lord's Prayer as she is already very familiar with it (we say it in church every Sunday and Miss Pear LOVES it when she knows stuff like that...hence her favorite church song is the Doxology!)
  

Read Aloud:

• Charlotte's Web
• Little House in the Big Woods Book and Charm (Charming Classics)
• And lots and lots of picture books

Other:

• Bake banana bread (a favorite of hers)
• Bake cinnamon buns (honestly, she keeps asking me to teach her to make them so that she can make them all on her own)
• Color lots
• Maybe make hand lilies
• If Miss Pear asks to trace, which she often does, pull out review pages (I always print a couple extra) and just let her have fun.
  
• Just go with it....explore what interests her. This is a key to our homeschooling. Whatever she is interested in we go with and we go as far as we can for her, stopping when we reach her outer limits.
  

Doughnut Day

Two weeks ago tomorrow we had "D is for Doughnut" Day, and it was great!

We read a new favorite book from Rod and Staff called Doughnut Day!

I love that in this book it is a mother and daughter making doughnuts together, and that the focus is on sharing the doughnuts, not how yummy and how many we can eat!

So we made our doughnuts using this recipe, and they were delicious!

When we went to share them with 3 neighbor families, only one family was home! Miss Pear was very disappointed! But the one family who was home was very surprised and enthusiastic!

So when we came home I called some friends who live about 10 minutes away to arrange a bedtime snack! They brought their two daughters over in their pajamas and had a snack while the adults had the same snack...except we had tea and coffee instead of chocolate milk.

It was an extra special treat for a little girl who was very generous with her doughnuts, all 2 and a half dozen of them!

And the best part?

The next day when I asked her what her favorite part was? She said having her friends over for a snack and sharing her doughnuts.

Homeschooling Week 6: F and 5

Last week got very busy with 2 days of visitors and preparing for Easter, so we decided to leave 5 for this week rather than try to jam everything in and get frustrated or overwhelmed.

Bible Reading Time (at the breakfast table):

• The One Year Devotions for Preschoolers (Little Blessings Line)
• The New Bible in Pictures for Little Eyes Gift Edition (For Baby to start hearing the Bible stories in a simple manner, we were able to get this from Paperbackswap.com and it looks like an excellent way to introduce Baby to the Bible, not that there is any replacement for the actual Word of God.)
  
• A Chapter in Matthew (Except on Monday when we will read Jonah)

Scripture Memory:

• Read Story for F in Teach Them to Your Children: An Alphabet of Biblical Poems, Verses, and Stories
• Memorize Psalm 91:11 "For He shall give His angels charge over you, To keep you in all your ways."
  
• Review A, B, C, D and E verse throughout the day
  

Read Aloud:

• Winnie the Pooh Treasury We are liking this, but I think we need to change it up, so we will finish the story we are in the middle of and put it aside until we finish our next book which will be...
• Charlotte's Web
  

Everyday Activities:

• Alpha-Phonics: A Primer For Beginning Readers (Using the letter recognition in the back, and we love it)
• Number recognition - a little chart I made up based on Alpha-phonics.
• About 3 Workbook** (we have been running out of time to do this a lot of days, but are still loving it).
  

This Week

Extra craft: Try to work in making lily flowers from hand prints, tape, glue, and pipe cleaners
Cooking and baking ideas: Fajitas, Fantasy Fudge, French Bread, and French Toast

Monday:

• Read "My 'F' Book"
• Read Fishes (True Books : Animals)
• Read Super Swimmers: Whales, Dolphins, and Other Mammals of the Sea
• Read Jonah & the Great Big Fish
  
• F is for Fish Coloring Page and Tracing Page
• F is for Fire Truck Tracing Page (Alphabet Buddies) (We love to trace, and the Fish pages only have a few letters).
  
• Jonah Coloring Page
  

Tuesday:

• Read God Knows My Name
• Read Fox Walked Alone (it is being reissued if you are interested).
  
• Read Bible Count*
• Read "My Five Book"
• Five Tracing Page (number buddies tracing page)
• Five Number Buddy Coloring Page
  
• Fuzzy #5 (construction paper, glue, cotton balls)
• Game: Number Start: Fun Games for Learning About Numbers (it starts out teaching patterns, which a excellent math teacher maintains is essential to helping children understand math easier, this was a gift/hand me down from friends with older children)
  

Wednesday

• Read "My 'F' Book"
• Read Clifford The Firehouse Dog
• Read A Prairie Alphabet
• Read Fancy Nancy
  
• F is for Fire Truck Tracing Page (Alphabet Buddies)
• Fire Truck Coloring Page
• Fireman Craft
  

Thursday

• Read Learning My Numbers*
• Read Flamingo (Heinemann Read and Learn)
• Read Baby Flamingo (San Diego Zoo Animal Library, 8)
  
• Read "My Five Book"
• 5 Tracing Page (number buddies tracing page)
• Number in a Jar #5 - put 5 stickers in jar, do tracing, color
  
• Color and decorate #5 (Use large template)
• Game: Learning To Sequence 4-Scene Set, 48 Picture Cards, PreK-3 (Yet another fun thing we already had around the house).
• Craft: Ice Cream Cone Scoop Craft for Numbers scoop #5 (in the evening, this is the Daddy craft and the ice cream cone is growing up my kitchen wall)

Friday

• Read "My 'F' Book
• Read (and listen to) A Frog Thing (with Audio CD)
• Read Bear's New Friend
• Read Z Is For Zamboni: A Hockey Alphabet Edition 1. (Sleeping Bear Press Sports & Hobbies)
  
• F is for Frog tracing and coloring pages
  
• F is for Fire Truck Tracing Page (Alphabet Buddies) (We love to trace, and the Frog pages only have a few letters).
• Frog Craft
  

* From Rod and Staff
**Rod and Staff online is not the same company as the Rod and Staff catalog, even though they carry the same stuff. Often the best pricing and regular discounts comes from the catalog, available upon request at 1-606-522-4348.