Last day in September

Tuesday 9/30/14.  We started school at 1pm today.  We began with AAR finishing up lesson 5.  E was up first.  After some struggle to get him started he did the sounds and read some words.  Now on to the story.  He refused to read but sounded out the words.  OK he sounded them out I read the word unless it was the word "the" or "a" in which case he had to read.  1 penny for each page=6 pennies.  Got it done.  Consider it a win for he sounded out each word fine.  Now on to W.  He did the sounds, I helped with the words.  He is great with individual sounds but still needs some help with sounding out words.  Doesn't pay attention to the ending.  Now on to reading.  W did great.  I helped some put there was a sentence or two that he read by himself.

Next was First Language Lesson (FLL).  E refused so on to W.  W listened and did fine.  Working on linking verbs.  Will do enrichment tomorrow.  We are going to start Math now.  E has a meltdown because he wants to do FLL and then math but W wants to do math and be finished with school. W and I win.  E has a meltdown while W and I go to bedroom and finish math.  RightStart lesson was on Right Angles, triangles, and learning numbers like 11, 56, 34.  1 ten 1, 5 ten 6, ect.  Great Lesson.

Now for E.  We start will FLL.  E still acting like he doesn't know but we talk and all he has to do is repeat.  Working on linking Verbs.  E does fine.  Will do enrichment tomorrow.  Now onto Math.  Same lesson as W.  Still working on math when Daddy gets home but that's okay we were almost done.  E does great with tangrams, the one thing that W and I were struggling with.

Tomorrow is a new day.

Start of a New Week..9/29

So this week school will be M-F.  Yesterday was our first day of official Handwriting.  We are using Gettysburg Italics.  The program is a little difficult to follow for level C.  So I have devised a way that I will use it.  My oldest E does not want to write.  He wants everything perfect, so we are starting with 1 letter, the letter a.  This is also the letter I started with W who is on level B.  Level B seems to be easier to follow.  All went well with Handwriting. 

We also did ALL About Reading Level 1.  Today was the first day that the kids needed to read a "chapter in book".  The book is All About Bugs and the first "chapter" was JAM!.  Although E did not want to read he finally did so.  He did pretty good.  Both E and W are still in the sounding out phase but this book will help.  The book covered y sounds and also repeated some words.  We will read the next "chapter" tomorrow.  My motto is Slow and Steady and maybe they will be an avid reader like Daddy. 

For Sign Language we went over some signs that they should know.  I plan to test them on those here soon.

For Math we use Right-Start Mathematics level B 1st edition.  The children learned about thousands, how to read, write, and recognize.  We also briefly hit on patterns but the children know all about pattern.

Now for Science.  I found a website called NeoK12.com.  They have short videos about different topics.  W chose How Dinosaurs Fed and What If Dinosaurs Hadn't Been Wiped Out.  I asked him to tell me about the second one.  He was able to tell me that Dinosaurs were wiped out by a comet but they exist on another planet.  E chose Inside The Head Of A T-Rex, Dinosauar Egg Fossils, The Smell Of Prey Dinosaurs, and Carnitorus VS Iguanadon.  I asked E to tell me about the 2nd one and he said that one dinosuar stole the other dinosuars egg.  He actually stated the names of the dinousars but I forget what those names are.  

Getting Caught Up on Posts

So this is a quick post to say what we have been doing from Sept. 15-26.  Last 2 weeks.  We have been doing AAR M-Fx2, Sign 3 days, Math 5 days + 1 day for worksheet + 1day for game called Go To The Dump.  The kids loved the game and didn't even realize it was school.  That is how we started out last Friday.  Science-3 day, FLL-6x, Handwriting-informal 3x, spanish 3x working on the spanish phrase This is my...., and W did a lesson on Reading Eggs one day.

The First Week

So we started homeschooling on the 1st of September.  That was last Monday.  We reviewed math, we played around with handwriting, we did some signs, and some learning to read.  For playing around with handwriting I had the kids make squiggly lines and circles on a white board, first with their right hand and then with their left hand.  For Sign we started learning 0-10 and A-Z.  We also started the new program All About Reading Level 1.  Well W. gave no hassle but E. on the other hand hassle, however in the end he did the work.

That was day 1.  Now for day 2.  This time I did things in a different order.  Instead of starting with All About Reading I started with Sign language, then we reviewed 0-10 and A-F, next we reviewed more math, we moved onto First Language Lessons level 1 (also a new program) it went well, and finally we did half of All About Reading lesson 2.  That went great.  No hassles.  I have learned each lesson is not necessarily meant to be completed in one day.  Depending on the lesson you can take 1-5 days to complete it.

Day 3 and 4-Chris had off so no school.

Day 5-I was sick no school of any kind.  Day 6-I was still sick but we managed an assessment for W. in Math and a lets go learn session for E..  Some school accomplished.

Next week (Sept. 7-13) school days would be Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday.  Chris has Wednesday and Saturday off.  No school happened on 9/7 kids weren't feeling well.  On 9/8 we managed a little bit of All About Reading lesson 2 but everyone is still sick.  On to this week.