Piano Lessons

It pays to have musical family members.  My husband comes from a long line of musicians and lucky for me his sister lives 15 minutes away and teaches violin and piano!  My 5-year-old just started piano lessons in September with his Auntie and is doing fantastic.  I think the best part of the whole arrangement is that he actually looks forward to his lesson days and has been bugging my husband and me to buy a piano so he can practice.  His aspirations actually are to take violin lessons, but Auntie has told him he has to know all his notes before she can teach him how to play the violin.  Well, it is that time again...lesson time!

Teaching my kiddo phonics and how to read

...is WAY more fun than I anticipated.  I must admit that teaching him to read was a very daunting task when I first realized that if I chose to home school him for Pre-K and Kindergarten the task would fall to me.  Reading, after all, is a basis for learning anything and everything!  I knew I wanted him to be a great reader and not just a decent reader.  I wanted to instill in his curious little brain an understanding of WHY words worked and not just and understanding of what words looked like.  I knew I wanted him to learn to read phonetically and not by sight words.  I totally believed that someone else should be teaching him this important thing.  I agonized over my selection of curriculum, but finally landed on Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons when a close friend suggested it.  I hated the weight of this major milestone sitting on my shoulders.  I dreaded the day by day lessons and felt utterly under qualified to even be attempting this task.  The "helps" the book offered didn't seem clear or helpful and I was constantly second guessing my ability to teach him to read {let me insert here that I needed a major attitude check during this time and the Lord was working on me and my lack of trusting Him to give me the understanding and the ability to do this task}.  Then we got to lesson 6 and he read his first word - me.  I was hooked.  My baby, my four year old had actually phonetically sounded out and read his first word!  He turned five in October and his desire to learn to read deepened during a break that we necessarily took from our reading lessons.  He has been locating words in library books and can successfully read Bob Books that are focused on the sounds he has learned. - currently those sounds include m, long e, s, short i, th, t, d, and short a.  He is reading short sentences and today we will finish up lesson 16.  I hope to get through 2 lessons a week from now through Christmas.  His enthusiasm and excitement to learn to read keeps me going and I am very thankful that the Lord brought me to a breaking point and made me face my fears and repent of my lack of trust in His abilities!  I can teach my child to read because "I can do all things through Jesus Christ who gives me strength." (Phil 4:13)

Day #2

Today we had a busy day of YMCA classes.  The boys attended "Mess Class" this morning (an art class where they use all the art supplies that you really would rather not do in your house) and then "Whale of a Tale" this afternoon (a story time).  This afternoon I spent about 15 minutes working on reading with my kindergartner.  He is doing awesome!  We did lesson 13 in Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons.  He flew through it, getting everything right the first time!  He has slight difficulty pronouncing his "r" sound, but each day he is improving.  Today we reviewed sounds "m, e, r, t, and s" and we added "d."  We have been checking out Bob books from the library and he is reading many of them very well.  He is also starting to recognize/read words like "me, see, read, seed, meet, and seat" in other books.  We will spend this evening at the farm (we are members of a CSA) collecting our fresh produce and enjoying the beautiful weather.  The kids love to help us collect and weigh our 1/2 share of produce.  I love that part of my "educating" my kids is giving them opportunities outside of the home.  I am so thankful for the YMCA and our CSA and the learning experiences they receive from these two places.  

Day 1

Today marks day #1 of school.  The boys started at Faith Academy on Monday, but due to some ongoing house projects I decided not to attempt starting until today.  Today was pretty basic.  We focused on math.  I am still undecided as to what curriculum I am going to use, but for now I am using an abacus and math games from Family Math.  Today we played "On The Dot" from the Family Math book.  Here's the basics:  Draw four large dots on 5+ pieces of paper (I used 4x6 unlined index cards).  Pour out a variety of small objects (I used coins and buttons).  Have the child count out four of the small objects while placing them on top of the black dots on the paper (and repeat for each sheet).  Repetition is the key.  Once the child is doing well at counting out the shapes onto the dots, give the child 5+ pieces of blank paper and ask them to count out four small objects onto the blank sheets.  When this can be successfully done, move on to the next number.  Don't rush.  The boys are definitely at different learning levels (Pre-K and Kindergarten).  I had to make adaptations to the lesson to meet their different learning levels.  My pre-schooler worked on counting the objects onto the dots on the card.  We worked on repetition, on counting out load, and on only counting to four.  When we first started he wanted to keep counting not understanding that we were only counting up to the number of dots that were on the paper.  After we did this exercise several times, I asked him to sort the small objects into "same" and "different" piles.  At first I had him sort all of the coins into one pile and all of the buttons into another pile.  Then I had him sort all of the pennies from the rest of the coins.  By the time he accomplished that, he was ready to be done.  My kindergartner did very well with this game and was able to count four pennies onto the dots and onto blank paper without any problem.  We're going to move on to fives next.  He seemed to grasp the concepts easily and didn't have any problems.  I then explained addition to him.  We talked about the + sign and the = sign.  I wrote out a few simple addition problems on a piece of paper and we then focused on using the abacus to solve the math problems.  He did very well.  We finished up the lesson by practicing on writing numbers 1-10 and on him saying them out loud while he wrote.

The Lesson

Asher

The boys

Isaiah

An up close of the game

Is it really time to think about school?

Man, this school year is fast approaching and I feel like I am still way behind in the planning stage.  I think I may push off our official start to later in the fall.  The boys start with Faith Academy on Monday, September 13th, but we may wait to officially start work here at home until a week or two later.  The house is in constant upheaval right now - consignments sale stuff, re-organizing church youth ministry supplies, new windows are coming soon, and painting the downstairs...yes, starting later may be a better idea for my nerves.  :)

Getting Ready...

So, I don't actually have a school room or an extra room or space to turn into a school room.  I'm not even sure I would want one if I had the space.  What I do want is a place to keep all my junk!  So, with some creative thinking, a trip or to to Ikea, and a handy husband's help, I am going to attempt to add a school corner into my kitchen.  I will post before/after pics as we move forward with my crazy plans. 

Kindergarten Curriculum

I am planning to continue using Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons as our reading curriculum; however, I read an interesting article recently that has made me re-evaluate if I should be concerned with teaching Asher to read right now.

I am considering using Math U See: Primer as our math curriculum for the year.  I'd love feedback if any of you have used it.  Did you like it?  Was the Primer a good entry-level math?   I tried using the Bob Jones K-5 math last year with Asher, but it is specifically written for use in a classroom and was not an effective choice for home schooling.  I am so glad we had a free copy of it since my husband was the illustrator - no money down the toilet on that choice. 

We received Asher's Unit 1 Reading List for Faith Academy.  From September - November we will be working our way through these books (all of them can be found at your local library or on Amazon: 

• Selected Biblical Passages in the Old Testament - especially from the books of Genesis and Exodus
• The Nile River by Allan Fowler
• Who Built the Pyramids? (Starting Point History)by Jane Chisholm
• Walk With Y'Shua Through the Jewish Year by Janie-Sue Wertheim and Kathy Shapiro
• The God Around Us by Mira Pollack Brichto
• On Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur by Cathy Goldburg Fishman

Is it really time for kindergarden?

I thought it would be fun and challenging to create a blog for me to document our family's educational adventure - especially since our adventure with "school" is about to start.  

I first need to explain that I view "education" and "school(ing)" as two separate ideas although I do believe they are closely intertwined.  

To me, education is not something I can choose to do or not to do.  I am educating my children.  I educate them daily by example, by instruction, and by expectations.  Secondarily and like it or not, my kids are being educated by the world in which they live.  Right now their world is very small, but I am very aware that the size of their world, the things they are exposed to, the people the meet, the observations they make in a public setting, expands a little bit every day.  The main reason I have chosen to be a stay-at-home mom is so that I am the primary educator of my children.  I view school(ing) as something that is limited to a specific period of time (whether that be K-12th grade, college, grad school or beyond) and as a place where specific educational ideas are taught (reading, writing, math).

My oldest is about to start the adventures of kindergarten.  Last year for his "pre-school" we were involved in Classical Conversations and he did a fantastic job.  I enjoyed the year tremendously as I was able to tutor his abecedarian (meaning "student of the abc's) class.  This year he is enrolled to attend a supplemental school called Faith Academy.  He will attend this school once a week from 9-3 being taught history, geography, science, art and Bible.  This school exists to support home-schooling parents in schooling their children and was started by two home schooling moms we know.  The school uses Tapestry of Grace - a classically-based curriculum - as their curriculum.  This year we will be in Cycle 1 of Tapestry of Grace's 4-cycles which will cover Creation through the Fall of Rome.  We will work from home the rest of the week covering things he learned in school and working on math and reading.  I don't plan to make "school" the central purpose of our week.  I want my son to enjoy learning and will be looking for ways to feed his mind, his body, and his soul in creative ways.   

My middle child, also a boy, will be attending Faith Academy for pre-school.  He will go every Monday from 9:30-12.  At home I intend to let him enjoy his year as a 3- and 4-year-old (his birthday is in January), but I do plan to work with him on some basic life skills, to continue to instill in him a love reading by reading lots to him, and to let him explore his love of swords, knights, dragons, and castles.

My baby, a nearly two-year-old little girl, will also be learning.  Right now she's learning how to use the potty, how to clean-up her toys, how to hold crayons, how to speak to people, and how to share.

My job as teacher started the day my children were born.  My job just gets harder now that they need to learn specific things to help them excel in whatever God has created them to do as they grow.