Thursday, November 01, 2007

The LEA is coming

I am not intending to ignore this site! School is continuing and we are making good progress. However, I returned home from holiday to a letter stating that the Local Education Authority would be coming to evaluate our education process. That meeting is Friday. So, I have been trying to organize things so that it is obvious what we are doing. It is rather nebulous what they expect. The law states that we must educate “full-time and adequate to age.” That is open to a wide-range of interpretation. When I asked the reviewer what she wanted to see she said, “we just need to talk and fill out some reports.” I don’t think it is quite that simple. So, I am making sure the things we have done are easy to read. And that there is some “proof” of social activities and field trips. And praying that I can answer questions that make us look full-time, even though seat work is only 2-3 hours a day (and I think that is too much for Kindergarten, but my over achiever constantly asks for more). I’ll give a more full report of what we are doing (with pictures of our science project) next week.

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

A Big Box and a New Term

A week before we finished up summer school, this arrived!
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The big box from Sonlight! Flower was sure enjoying seeing what all we had. It was a major effort to hold Jewel off for a week, lol.

We officially started Kindergarten on 10 September. This year we are using Sonlight K (Core C) with 1st grade readers, Singapore Math, Handwriting Without Tears, Explode the Code, and continuing Rosetta Stone German. All is going very well. Jewel loves, loves, loves to read. Although I am a little concerned about using 1st grade readers, I know she would have been bored to tears with the Kindergarten readers. She is trying really hard, and on the things that are above her ability (e.g. writing similes) we are discussing and moving on. There will be plenty of time for that later. As we are getting accustomed to the new schedule, I haven't re-added German, but that will come later in the week.

My goals for Fall 2007 school term are:
*build confidence in reading and writing letters
*improve concentration and retention when I am reading aloud to her
*learn the weekly memory verses
*learn at least 5 facts about Turkey and be able to relate them to our holiday
*achieve next badge level in swimming
*provide a good starting foundation for history and science study

I am less concerned with how many book-facts she can spout off, and more concerned with how she is relating the things we are learning to real life. I'm really praying this year is a fun foundational year for her.

Here she is on day one, hard at work:
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Summer School Recap

We had such a great time with school this summer. Our focus was Geography, German and Art. The geography text was over Jewel's head at times, but we supplemented with Australia to Zimbabwe, Children Around the World. I can't say enough good about this book! The pictures are gorgeous, and Jewel is fascinated with how the kids live. It has led to many a great discussion. We couple it with Google Earth--looking up and marking the countries we study and the ones we have visited. Good fun! German has been amazing. I'd say her vocabulary is about 40 words right now. We practice at the dinner table (colors, foods, what is on the tisch, what we see in the air in fligt, etc.). And we practice the numbers while playing dominoes or yahtzee. A fun way of practicing, and so rewarding to see her pull it all together. Art has been fun to see some of the masters and then have her draw her own version of the theme.

She has continued in swimming lessons as well. We've had a few fun field trips. In Portsmouth we went to the submarine museum and toured a sub, visited two castles and the cathedral, and watched the fishing boats. In Winchester we went to see the *round table* and the cathedral. In London we toured the Tower of London. All great educational spots.

I was pleased with the progress we made during the summer, especially since the schedule was totally relaxed. I hope she is able to continue this for the fall term! :-)

Tuesday, August 07, 2007

comments

I can't seem to get comments to show up on the new template consistently. I have them enabled and on my much older posts they are there, but not on yesterdays. It seems to be working on this post--so feel free to comment here on the recap post. *shrug*

Monday, August 06, 2007

A long overdue recap

I really thought that I could keep up with my regular blog and a homeschool blog, but I think I was wrong. 8 months without a post. Shame on me! I am determined to get more disciplined in how I maintain info about school.

For the recap:
We completed our first year of home ed at the end of June. We used Sonlight Pre-K curriculum with Singapore Early Bird Kindergarten Math, Handwriting without Tears, and Get Ready for the Code. Overall I was happy with our curriculum choice. I was not always happy with the stories for read-alouds from Sonlight (sometimes I did not think the subject matter was age appopriate) but the joy of HS is that you can ditch it if it isn't right for you. And we occassionally did that. The only thing Jewel absolutely did not enjoy was the Mother Goose book. We did use it, as I think it is important to hear rhyme and meter. But more often than not I would read it while she was doing her worksheets. So she *heard* it without really having to listen to it, kwim? We did some fun field trips during the year--went to a few museusm, went to Legoland, visited Beatrix Potter world and Beatrix Potter's home, explored castles, watched a glass sculptor at work, went to the Sonoran outdoor museum/zoo, saw dinosaurs at the Natural History Museum and walked along the Thames River. We built our own scale, did lots and lots of drawing and played with play dough. We've played dominoes, and Candyland (more for Flower's color learning) and Scrabble. Nature walks happened regularly. We watched the swan eggs and enjoyed watching the cygnets grow. We have watched goslings turn into full-size geese. We are currently watching the peachicks grow. But most of all we had a great time. She also participated in a weekly class at church with other 4-7 year olds which has dramatically increased her confidence. And she has had weekly play dates with a friend while her mommy/teacher has had adult conversation with other ladies. It has been a busy year!

My goals for the first year were simple and not so simple:
Simple: Have fun, see that learning is part of everyday, read lots of books. We accomplished all of that.
Not-so-simple: Have a beginning reader at the end of the school year, introduce math in simple ways, learn to tell time (Jewel's personal goal not mine), and feel confident that yes I can homeschool. She was so close to reading at the end of June, but did not feel she was able to read. She loves math and begs to do more and more. I really did not intend to finish Kindergarten math, but we have. She is constantly adding and subtracting and describing things in math terms. YAY! She is close to telling time, but not quite there. She is having difficulty counting by 5's which is kind of essential in time telling. But she consistently gets the hour correct and is beginning to get "half-past" consistently correct as well. For the most part I do feel confident that we can homeschool. I am more and more confident in putting the book aside and doing it a different way if the book is not helping. I am enjoying myself and I know she loves it so I guess it is working.

What since June? I wanted some time off. Jewel wanted to keep doing school. She won. Our summer program is Geography (a combination of A Child's Geography by Ann Voskamp, Usborne's Child Atlas, Australia to Zimbabwee Child's Alphabet, and lots of playing on Google Earth), German (Rosetta Stone) and Swimming lessons. We are having so much fun. The whole family is learning German together. We practice at meal times and on walks and where ever we are. It is actually beginning to make sense to me. And when Jewel was adding in German this week I realized that both language and math were melding. Real education! How cool! She has completed her first badge level (#2) in swimming and is in her second round of classes. She is doing really well. Her main drawback is not wanting to put her face in the water--but she will get past that. Although I thought three things were enough for a summer session--she was bored. Her church class and regular play dates also ended during the summer so we needed something else. I picked up Usborne's A Child's Art book and we have been looking at a painter or genre a day, using the internet to find other paintings by that artist and then drawing or coloring similar themes. Both Jewel and Flower love it--and I see a real interest in art emerging. Next week we hope to go to a Rembrandt exhibit near here to reinforce what we have talked about.

But the biggest news is.....Thursday quite out of the blue, all on her own, while playing Starfall on the computer she started sounding out the words and actually reading the stories herself. And Friday night she helped me read the Dr. Seuss book we were reading for bedtime. And last night....she read an entire beginner book by herself to me. Yes, Jewel is reading!!! I am as excited as she is. Her daddy is traveling this week, and she can't wait for him to be home tomorrow so she can read to him. After months of saying, "I'm not big enough" she now knows she can. YIPPEE!!

So there is our home school year in a nutshell. I am hoping to be more diligent to update this once a week. I think it will help me to see what we are doing. Thanks for reading the epic.

Monday, January 22, 2007

Plodding right along

Actually plodding sounds like it has been hard work, and it really hasn't. Jewel is really enjoying the Get Ready for the Code workbook. The first day she insisted that we do an entire lesson on one of the letters. She got tired and frustrated before we were done, and it became a chore. Since then I've limited her to 4 pages at a time. She is doing so much better. And enjoying it. Today she couldn't remember how to draw a "b" that we had worked on last week, but she remembered that she could look back at the lesson and did it all on her own! That is a big step, because usually if she can't remember she just gives up. We are revisiting the seasons and the months. She thought she had forgotten it, but she seems to be recalling more than I had hoped. Over the weekend she was busy teaching Flower to say "I'm two" and then helping her count to ten. Flower mainly just repeats what Jewel says, but it is definitely learning. Then out of the blue this weekend Jewel counted all the way to 40. She had not been able to get past 15. Yippee!

This was the Christmas of games. So we have been playing lots of games. Dora card matching, dominoes, Go Fish, Candyland and "My First Scrabble" which has been great to practice sounding out words. At least 2 nights a week have been family game night with Daddy. It is good for the girls and it reinforces what we are doing during the day. YAY!

This week I'm going to add in reading a higher level read aloud to them while they are playing. We'll see if they retain any of it.

That's it for an update. More to come....

Monday, January 08, 2007

A New Year!

Well I am back. I must say that keeping up with a homeschool blog has proven more than I could manage. But I hope to be better this year of at least posting once a week.

We started back today after almost 3 weeks off. I was a little apprehensive of getting back into the routine, but there were no problems. We did our Bible Study, introduced the new memory verse, read a couple of stories and then introduced Getting Ready for the Code. Jewel loved GRC! She jumped right in and did all of the first lesson on the letter "f" with very little prompting. She did decide that she wanted to colour the entire picture and not just the sections with the letter in it. I struggle with that sometimes. The perfectionist in me says "we have to do it as it is instructed" but the other side of me says that "she's 4, school should be fun, let her do it her way." In the end, I let her do it her way, but we did discuss that part of school is learning how to follow directions and she needed to listen to how she was supposed to do it (and ask if she wanted to do it differently instead of just jumping in). But she seems to be getting it. She remembered the verse and the reference we were learning before Christmas. That is amazing. She is good with the verses, but references are difficult. I don't push it. Again, she is only 4.

My one complaint today was with Sonlight. They skipped a good 20 pages in the children's Bible in the scheduled readings. That may work well with some kids. But my "we have to read each page kid" would have nothing of it. So instead of 2 pages of Bible we did 7 pages (and will continue to add pages until we catch up to the schedule). She was happier that we weren't skipping stories, but I know she didn't get as much out of it as well. I may have to just rework the Bible schedule. *sigh*