Homeschool Week in Review: April 11 - April 15, 2016

Doing schoolwork in a plague mask?  It's just another day in our homeschool.  Here's what we covered this week...

Homeschool Week in Review: March 4 - March 8, 2016

This past week felt lighter in "schooling", but the kids had plenty of time for play, creativity, and self-directed learning.  Here's an overview...

Homeschool Week in Review - March 21-25, 2016

We took a week off last week for "Spring Break" (which was really just a chance to let me and E recover from the flu).  Towards the end of that week, I asked the twins to take an online CAT test for 2nd grade.  They both did an excellent job, scoring far above average in each category.  It's good to know that homeschool hasn't left any major gaps in what they need to know (I always worry about this, since we got a slow start to the year with a new baby and we're picking and choosing pieces for each subject rather than going with a box curriculum).  This week everyone was feeling better and we're back to a school routine.  Here's what we worked on...

Homeschool Preschool Weekly Recap {Age 3}

H is 3 and 2 months old, and loves Homeschool Preschool.  Not only does he join us for Circle Time and Stations (logic puzzzles and math manipulatives) in the morning, but he doesn't nap anymore so he participates in ALL our school work.  Even with Kindergarten-level work I'm having a hard time challenging this sharp little guy.  I think it's a good thing, however, to give him a majority of easy-mastery activities at the moment to keep school light and fun.  Here's a sample of what we did this week...

Homeschool Kindergarten Weekly Recap

Lately we've been taking a gentler approach to homeschool Kindergarten.  We've been spending less time on worksheets and 'formal schooling', and more on reading together, doing artwork, nature studies, and LEGOs/ games.  The main reason is that I've had less time for homeschool planning as I'm wrapping up a software engineering project that I've been working on for the past 2 years (I'll announce it on my blog when it's officially done).  The secondary reason is that although the kids have been enjoying our school routine, I felt that they both needed a break, and I've been inspired by Charlotte Mason and Thomas Jefferson Education philosophies to 'inspire' more than 'require'.  Here's what we've been up to the past 2 weeks:

Homeschool Kindergarten Week in Review

This week in Homeschool Kindergarten was very relaxed and productive.  I was consistent in getting the kids together for school-time in the morning and it seemed that all the kids were a lot more focused and less argumentative than the previous week.  Here's a glimpse of how our week went..

Homeschool Kindergarten Lesson Plans - Weeks 11-14

Are we really almost half way through the school year?  If you follow my blog, you'll see some of the unit studies we've been doing in Kindergarten, but I want to share some of the "other stuff" that I've been working on with the girls that don't fall into our weekly themes...

Homeschool Kindergarten Lesson Plans - Week 10

We're getting into a good rhythm with our homeschooling time and the girls have been enjoying a wide variety of learning activities.  I've been starting to integrate some themed units 2-3 days a week (like our mini unit on Johnny Appleseed and more learning units I'll post about next week), so this really helps to break up the monotony and makes the kids more receptive to the 'regular' school activities that we do the rest of the week.  Here's the latest from this week...

Homeschool Kindergarten Lesson Plans - Week 9 {and Halloween!}

 

This was a fun and laid back Homeschool Kindergarten / Pre-K week for us.  I tried to make most of our activities centered around the Halloween theme to give the girls something special to get excited about.  Here's what we did:

Homeschool Kindergarten Lesson Plans - Weeks 7 & 8

 

We went on vacation for a week, so our school has been less formal lately (but still a lot of fun).  While we were visiting my in-laws, the kids had a great time playing in corn kernels, feeding goats, riding on a barrel train, exploring a corn maze, and picking out mini pumpkins.  We're continuing our fall theme with some seasonal crafts and learning games.  Here's some of what we've been doing..

Homeschool Kindergarten Lesson Plans - Week 5

L and E are doing great with homeschool Pre-K/ Kindergarten this year.  We engage in learning activities 7 days a week, so some days end up being more formal instruction (activity trays that I set up for them to complete) while other days are filled with reading together and playing.  Here's a recap of what we did this week:

Homeschool Preschool - April

The twins are 3.5 years old.  I hope some readers have stuck around through my blogging hiatus this month.  We're moving (again) so April involved a lot of sorting through all the kids' toys and homeschool activities and organizing/packing everything.  We still do Homeschool Preschool twice a day, but the packing has drained my creativity so we've stuck with activities that are already on hand.  Here are some highlights..

Homeschool Preschool - Weeks 29 & 30

 

L and E are 3.5 years old.  If you follow this blog and have been wondering what has happened to my plan of doing a book-related activity every day in March, well we've actually been sticking to it.  However, my kids have been doing so great with our Homeschool Preschool sessions lately (2-3 times a day for about an hour each session), that I've kept the book activities pretty simple.  Sometimes we read a book and then watch a YouTube movie about the subject, or complete a puzzle on the theme, etc.. nothing that would be interesting enough to blog about.  Here's a little glimpse of what we've been working on in preschool over the past two weeks..

Homeschool Preschool - Weeks 27 & 28

L and E are 3.5 years old.  The whole family is now feeling better after nearly a month of being sick with various colds, so we're back to doing more Homeschool Preschool activities.  Here's what we've been up to...

Homeschool Preschool Weeks 25 & 26

The whole family has been fighting some sort of a cold over the past 2 weeks.  The kids had horrible coughs for a week, followed by a day of earaches and fever.  Baby H had a fever for 4 days straight,  rising as high as 103.7 which freaked me out.  I ended up with an acute sinus infection which is just now clearing up.  Needless to say, homeschool preschool took a back seat as we focused on getting healthy.  The kids ended up watching a lot of television when they weren't feeling well.  I did scatter some learning experiences here and there depending on how everyone was doing.  Here are a couple of the things we did..

Homeschool Preschool Weeks 23 & 24

L and E are 3.5 years old.  If you read this blog you know that over the past 6 months I've been going back and forth between structured and unstructured homeschool time.  After spending too much time being told by the twins that they're too busy to play with me, I decided to just ring a bell (a triangle, actually) and tell them that it means it's Preschool Time and they need to hurry to their table.  I still set up 6 trays with various activities, but I keep them on the dining room table and pick which one comes next instead of letting the kids decide. This system has been working great so far and we're back to doing 'Preschool' twice a day for 30-60 minutes each session.  I'm always pulling out fun activities and new manipulatives so the girls get excited about our time learning together and don't mind getting pulled away from their dramatic play adventures for a little while.  Here's a sampling of the types of activities we've been doing over the past 2 weeks..

Homeschool Preschool: Weeks 21 & 22

L and E are 3.5 years old.  I've been busy working on some new educational games lately, and the girls have been having such a great time inventing all sorts of dramatic-play adventures for themselves (they always say "we're too busy playing stories" when I ask them if they want to do activities), so we're back to a more unstructured homeschool approach.  On days when they decide that they do want to do 'activities', we work together for hours and they concentrate and work hard on their tasks.  On the days when they just want to go camping in the living room or build an airplane out of the dining room chairs, that's fine too.  Here's a little glimpse into some of our homeschool time..

Homeschool Preschool - Week 19 & 20

L and H are almost 3.5 years old.  After a long holiday break, we're getting back into our Homeschool Preschool routine.  Some days are definitely better than others.  Even on the more frustrating days where I feel that the kids watched too much TV and didn't learn anything, looking back I still see that there was plenty of learning going on.  The girls always see me taking photos of our activities, so they've been asking for their own cameras to take pictures as well.  Here's what we've been up to...

Homeschool Preschool - Weeks 13, 14, 15

If you think that we haven't been learning anything because I've been slacking on writing blog posts, you're wrong.  On the contrary, I think L and E (40 months) have hit a sweet spot for problem solving, so I've been setting up a lot of different types of thinking problems.  Here's what we've been up to...

Homeschool Preschool - Week 12

L and E are 39 months old.  This was a great week for early learning - we're really clicking into a rhythm and my girls are eager to learn new things and work patiently on their projects.  Here are some of this week's highlights..