Hive Piano Recital

Dunwoody Homeschool Hive had their 2nd annual piano recital. This year Gabriel chose to stand up and say three jokes rather than play (he hadn't been practicing). He did so great and got a few laughs.

School is back in session for 2012-13

Gabriel's class doubles in size this year with the addition of his sister beginning pre-school! She loves to get her books out and sit at the table with him while he's doing his work and says "Mommy, I do my work, too." She colors and cuts and is learning to write her letters and numbers.

We're excited for Third Grade with Gabriel this year. We're going to dig in deeper with History (Ancient Civilizations), setting a foundation with Grammar learning prepositions, verbs, irregular verbs, etc. It's going to be a good year!

Gabriel's 2nd year is done!

Second grade for Gabriel was a stepping stone into reading chapter books (Diary of a Wimpy Kid was his favorite), doing 2 and 3-digit multiplication and division and delving into deeper history and science lessons like Roman and Egyptian Empires. Here he is with most of his school workbooks that he knocked out this year. He still likes doing Khan Academy online.

Half-way mark

We're half-way through our home school year and while we didn't accomplish any of the three lofty goals I set out for us, I'm quite pleased at where we are and what we're learning. I guess having goals like learning how to type, how to write in cursive and learning a foreign language are nice to have ... and perhaps will come in time. Until then, I'm happy that Gabriel is devouring books with any spare moment he has, has grasped multiplication, division and fractions quite nicely, and that he loves learning science. He's been telling me all about matter (solid, gas or liquid) and telling all about viscosity, evaporation and condensation.

Giselle has learned her numbers, letters, shapes and colors and is wanting to learn how to write letters. She enjoys sorting, building, painting, playing Uno and pretend play. Here are a couple of pics of them in action:

Back to School - Gabriel is a seven year-old, second grader!

Each year, we officially begin school after Gabriel's birthday. First day August 29th with more excitement coming from me, I think. Here he is as a seven year-old, second grader.

We went to our new homeschool group's first activity: Dunwoody Hive Homeschool's "Not Back-to-School" Cookout Picnic at Lake Lanier. It was a lot of fun to meet other families who chose to uniquely educate their children.

Learning through play

Recently inspired by another blog site with a handful of moms who contribute fun ideas to do with your kids as a way of learning through play, we created these squishy bags. Instead of gel, I used corn syrup and instead of neon glitter we used food sprinkles. They mixed nicely together. Realized we didn't need that much syrup so created more bags. Next time I'll use larger bags as it may be easier to draw letters and more shapes. But these were fun.

What's up with the Petts?

What's up with the 2 year old?
My darling daughter has made me so happy and proud two nights in a row. Last night, allow me to mark the date July 13, 2011 (28 months old) she decided it was time. Time to go potty like a big girl that is. I tried potty training her before and gave up thinking she wasn't ready so we backed way off and prayed that God would have her train herself since she was already introduced to the idea. What a special treat when God answers prayer. We heard some noise in the bathroom so I went to check on her. She moved the stool in front of the toilet and placed the seat ring and sat down. We all heard the tinkle and I got to see how her face changed from one of curiosity to delight when we all praised her. The night before, after reading some bedtime stories and snuggling while putting her to bed. I laid down with her and she said, "Mama, me happy." I'm still melting over how sweet that is. We don't get many affirmations as parents, but that certainly was one, if any, that we must be doing something right. She's turned a corner with talking as well – speaks more phrases and more clearly. It's so cute how she calls Gabriel "brother". She'll say, "Mama, what is brother doing?" She probably wants to know so she can be doing it, too...whatever it is. She copies everything he does. She's getting a little more hair, but still won't allow me to put a bow or make a ponytail just yet. She loves to dance, in fact, we all have been enjoying watching the T.V. show, "So You Think You Can Dance?" I wonder if a preschool ballet class is in our future or if I will teach her? She is one tough cookie, just like her dad. She can crash and instead of crying (or screaming like "brother") she just kind of whines and says "Mama, boo boo." I still need to get her left earring fixed. She's pulled it out and I've been waiting for it to completely heal and will just get it pierced again. For now, we'll just call her "Pirate Zellie".

Here she is wearing daddy's flip-flops, using his cell phone while cheesing it up for the camera.

What's up with the 6 year old?
Gabriel just finished golf camp for the summer. We're trying to decide which activity he'll be doing come fall. Whether it be tennis, soccer, swimming or more golf. We can only afford one right now. Decided to take it to prayer since I can't decide. I'm sure it will be fine whatever we choose. I'm realizing I worry way too much about things. And, we still need to find a piano teacher. Gabriel is a happy kid who likes to be active so he'll be happy no matter what. He's still cracking me up. The other day at Chick-fil-A, we saw a person dressed as a cow and he remarks, "Holy Cow!" And, he understands the pun. My dad passed away ten years ago on July 11th so I stated "Today is the anniversary of my dad's death." Gabriel exclaims, "Can we have a party?" That kid is so social - anything to get together with friends and celebrate. He had been begging to come to work with me. He says so he can be with me but also so he can visit my work friends. I see more and more of me in him and am seeing more of Jimmy in Giselle.

Here's Gabriel with his friend Lydia for "Cow Appreciation Day"

The Daddy?
Jimmy still seems to be in constant pain due to his intestines. Because of it, he can be short and generally grumpier than I'd prefer, but we all make the best of it. I feel really sorry for him making all these wonderful meals for the kids and me and he can't partake most of the time. He's just finished working on the porch, building new hand rails and it looks marvelous! I'm worried about his dad and aunt who are both 93 years old and nearing the end of their life here on earth. We're trying to plan a trip to Detroit to see them in the very near future.

Working on our new porch railings

And the Mommy?
I'm making unsuccessful attempts at working out and losing weight, but at least I'm trying. I got to catch up with an old high school girlfriend over lunch which was incredibly fun. For splinters of a moment, I felt like a teenager again. Other than that, I work full-time, homeschool Gabriel at night along with my every other Friday's off from work. As long as I'm planning the next big thing, I'm happy. Right now, it's a trip to Detroit followed by Gabriel's 7 year old birthday party. Somewhere in there, I want to get the house organized. Otherwise, I may as well sign us up for one of these ever so popular reality T.V. shows about home makeovers or hoarders.

My high school friend Janice and me

Gabriel's End-of-Year Homeschool Report: 1st Grade

Year-End Academic Evaluation

For Gabriel Pett

First Grade
May 20, 2011

OVERVIEW:
Our focus this year hasn’t changed with the three R's (reading, writing, and arithmetic) and sprinkled in science, social studies, music, art, and sports. We’ve enjoyed our involvement with NEACH homeschool group to do fun activities, projects, field trips, park days, spending time with friends and experiencing children of all ages.

MATH:
He continues to excel in math and is working above grade level. He has most of his multiplication tables memorized and either recites or writes tables of them daily. We haven’t entered into division yet, but when asked, “what is 2 x __ =22” He has no problem saying the answer of “11”. Earlier in the year (January) I asked him how many steps we had on our stairs. He counted 14. I said, “what if we had two sets of stairs side-by-side, how many stairs would we have?” He said “hat's easy just add 14+14.” I said yes, or you could just do 14x2. He says, oh yea, and without hesitating he said 28.

We intersperse reviewing his basic drills such as double and triple addition and subtraction lest he forget everything he learned last year. We identified Mondays as “Monday Math Review” days.

We ended up returning the “RightStart” math curriculum because it was too teacher restrictive. Classes are offered to learn how to teach this curriculum along with the Spell to Write and Read curriculum and determined that it was too intensive for us along with liking to be a little more “free” in our approach. We’ve grown to really like the Harcourt Learning workbooks we get through the Homeschooling section of Barnes & Noble and may stick with those for a while.

LANGUAGE ARTS:
(According to the American National Council of Teachers of English, the five strands of the Language arts are reading, composition writing, speaking, listening, and viewing (visual literacy).

Reading and Comprehension: Gabriel is a fluent reader now and is reading on a second grade level. We’ve finished two reading workbooks (McGraw-Hill and Harcourt Learning) with comprehension questions this year and he is eager to buy the next level. His retention is high and when asked can dictate to you the main “take-away” from the story along with most details. He can respond with complete sentences if asked, otherwise will provide fragments as answers which makes it difficult to understand him. He still only likes to read 2-3 pages and his attempt to read a real chapter book from the library was an unsuccessful one. He read 1 chapter a day and didn’t complete it. He is beginning to understand prefixes and suffixes and will attempt to sound out any word he doesn’t know without hesitation. He also participated in the Discovery Channel / Six Flags over Georgia reading program and earned two tickets to Six Flags this year. We continue to frequent the library for story time and to check out new and exciting literature.

Creative Writing and Handwriting: His penmanship for print is clear when asked to write neatly. We have begun the early stages of cursive and hope that it will make it easier to write for him. Our big accomplishment this year is his “O’s” are now drawn in the correct direction. He occasionally makes mistakes like reversing his “b’s” and “d’s” and “p’s” and “q’s” as well as sometimes “s’s” and “2’s”. He catches his own mistakes and corrects them. As for composing sentences and writing them, he has extreme difficulty. This is the one area that he may be on or behind grade level. We have changed curriculums from the Flashkids Harcourt workbook to “Writing with Ease” to see if we can have a breakthrough in this area. Only a few weeks underway, but there is real promise with this new program.

Spelling, Phonics and Vocabulary: Gabriel enjoyed a Spelling Bee competition this year. We are using Harcourt Spelling workbook and he does the work without any problems and is on grade level. I give him periodic spelling quizzes which he likes and he does very well. We haven’t given him a set of vocabulary words to memorize or learn yet. He's not shy about asking what a certain word means that he's never heard before. We bought him a new dictionary and showed him how to look up words by himself. We finished Explode the Code workbook for our phonics work and breaking down words. He enjoys this.

Grammar: He understands nouns, verbs, adjectives and pronouns, as well as synonyms, antonyms and homophones. He also understands to capitalize letters of proper nouns like names and places. He is gradually learning sentence structure, but again writing sentences is daunting.

Listening and Speaking: One of the other concentrated efforts in working with Gabriel is getting him to listen better. Sometimes he seems to be inside his own head and world and doesn’t listen well. He is a happy boy and doesn’t do it out of defiance. We’ve pointed out times when he doesn’t listen and is making incessant noises. He said he didn’t realize he was even doing this until we pointed it out. Now we make him recite a times tables and place his hands in his lap so he can exert some self-control. There are a lot of times when Gabriel speaks he begins with fragments and in the middle of the story. We’re explaining to him that he needs a beginning, middle and an end to clearly communicate. He gets excited and does not communicate well although he is confident speaking in groups or for presentations.

SCIENCE:
Gabriel loves science and is a fan of Jamie and Adam and the entire MythBusters crew. He works in his Science workbook, but mostly we read science, nature, human body, and physics books to him. He has an interest in the weather and talks about seasons, etc. And will occasionally teach me a thing or two about something he has learned (i.e., a marble will stay in a funnel even if you try to blow it out).

SOCIAL STUDIES/GEOGRAPHY:
We celebrate various holidays to study traditions and he enthusiastically marks off the days of the week on the calendar. He completes map snaps online http://www.coolmath-games.com/0-series-geography-map-snaps.html. Last year he studied continents, and this year was focused on countries such as USA, Europe, and Asia.

PHYSICAL FITNESS:
Jim works with him on golf, soccer, tumbling and tennis while I work with him on dance. He just finished swimming lessons and we’ll continue through the summer so he can be a strong swimmer by summers end. He is finally growing and becoming faster than he was last year with the additional height. He has exceptional hand/eye coordination skills when conducting activities such as golf, catching balls, etc., but is average with large motor skills such as swimming, running, etc..

OTHER:
Drama/Music/Art: He loves to play charades, monopoly or any other computer or video game. We have fun doing crafts, but is not gifted in the arts in terms of drawing. He can color inside the lines, but struggles to come up with other creative ideas on his own. We were given a piano and plan on finding a piano teacher for next year.

FIELD TRIPS/EVENTS:
We hope to do more field trips next year now that our youngest is two years old.

· Horizon Theatre’s production of “Madeline’s Christmas.”

· “Barn Dance” with NEACH group.

· Scripps Spelling Bee with LEAD homeschool group.

· Exploration of Nature at “Big Trees Forest Preserve” with Dunwoody Hive group.

SUMMARY:
In our opinion, Gabriel is working above grade-level in certain areas such as math, on average-to-above grade level in reading and below level in writing and communication skills. He is bright and has an easier time remembering ideas he’s learned through subjects he’s interested in and a harder time on subjects he is not. He has a hard time focusing on what he is supposed to be doing with staring out the window and dropping pencils, unless it's the television or computer screen. We are concentrating on trying to help him focus and listen better. We conducted first grade CRCT sample tests on our final day of schooling for reading, language arts and math. He scored 100% on math and 92% on L.A. and reading, respectively. He said, "They were easy, and actually a lot of fun!" Overall, he has a love of learning and doing new things, is quite social and tremendously enjoys his friends, telling jokes and having fun.

His first grade curriculum. Mostly Harcourt Learning Series.

Valentine's Day

Gabriel and I enjoyed making these homemade Valentine's cards for his homeschool friends out of some good construction paper. Accomplished approximately 20 cards in two nights, about 2-1/2 hours total. Fold, cut-out hearts, glue, envelopes, done. We all met at Jumpin' Jamboree since the weather was a little cold and wet. The kids made mailboxes to receive the cards. Everyone's was so creative.


As for us, it's considered a Hallmark Holiday, but we still take advantage of the time to do something. We finally used a Groupon I had since last April, our friends the Morreys watched the kids while we went to Eclipse di Luna for some scrumptious tapas. We ended up talking mostly about the kids all evening laughing at some of the crazy and silly things they do and say.

Mid-year Report

We are required to do 180 days of schooling which means we are upon the half-way point. I'll save the in-depth report for the end of school year when I'm supposed to write one, but just wanted to say how very proud I am of my son. His reading has clicked and can read chapter books now, willingly. His math is exceptional and has most of his multiplication tables memorized. The other day I asked him how many steps we had on our stairs. He counted 14. I said what if we had two sets of stairs side-by-side, how many stairs would we have. He said that's easy just add 14+14. I said yes, or you could just do 14x2. He says, oh yea, and without hesitating he said 28. Blew me away. We're learning geography with a fun website he can snap any country or state shape into place. He still loves science and conducting "tests" and is enjoying learning Ancient history (and so are we!). But the one thing I'm most happy about at the very moment is that he is finally drawing his "O's" in the correct direction (counter clock-wise). Ack, it's been killing me so one day I just had him do it over and over and over and over, quizzed him on it and then over and over again until it became second nature. Good reason to learn how to do it right from the start.

Phonics and Reading and Spelling ... Oh My!

We love getting to be the ones to teach Gabriel his phonics, reading and spelling.

Almost every night I have him read to me out of this book (see blue book on right) and then answer the comprehension questions. Next I have him conduct the Explode the Code workbook which breaks down words and sounds. I'll also give him a spelling test about once a week which he loves. We're having a great time doing it and I'm so proud of him.

CNN: Less families homeschool for religious reasons

Less families home schooling primarily for religious reasons.

CNN reports.

Back to School - Gabriel is a First Grader!

First of all, I can't believe I have a first grader. Secondly, I never thought in a million years we would be homeschooling! I've come a long way from a year ago when we were just "trying out this home school thing." We really see the benefits of getting to educate our son and all the perks that come along with it. We're so happy.

Here is his first day of school picture. He is saluting the new year:



At Sandy Springs "Big Trees Forest Preserve" for play in the creek with one of his homeschool groups.

Kindergarten Comes to a Close

End of Year Homeschool Report
May 18, 2010

Our first year of homeschooling has come to an end. We started this journey almost a year ago with little expectations and almost little to no understanding of what all is involved. I'm thrilled to report that our first homeschooling year in Kindergarten was a success. Our county requires that we begin reporting homeschooling at the start of first grade with a declaration of intent, monthly attendance reports and a yearly progress report that we keep for our own records. While it's not necessary for this year, I thought I would get into the practice of it.

OVERVIEW:
In general, we mainly focused on the three R's (reading, writing, arithmetic) and sprinkled in science, social studies, music, art, sports, computer and other interests around that core foundation. We joined a NEACH homeschool group to do fun activities, projects, field trips, park days, Spanish club, and just make new friends and experiencing children of all ages.

MATH:
He excels in math. He grasps the concept easily and in fact surprises us on occasion with what he knows. For example, the other day we were driving in the car .... it was 1:11 in the afternoon. He asked how long until we'll arrive to where we were going? We said in ten minutes. He says, "So that means we'll get there at 1:21 correct? He has been able to tell time for quite a while now to the minute, but we were surprised at how he added on ten when it wasn't an even number. When asked how he did it he said, "That's easy. I just added ten and then added the one back in."

He also counts to 100 without a problem. Skip counts by 5's to 110 on his own and can count by 2's to 30. We wrapped up a first grade math workbook (adding, subtracting single digits) and started second grade math (addition/subtraction of double digits which begins place value). He is just beginning the concept of carrying over, but can tell he does so because we've told him to and not because he has grasped the concept yet.

For next year, we bought a new curriculum called RightStart which was developed by a Montessori Math PhD. using Japanese philosophies. One example of this philosophy is the way the Asians name their numbers. In English we count ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, and so on, which doesn’t give the child a clue about tens and ones. But in Asian languages, you counts by saying ten-1, ten-2, ten-3 for the teens, and 2-ten 1, 2-ten 2,and 2-ten 3 for the twenties. Another important difference is the emphasis on non-counting strategies for computation. Japanese children are discouraged from counting; rather they are taught to see quantities in groups of fives and tens. For example, when an American child wants to know 9 + 4, most likely they will start with 9 and count up 4. In contrast, the Asian child will think that if he takes 1 from the 4 and puts it with the 9, then he will have 10 and 3, or 13. They also use math card games and other manipulates including a special double-sided abacus based on five's and ten's. It's structured by levels rather than grade-level. It's completely different than how I was taught, but Jimmy really understands this concept, and he is the one teaching it...and it appears that Gabriel may be ready for something like this so we're hoping it will go wonderfully. Needless to say, we're really excited about beginning first grade with this curriculum.

LANGUAGE ARTS:
Reading: I'm happy to report that since the purchase of the BOB book sets and creating a reward system for reading, he is now reading at a first grade level with ease and confidence. I wouldn't say he is motivated to read on his own, but at least he is reading more and more.

Writing: His penmanship for print is clear. Sometimes needs to be reminded to bring the ascenders up to reach the top line and the descenders down beneath the baseline. When there are lines on the page, his writing is much better as you can imagine. He uses his finger to space out words still, but at least you can read what he is writing. He still sometimes writes his d's and b's backwards as well as s's and 2's. He draws his "o" in the opposite direction then what he is supposed to so hope to correct these mistakes this year.

Comprehension: His comprehension is surprisingly good considering he doesn't act like he is paying attention at all. There are occasions where I'll ask him what I just read when I KNOW he wasn't paying attention and he can't recall, but the other times when I'm unsure he knows exactly. He has been reading comprehension stories for 2nd grade and doing quite well. We will stick with this level for this year as it is challenging him at just the right level, and may even go back to first grade comprehension as remedial.

Spelling and Vocabulary: I give him pop-quiz spelling tests with either sight words, vocabulary words or words we've been working on recently. Anywhere from 8-12 words at a time and he generally gets most of them correct depending on difficulty from easy three letter CVC words or the more difficult four letter words with silent e's. We use the plain old-fashioned dictionary to look up meanings of words. He's not shy about asking what a certain word means that he's never heard before.

Phonics: We have been decoding words in our new Explode the Code workbooks which he seems to like. I can tell this is helping and we'll continue this along with another curriculum with cassette tapes I recently purchased.

Grammar: He understands nouns, verbs, adjectives and pronouns, but that's it. He also understands to capitalize letters of names and places. Sometimes he will begin using all uppercase letters and throw in a lower case letter. We are working on either using all caps or use of initial caps with consistency. He understands basic punctuation such as use of period at end of sentence, exclamation points for excitement and question marks for questions. He can write easy three word sentences, but anything beyond this he finds daunting.

SCIENCE:
He loves science and is glued to the T.V. when MythBusters comes on...or Sid the Science Kid. He is always asking why does something work the way it does so we are trying to nurture that curiosity by doing experiments as things come up in our daily life. We do not have a curriculum per se, but we read science, nature, human body, and physics books to him. We research the weather together and talk about seasons, etc. Currently, we are reading a book on Albert Einstein. We will use Science in the Kitchen to conduct any learning opportunities this coming year. He also loves helping us to cook and bake which allows him to learn how to operate/manipulate the various instruments and learn measurements.

SOCIAL STUDIES:
We plan to begin Story of the World text with it's accompanying workbook, but this year we focused on reading some books on culture and talking to him about people in general near and far. What they do, what they eat, what they wear and what they may believe. In addition, we keep a calendar in his room so he can mark off the days of the week (which he knows) and follow the months of the year (which he knows) while learning the different holidays. He knows the continents and we will begin the study of particular countries this coming year.

PHYSICAL FITNESS:
Jim works with him on golf, soccer, and tennis while I teach him to swim and dance with him in our living room. He is athletic, but not very focused or fast. Perhaps that will come with age....we hope!

OTHER:
Drama/Music/Art: He loves music and to sing. In fact, he recently told me he wants to be a song creator when he grows up. He loves rock or pop songs or anything with a beat. He sang "Jesus Loves Me" in Spanish with his homeschool group. He doesn't really care for drawing, but can color fairly well inside the lines. We hope to begin piano lessons this year. He also loves maps and mazes and we supply him with age-appropriate levels. He likes to tell jokes and act out or say movie line quotes so we'll explore this some more as well.

SUMMARY:
In my opinion, Gabriel is working above grade-level, but we want to be careful not to either push too hard or become complacent and find ourselves struggling in a certain subject. While he is a bright, young boy, he has a hard time focusing on what he is supposed to be doing at times, unless it's the television or computer screen. On that note, I'm watching for any signs of ADD or ADHD or seeing if he just grows out of being a boy. I think it's apparent that he is a kinesthetic learner, but doesn't fail at auditory or visual learning either. Overall, he has a love of learning and doing new things, is quite social and enjoys his friends, telling jokes and having fun.

1.5 million homeschoolers in 2007

The number of home-schooled kids hit 1.5 million in 2007, up 74% from when the Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics started keeping track in 1999 as stated in this USA Today article a year ago.

I wonder what the statistics are now three years later....I'll keep looking.

Update: I found this:
"There were an estimated 1,700,000 to 2,100,000 children (grades K-12) home educated during 2002-2003 in the United States. Homeschooling appears to still be the fastest-growing form of education."
– Brian D. Ray, Ph.D., Facts on Homeschooling.

That was for 2002 and they say up to 15% increase per year. Haven't found any current data for 2009 as they may not have that ready to publish. If there are approximately 73 million children in the U.S. having over 2 million homeschool doesn't seem like a whole lot, but then again, not all cases are reported since some are categorized as private schooled. So ... I give up since I can't get accurate numbers, but at least I have an idea now of the potential percentage.

The Home School Legal Defense Association study shows higher academic level than public school counterparts.

Project Day with NEACH

Gabriel and his homeschool friends of NEACH (North East Atlanta Christian Homeschoolers) sang a Spanish song for project day. They were adorable.

Gearing up for First Grade

After hours and hours, days and days of research, I think I've finally come to a place of understanding of what there is to offer in terms of first grade curriculum and what may work best for Gabriel. A homeschool chat group I belong to has been extremely encouraging, uplifting and helpful in terms of resources (even more so than the real life homeschool group, but that may be due to the nature of online and less about the group itself).

I've read the book Top 100 Homeschool Curriculums by Cathy Duffy and have pinpointed the six major philosophical teaching methods as well as the four main learning styles. They have charted out the philosophical approaches married with the child's learning style so clearly. We will go to either or both of the GHEA Conference and Southeast Homeschool Expo at Cobb Galleria to explore, touch and talk with veterans and publishers of each. For now, this is where I've narrowed it down to...of course the caveat being my husband who may change everything! LOL....

Reading - Explode the Code (or Spell to Read and Write)
www.explodethecode.com/02_how/

Writing - Create a Story
www.createpress.com/pages/story.htm

Math - MathUSee
www.mathusee.com/default.php?langua...

History - Ultimate Geo
www.rocksolidinc.com/catalog/the-ul...

Science - AIMS edu
www.aimsedu.org/

or seriously considering a unit study program called KONOS
www.konos.com/index.html

We may still supplement with other Language Arts materials, and he still has a Time4Learning account which is fun to do together online (www.time4learning.com/) and of course, while this includes most of his academics, he is also in the midst of spring soccer, looking for an art/drama/music camp to join, starting golf in summer and we are teaching him swimming and tennis. We want to start piano and cub scouts come fall as he needs to be six years old for each.

I'm super obsessed about his education which from time to time drives Jimmy nuts. I just can't help getting so excited about the endless opportunities!!

Kindergarten progress

Now that we are more than half way through Kindergarten, it's about time that I report on how homeschooling is going. I have to say it's gone better than I expected, but then again, I'm not sure what I expected since I really have had no experience with this except one friend I had as a child who was homeschooled.

Since this is our first year of home schooling and while I was unsure how the year would go, I'm happy to report he is learning and doing well.

He loves math (which he must get from his dad). He can count to 100 on his own, skip count by 5's to 100 on his own and we're working on counting by 2's (he gets mixed up in the teens but is ok after that). He just finished first grade math workbook (adding, subtracting) and we are starting him on second so a bit of a math wiz. Starting double digit addition which includes carrying over. We don't want to overwhelm him so we're thinking of doing some remedial of past unit studies to keep his confidence level up with mathematics.

The counting by 5s has helped him with learning to tell time and can tell me to the minute now.

As for language arts (which is my niche subject) he is a little slower and doesn't seem as interested at all! He has a hard time focusing, drifts off looking out the window, taps his pencil, etc. He does great at comprehension so I know he is listening and comprehending (when i read or he reads). We've worked really hard at his writing lately and trying to print more neatly and it has helped some (but still exhibits this 'i just don't care' attitude sometimes). We just started the first grade spelling and writing workbooks this month and is learning short u's, long o's -- nouns, verbs, pronouns, adjectives. It's just going slower than math, but that's ok. That is one of the benefits of homeschooling is you can teach at their pace, at their level and toward their interests.

I started doing spelling tests with him once a week over the last month with three and easy four letter words. He seems to like this so I may take this up a notch, do more often and actually study a set of words. (We've been pretty laid back, just trying to make school fun for him). He says spelling is his favorite subject so want to continue with this momentum. We're also studying the Dolch sight words and using them for spelling words as well. He's almost finished with his Spelling workbook.

As for reading, he asked me the other day if we could go to Barnes & Nobles so he could buy himself a new Step 3 reading book. I LOVED THAT! He was pretty confident with his Step 2 books and wanted a new challenge. Reading has clicked with him just as of late and it's wonderful to see. I knew his old Step 2 books he had memorized so I was able to see this transition to reading brand new material on his own just recently. We have been going to the library every couple of weeks to get new books which we read every night. I'll have him read a book to me in exchange for me reading a larger book to him. Again, he really needs motivation with reading and does not appear to like it although he can do it. Trying to build his confidence in this area.

In addition to the main three "R's" (reading, writing, arithmetic), we do science experiments, history book reading, geography (loves maps and mazes), and read books on social studies, etc. but are not done as part of the main curriculum. We're still going to our homeschool group although we've missed the past few weeks due to illness, he was sick, then me and then the baby. He started soccer and loves practicing with his friends and looks forward to his games on Saturdays.

We've enjoyed having him with us and enjoy being the ones to teach him. It's a lot of hard work but is very rewarding.

There are two homeschool conferences coming up...GHEA (Georgia Homeschool Educators Association) end of April and the Southeast Homeschool Expo end of August where we can look at all the curriculum and get ideas for first grade come fall. I'm very excited!

Back to School

With Gabriel's friends starting Kindergarten on August 10th at public school, I would have thought he would ask questions as to why he isn't and show a little sadness that he isn't going, too. I'm happy to report he is happy to be home schooling with daddy this year. We may still opt to have him go to Kindergarten next year or just reevaluate where he is this time next year. For now, we have created our own curriculum and enjoy teaching him. It's not always structured with another little one (our five month old) so we gear it around nap times and definitely when he seems especially interested in a particular subject matter. We do have some work books and other materials, but this is generally what we are focusing on for this year...

Jim and Marcy's curriculum:
Bible: study a scripture based on a God story; start the school day with prayer

Social Studies: read about other cultures, study the month and meaning of holidays, special occasions

Science: study animals, plants and solar system, experimentation, colors, temperature, weather, seasons, cooking/baking

Language arts: phonics, sight words, reading, writing, organizing, oral skills, listening

Health/PE: grooming, body parts, safety, physical fitness (learn and participate in a sport)

Math: counting beyond 20, sequence, patterns, money denominations, basic problem-solving, calendar, clock reading, more and less than

Music: we enjoy all kinds of music from classical, opera and country to pop and rock

3 hours a day:
Bible: 15 min
SS: 15 min
Science: 15 min
Math: 30 min
(Break: 30 min of play)
L.A.: read books 30 min, write 15 min, phonics and sight words 15 min = 1 hour
P.E.: 30-45 min of one-on-one physical fitness (soccer, golf, running, tumbling, dancing, swimming)