Sara and I have a schedule that rarely gets followed exactly. We start school about 10 in the morning.I let Sara pick the subject she wants to start with.In Texas the only subjects we have to teach are reading, writing, spelling, math, good citizenship which seems a joke to me because in public school we cant pray, or say one nation under god. WE PRAY and God IS ALLOWED AT OUR SCHOOLIn fact he is MANDATORY. Sara is an ADDHD .child and we do a lot of hands on activities.We include a lot of extracurricular activities.When Sara was studying Texas history, We discussed the six flags that have ruled over Texas. We studied hard.For her exam I took her to Six Flags and as we went into each section, I would ask her to explain what happened and when.She remembers it. We have gone to breakfast with the zoo keepers at the zoo The State Fair of Texas had a lot of exibits reguarding Science and History. If Sara is having a really bad day I let her trade it for Saturday.We work two hours in the morning, two hours after lunch and two hours in the evening. I try not to overwhelm her and she studies her hardest subject right before bedtime.
Skippy, Really? (hardest subject before bedtime) My kids are so tired before bedtime that having the hardest subject then would get us nowhere. We do our hardest subjects early in the day. It's just worked better for them that way---I've tried all sorts of things. My oldst, now that I'm thinking about it, would probably do fairly well then. Why do you do the hardest subject then?
I give up after lunch and make the rest if any is left be for another day. LOL I am too tired at bedtime. Our schedule depends on the day. We do about 4 1/2 hours a day.
HUH??? Did someone mention my name, LOL? Actually, Deena, we started using it, then Mom took the kids for three days last week, which threw me off. I was thinking of starting it again next week, but Carl doesn't have school on Wednesday (he's got conferences tonight until 9:00, so they're off next Wednesday before Thanksgiving), and then there will be little-to-no learning on Friday with Thursday the holiday. So maybe the week after.... Skippy, my kids would love history if they could learn it at 6 Flags! I was there in the late 70's, back when it was the only 6 Flags, and learned all six of them then (though how the French got there, I really don't understand!) French Spanish Mexican American Confederate Texan (NOT in that order!!!)
One thing I've learned to love about homeschooling is the art of overlapping subjects. Something like unit study on a smaller scale. For example, a writing assignment based on the history lesson; a self-motivated craft project based on the recent science treasure from the library; math facts drilled in a game of tag....I tell the children "Yes, this is school--life is school!" The intentional hours may be small, but the retention is large when the love is abundant! Have your children ever told grandma, "No, we didn't do school today," when you were hard at work making learning fun? lol.
N4Life, you should have seen my 5YO son's 4-H project! The Cloverbuds had done a lesson on ants, and he decided he wanted to do something about ants for the County Fair. So we went to the library, and got out two or three books. He looked in one, found something that REALLY thrilled him, and made it. It was a poster of an ant hill. You drew the hill in marker, with all the chambers. It had a big prune glued on for the Queen Ant, coconut for the eggs, rice for the larvae, beans (or puffed rice) for the pupae, yellow raisins for the newly hatched ants (they're light when newly hatched), and regular raisins for the more mature ants. It was wonderful, and he was SO EXCITED about it!
oh I just saw this.. I've been having a crazy week. to answer your questions... 1. The challenge box is an idea I got from a book of them for like 4th grade. Since Sami is in K I have to make them all up for now. Basicly it's a cardboard box I wrapped in silver shiny wrapping paper and in it I put all the things she needs to complete a "Challenge" for the day. She has to do it all by herself. Generally she wakes up before me in the am so it keeps her busy when I'm asleep. Sometimes I put in a worksheet (She loves worksheets for some odd reason) or a craft she can do herself. Sometimes I'll put in a puzzle or math minulatives with number cards (She'll make tower as high as whatever number I put in). there was a thread around here someplace where I asked for ideas (And got some great ones!) when I started losing my creative streak. I like how it teaches her to think about stuff independantly, I get a cahnce to help her review concepts she already knows, and I don't ever have to wake up at 5am. I also found some cards With reading and research Challenges on them for 2nd - 5th they have stuff like "Help an Alligator!" it talks about endangered species, "french poodles aren't French!", of "The artist had a secret" (Leonardo da Vinci) and then has the student Choose from 4 activites that are related. 2. Oh STEPS is free for anyone. It's ment for Florida teachers but they don't care who uses it. I hadn't thought up a school name when I signedup up so I just put "Homeschool". IT SAYS you can link to other state benchmarks but only florida's have ever worked for me. I can't even read the text in the pdf that New Mexico provides so Sami is following the Florida ones. LOL http://www.ibinder.uwf.edu/steps/welcome.cfm 3. Sigh-L (Not good at writing pronunciations LOL)hmm or I think before I said it was Si (long i) L Lorna we do have fun. Sami dosn't even realize most of it is "School" Only thing she really considers to be work is the 20 min reading lesson. I figure Kinder should be fun... She is still so little.
Syele, I just made little cards for Phillip that would be good for your Challenge Box. I've about 13 or 14 cards for each of three short vowel sounds (a, e, i) that I got off from clip art. I printed them out, then had him cut and glue each of them on a previously-cut half of a 3X5 card. We laminated them. So your "Challenge" would be to have her sort them by vowel sounds. Also, check out a book (if it's still around!) called "Work Jobs". My library had it LONG ago!
I read some where ... Oh yeah It was my psychology class. The brain takes in information all day . what ever you take in before going to sleep absorbs better with less distraction.
Thanks, Syele. That's a neat idea. (BTW, I always thought worksheets were fun, more like a game than "work"! My children like them, too, because they don't have the trouble of copying from books, which can get especially frustrating for my ds.)
Skippy, that makes sense. We like to read some devotional passage before bed because it really seems that whatever we fall asleep thinking about, we wake thinking about--we must have it on our mind all night, huh?!
