Journaling

Most days Gabriel does a journal entry with a picture. It will be a fun keepsake. He writes about some cute and funny things.

Day 61

Teaching to read had been a frustrating venture for me. I'm learning patience in the process. ;) Today we were making creative stories with "at" words and as part of our Saxon math curriculum we're making a pictograph of favorite winter activities.

There are also some things we tend to do every day like he reads Bob books to me, we read to him, we do worksheets that practice letters or letter sounds and usually there's some sort of art or craft.

Day 58 -chess

G has been drawn to chess boards. What little kid doesn't love all those little movable pieces! He's always asking us to play with him at the library. So for Christmas he got a chess board and a children's book to learn chess. So for part of today's lesson we learned about pawns and played a fun little game called pawn wars! Fitting given all the rage with Star Wars these days. The instructions were easy for him to understand and a great way to remember the moves a pawn can make.

Day 57 - a play date and hockey

Yesterday was a relaxed homeschool day. We had a play date with another homeschooling family, and G had hockey practice last night. He is honestly much more coordinated with some fine motor skills rather than gross motor skills often needed for sports, but he has come a long way! In October he fell every 3 seconds on his skates but he didn't get frustrated and give up. I'm super proud of him for that.

Laminate all the things!

I got a sweet deal ($19.99!) on a laminator from amazon before Christmas. I broke it out of the box today and I want to laminate everything. Watch out paper products! haha

We also did some oil pastel drawings today. My 4 - year-old asks to do "homeschooling" some now.

And organizing supplies day 2 - tidy up the colored pencils, crayons and markers!

Math Curriculum

I was a bit nervous teaching math. I worried that I wouldn't teach it is a useful order or that I wouldn't repeat things enough to make it stick. So at the suggestion of a friend we're using Saxon Math. G placed at the kindergarten level so we're working through that. He's going through the material pretty quickly and I think we'll be onto level 1 by the end of the school year. I'm not at all concerned about his level. Saxon K seems very close to the grade 1 public school curriculum. In fact, G is learning things with time and money that my daughter in public school has really only done in grade 3 or 4. So I believe he'll be ahead after one year of homeschool.

My personal review of the product is positive. I feel like it repeats enough for the subjects to stick and G responds to it well. I like that he's also learning to work with a calender, the date, and days of the week in the workbook. I purchased the manipulatives set that is used for several more levels and I'm glad I did. It's easier than finding it all separately.

Curriculums do tend to be pricey. The K level books and the manipulatives were about $200. I'm noticing that you can sometimes get these things used if you know the right homeschooling Facebook groups. 

In the picture were about to have a time lesson and practice cents by pricing and "buying" groceries. 

Day 56 - 2016!

Our tiny homeschool distraction and our homeschooler are at it again in 2016. I'm also doing an online challenge to organize our homeschooling supplies. Since I'm new at it, my supplies are not too messy but it's good to stay on top of it. Today we gathered and sharpened pencils.

Happy Holidays from the Ripley's

Happy Holidays! 

We had a lovely Christmas and a very low key New Year. I rarely made resolutions, but I've been thinking about my goals for homeschooling this year. So here's a couple:

1. Be flexible. If something's not working or causing frustration for myself or my son, move on to something new!

2. Involve my preschooler in a lesson each day.

3. Be at peace with my husband's homeschooling techniques. He's learning and growing in this process as well.

4. Be less type-A. It doesn't seem to work with teaching children... lol