(Lack of) Cozy Book Corner

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I have been tyring to find some special "reading nook" in our house since my kids were born. You know, a secret little cozy corner with cute kid-sized chairs and a bakset of books. Somehow, it just never works out and my kids always end up here in this oversized chair that gets moved all over the house because it doesn't really fit anywhere. It is pretty cozy!

My favorite part of reading in our house is our "nonfiction" section. All (okay, almost all) of the books are labeled and the kids are always taking (and putting back) books off of these shelves. This system has saved so much of the "Well, I know we have a book about that somewhere.....", proceeded by tearing apart all the bookshelves to find that one book!

Weekly Wrap-Up - Konos Style

Check out other weekly wrap-up at Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers

This was our first official week homeschooling! We are studying Attentiveness ala Konos. We learned all about the ear....



Then found some parts to make our own crawl through ear.....

Enjoyed some lunch in the ear.....

We also made some signs for our Attentiveness unit study. If it ever stops raining here (actually, I am very grateful for the rain right now) we are going to take our signs outside and make an obstacle course for the powerwheels.

It was a great week. We (okay, mostly I) learned a lot. I have a whole list of changes to make this weekend!

Draw IT!

This is a fun little reading game that both boys can play together!

I wrote several words on index cards, Dylan reads them silently and then draws the word. Nathan gets to guess what he is drawing. I am excited to try out all the variations of this game!

The Reading Tree

Dylan is excited about The Reading Tree we made last week so I thought I would share. It really has him motivated to read independently! I told him when he read 30 books and put 30 apples on the tree we could go visit "the RAT," also known as Chuck E Cheese. (I'm excited about the reading....not so thrilled about the rat.)

I Have a Plan (for now)

This is going to be our first year homeschooling. We have always tried to create a "learning is fun" environment, but this is the first year I have a plan. And really, don't you find it a wee bit snarky when someone says, "We have been homeschooling since birth." I don't know, I just call that parenting.

I really want to avoid placing grade labels on my children, but I just don't know how to get around it. So this is the plan for Dylan and Kindergarten. Nathan and Logan are just going to tag along, nothing more than a learning rich environment.

We are going to use the following as tools. I refuse to be slave to curriculum or be fixated on finishing every page it the book. When we grasp a concept, we will move on and review using games and hands on activities. We are not going to be "school at home" homeschoolers!

Science, History, Language Arts, Practical Life, Arts and Crafts: KONOS....love it! The Fall semester will be studying Ears, Sound, Music, Nutrition, Exercise, Rest, Fun, Money, Talents, Careers and Kings and Queens. I am so excited! KONOS is a hands on, multilevel unit study approach based on character traits. You can't get much better than that! The author, Jessica Hulcy, is an amazing teacher and the mother of 4 boys so she knows her stuff!

Math: Math U See Primer. He is really ready for Alpha, but I am waiting for the new edition to come out. Also, our KONOS UNIT has a section on Money/Talents/Careers so we will use that time to learn about money. I love Math U See because of it's hands on, mastery approach.

Phonics: I think we will continue to go through The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading. We have never used the book as intended, instead we use it more like a checklist of what we have covered and what we need to work on. The Primary Phonics readers are very nice. They feel like a real book and the stories are substantial. We also have A BEKA and BOB books that I am sure we will use at some point. For Phonics workbooks, we will finish (and I use that work loosely) ETC 3 and Primary Phonics 2. I am not sure where we will go after that, but right now I am leaning towards A BEKA Letter and Sounds 1.

Writing: We will write in our journals observations about the real world, compose letters to friends and maybe some KONOS related copy work towards the end of the year.

Music: cello

Dylan will still take his art classes.


I think that is it. I am curious to see how much my "plan" will change over the year.

Meet Our Newest Family Members

ABCs of Trees

We went to another program, The ABC's of Trees, at Spring Valley. It was very miserable, rainy day to be outside and take long walks with Kindergarten age kids and their tag along siblings. The children were real troopers though and got to see some really great first signs of Spring. (Which, by the way, can't come fast enough for me!) After our walk the kids got to come inside the toasty nature center for some activities. They created leaf rubbings, learned about the water cycle, listened to a puppet show and discovered the things trees need to grow and why they are important. And most importantly, they got to see their box turtle friend! The box turtle is their favorite because, unlike the other turtles at the Nature Center, the box turtle is very well camouflaged in the prairie grasses. The boys love the challenge of finding him.

I WIll Survive, Homeschool Style

More of the RootVue Farm

Still Growing!

Spring is in the Air....

Not really, but the recent heat wave (of like, 40) made us decided to break out our RootVue farm. 3 days ago, we prepared the soil (it is cute to see Dylan explain Oxygen and "Carmon Doxide" to Nathan) and planted. Sure enough today there were the beginnings of a radish....

Our Little Plant
Journaling our observations.

It has roots!

Early Settler Life

Today we had the opportunity to visit Spring Valley Nature Center and lean how pioneers made food. Boy, am I glad I am not a Pioneer! Our group of homeschoolers got to a nice (long) walk out to the log cabin to do all of the activities including making apples sauce and cornbread over an open fire! Dylan was tremendously impressed by all of the machines they used to shell corn and make corn meal. I had no idea that early settlers and Native Americans used a clam shell to "shell" corn. Who knew? He gave a try at shelling the corn with the clam shell but quickly opted for the machine.

Butter Churning

Shelling Corn to......

Make corn meal to....

make corn bread!!!

Making apple sauce.

Valentine's Day

Unsocialized (seriously, why on earth do people think that, we haven't even started yet and I hear it ALL the time), anyway, unsocialized homeschoolers, have a Valentine's Day party.

Money

Money War

This has been all the rage around here today.

It is a good old fashioned game of war. Two players each are dealt an equal number of cards. Both players turn over one card at a time, the player with the highest value wins those cards. The player who ends up with all of the cards is the winner.

I used money stickers and pocket chart cards to make this. Simple! I also used a printout from the 1+1+1 blog.

I started rather simple, just pennies, nickles, dimes and quarters; but Dylan mastered the coin names and denominations right after a few games. Today, I added pennies to some of the nickle cards and I think I'll double some of the coins for tomorrow.

Sorting Coins

I left the tray out today to see what would happen and both boys worked on it a few times, together.

Here is how it looked at the end of the day......

Number Fish

We need a little variation as I think I have played the snowman game 1 too many times, make that 100 too many times. So I made a variation of a math game from Montessori Journey. And of course ours uses....fish. This has been great since Nathan can play the game with no issues.

I game board made from fish stickers and old folder files. We used goldfish crackers for the game pieces, although I might pick up some shells from the dollar store if I get a chance. I modified the dice so that once 1, 2 and 3 are options.

Each player rolls the dice and then covers that number of fish. Once the fish are covered that player wins and of course my guys ate the goldfish. Snack and a game at the same time, perfect!

However, the Snowman Game is still the most requested game in our house.

A Routine, So Refreshing!

Don't get me wrong, I love the hustle and bustle of the holidays, but it is so nice to be back to the life we live the other 11 months of the year. So back to the norm for us. I set out activities and the boys do them at their leisure. Both boys were so excited when they saw all of the activities set up downstairs.

In keeping with out fish theme, we played a new fish reading game today. DMan chooses a fish with a word on it and then puts him in the fish bowl with the coresponding picture. I use this game with my violin students all of the time, except I use a bucket and fishing rod and let them actually fish, but that just doesn't work with a curious baby around. I think DMan will get a kick out of that. I'll have to give the fishing pole version a try when Logan is napping.

DMan was helping Nathan "read" the fish. Too cute. (He also demonstrated pooping on the potty to NatMan. I am really hoping that NatMan catches on to that lesson.)

Also I placed out the Unifix cubes, but only had one black, two burgundy, three orange, etc. I set out all of the cubes in a pile, not stacked. I was sort of curious to see what DMan would do with them. Turns out, he used them the same way he does the cuisenaire rods, first he stacked them and then placed them from zero to nine. He wanted the cubes to stand up, so he went and found some blocks to support his "steps". It is so nice that he works through problems on his own now instead of throwing himself on the ground out of frustration like he would have done a couple months ago. Okay, he still throws himself on the ground, but it has gotten much better.

Then he ran off with the cubes and used them as part of a tower.

And a road, with bridges and slides and traps....

I have debated starting some letter of the week program with NatMan, but I think I am going to hold off for now. Perhaps we'll start after his birthday. I think him not knowing his letters is an issue is best solved with time. So we'll see how things are going then. Right now he is just happy to do all of the activities with DMan.