Week 1

 We finished our first week of homeschooling.  I feel like it's better than virtual but I still worry about doing enough.  I think that's the big question that I won't really be able to answer until he returns to public school and we see grades.  Anyways here is our week.

Math-He compled a placement test.  He technically didn't pass it but some was terminology.  With a few explanations was able to pass it.  We're doing Teaching Textbooks level 6.  He got a 95% the first day so I encouraged him to just answer the questions and get a few lessons done the next day.  He got 75% on two lessons.  So day three he went back and rewatched the video then re-answered the questions he got wrong.  He got a 95% on both.  Today he did lesson 4 and got a 75%.  I had him try again on questions he got wrong and he got a 95%.  I am a little nervous it's too high for him because he only barely passed the placement test and he is not finding the early lessons super easy.  However I feel like this is the level he needs to complete to be ready for 6th grade so worst case we'll have to explain things to him.

ELA-There is so much to this subject!  We're reading Johnny Termain and we got a guided reading packet for it.  He's not really enjoying the book and having trouble remembering details.  I think I'm going to try to do reading in the afternoon and have him read during independent time on Monday.  I hope this helps him be able to recall details better.  I just got the writing curriculum and we were able to do three days of it.  I like the curriculum but he's way behind on grammar so I'm going to need to expand on that part.  I'm also nervous about how much he'll write when the time comes.  We're back to doing All About Spelling almost daily.  I love this curriculum because it's easy and straightforward.

Science-We did two short days of Science.  I need to figure out a schedule for everything to make sure we're hitting all our necessary subjects regularly without feeling so rushed!

Social Studies-We learned about the French and Indian war.  If nothing else he learned a lot in this subject.  We read about different perspectives too and I think that helped him better understand it.  We're now watching a documentary about it.

Health- We did health last Friday.  That will probably be it for a little while.  We learned about fats in foods and nutrition in general.

Music-Our amazing friend who does lessons gave him an assessment.  We should be good here.

Art-He decided to create a scene from a book in Minecraft.  Not sure if this counts.  We talked about learning about photography.

PE-We're doing football and soccer.  He's going to compare them at some point next week.

Overall I feel overwhelmed but we're covering a lot.  I do need to start working in time for me to exercise again.

Homeschooling

It's been forever since I blogged but I'm undertaking a new adventure and wanted to document it.  Because of Covid Patrick (10) will be homeschooled.  Virtual learning just wasn't working for him and giving him headaches.  My two girls (8 and 5) will be continuing with virtual.  My two year old also does virtual but with occasional in person and I supplement a lot at home mostly to keep him busy.  Now that I've caught up let's discuss curriculum plans.  I start Monday.

ELA

I really had trouble deciding.  We're definitely doing AAS because I got it to supplement and love it.  He's almost done AAS3 and we only started in May with level one.  I also think WriteShop will be a good fit for us.  Writing is an area of weakness.  I'm also doing a novel study with Johnny Termain.  I got a guided reading packet on Teacherspayteachers.com.   And for additional grammar or gaps parts of The Good and the Beautiful.  

Math 

We're going to try Teaching Textbooks with math games to supplement.  We'll start with a free trial so this is subject to change.

Science 

He wants to do Chemistry.  I got a course from Easy Peasy.  I also got some books from the library to supplement.

Social Studies 

American Revolution is up first starting with the French Indian war.  I have Story of the World to help guide us but this one is pretty piecemeal.  I may eventually break down and buy something on teacherspayteachers.com but for now I'm just using free things.

Health

I'm hoping to do a little lesson on fats and nutrition for all my kids tomorrow.  After that we'll be learning about the brain with plans for him to build one on Minecraft.

Music 

Private trombone lessons have this one covered.

Art

I got a lot of books about art history.  I'm going to let him pick artists to imitate or write about.  

PE

We're going to start with a soccer/football unit.  Followed by archery.  No real long term plans for this one.  

I really enjoyed looking back at all the things we did when he was little.  He's not as into pictures so expect less.  I might put something together about my youngest too.  

P is for Pilgrim

 For more tot school ideas check out the gathering.  Last week we did P is for Pilgrim with the big theme obviously being Thanksgiving.  We read two books this week one being a book about the first Thanksgiving that I paraphrased the entire book and really we just used the pictures.  Patrick really liked the boat.  We also read Thanks for Thanksgiving by Julie Markes.  We talked about what we were thankful for a lot.  At school Patrick said watching television but I got a few better ones like me, which was really sweet. 

We got a lot of our worksheets from 1+1+1=1.  Patrick did really well with the color by number turkey.  I was really impressed that he did so well with it since he has only recently really started learning his numerals.  Another favorite activity (in the picture) was using cotton balls as pretend cool whip from Mudpies and Makeup.  He did really well until we reached the number eight then let me do nine and ten.  He's really come a long way though with numbers because just a couple months ago he would have struggled with all of them. 

Q is for Quarterback

  For more tot school ideas check out the gathering.  Q is a very difficult letter.  There aren't many words that start with it so we've done Q is for quarterback for two years now.  It's really just a week of a football theme.  I don't have any really great pictures this week since my son has decided that he doesn't want his picture taken. 

This week we did a lot of activities from 3 Dinosaurs.  He really enjoyed the coloring the footballs.  Recently he's taken more of an interest in cutting so he's been randomly cutting paper a lot.  I'm hoping this will help his emerging scissor skills.
Awhile ago I got some stickers in the mail with helmets for all the NFL teams.  We used those this week to practice his fine motor skills.  We also read My Football Book by Gail Gibbons and his T is for Touchdown book.  He also got a history lesson about the Greatest Game ever played from my husband who is a football nut. 
I've really wanted to start doing sight words and we did some work on the word the.  We also worked on Patrick's name using the tiles and putting in the letters.  He is awesome at matching the letters but I'm not sure if he's completely understanding the whole idea that these are words.

Baby School at 16 months

We were really busy this month with lots of things to do at home and outside of the house.  We had a lot of fun.  Here are some of the fun educational things my 16 month old enjoyed.

 

We got out our fall sensory bin.  It's seen lots of use this past month and we'll continue to play with it until December.  She definitely prefers the sensory bins involving rice to the leaves and beans.  But she has fun dumping it out.

We're working on teacher her the various parts of her body.  A simple fun game we play together is to put the leaf on various parts and sing a little song "The leaf is on your _____, the leaf is on your ______"

 

As I mentioned we've not been just staying at home.  Here she is enjoying a jumping pillow at a local farm fall festival.  She had a hard time staying up on it but she loved it!

We also visited the zoo.  She really likes turtles.  I think they're her favorite animal.

We played a lot with our homemade orange Halloween play doh.  I found the recipe here.  We really enjoyed it however I don't think I added enough seasoning because it didn't smell different from regular play doh. 

Somebody gave my son giant coins for Halloween when he was trick or treating.  Mary loved sticking them into a wipe container.  I tried to get her to attempt to get them out again by sticking her hand in but she was not interested in it at all.

Random day where she didn't nap and we were trying to find some stuff that she could quietly play with while her bother took his first nap in six months (figures she did not nap that day!).  The eggs are actually his for matching upper and lower case letters but she had fun just trying to take them apart and put them together.  She wasn't able to do it but it was fun and since she doesn't use her hands together frequently a good way to practice that skill.

J is for Jedi

This week we did a Star Wars theme with our letter theme being J is for Jedi.  For more tot school ideas check out the gathering.  Our big exciting development is a portable desk to allow with more flexibility with our location.  Patrick loves his new desk!  Most of this week focused on this pack from Homeschool Creations.  He particularly enjoyed making the book about the star fighter.

 

 

I put a highlighter into his desk and he's been really into using it for completing his activities this week.  He pretty much did no writing with anything but the highlighter.

 

We also did some shaving cream play this week.  He was supposed to write his letters in it but he wasn't interested in that so we just played with it.  He really enjoyed the sensory experience.  It didn't go so well for my daughter though and we had to call poison control because she ate a handful of it super quickly.  Luckily she was fine.

H is for Halloween

We've been busy and I forgot to post our Halloween activities.  There aren't a ton of pictures since my delightful son has decided that he doesn't want his picture taken a lot recently.

We did candy corn math.  Last year Patrick struggled with this activity but this year he did great with it.  He did have some trouble lining up the candy corn correctly and I should have gotten him some candy corn for a reward/to see it since I don't think he knew what I was talking about with it.

I found these skeletons last year they're kind of bendy and he LOVED sorting them by color.  I think he must have sorted them over twenty times during the week.  He had so much fun doing it and we've reached the point that sorting colors is super easy.  He also used the chip dip bowl to sort, which I think was more fun then just piles or last year putting them on the correct color construction paper. 

We got out the sensory bin I made last year for Halloween.  It was fun for him.