what we're up to
All other drama aside, I have to say homeschooling can be creative and fun - plus there's a satisfaction in conversing with my kid at a level beyond anything the public school could give him.
Take math, for example. Most kindergartners are learning to write numbers and circle the picture of duckies that match the number. Mine has completed units in time, money, fractions, and regrouping (borrowing and carry-over addition/subtraction) and is beginning multiplication and decimals. And he likes it (as long as you let him think it's his idea).
So anyway - to focus on the good stuff (and because pictures are fun) here's a picture collage of what
SCIENCE
I picked astronomy (or "earth in space") to ease us into science because it's always been a favorite of mine. We learned about the sun and the solar system:
We did the University of Delaware Planet Walk
We studied the moon:
New Moon
Waxing Crescent
Full Moon
Waning Half
Waning Crescent
We learned about maps and globes:
and used our homemade globe and golfball moon to demonstrate rotation and revolution.
For language arts, we plowed through pages and pages of phonics workbooks until Mommy finally decided it was busy work that was just pussyfooting around the real objective of learning to spell. Now we've moved on to good, old-fashioned spelling units, incorporating handwriting practice, phonics, spelling, definitions and contextual readings. But that doesn't make for good pictures, so here is some of the Kinglet's fun reading:
Independent Reading:
Read-together:
(As parents, we're a little concerned about Roald Dahl and Lemony Snickett and their influence over young minds... but they do capture a young boy's attention. <.<)
For history, we learned about the bloody origins of St. Valentine's Day and celebrated with not-so-bloody hearts:
and on President's Day we discussed the Revolutionary War (England and America, what is a king, reasons we went to war) and the requisite George Washington story. Here I also discovered the merits of the youtube library:
(My favorite)
(The Kinglet's favorite)
Other projects from our budding engineer:
birdhouse (shop class with the_godking
Person Trap - for unwary patrons at the local library
video game design (just one of hundreds - literally, hundreds)
ketchup art (he asks me to take pictures of the weirdest things. dunno.)
Huzzah.
Take math, for example. Most kindergartners are learning to write numbers and circle the picture of duckies that match the number. Mine has completed units in time, money, fractions, and regrouping (borrowing and carry-over addition/subtraction) and is beginning multiplication and decimals. And he likes it (as long as you let him think it's his idea).
So anyway - to focus on the good stuff (and because pictures are fun) here's a picture collage of what
SCIENCE
I picked astronomy (or "earth in space") to ease us into science because it's always been a favorite of mine. We learned about the sun and the solar system:
We did the University of Delaware Planet Walk
We studied the moon:
New Moon
Waxing Crescent
Full Moon
Waning Half
Waning Crescent
We learned about maps and globes:
and used our homemade globe and golfball moon to demonstrate rotation and revolution.
For language arts, we plowed through pages and pages of phonics workbooks until Mommy finally decided it was busy work that was just pussyfooting around the real objective of learning to spell. Now we've moved on to good, old-fashioned spelling units, incorporating handwriting practice, phonics, spelling, definitions and contextual readings. But that doesn't make for good pictures, so here is some of the Kinglet's fun reading:
Independent Reading:
Read-together:
(As parents, we're a little concerned about Roald Dahl and Lemony Snickett and their influence over young minds... but they do capture a young boy's attention. <.<)
For history, we learned about the bloody origins of St. Valentine's Day and celebrated with not-so-bloody hearts:
and on President's Day we discussed the Revolutionary War (England and America, what is a king, reasons we went to war) and the requisite George Washington story. Here I also discovered the merits of the youtube library:
Click to view(My favorite)
(The Kinglet's favorite)
Other projects from our budding engineer:
birdhouse (shop class with the_godking
Person Trap - for unwary patrons at the local library
video game design (just one of hundreds - literally, hundreds)
ketchup art (he asks me to take pictures of the weirdest things. dunno.)
Huzzah.