August | 2013 | A Net for Catching Days

Hi All!

So we officially started our school year last Monday. LeeLee is starting Kindergarten while Bash is still in toddler activities.

I thought a long, long time about how I wanted to attack our first year of homeschooling. There are so many methods and curricula out there! For a couple weeks my head was swimming with these words: Unschooling. Classical. Unit Studies. Charlotte Mason. Eclectic. Easy Peasy. Math U See. Abeka. Time4Learning. Life of Fred. Phonics. Sight Words. and on and on and on.

After panicking about it for awhile and, of course, wanting to make the best choice for my family, I finally decided what I wanted to do. I was going to make up my own plan. I guess you can say it’s a combination of the bits and pieces I liked about several different methods. I’m also NOT going to use a curriculum at this time. I really considered purchasing a math curriculum because I was never good at math and the idea of teaching math frightens me, but I convinced myself I can teach the basics and look into a curriculum later on.

So this is what I planned. I had a few obstacles I had to think about when planning our year. Mainly, I have two kids that I babysit three days a week ages 1 and 2. So we are going to have a overall monthly theme in which I will plan activities, read books and sing songs about.

3 days a week: We will do a Kid’s Activity with all FOUR kids. Usually it’s an art project that fits our theme, but occasionally it might be a cooking project, imaginative play, or maybe even a physical activity such as a silly dance. Then once the two kids I babysit (we’ll call them B and C) are napping, LeeLee and I will do some on-on-one activities. We will do something in math, reading and writing and usually an activity or two on our monthly theme. The whole process only takes about 45 minutes to an hour. The first week, Bash has been so interested in what we are doing and was very eager to get involved so now I am going to set aside activities for him so he can get involved in learning time, too!

One day a week: Project Day. I am setting aside one day a week to do some sort of project. Most of the time it will be a science project but sometimes it might be History or Social Studies. Maybe we will build a small community out of cardboard boxes or make a dinosaur diorama. Maybe we’ll build a working volcano. maybe LeeLee will show great interest in how bread is made or how to make butter and we’ll do that.

Friday Free Day: I always have Friday’s off from babysitting. So this will be our free day. Maybe we’ll go to the park or build a fort. Maybe we’ll work on a project. Maybe we’ll read a chapter book or even work on another project. Anything goes.

Weekends: I am reserving weekends for Family time. Lately we’ve been going to the library and visiting a park, but eventually I’d like to plan field trips.

So that is my home school plan for this year.

And this is how our first week went:

Our Theme for August is…

SPACE!

And of course we had to take the obligatory first day of school pics:

First Day of Kindergarten! She aspires to be a Paleontologist!

We made moons out of homemade puff paint. (Shaving cream and glue)

This stuff was fun! But messy….and smelly. Definitely looking for unscented shaving cream next time!

The finished product!

We made our own constellations.

We played several Space-themed games. This is just one of them, a dice-rolling game. We also had a planet matching game and a spelling game.

LeeLee started her Solar System Lapbook. She will be working on this throughout the month, adding pictures and information about the Solar System as we learn about it.