I realize that I share a lot of the fun activities that we do, but I do not often describe our day-to-day schedule. Some may think that we do little that resembles actual school work, so today I want to give a little update on the progress we have made so far.
Hannah is about 1/4 to 1/3 of the way through the Sing, Spell, Read and Write first grade curriculum. She has regular spelling and reading tests and does very well on them. I did a basic online reading assessment with her the other day and discovered that her reading level is 4.7. This means that she is reading as if she were in her seventh month of fourth grade! I am not sure about the accuracy of the online test, but I do know that she reads very well. Last night, for example, she read about half of our Bible story, easily handling many multi-syllable words and recognizing letter patterns that I have not even taught her yet.
In math, we have not done as much, but Hannah has learned to add numbers where the sum equals 1-9, and she can theoretically count up to 999, recognizing the units, tens, and hundreds places. Though she still struggles a bit with handwriting, especially with writing letters backwards, she has improved quite a bit, and all of her writing is legible and good for her age. Additionally, we have done units and activities based on books and interests that she has expressed.
Ben has also been blossoming in his work. He loves to do Sing, Spell, Read and Write, and he has finished through letter K. He actually knows almost all of his letter sounds and is beginning to understand the concept of rhyming. Ben's teacher gushes over his ability to cut with scissors and trace very neatly, and although he has trouble with the lower case e, he can just about write his name independently.
I enjoy homeschooling more each day and love pouring my energy into my kids' education. I do not often detail our daily schedule, because workbook exercises do not make for very good blog posts. But all of us learn and grow a little more every day, through all of the tasks we accomplish, and I like to think that we are closer as a family as well.
Showing posts with label handwriting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label handwriting. Show all posts
Friday, October 3, 2008
Monday, August 18, 2008
And it begins...
We officially began our school year this year on August 3rd. I cannot believe how well Hannah is doing so far! I'll give just a brief overview today and then share more details later.
We started right in on the first grade reading curriculum this year. Hannah can read most of her books on her own now, with limited help from me. I think her preschool teacher will be shocked when she realizes how well she can read this year.
Her teacher will also be surprised when she sees Hannah's handwriting. This is another area in which Hannah has grown tremendously over the summer. Her letters are all recognizable now, with no help from me. She is still working on keeping the letters on the lines and making them face the right direction, but she is doing so much better!
In math, we just started basic addition. She completely gets the concept, but she is still counting to get her answers. Memorization is something that will have to come with time, though.
Finally, we are having a blast with the unit studies. I really don't think Hannah even realizes she is "working" when we do these. We began this year by looking at a globe and talking about water and continents and how the earth rotates on its axis. Then, we identified North America, the United States, and Ohio. Our first major unit is North America, and we are going to be reading books and learning geography and science based on those books.
Because Nana and Bubba traveled to the Grand Canyon this summer, we started by focusing on that. We read a beautifully illustrated kids book called "I See Something Grand," found the Grand Canyon on a map, talked about the animals in the canyon, discussed erosion and how it works, and looked at the pictures from Nana and Bubba's trip. Both kids loved it!
Today, we began one of our major ongoing projects for the year, as well. With lots of help, Hannah covered a large Styrofoam ball with paper mache. Once it dries, she's going to paint it blue, and then we will glue each continent onto the globe she has made as we discuss that continent. Because the core is Styrofoam, we can use straight pins to label the specific locations we focus on. Hannah had a blast getting so messy today! I'll have to take some pictures once the painting begins to demonstrate the work in progress...
Poor Ben... he wants so badly to be involved in whatever Hannah is doing, but he doesn't have the patience for any worksheets quite yet. I am hoping that preschool helps with that a little. He always reads with us, and then, he'll sometimes draw on blank paper or use his safety scissors to cut the paper into a hundred tiny pieces. I know that's good practice for him, since Hannah couldn't use scissors until she was at least 4. He's also become obsessed with his letters. He loves taking a set of laminated cards with letters on them and tracing the letters again and again with a dry erase marker. He actually does a very good job staying on the lines, too!
The poor little guy is such a perfectionist, though! He cries and wants to give up if he's tracing a rectangle and the line is a little wobbly instead of perfectly straight. And he gets mad if his letters don't look exactly right! I keep telling him that he's doing exceptionally well for a 3 year old, and that it takes lots of practice to draw straight lines and perfect letters, but he still gets very distraught. I don't know where he could have gotten that trait... ha, ha.
I'll finish with Hannah's first unassisted journal entry (well... except for adding one apostrophe and having her turn a few of her a's and p's around):
Translation: "I didn't like the roller coaster, but I did like all the other rides at the fair."
We started right in on the first grade reading curriculum this year. Hannah can read most of her books on her own now, with limited help from me. I think her preschool teacher will be shocked when she realizes how well she can read this year.
Her teacher will also be surprised when she sees Hannah's handwriting. This is another area in which Hannah has grown tremendously over the summer. Her letters are all recognizable now, with no help from me. She is still working on keeping the letters on the lines and making them face the right direction, but she is doing so much better!
In math, we just started basic addition. She completely gets the concept, but she is still counting to get her answers. Memorization is something that will have to come with time, though.
Finally, we are having a blast with the unit studies. I really don't think Hannah even realizes she is "working" when we do these. We began this year by looking at a globe and talking about water and continents and how the earth rotates on its axis. Then, we identified North America, the United States, and Ohio. Our first major unit is North America, and we are going to be reading books and learning geography and science based on those books.
Because Nana and Bubba traveled to the Grand Canyon this summer, we started by focusing on that. We read a beautifully illustrated kids book called "I See Something Grand," found the Grand Canyon on a map, talked about the animals in the canyon, discussed erosion and how it works, and looked at the pictures from Nana and Bubba's trip. Both kids loved it!
Today, we began one of our major ongoing projects for the year, as well. With lots of help, Hannah covered a large Styrofoam ball with paper mache. Once it dries, she's going to paint it blue, and then we will glue each continent onto the globe she has made as we discuss that continent. Because the core is Styrofoam, we can use straight pins to label the specific locations we focus on. Hannah had a blast getting so messy today! I'll have to take some pictures once the painting begins to demonstrate the work in progress...
Poor Ben... he wants so badly to be involved in whatever Hannah is doing, but he doesn't have the patience for any worksheets quite yet. I am hoping that preschool helps with that a little. He always reads with us, and then, he'll sometimes draw on blank paper or use his safety scissors to cut the paper into a hundred tiny pieces. I know that's good practice for him, since Hannah couldn't use scissors until she was at least 4. He's also become obsessed with his letters. He loves taking a set of laminated cards with letters on them and tracing the letters again and again with a dry erase marker. He actually does a very good job staying on the lines, too!
The poor little guy is such a perfectionist, though! He cries and wants to give up if he's tracing a rectangle and the line is a little wobbly instead of perfectly straight. And he gets mad if his letters don't look exactly right! I keep telling him that he's doing exceptionally well for a 3 year old, and that it takes lots of practice to draw straight lines and perfect letters, but he still gets very distraught. I don't know where he could have gotten that trait... ha, ha.
I'll finish with Hannah's first unassisted journal entry (well... except for adding one apostrophe and having her turn a few of her a's and p's around):
Translation: "I didn't like the roller coaster, but I did like all the other rides at the fair."
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Hannah's Story
Hannah wrote her first journal entry! I did help quite a bit, by spelling words for her and helping her put her thoughts into sentences. I also helped her out a little with the letters "e" and "s" by putting a few dots on the paper to guide her writing, but other than that, she did this all by herself. Isn't her handwriting improving tremendously? I think she is just about ready to begin the handwriting curriculum I bought. I still may save it until school officially begins in the fall, though.Hannah just loves dandelions! We had hundreds of them, mostly white seeds, in our yard the other day. She ran around blowing on them for quite a while. Then, she tried to pollinate the remaining yellow flowers to make more seeds for another day. It's a shame Daddy had to mow that night, as our lawn was beginning to look like an untended meadow... However, I think we have more dandelions than grass, so I'm sure they will be back in no time!
Thursday, March 6, 2008
Workbook Day
Yesterday was mostly just a fun day for the kids. On Wednesday afternoons, a local high-school girl, who is studying childcare, will be completing part of her internship at our house. She will spend 2 hours a week here, playing with the kids, so I can get some work done! The kids loved having her here, because she spent the whole time building Lincoln Log houses with them. She interacted very well with them, encouraging them to describe what they were building and admiring their work. And, I did a few loads of laundry, washed dishes, completed a logo, and made four scream-free phone calls. I am amazed at how much I can accomplish in just two uninterrupted hours!
Today, we just had a workbook day. Hannah loves practicing letters and going through the pre-K workbooks I bought this year. I've noticed that her handwriting has improved dramatically from just a few weeks ago. We were going through a number book, and she really struggled to write the numbers. I pushed and pushed, because her preschool teacher said her fine motor skills were lagging behind her peers. I could see the frustration in her eyes, and she begged to quit.
Realizing that I had been pushing too hard, I scooped her up into my lap. "Hannah," I said, "You are such a smart girl. You know so many things! But, even when you are smart, you often have to work really hard and practice something again and again until you learn it." I also reminded her about Angelina Ballerina (the title character in the book we read that morning), who loved dancing but still had to practice very hard until she became a star ballerina, and I gave her a huge hug and told her how much I loved her.
We stopped writing that day, but now she begs to practice writing her letters and numbers nearly every day we do preschool. In fact, I usually have to make her stop after doing several pages, because I can see her getting tired, and I reward her hard work with a bunch of fun workbook pages that challenge her to think but don't require much fine motor work. Additionally, I see how much genuine praise encourages her, so I give her stars and celebrate when she takes her time and prints her letters nicely. Today, as she worked, she kept showing me which letters she thought merited stars - and she was usually correct!
Today, we just had a workbook day. Hannah loves practicing letters and going through the pre-K workbooks I bought this year. I've noticed that her handwriting has improved dramatically from just a few weeks ago. We were going through a number book, and she really struggled to write the numbers. I pushed and pushed, because her preschool teacher said her fine motor skills were lagging behind her peers. I could see the frustration in her eyes, and she begged to quit.
Realizing that I had been pushing too hard, I scooped her up into my lap. "Hannah," I said, "You are such a smart girl. You know so many things! But, even when you are smart, you often have to work really hard and practice something again and again until you learn it." I also reminded her about Angelina Ballerina (the title character in the book we read that morning), who loved dancing but still had to practice very hard until she became a star ballerina, and I gave her a huge hug and told her how much I loved her.
We stopped writing that day, but now she begs to practice writing her letters and numbers nearly every day we do preschool. In fact, I usually have to make her stop after doing several pages, because I can see her getting tired, and I reward her hard work with a bunch of fun workbook pages that challenge her to think but don't require much fine motor work. Additionally, I see how much genuine praise encourages her, so I give her stars and celebrate when she takes her time and prints her letters nicely. Today, as she worked, she kept showing me which letters she thought merited stars - and she was usually correct!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)