Merry Christmas

In the words of my five year old, "Best Christmas ever."

Just a quick reading update. A couple of times this week Jenna has taken it upon herself to pick up a book and just start reading. I love the fact that she is doing this on her own. And she read to her dad (most of the time she only wants to read to me and no one else). This is a step in the right direction when it comes to reading. I am very proud of her once again.

Plans for the second half the school year

Looking forward to the second half of our school year. I will be adding some grammer, writing, vocabulary and spelling to Jenna's language arts. I have been looking into some reading material for her reading level. I have a list started on my amazon wish list. We will also be studying prehistory and geography.






Here is a look at what we will be using



Grammer - first language lessons



writing - writing with ease



spelling - spelling workout



vocabulary - wordly wise



reading - mid to advance 2nd grade level

Explode the code workbook 3 and then move on to the next





Math - Horizons book K 2



Writing - Handwriting without tears 1st grade



history - prehistory - The Usborne Internet-linked Encylopedia of World history, charlies playhouse timeline, lots of books and hands on actvities. I got alot of great ideas from this blog http://satorismiles.com/curriculum/prehistory/lesson-1/



Geography - Evan Moor beginning geography - Around the world coloring book - Geography from A-Z - maps and globes and lots of books on relating to the country we are learning about.





Art - Artistic Pursuit The way they see it



I will slowly be adding the new subjects to her schedule. And at this point I am unsure of how many times a week we will be doing each subject. I am just going to take it slow and easy.

mid year assessment for Jenna's K4

Last week before we went on break, I did a mid year assessment on Jenna. The results were great. It's unbelievable where she was at when we started the last week of July and where she is at now.

Math - She started out in the beginning of the year knowing how to count to 20. Writing numbers 1-10 (but had some reversals here and there).
           
She now knows how to count to 100 and to count by 2's, 5's and 10's.

She can write numbers beyond 100 with no reversals.

She learned how to add and subtract using the number line, but is now adding and subtracting without the number line.

 She can tell time on the clock at an hour, quarter after and half an hour.

 She also recognizes 1/2 and 1/4 and knows how to write it.

She recognizes all the coins, how much they are worth and can add them up individually with no problem. She has mastered any coin with a penny added to it. She has her nickels being added to any coin almost mastered. And we are working on the dime being added to the quarter which she is working on mastering.

These have been some big math milestones for her. I am very proud of  her. We both love using Horizon for math and will continue to use it for the next level of math as well.

Reading - She started of the year reading cvc and some consonant blends.

 We added Ordinary Parents Guide To Reading (which we both loved using) and her reading just took off.

She finished up right before her 5th birthday in November. She is now reading books at a high 2nd grade level. She read all the Arthur chapter books that I had on hand.

She is now working on her fluency which is getting better everyday. And for review I have her doing Explode the code. I tried Explode the code at the beginning of the year and she did not like it. I put it away and pulled it back out last month. She now says she is liking it. We finished up book 2 right before our break. We will continue with the other workbooks after our break.

I have been coming up with a good list of books to give her a challenge when it comes to her school reading. And when it comes to night time reading, I let her pick out whatever she wants. I am a big believer in reading outloud, her to me and me to her. I have not given her independent reading as of yet. But she has done it on her own here and there.

 I never expected her to be done with her phonics program in k-4 and reading at a high 2nd grade level. I am beyond proud of her achievement in reading.

Writing- Jenna taught herself how to write. Her letter formation wasn't very good, she started from the bottom instead of the top. She had some reversals.

We started using Handwriting without tears in the beginning of the year. I had some resistance to the program in the beginning, but as soon as she started to see some improvement all was good. After about 5 weeks I seen such dramatic results. Her letter formation was correct, reversal were very rare and the neatness of her writing was very good for being 4.  As time went on we moved from the k book to the 1st grade book (which she is using still). I am very pleased with Handwriting without tears.

She now has penpals and is able to write alot of sentences at a time. She grasped the concept of a complete sentence without any formal instruction. For the most part she starts sentences with a capital letter and knows to use punctuation. She loves to write stories in her free time.

Spelling- Well we started off using Evan moor 1st grade spelling, she was able to spell alot of the words, but was too young for some of the worksheets. So we ditched it. I think she has learned to spell more words just in her everday writing. We will be starting a spelling program after break.

Jenna has made excellent progress in all her subjects and I love homeschooling her. I am proud to be apart of her everyday achievements academically and in everyday life.

90 days of school done and it is time for our December break

Well a break is much needed around here. Jenna has accomplished so much in the last 90 days of school. 

Our tree is up, but not decorated. We wil be working on our Christmas decorating and crafting next week.

Math - Horizon K book 2 -  She is doing very well with this program. She only has 30 lessons left and then she will be done with the K level.

Reading - She has been reading a t school time and at night. Explode the code book 2 is done. We will move on to the next book in January.

Writing - Handwriting without tears 1st grade - Her writing is coming along good for only being 5.

Spelling - We have been using the words for Explode the code book 2 for spelling. She can spell all the words with no problem at all.

I am very happy with everything we have used for school this year.

Short week

This was a short week. One more full week of school and then we will be taking a break. Well sort of, Jenna will continue to read everyday and have a quick math review here and there. But the rest of our days will be filled with christmas decorating, crafting, baking,and enjoying a much needed break.She is very excited to get our christmas tree up and decorated.




Math- Horizon k book 2 - We did two pages this week and some review. So we are up to lesson 129.



Reading - Wow, she is really becoming fluent with her reading. She is now able to read an entire book in a short amount of time. She worked on a couple of lessons in ETC book 2. We will be finishing this up and will start a new ETC book after the holidays.



Writing - She did a couple of pages in Hand writing without tears 1st grade book.



We read a bunch of Thanksgiving books this past week.



Jenna has been very busy writing stories. I am impressed with what she is able to spell on her own and the way she always has the right punctuation. Most of the time she has a capital at the beginning of the sentence as well. And her drawings are really good, she didn't get her drawing ability from me.

4 day week and my little girl turned 5!

Sunday night after Jenna went to sleep, I decorated the house for her birthday. I put up streamers, balloons, the family wrote birthday messages on pink posted notes and made her a sign for her door. She was very excited when she woke up. I gave her the day off from school. We played all day.




Math - Horizon K book2 - we did two lessons this week and review on the other days. She is on lesson 126. We are still reviewing money and working on understanding adding quarters with dimes. She hasn't grasped that concept yet.



Reading - Lots of reading going on. She is also working on ECT book2 for review. She did two lessons this week. She also did a couple of pages from her school zone grade 1-3 phonics workbook.



Writing - Handwriting without tears - I only had her do a couple of pages this week.



That is all we did this week. I think she is ready for a break. Next week will be a short week. Then maybe a couple of weeks in December, then we will be on our Christmas break. We will be working on christmas gift making and crafting in December.

Week 16 - An amazing week and my daughters last school week of being 4 years old.

This is the last school week that my daughter will be 4 years old. Monday my little girl will be turning 5.

Jenna finished Ordinary Parents Guide To Teaching Reading this week. I am so proud of my little girl. She was very excited and proud of herself, as well. We had a pizza hut pizza and breadsticks celebration in honor of her achievement. She also received an award and some balloons. She is reading her Arthur chapter books and couldn't be happier.




Math - Horizon book 2 - We are now on lesson 124, reviewing telling time to quarter after the hour, some subtraction using the number line(some she uses the number line and others she gets without using it), some money review(we do our own money review too, the only thing she needs to work on is adding quarters and dimes together), and working with place value. She also has been working on her addition facts, 2's and 3's (2's are almost mastered) and 1's and 2's subtraction.



Reading - OPGTR is now done. She has filled that spot with reading her chapters books aloud to me during school. She is also doing some phonic worksheets from a school zone phonics grade 1-3. And we pulled out Explode the Code book 2 (she didn't like doing this at the beginning of the year), but now she likes it. I think this will be a good phonics review for her. I plan on using all the workbooks, as long as she continues to like them. And of course we have our night time reading. At the end of each month she gets an ice cream treat for reading the entire month.



Writing - Handwriting without tears - We continue to do this four times a week. And now that we are using explode the code, we get some extra writing practice. She looks forward to cursive, but I am trying to hold her off until first grade.



She was still sick this week with a cold, so we just stuuck to the basics. Starting next week we will be talking about Thanksgiving and hopefully get some fun crafting done.

Week 15 ( 74 days, so far)

We stuck to just the basics this week. My little girl was not feeling good for most of the week. By thursday she had the flu and was out of commision for the whole day. She missed her first day of school.

This is what she did this week

Math- Horizon k book 2 - lesson 120 - she only has 40 lessons left in the book. She does very well with this math program. It looks like she will be doing the first grade horizons sometime this school year. She also did her addition math facts 1's and 2's. And her subtration math facts 1's. Money review for our coins, she still gets messed up sometimes when finding the total amount when quarters and other coins are added.

Reading - Ordinary parents guide to teaching reading - She is doing great, She has 15 lessons to go. She is excited to be almost done with her phonic lessons. She reached one of her goals this week, she was able to read her first Arthur chapter book. We took turns reading it. I am so amazed and proud of my little girl. When we are done with our phonic lessons, we are going to review using some phonic worksheets and some white board word fun that she is making up for us to use as review.

Writing- She only did a couple of handwriting without tears pages this week.

Spelling- We played our spelling ball game(if you miss catching the ball, then you have to spell a word). I had her spelling words with the silent e. She spelled them all right. She learned her first spelling rule. That all words have at least one vowel. I am going to have her write spelling rules in a spelling notebook, once I get her one that is.

Other than I just read her some of her favorite books and snuggled with her on the couch. She now seems to be getting a cold. So I am not sure what this coming week will include besides the basics.

week 14

Another week that flew by way too fast. Jenna made Halloween cards, Jackalatern magnets and shrinky dink pumpkins to give out as gifts. We also did some Halloween crafting for our house. It seems like Tuesdays have been our big crafting day each week. She went to her first Halloween party this past week. She was so excited and had alot of fun. Halloween is tomorrow and she can't wait. Pumpkins are now turned into Jackalanterns. She made her's into a vampire.

This is what we did this week in school

Math- Horizon k book 2 - We are up to lesson 118. She is working on counting by 3's which isn't easy for her, so we will make sure to keep reviewing this, lots of subtraction(which she loves alost) and addition. Tens and ones place value. She was introduced to quarters which she already knows what they are worth. But we still struggle some when finding the total amount when quarters and dimes or nickels are mixed in. All in all she is doing very well.

Reading - Ordinary parents guide to teaching reading - She is on lesson 195, but we are going to review some of the previous lessons as well. We started reading some of the advanced progressive phonic books and reading books that we have on hand. I was looking at some of the future lessons and realize that she is already reading some of those words as well, so it will make doing some of those lessons easier for us. She is doing so well, I never expected to be this far along in the phonic lessons. When we started school the end of July she was just reading some cvc words, and now she is reading way beyond that. We are going to have a big celebration when we finish all her phonic lessons.

Spelling- We formally stopped doing spelling, but she still learns how to spell new words through her everyday and school writing. We will be using Ordinary parents guide to teaching reading and spelling rules come the first of the year. This will be our spelling program that we will be using. I don't want her just memorizing a list of words each week. I want her to know the spelling rules as well.

Writing - I did a writing assesment this past week. I had her print all the capital and lower case on lined paper. She did very well, she formed all her letters the right way and for the most part they were very neat. She also did some pages from her handwriting without tears 1st grade book. Pen pals have been neglected, so she will get back to writing them next month. I plan on her writing alot more next week.

A new month will be starting next week. We plan on learning about pumpkins, owls and continue with our fall projects.

65 days of school so far

This week went by way too fast. We didn't get everything done that we wanted to, but that's okay. Jenna was so cute the other day in school. I was teaching her a math lesson and she said, "you are such a good teacher, mommy". That just made my day.

Well here is what we did this past week

Math - We are still working on subtraction using the number line. But being the smarty pants that she is, she likes to try it without the number line first. Same thing when it comes to adding numbers like 82 + 6, she tries doing it herself before using the number line. And most of the time she gets the answers right. We have been relaxed on learning her addition facts, we are slowly working on the 3 facts. And we are learning to count by 3's which isn't going to be an easy task. All in all, I am very pleased with the Horizon k book 2 we are using.

Reading - Ordinary Parents Guide To Teaching Reading - We finished up the lessons with controll r words, but we are going to keep reviewing more she seems to have some problems with some of the words. Most she can get, but some she just can't seem to grasp. We started compound words which she is doing great with. And as I preview some future upcoming lessons, she knows alot of upcoming words from our reading. I do try to teach the phonics rule when we stumble upon words we haven't learned, but the lessons will be good reinforcement. We also have been reading everynight as well. My goal is to have her continue reading with me and to start reading independently by the beginning of next year.

Writing - We are still working on our 1st grade Handwriting without tears book. Other than that, we didn't do much school writing. But jenna did some free time writing, she made a book. All of her sentences were complet sentences, I was so proud of her.

Fall fun - We painted pumpkins, made paper bag pumpkins, halloween picture and fall picture. Also we made some cute papertowel owls. Jenna loves to play with them, she also made a scene for them.

It was a very good week.

12 th week done

Today we went and bought some pumpkins (4 little and 2 big). We will be using the little pumpkins for school next week.

 I also was busy yesterday, the fall and farm wall is all done. On the Farm wall, I have the saying Down On The Farm and posted all of Jenna's work. And on the Fall wall, I have the saying Fall -tastic,  a tree with falling leaves, pumpkins and Jenna's fall work so far.

We had a good week of school.

Math - Horizon k book 2 - Jenna finally seems to understand which numbers are odds and which are evens. She also learned more about telling time, she was introduced to the half past the hour. And started learning about halves. And she started subtraction, which she really enjoyed. There was also some review of previous learned material. We try to do 4 days of Horizon and one day of just review. We will be starting lesson 108 next week. I really love this math program and so does Jenna.

Reading - OPGTR - Another good week, she is improving daily. We both love OPGTR and it is so easy to use. She is on lesson 154, which is the  R controlled words. We finished up the silent letters in the previous lessons. She has also been reading daily, I try to find her stories with somewhat of a challenge, but not too much of a challenge.

Handwriting - Handwriting without tears - We only did this a couple of times this week. But on the days that we didn't, she was writing about her farm animals.

Writing- We have been working on complete sentences, capitalization and punctuation. She really seems to understand to Capitalize at the beginning of a sentence and what punctuation to use. I am also impressed how she seems to understand how to form a complete sentence in her writing (school and fun time). We will be beginning Writing with Ease, no later than January. She is so ready.

Farm unit-  Jenna wrote facts about sheep and horses this week. She decorated 2 sheeps, one with oatmeal and the other with cotton balls.

Fall unit- We made carmeled apples. Grandpa brought Jenna a fall leaf. First she did some leaf rubbings, then she waxed pressed her leaf (grandpa told her how to do this and she wrote down the directions), and put it in a little book.

Next week we will be learning about pumpkins, exploring the gourds that we picked up (science and math), start some Halloween fun and more leaf fun.

End of week 11 and some Fall fun

Jenna had some Fall fun on Sunday. She went to the Cabbage festival. She was able to ride her favorite horse and brush the pony. They had a cabbage toss, you needed to get it in the basketball net. After several attempts of getting the cabbage in the net, the guy who was in charge lifted her up to make the basket. She thanked him, but wanted to do it herself. So the guy flipped over the recycling bin for her to stand on, so she would be closer. After about a good 15 minutes, she finally made the basket. She was so proud of herself. She ended up with some prizes and was given the cabbage as an memento of the winning basket. Also there was a guy taking pictures and said she may be in the local paper. They had pumpkin and rock painting, which she had fun doing. Someone was doing some face painting, so she was able to get a witch on her cheek. Everything was free except the food. I was thankful that we got out and had fun on Sunday because for most of the week it rained and rained.



We had another good week of school.

Math - Horizon k book 2 - working on counting by 2's, even and odd numbers, math facts and working on telling time.

Reading - I love Ordinary Parents Guide To Teaching  Reading - Jenna is thriving using this. It's so easy to teach and she is enjoying it. We are at lesson 129. I do two old lessons and two new lessons a day at her request. This is the pace that is good for her now. We also have continued reading every night.

Writing - HWOT - I love this book and so does she. She has been writing alot of complete sentences, this week she wrote facts about cows and pigs. And today she wrote some sentences about the Cabbage Festival. I love that she understands aout Capitalizing at the beginning of a sentence and about the punctuation marks. Most of the time she remebers all of that without me telling her. And I will have her put words in a complete sentence first before I put my input in.

Farming - We started off the week learning about cows. Jenna drew a picture of a cow and wrote some facts down about them. We also milked a cow. Okay not a real cow, but a glove that had milk in it. She really enjoyed that. Then we took some heavy whipping cream, put it in a jar, shook it, shook it, shook it and shook it until we had butter. She also decorated a cute cow and put some glitter black spots on it.
Later in the week we learned about pigs. Jenna drew a picture and wrote some facts down about them. She also played in the mud(shaving cream mixed with brown food coloring). I laminated a pig for her to have fun with in the mud.

Fall - We didn't do much this week. We did count the Cabbage Festival sa some Fall fun. It was her idea to write about the Cabbage Festival and she drew a picture to go with. I will put that up on our Fall wall. Right now everything is off my walls because Jenna and I started Fall cleaning today.

Now that the rain is gone, we plan on getting outside and collecting leaves. We need to get some pumpkins later next week. We will be learning about pumpkins and leaves. Contnue working on our Farm unit ( I plan on posting pics of our farm wall). Fall crafting next week. And Halloween crafting in another week. I love fall!

10th week = 50 days

Jenna has been schooling for 50 days, we are half way to our 100th day celebration. And I am happy to say that she is still loving homeschooling. Oh and I love it too. Today I did an assessment of what she has learned since the beginning of the school year. We are farther along with Math, Writing and Reading than I had expected to be. And it's all her doing, I go at her pace, which is a fast pace. I would expect that the pace will slow down as the work gets harder. But for now, I am keeping up with her as best as I can.

We continued with our Fall and Farm unit.

 We made homeade apple sauce which was very yummy. I showed Jenna the star that is in the apple and she made some apple star prints. The seeds from the apples are going to be used in a future project. She was amazed at how fast an apple turns brown when we left some apple pieces out. We also did some estimating of which apples weighed the most and then we weighed them.

Jenna learned about chickens this week. I read stories about them. We watched a hen laying an egg and a chick being hatched. She then drew pictures of a hen and rooster. And wrote some facts about chickens. I hard boiled an egg and Jenna drew a face on it. I had her take care of the egg, like she was a hen. She really enjoyed it. Then to finish up our study of chickens, she made a cute hen stick puppet.

Math- Horizon k book 2 - learning to count by 2's, odd and even numbers and review.

Writing - Handwriting without tears first grade - I had her write some previous spelling words to practice her writing and to make sure she is able to still spell them correctly. I also added some new spelling words which had long vowels and she spelled them all right. She wrote 6 sentences when we did her facts about chickens. I was very impressed on how neat her writing was and how she can write complete sentences with very little input from me.

Reading - OPGTR - We are on lesson 110 and she is picking everything up quickly. Six more lessons and we will be halfway through the book. We do seem to go at a faster pace, I do two new lessons a day and then we review them the following day and add two more. The only reason I am doing two, is that this is the pace that works for her. At age 4 she is a very good reader and I would say at least a first grade or higher level.

We are all caught up with our penpals and will be writing to new one's this month.

End of week nine

At the beginning of the week we started our farm unit. Jenna created a farm scene which is poster size and is on our school wall. I will get a pic up soon. We read some books and created a barn yard barn babble book. We made a farm word list that she will use when she is writing about farm related topics.


Fall is here! We kicked off the new season with a welcome Fall party. We had some
yummy apple cider and mini apple pie. We then played some party games and read a fall story.

Jenna received her first two stars this week. She was a very good girl in school. And went above and beyond with her school work. She took it upon herself to do extra math and writing.

We also learned about acrostic poems this week. Jenna wrote her first acrostic poem about Fall. I will get a pic of  it posted, but for right now I will post what she wrote.

Fun with leaves
Autumn is great
Leaves are fun
Love apples

I will be adding this to her Fall poetry book that she is creating with her poems and others. She also, started a Fall word list.

Math - Horizon k book 1 is done. We reviewed her 2 addition math facts and started on the 3's. We also reviewed the clock, measuring and money.

Reading - OPGTR - we are on lesson 96 and she is doing very well. Of course we do our daily reading and I have been challenging her in what she is reading. She still reads the books that she can pick up on her own to read, but she is the type of child that needs to be challenged as well.

Writing - She is still improving daily.

It's been a great week.

Week eight is done

Wow, 40 days of school so far this school year. I am trying to keep up with Jenna, she is blowing me away how fast she is picking everything up.

We had another good week her at Jenna Academy.

Math - Horizon K - 2 pages left in the first book. This week she learned about finding the perimeter of a rectangle, we are working on the 3's addition facts and started to learn about the minutes on the clock. She knows all her coins, how much they are worth. So we printed out a piggy bank and she decorated it (googly eyes, pink pipe cleaner for the tail, crumpled up tissue paper and some fun foam for the ears). Then we made it into a book. She wrote This is Jenna's bank. Then we cut and colored pictures of each coin, which she glued in her book and wrote what amount each coin is worth.

Reading - Ordinary parents guide to teaching reading - I love this book, it is so easy to use. We are now on lesson 81. This week we have learned about silent e, soft c and g. In the beginning we just used the book, but I could see that was too boring for her. So we went to the dry erase board and I write out the words and sentences on there. She started using starfall again, which is what we used when learning her letters and cvc words (before OPGTR). And of course she's been reading daily to me and I am to her as well. She did some pages in her Eplode the code 2.



Writing - Handwriting without tears 1st grade - started this past week. She wrote her second letter to her penpal Satori (she had hiccups and an itchy eye while doing this so some of her letters are squiggly lol). We have some new penpals that we need to write to next week.

Spelling - We stopped testing each week, but continue to learn new words. And I can tell if she is spelling them right because she uses new words in her fun writing. I am going to continue this way using our phonics program and spelling rules.

She wrote a book and gave it to her older sister. It was a story about how she would like a pet(a dog).

Next week we are having a welcome Fall party, with goodies and games. This will kick off the start of our Fall and farm unit.

Mid week Updated 9/10

Jenna received her first penpal letters in the mail this week. She was so excited. Thanks Satori and Aunt Pat. She was able to read most of the letters by herself. We will be writing back real soon.

I found this cute money bingo game here http://lets-explore.net/blog/2010/08/learning-coin-values-with-money-bingo/ and we also made up another game that you need to count up the coins. By the weekend she should be able to go over to the store and buy a treat with her $1 in change. I made a deal with her when she knew all her coins, their amounts and was able to add up the change, she could buy a treat from the store.

I scored a bunch of books at a teacher's yard sale. The reading books are a mixture of science, social studies, chapter books and much more. I also picked up some workbooks and teacher guides for different subjects. A set of about 100 wooden blocks to use with our scales and to have fun with math. Jenna and I have already been putting our new books to use.

We watched the movie Ratatouille the other day. After that Jenna got the cooking bug, so she made some pizza bagels.

We have been fishing this week with our phonics and our magnet letters have been used alot this week. I noticed that Jenna is not only learning to read with our phonics program, but she is also learning to spell at the same time. I went through alot of the words from previous lessons and she knew how to spell alot of the words. So we are working on th words for reading and spelling this week. I keep changing our spelling around because I haven't found the right fit yet. Hopefully this will be our spelling program as well as our phonics. I am going to search out some spelling rules to go with.

This week I will be working on making more games up for reading and math. Anyone know of any good sites? I am also on the lookout for some creative writing program for my little writer. I had one ordered a while ago but it was back ordered for so long that I ended up canceling it. I need to google to see if there is anything online.

updated 9/10

Math- coins mastered and we have less than 10 lessons left in our Horizon K book

Reading - OPGTR - we are up to lesson 62 - Jenna is doing great when it comes to reading, she loves  her lessons on the dry erase board. She has been reading to me daily from a variety of books and I am reading to her as well. I am going to be adding this sometime soon to our reading time http://earlybirdhomeschool.com/2009/10/story-maps-download/

Writing- Handwriting without tears k is done. We will be moving on to the first grade book next week. Jenna wrote her weekly penpal letter, she is enjoying this so much. She picked up some more penpals this week. I think she will be writing penpals more than just once a week. We started working on writing complete sentences, capitalization and punctuation. She is catching on fast.

Another good week here at Jenna Academy.

The end of our 6th week

Jenna and I had another good week and are looking forward to all the fun we have planned for fall. I am so glad that I have two years to do Kindergarten, when it comes to Social studies and Science. I would never be able to fit all I would like to do in one year, before starting classical education(4 year cycle in History and Science) as I plan to do starting in first grade. When it comes to reading, grammar, writing, spelling, vocabulary and math, she will advance to first grade in all of these subjects by the time we start our second year of Kindergarten (some may start sooner like grammar and writing).

Here is what we have done this week

Lots of playing (because that's all part of being a kid), mostly inside because of the weather. We played Bank, Hotel, kerplunk, I Spy, Tic tac toe, you draw I draw, Soccer and much more.

Reading - OPGTR - finished consonant blends, working on Digraphs, working on ng,sh,ch and th sounds, she is moving through this part fast. We were given some old reading books, so she has been using them as well.

Spelling - working on some words that she uses in her everyday writing and spells wrong, like went, are, want, dear and from. She mastered are and went, but we didn't work daily on these this week so we will work on them some days next week.

Writing - HWOT - We are at the end of the k book and will be starting the 1st grade book soon. Her writing is really improving and she is writing on line paper. She wrote a bunch of Thank you's this week for Community and she wrote to her new pen pal.

Vocabulary - Wordly Wise k - She loves this new program and so do I. But I do admit that we will be tweaking this to the way we want to use it. Right now it's not scheduled in, but will be scheduled more later in this month.

Math - Horizon K - We have mastered counting by 5's, addition facts up to the 2's, she now knows her penny's, dimes and nickels (quarters are next even though they aren't introduced in her math book until later), and some other review. We will be done with the first Horizon K book by the end of the month.

Social Studies - We started Community this week, I already posted about it here http://myblogbysusan.blogspot.com/2010/09/fun-week-so-far.html. We had fun and will continue this next week.

Art - Jenna drew me some pretty flowers in a vase and a fall picture of a tree and falling leaves.

In her free time this week, she has been busy drawing up inventions and writing stories.

Here is a sneak peek to what we will be up to in Fall, learning about Farms (lots of books, field trip and fun projects), investigating the Fall season, apples, leaves and much more. Poetry writing and fun with Nursery Rhymes coming soon.

Fun week so far

This week is Community for my little K4er. So far we went to the pizza shop to see how they prepare their pizzas, had a tour of the Post Office, went to the hair salon for a haircut (pic is posted above) and learned about the hair salon, had a tour of the bank and opened up Jenna's savings account (she left with alot of stickers and cool items to play bank with), toured the Hardware store, visited Dunkin Donuts and the little store that is connected and checked out the man next door to us business. Every place that we visited was filled with wonderful owners, who took the time out of their day to show my little girl around.

We also made sure to make thankyou's for everyone. They are all now delivered to each business owner. Jenna wrote Thank you on each one, drew picture on each and signed her name. They are now hanging up at each of the businesses.

Jenna was very happy this week to find out she has a new penpal named Satori. She wrote to her this afternoon and mailed it right out.

We have had some fun playing soccer, old maid and bank (thanks to her bank slips and information on how a bank works). Homeschooling is the best!

Another week done and first letter to her pen pal

We had a good week.

Math - Horizon k - started counting by 5's this week and started addition facts she has the one's mastered and is working on the 2's. And the rest was review of money(dimes and pennies), time and ect.

Spelling- She had another good week with some new words and words from previous weeks which she is still spelling correctly.

Writing- Handwriting without tears - almost done with the K book, which has her working on words and sentences for copy work. Will be starting the 1st grade book real soon. We also wrote to her pen pal this week. I am so proud of her, she is writing on lines now.

Reading- We are finishing up ending consonant blends and will be moving on to beginning consonant blends. We only did Explode the code once this week. She read very well this week. And she picked up a book here and there this week to read on her own. I love that she is starting to enjoy reading without me asking her to read.

Art - We are working on some basic skills, before we really get into our new art curriculum. She made some hearts this week for mom and grandma.

Social Studies - We are gearing up for community which will start on Monday.

Science -She started building and decorating her rockets with daddy. Looking forward to blasting them off.

The rest of the week was spent playing and just being a kid.

End of week 4

I can't believe how much Jenna has learned in the past four weeks and how well she has adjusted to a structured school year. Unlike last year which was very relaxed and mostly all play. As of right now, we make sure to get the basics done each day and add in everything else when we can. I would rather her be outside playing with friends.

Here is what we have been working on this week.

Math - Horizons K - We are now counting to 100 with no problem at all, reviewing adding using the number line, introduced the ruler and measuring, reviewed place value and reviewing dimes and nickles.

Reading - started OPGTR - we are on the consonants blends (which she is doing very well with). She is reading the free progressive phonic books and we started ETC book 2 (we never did the first book) and she liked it.

Handwriting - HWOT K - She is almost done with this and I am going to use the double line paper I have to make her some copy work. I have seen improvement in the past 4 weeks, but I need to remind her to follow through and do her best in all her writing(not just the HWOT). I have started teaching her about sentences and when to capitalize.

Spelling - We are pretesting on Monday's and using the words she spells wrong for her spelling that week. I am also looking at her everday writing for misspell words and we will use them. This week her words were, her last name, got, put, sand, hand and stop. She tested today and got them all right. I will review these with her next week to see if she is still spelling them right.

Science - She has some rockets waiting to be built and then we will try them out. I plan on adding more science after summer.

Social Studies - We are getting ready to do community at the beginning of the month. Visiting the businesses right her in town and creating a map of our town.

Art- Will be starting real soon. Artistic pursuit preschool and we will be using some free online art for K.

We will be adding our Wordly Wise K vocabulary real soon to our schooling. We are both excited about this.

I have some other things that will be in the works for her schooling, like adding music and one day a week having a nursery rhyme or poetry tea. She really liked the tea idea.

So this was another good week and hopefully many more to come.

Mid week

Wow, it's Wednesday already. This week is flying by.

I decided to change how we do our spelling. I will be pretesting on Monday's and what ever words she gets wrong will be her spelling words. I am finding out that she already knows how to spell alot of words. I am also going to take words that she spells wrong in daily writing and use them as spelling words. As far as writing goes she is improving daily. I picked up some double line paper, so that I can have her start doing some copy work. She will be writing to her first penpal pretty soon and I would like her to write on the lined paper. Math is still going really good. And reading is awesome. She is working on consonant blends and is doing very well. We went for a walk today to set up times to visit the different businesses in our community. We will start doing this the first of the month.

So far so good this week. It's been beautiful outside so we have been outside playing with friends. Once summer is done we will buckle down more.

Oh and we have some rockets that we will be using for science class. We just need to build them first.

Almost the end of the week

For some reason I thought it was Friday today, even after doing the calendar. So because of me thinking it was Friday, Jenna had her spelling test and reviewed the words from previous weeks. She spelled them all right. This is kind of silly, but after she spells all her words right, we do the Jenna got all her words right spelling dance. Nothing like Jenna and mom shaking their booty, lol. Handwriting is coming along great, I am seeing improvements. This week she blew me away with her reading, it is amazing. We are getting reading to work on consonant blends. The one night she read a whole book by herself to her stuffed doggie. I really love our Horizon math, it is a keeper. She just started to learn about place value today and reviewed adding with the number line. We started reading and discussing about being respectful. Character building to me is very important and I feel that the younger the better. We have worked on responsiblity in the previous weeks and she is implementing it daily. It's still summer, so when it comes to science or social studies, it is hit or miss if we are going to do it each week. I would rather her be outside playing with friends and just having fun. Rain or shine we try to get outside. She loves putting on her bathing suit and playing in the rain. Which we did earlier this week. She also has been busy playing a new game that she won at the reading program. And enjoying her box of 96 crayons that she got today. I am thankful to be homeschooling my daughter. I love being a part of my daughters growth academically and in her everyday life.

My little artist and writer in training

A typical day for Jenna is filled with lots of writing notes, stories and drawings. So it got me thinking how can I nurture what she excels at. Thanks to this blog, satorismiles.com, I found some really great curriculum that I think would be great to use with Jenna.

When it comes to art, I am going to use Artistic Pursuit, The Way They See It. And if we like it, they have other grade levels which we will use. I am also going to pick up Drawing with Children.
As far as writing goes, I am going to try wordly wise for vocabulary(since she is always asking what certain words mean) and she seems to think that this colorful curriculum will be fun. Write source k is on our agenda as well(which should nurture her creative writing). I don't want to schedule to much in her daily schedule, because she is only 4. So, these will be 100 percent child lead of when I am teaching them. I am hoping to make these new additions fun and enjoyable for my little girl.

End of our second week

So far so good. Jenna and I are loving homeschooling. We went off schedule some days to play with friends, but we still got what we needed to get done on those days. I like the flexiablity that I have with homeschooling , to be able to let jenna go out and play during school.

Earlier in the week we did our first Science experiment. catch a rainbow, http://www.kidzone.ws/science/rainbow.htm. Jenna was so cute she put her science goggles (aka rob's work goggles) on when we did this experiment. Then she wrote in her science journal the supplies that were used and a picture of what she saw. We also made some colors using primary colors. She again wrote in her science journal, which two colors made a new color.

We worked on our Horizon math, she is learning how to add using the number line. Writing her numbers, like 20 and up. And reviewing her pennies and dimes.

Jenna had her second spelling test today, she got them all right. Her words were, in, is, it, big, did and love. I also retested her on last weeks words, she got them all right, too. There are other words she has learned to spell just from asking when she is writing for fun, and she now can spell on her own. Some of the words are eat(grandpa taught her that), we, you, will, everyone in the families names, can, I, to, do and many more words. I am going to make her up a file folder word wall for some big words that she uses alot.

Our handwriting program is going good. She is finally seeing for herself that when she forms her letters from the top, they look alot neater. Now to get her to apply that to her everyday fun writing. Speaking of writing, I set her up a writing center and wil be adding more goodies to her her writing table. So far she has some fuzzie pencils, colored pencils, glitter pens, regular pens and markers. A bunch of different size envelopes, some flowere shaped cards, tags, a bunch of paper, some notebooks, stickers, little sticky notes, some clipboards, some writing printouts and some colored clips. I need to make her up some blank books this weekend.

Reading is going good. We are still working on her short vowel words and sight words. I ordered this http://www.walmart.com/ip/3132086 and some black ink(so I can print off the rest of the phonic books). I am looking into an incentive to get her reading more. I know she is looking forward to being able to read the Arthur books herself.

As I am posting this, Jenna is writing up a storm at her writing table. I am so glad she love's it.

The second week of school

Last night I asked Jenna if she likes homeschooling, and she said I like everything except for when we have to practice writing. She said, I love to write (which she does alot of outside of schooling), I just don't like when you make me practice writing in my school book. So I explained to her why we are practicing and that it's something that needs to be done daily in school. With a little moan, she said okay. So after some blog reading, I seen some writing centers set up in homeschooling rooms. Now I am inspired to set up a table for Jenna to get creative at with her writing. I told her about it and she is very excited. So I am thinking sometime this week, I will clear off my crafting table and set her up with her own writing center. I will gradually pick things up for her writing center at the dollar stores and such.

Today was a fun day at school. We read The little red hen and made stick puppets of the animals in the story, so that we could act out the story. Math went very well as usual and she is enjoying it. She was given new spelling words today and spelled them all correctly with her magnet letters. I am adding a bonus word, which will be love. She has spelled it luv in the past(which is what it sounds like), so I decided to make that her spelling bonus word. She also read alot from her phonic readers that I printed out this weekend and we went over some sight words. We talked about the season of summer and what words make us think of summer. And read a poem about the sun and colored it. Another great day here at Jenna Academy.

End of our first week

Can't believe how fast our first week went. It was a good one, that's for sure.

Jenna had her first spelling test today and she got all of them right. Her words were, a, am, an and, at and the. She also did very well with her math. I like the spiral approach in the horizon math workbooks. We also worked on her phonics and she is close to mastering all her short vowel cvc words. So far she knows about 45 of her sight words and we are working on about 10 more right now. I like to pull the sight words from the books she is reading to me and make a memory match out of them. I read alot to her, I am trying to show her the love of reading. She does pick up a book here and there to read without me asking, but not often enough. She would rather write and draw in her free time. Oh and she does read me the stories that she writes, so I guess that would count for her reading on her own. Writing went good today. She told me that she will try to start at the top when forming her letters. Then she said to me, now if you need to remind me to start at the top, remember to say please, lol. I love this age because everything she says is so innocent and exactly how she's feeling at that moment. So another day of homeschooling done and I can't imagine any other way I would of wanted to spend my day. I am so thankful that I am able to stay home and teach my daughter.

Day four

Wow, it's almost the end of the week. We are slowly figuring out what works and what doesn't. I let Jenna take the lead when it comes to this.

Math works best first thing after circle time, spelling is going great, but the worksheets they include are just busy work(so those will be no longer). I am thinking of just using the dry erase board and making games out of her spelling words each week. When it comes to writing and practicing in her workbook, she moans( she knows I am going to want her to form her letters the correct way by starting at the top). But the funny thing is that 1 minute into working in her book, she is eager to do more and forming them correctly. Then when we are finished, she goes right back to starting from the bottom again, so I try to gently remind her to start from the top(then I get the I know with an eye roll, lol). Everything else seems to working and it doesn't seem to matter what time of day we do it.

If we are up in time in the morning, we start our day with Sid the science kid on PBS before we begin school. And we break for lunch at the same time, so she can catch Arthur on PBS.

Hours after schooling was done for the day, Jenna came up to me and asked with we could do some more school work. It's moments like this that make homeschooling her so worth it.

Third day

Another good day of homeschooling. We got a little bit of a late start, but no big deal. We did our usual circle time, some math, played a spelling game at her request and did her daily spelling worksheet, read Harold and the purple crayon, then she went on an adventure with her purple crayon and some very long paper (I know have it hanging up over the couch), We read about the four seasons and made a four season spinner, Jenna read some of her books that was written by her), made some fun phonics pull strips for her to practice on her own and she read some phonics words from them to me, we read the head to toe book and then had our own fun acting out what they did in the book and made up some fun things too, she practice in her handwriting without tears book and earned herself some stars and a sticker(she was so proud of herself),.

Oh I forgot to add that she came to school dressed in her mermiad dress up clothes ( too cute).

Day two

Today was even better than yesterday. After circle time, we started off with math this morning, some addition and coin recognition(pennies and dimes). Then we read about reponsibility from her grumpy bunny book. I had her draw a picture of one of her responsibilities she did this morning which was to feed her fish. Danced and sang while listening to some of her kids songs. Worked on her spelling work sheet and played a game with her spelling words. Did a little science about the four seasons, teaching her what months are in which season. Jenna read some phonic books to me, with her toy glasses on(too funny need to get a pic of that). She made an all about me book, which had a pic she drew of herself, her pet, her house and her friend. I also had her make a cover with her name and age. After lunch, she worked in her printing book, not her favorite thing to do. Then we read Olivia, which is one of her favorite books. We decided to try to make a masterpiece like the one in the book. With some paint and some splatter, a masterpiece was created. I had her sign it and it's hanging on my fridge.

Even after a day of schooling, Jenna was still busy she wrote me a story and made up some tea party invitations. And we did some more dancing and singing to her kids songs. It was a good day and hopefully we will have many more.

First day of homeschool 2010-2011

First Day of K4

So far our day has consist of circle time, some math, read about responsibility and discuss about it. She marked off some her reponsibilities that she did this morning and we talked about how she should always try her best, played bowling, read poem about seasons and made a book, played memory for phonics, read Amelia bedelia's first day of school, worked on spelling, played simon said, played tic tac toe.
I am going to clean while she is eating lunch and watching Arthur. Then some all about me, and a little writing practice(even though she is writing all the time , I want her to start learning to make her letters the correct way and use lined paper. After that playing and just having fun.

K4

This is our plan for K4 this year.

Horizon K math (starting with some reveiwing and then we will begin with lesson 40)

HWT k - some letter review using this and working on writing on lines.

Spelling- Evan Moor grade one (she loves to spell)

ETC. and OPGTR(need to pick this up, we will be starting after the CVC short vowel words).Lots of read alouds, star fall, biscuit phonic books and easy readers.

Character building

All about me and family, neighborhood and community, some geography and holidays.
Some fun science throughout the year, starting with Seasons.

Arts and crafts which we love to do.

Playing outside, story hour and indoor playing.

A little more about some of what we will be doing for Character building and Social Studies

Character building is mostly coming from books(some I printed off and others). And then just discussing and implementing in our dauly lives. Today we start with respnsibility I will read and discuss what it means. I then have a chart that I made up for her to keep track of her daily responsibilities.

All about me and family, made up by me. I will read books, have her doing all about me and family activities. Like an all about me book, decorating her name using whatever she wants, all about me time line (with pics from her birth until now) and cooking some of her favorite foods.

Neighboorhood and Community, made up by me. Again lots of reading and discussing. We will be taking a walk around our little town, we live right smack in the middle of town. I am going to set up times when we can come and visit some of the places. We have the post office (which she will mail off her pen pal letter and hopefully get a tour), pizza shop (hopefully she can come in at prep time and see the crust made and such), we will visit the man next door(that will be for neighbor) and he has a small business, Bank (she will open up her savings account), the store (which I hope she knows the rest of her coins by then, I will let her pickout and pay for it herself), the library, the ice cream place, the hardware store and more.

Geography will be making maps of her room, the house, the playground, and our town. Also learning N,S,W,E and using our globe. Taking a look at the world map and the US. I printed some things from Evan Moor and then some is just made up by me.

Holidays, talking and reading about them. And lots of hands on activities.