week of the October 10th

Another successful week here.

Math - Reviewed coins, addition facts and did 5 lessons in her Horizon 1st grade book 1(learned to add double digits)

Reading - Finished up Ramona and her Father, read lots of fall books together. And she did alot of reading on her own throughout the week.

Spelling - She did lesson 17 in Spelling Workout B, she can spell all the words coorect except for people, for some reason she keeps putting an a instead of o. This coming week is review so hopefully by the end of the week she will get that word spelled correctly.

Writing - Writing with Ease 1 narration is slowly getting somewhat better, copy work is okay when she takes her time.

Grammer - First Language Lessons 1 - finished up learning about Pronouns, she loved it. reviewed all her poems she learned so far.

Handwriting - Daily writing Today is .........day, month, date and year. Sometimes I add a second sentence for her to copy about the weather or something that has happened.

Geography - Worked in her Weekly Reader, she learned about map symbols, how to read them and to locate them on a map.

Art -            she made a cute owl and scarecrow for our Fall wall.

Science - read a lets read and find out book about leaves.

It was a good week.

2 week post

I forgot to blog last week. So this will be a two week update. Jenna's excitement about school this year is priceless.  Everyone was telling me to put her in school, but I had no doubt that schooling her at home was the right thing to do. In school she would not be thriving academically as she is at home. And for the socialization part which seems to bother people more about homeschooling than the academics, well there are many other resources for her to thrive socially. Now I have two older girls that attended public school and I know for a fact that homeschooling wouldn't of been a good fit for them. Some of my favorite parts about homeschooling is that I know my daughter better than anyone else, so I know what works and what doesn't. I know her learning style and can   pick her curriculum to fit that learning style. She is in K this year, but is in a different grade level in most of her subjects. I love that she gets one on one attention in all her subjects. We can get a day of school done in shorter time than public school and accomplish much more.  Also, sleeping in, staying in jammies and eating while going over math facts or money is all advantages. But the best part of all is playing a major role in my daughters education and seeing all her acomplishments first hand.

Okay enough of that, now about Jenna's schooling the last two weeks.

Math - Horizon book 1 1st grade we ended with lesson 35 and she is excited to start adding double digits next week. We also did some addition math facts, money and some apple graphing.

Reading - She finished up Ramona and her Mother and started Ramona and her Father today. And lots and lots of fall books. Explode the Code book 7 is done yeah, Jenna is happy that we are almost done with explode the code, one more book to go.

Spelling - Spelling book B lesson 15 and 16 completed. She loves the profreading the best.

Grammer - First Language Lessons 1 she finished up nouns and made a poster to show what she learned.  4 poems memorized and working on the 5th she has it almost all memorized. Also did some worksheets here and there for reinforcement.

Writing - Writing with Ease book 1 - she doesn't mind the copy work but doesn't like the nararation, but isn't bad at it. we also worked on some worksheets about sentences in their proper form. And some unscramble the sentence sheets.

Vocabulary - Wordly Wise K she did one lesson

Geography - We did some review and started working on a weekly reader grade 2 that I picked up at a yard sale. She really enjoys it.

Leaves and apples have been our science and art the past two weeks. She made some really cool coffee filter leaves for our big tree on our fall wall, made some trees out of papertowel rolls to go with what we learned in The Seasons Of Arnold's Apple Tree, made an apple man, a tree with pencil eraser apples, learned about our 5 senses with the apples, wrote an acrostic poem about apples, made an apple man and did some apple picking and growing sequencing.

Penpal - She finally started writing to one of her penpals again this week.

Well that's about it. We have had lots of learning and fun these past two weeks.

2nd full week of school

I can't believe how fast this week went. Jenna is excited that fall has arrived and is looking forward to some fall crafting. She picked out her Halloween costume the other day.

I came up with an idea to give jenna an incentive to push her out of her comfort zone. I am going to start her treasure box with little dollar store items(maybe even some candy which is a big deal to a kid who hardly ever gets candy) and doing things out of her comfort zone will earn her points. After so many points she gets to pick from the treasure box. I was very pleased and proud of my little girl this week. Yesterday we went to visit Miss Patti at her hair shop and Jenna recited two poems from her grammer lessons to her. Jenna has a very hard time doing this in front of anyone but me, so this was a huge thing. She stood up straight, looked right at her, and spoke very clearly.

Reading - Jenna flew through explode the code book 5 this week, what I forgot is we did some of book 5 and book 6 before book 4 this school year. So at her request I am not going to make her finish book 6 and go right to book 7. I am not too concerned because Jenna is only using this program as a reinforcement of everything she has already learned. We finished reading Ramona The Pest today and started are fourth book Ramona And Her Mother. We havn't purchased the other 4 books yet, but they are on our wish list.


Writing - She started back up with Writing With Ease 1, lesson 14. She did this twice this week and we will continue doing it twice a week. I like the idea of doubling up the days. She also worked on some sentence worksheets the rest of the week.

Spelling - Spelling Workout A, lesson 14. She spelled all the words correctly on monday, but i still had her do all the work for that lesson, so 3 days of workbook pages. Then I requizzed her on Thursday and again she spelled them correctly. So that puts us at spelling 4 times a week.

Grammer- First Language Lessons 1 - She finished with lesson 29 and worked on memorizing her third poem. We also did some worksheets on nouns.

Handwriting - I had her practice daily, writing her full name, the day, month, date and the year on line paper.

Math - She is still working on addition facts need to make up some subrtraction facts as well. We did this and working on money 4 times this week. She also did a bunch of lessons in her Horizon 1st grade book 1 and took test 2 today. So she ended with lesson 20.

Geography - We reviewed the world map and then talked about our continent. She identified the countries in North Americia and then we looked at the map of Untied States. She can identify New York, California, Texas, Flordia, Hawaii and Alaska. She also worked out of a workbook about being able to read neighborhood maps.

Phys. Ed. - The weather was beautiful yesterday so she went bike riding. The rest of the days are spent running around the house pretending to be a super hero, dancing to moms radio thats on everyday, hopping and skipping.

Well this was Jennas week of school. I spent this afternoon after school pulling out some fall colored paper in hopes of creating a fall banner this weekend. That will be Art class, lol.

Kindergarten started Wednesday, September 7th

 I never expected to be on a break for as long as we were. From now on we are schooling year round with only short breaks in between.  A new school year has begun. Jenna's first official year of homeschooling. We are both excited. The last week and a half has been filled with lots of review. I am surprised at how much she has retained from last school year. She is eager to get right to work each day and get everything done without any breaks. So are goal is to start school by 10 and be done before 2.

So here's what we have planned so far for this year. With more to be added as I see the need or Jenna asks for to be added.

Math - Horizon math 1st grade book 1
            Addition and subtraction math facts
           
Reading - Explode the code books 4 - 8 (book 4 was started last school year)
                Chapter books reading aloud (her reading to me and me as well to her)
                Silent time reading were she will pick a book and go of and read by herself

Spelling - Spelling work out book B (started this last year up to lesson 12)

Hand writing - Working on neatness and still working on some formation of some letters
                       hopefully handwriting without tears 2nd grade book

Grammer - First language lessons book 1
                  some worksheets from online to reinforce what she's learned

Writing- Writing with ease 1 (which we started last school year and will be starting again soon)
              http://www.growingwithgrammar.com/1www_Level_1.html I really hope to purchase this

Vocabulary -  Wordly Wise K (used a little bit last year)

Science-        Dinasaurs and hopefully nature study
                     In January Real Science Odyssey life

Geography - I have a mixture of material to use from different resources

History -       I would like to do some pre history before starting Story of the world 1 ancients
                   
Art -             Some fun seasonal projects
                     Artistic Pursuit the preschool book (did a handful of lessons in this last school year)

phys ed -      Everday play and hopefully soon our wii will be fix to do wii fit plus

extra things -  Jenna wants to learn sign language, cursive writing and I want her to learn latin (song school 
                     latin is suppose to be a good start for her age)


So this is our agenda for this year.
 
This is what we've done so far this school year
 
Math - Horizon first grade book 1 - She did lessons 1 - 10
            Also worked on addition facts and money
 
Reading - Read two chapter books Beezus and Ramona
                                                      Ramona the brave
                 Explode the code book 4 -  did 8 lessons 2 more to go
 
Spelling - Reviewed words from last year will be starting new words next week
 
Hand writing - I have her writing her full name, the day, month, date and year everday on lined paper
 
Vocabulary -  Wordly Wise K - we did one lesson
 
Grammer - First Language lessons 1 - still working on nouns from last year and she has memorized two
                  poems
 
Geography -  we reviewed from last year
 
That's it I am thankful daily to have the chance to be able to be a major part of my daughters education.
 
                                                     
 
 
           
 
                     






                 









              
      

I need to start updating weekly again

wow its been a whole month since I posted. I had no intentions on waiting so long. Jenna did school the whole month of May. I have seen such a maturity in her when it comes to schooling. She doesn't give me a hard time at all, just sits right done and does her work.




Math- She finished up her Horizon math K book 2 earlier this month. She has been working on her addition math facts and I will be also adding some subtraction ones as well. If she continues working on them, maybe she will have them mastered by fall.



Reading- She is still doing very well, I think that I should start challenging her more with harder books. I wish that she would like to read independantly, but it hasn't happened yet.



Spelling - spelling workout B - I pretest her on monday and whatever words she gets wrong are her spelling words for the week. By the end of the week she spells them all correctly and if not I add them to the following week.

Geography - Jenna drew the world map and labled all the continents. She knows all the continents, which one is ours and the countries in North America. I need to figure out where to go with geography next.
 
Writing - She writes daily for herself, but I need to get my rear in gear and have her doing some formal on the lines writing.
 
Science - we are study plants. We have read alot and did some worksheets. She is doing an experiment with been plants right now.
 
Thats about it. I am going to try to start including more to her schooling and to start posting more.

homeschooling through a divorce

Divorce has been one of the hardest things I ever delt with in my life. Unfortunatly Jenna's homeschooling has gotten the short end of the stick. Adjusting to everything has been a slow process for both of us. But we need to get back to our daily routines which includes school. So what better way to start but at the beginning of a brand new month. So with the start of May, we will begin school again on Monday. Of course Jenna is not to thrilled about starting school, so I am going to plan some fun for after school. Yes I am going to bribe her with some fun if she doesn't give me a hard time during school.




Reading has been here and there as well. But a couple of days ago we began reading daily once again. I was very pleased with how well she read. I was thankful that the lack of daily reading didn't set her back. It was so easy with everything going on for me to give in when she protest reading, but not no more she can complain all she wants,lol, we are reading every day.



Spelling is still improving daily through her own personal writing that she likes to do. We will be doing spelling ball once again for some of her words she uses alot in her writing.



Writing, well what can I say my daughter loves to write. The girl writes daily. She has been bugging me to learn cursive writing, so I guess we will be starting that some time soon. I will still work with her printing as well, she needs some practice using the line paper (which she doesn't like to use).



Math Horizon k is almost done she has a handful of lessons left. We will also be working on her addition and subtraction math facts. I feel that the young elementary age is best for learning these.



Art will be going on in May. We plan on doing a spring art show at some point.So we need to do that before summer.



Thats what is planned for now. But who knows once we get back in school mode we may add on more.I am really looking forward to starting up again. I think getting back into a routine will be good for both of us. I also hope to be posting on this blog more next month.

quick update

Homeschooling has been very light this month. We have worked on the basics and then just had some fun together playing. We have alot of life changes going on so it's hard to say how much schooling will get done in April. No matter what we will continue with the basics and just enjoy having fun playing.