One Month Down....

Today we finished our first month of our new school year! Wow! It has flown by.....In this post I will highlight some of the parts of our new Brave Writer  curriculum.

We finished our first Jot It Down  Monthly Writing Project! This months project was to create a Photo Journal. The obvious choice to me was to print photos from our recent 3 week Summer Vacation. The kids had fun organizing their photos, arranging them on each page and writing a caption for each page.  This was a super fun project!

The kids have added a few more Nature Journals to their sketch books.. This is my favorite photo! 

I have really enjoyed teaching the kids Grammar and Spelling using The Wand and the Classic Frog and Toad Stories. 

We have had two Tuesday Poetry Teas and Ava loved using her tea cup souviner from Biltmore Estate. 

Last but not least we have also had two "Friday Freewrites". The reason I put that in quotation marks is because we are actually completing these on Thursdays with HIGH HOPES of taking Fridays off this year!!!

Another Writing Component that is not part of Brave Writer, but that I added in is a Travel/Field Trip Journal. This will be a place the children can record what they learn during our immersion learning days! AKA Field Trips! 

For Math this year, I have added in Teaching Textbooks. So far I really like it, but we have not yet hit an area the kids don't easily understand. My normal teaching bent is to use a more hands on approach than this offers, but its working for now. 

Ava is enjoying learning to cook. I think by the end of the semester, she will be ready to take over dinner! 

For Bible this year we are using Kay Arthur's children's inductive Bible Studies. We have started with a study on God's Covenant's. I can only pray that if our children learn to study God's Word in this manner they will make a huge difference in their generation and the next generation of leaders in our country.

 

For Reading this year, I am going to focus on exposing the children to the Classics. Ava {and Samantha} has started with The Secret Garden. The boys have started with 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea although I have not captured a photo of them with the book.

Another most exciting thing that has happened this last month is that Zach was ask by his "Brain Gym" teacher to help her train some other therapist who had come in from literally all over the US to learn some of the methods she uses to help children in the Gym. This is a therapy that helps him that is offered by Manegait.

Well thats a wrap for this month! Next month we will begin Story of the World Curriculum for History. I hope you've enjoyed just a little piece of our Learning At Home! 

Tuesday Poetry Tea Time.....and The First Day of School 2015-2016

So...I've never been more excited to start school. I have fallen head over heals in love with Brave Writer. Brave Writer is a lifestyle. A lifestyle that teaches your children to write by making it a way of life.  I purposefully wanted our first day back from summer to be on a Tuesday, so that we could have our first Tuesday Poetry Teatime!

I went with a Dr. Seuss theme because the first two books the kids will study this year are Dr. Seuss books.  While these books are below their reading level, we are using them to explore Writing and Grammar Elements.  I also begin and end every single year with the book Oh, The Places You'll Go! 

The kids were literally at the table by 7:30 AM this morning, going through all their First Day of School Surprises:) 

One Surprise I had for them was a letter from each set of Grandparents! This I hope will be a new tradition that will give them a collection of treasured letters by the time they graduate! 

After a bit, we enjoyed our favorite Raspberry Tea and Blueberry Muffins and dove into some Poetry. I read to them out of The Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein. We laughed and laughed and took turns reading these poems!

Your Off to Great Places Today is YOUR day! 

My Style of Homeschooling

I think the question that most homeschool moms ask the most is “What curriculum are you using?”
I recently had the most fun honor to listen to, meet and chat with Lisa Welchel, most known for her role of Blair on Facts of Life.
However, Lisa has authored the book So Your Thinking About Homeschooling, it is a super fun read that revealed me that my style is “Eclectic”
In other words it means, “a little bit of this and a little bit of that” So when I am ask the question above, I honestly don’t know where to start!
I also know that my child (well all children) learn better when they are actually interested in the subject matter.  Technically called “Interest Based Learning”  and lastly I teach better by “Unit Studies” meaning that I try to make everything we are doing circle around our unit of study.
So…here goes, I bought a Reading Program called All About Learning. I will try to do a full post later about this program, but briefly it is a multi-sensory based phonics program. It is highly successful with dyslexic students. My children are not diagnosed with dyslexia, but some of them having more difficulty that others learning phonics based materials.  I am working on ONE lesson per WEEK at this point out of this curriculum. day So..this past week our word work centered around the words with the short 0 sound.

I review the same lesson for 5 days in a row and in the meantime search for supplemental materials with the correct sound to be used on days 2-5 on the topic of the week.

On top of this curriculum, I find books and poems on Z’s Individual Reading Level that go along with his interest based study of the week…and also some books that correlate with his sight words for the week.

Very fittingly, Zachariah choose to study


Weather the first week of school. (Actually going to take us 2) So, we got to dig into our Science Kits that I have been collecting for 6 months now!


Making a Tornado in a Bottle
We used shaving cream in a jar to illustrate that when the clouds get heavy with water, it makes rain.


I am also using a Writing Program Called
Draw Right Now! It gives the children step by step instruction on how to draw something and also gives a writing assignment to go with each lesson. I am hoping to do one of these lessons per week. This week, both boys completed the “Rain” Lesson.

Another book we read this past week is A Little Cloud by Eric Carle.
After the book, they each had the opportunity to create something in the form of a cloud. Here they all are working hard on their projects.


The finished product

And with a touch of pink….

Lastly, I am incorporating projects and journals into our curriculum as I can. We learned about the Water Cycle and the kids worked together to make this…..
And yes, after teaching them a cute song….they can ALL say the words “goes up as Evaporation” “Forms Clouds of Condensation” and “Comes Down as Precipitation” (Tune of She’ll Be Coming Around the Mountain)
After a group project, they each had to produce the same information into their Science Journals.


So….there you go, that’s our Literacy chunk, I’ll have to do Math another day…because I’m about to grab a nap! I’m pooped!
A Huge THANK YOU to The First Grade Parade for your wonderful blog of inspiration!