Pre-homeschool chat - Page 9

[itsrtimedownhere]

Originally Posted by meetoo

I think it's normal to obsess about your Guinea pig....I mean oldest child

[LuxPerpetua]

Originally Posted by chelsmm

http://go.mothering.com/?id=848X1562...2%2Findex.html

what a cool website! I'm going make January a "arctic, Antarctic, winter" type theme.

I ordered those Arctic animals in the toob, and I'm so excited to surprise the kids with some homemade icebergs for water play. I'm also taking several other ideas from the montessori journey page (sorting, counting, matching, etc).

I definitely won't do anything formal- I feel like we don't have time- but the kids will enjoy some little activites here and there.

That's funny because we just made our own ice skating rink out of a pie plate (we put a tree in the center because we just went ice skating at a rink that had a huge Christmas tree in the middle). Dd got her Schleich animals and let them ice skate in our rink and then she needed to warm up their feet so she mixed a special soap concoction and had an elaborate routine of washing them off. We also just built an indoor snowman the other day since we were too sick to go outside to do it (I just brought a bowl of snow inside and we built him on a pizza pan). Winter is a fun time! I just wish I had more arctic animals. We just have a polar bear. We also have a blast making colored ice cubes and watching them melt. We're crafting a winter scene right now that's going to have a Land of Sweets (ala The Nutcracker), and that's been a lot of fun, too. We played a game today that I got the idea for on a Montessori site. We used clothespins to pick up small beads ("snowballs). We wound up on of our Christmas music boxes, and when the music stopped whoever had the most "snowballs" won.

[cmhermes]

Originally Posted by LuxPerpetua

My dd just turned 4 and we're reading the original Winnie the Pooh stories as well!

We just started them, too but my girls are a little young still and sit through maybe 3 pages at a time!

[meetoo]

We have been off from school for the past week+ , I'm excited to get back int our routine come Monday. The kids have been up late and playing waaaaayyyy to much Wii.

Originally Posted by LuxPerpetua

That's funny because we just made our own ice skating rink out of a pie plate (we put a tree in the center because we just went ice skating at a rink that had a huge Christmas tree in the middle). Dd got her Schleich animals and let them ice skate in our rink and then she needed to warm up their feet so she mixed a special soap concoction and had an elaborate routine of washing them off. We also just built an indoor snowman the other day since we were too sick to go outside to do it (I just brought a bowl of snow inside and we built him on a pizza pan). Winter is a fun time! I just wish I had more arctic animals. We just have a polar bear. We also have a blast making colored ice cubes and watching them melt. We're crafting a winter scene right now that's going to have a Land of Sweets (ala The Nutcracker), and that's been a lot of fun, too. We played a game today that I got the idea for on a Montessori site. We used clothespins to pick up small beads ("snowballs). We wound up on of our Christmas music boxes, and when the music stopped whoever had the most "snowballs" won.

Oh fun ideas! I might have to steal a few of those. You might like this site too. I'm totally going to do the ice art project and the instant potato snow.

[Momma Aimee]

thanks for the site metto -- we are deep in a deep freeze here -- 30 degrees below average this winter .... winter ideas are great

[heartmommyak]

I'm so glad I found this thread. My dd turned 2 in September and I started some learning activities with her on a more regular, consistent basis a few months ago. I'm amazed at the things she's able to do now. I've found tons of ideas for things on different blogs (some I saw listed here as I read through earlier today). Will have to share more later.

[proudmamanow]

Subbing to this fantastic thread. I am not the primary homeschooling parent, as I WOH, but I am the supporter (and main MDCer) and responsible for French, history, geography etc. as the girls get older.
Our girls are 4.75 and 21 months. The 4.75 is a very anxious perfectionist, and so we are going gently with her. She is also a bright girl who learns as she breathes, but formal schoowork (and even the word school) make her very nervous. We just bought a desk for her (on major sale at IKEA) and are getting ready to set up part of our living room as a homeschooling area. We mentioned the idea of having a first day of school celebration next Monday, special breakfast, new pencil case etc. (she is a major party planner and loves celebrations) and she basically freaked out, saying she doesn't want to do school. So we may need to take it a bit easy. That said she likes the individual activities, worksheets, loves math, starfall etc. I don't know if anyone else here has dealt with this kind of issue.

What a wonderful thread! I don't have time to look at all the links right now (I'm at work), but I can see that there are some amazing resources here. I will pass the thread on to my dp who is the at home mom and head teacher, lol.

[LuxPerpetua]

Originally Posted by Momma Aimee

thanks for the site metto -- we are deep in a deep freeze here -- 30 degrees below average this winter .... winter ideas are great

We are currently playing with ice cubes in the bathtub--so much fun. Also, I think it was on the site that meetoo listed (a belated thank you, meetoo!) was to buy plain gelatin and make it in ice cube trays and then let your kids pretend it's ice, and you can set up play scenes or just let them ook it up with their fingers or stick toothpicks or straws through it or whatever. Also, if you get a glass jar and mix a lot of shaving cream and water together and let it set for a few hours you'll make a liquid crystal snowstorm (just shake it up to see).

I'm also in search of more winter ideas if anyone has any . . . Please???

[heartmommyak]

You can make a sensory tub with snow and hide stuff in it... provide gloves and tongs of some sort and work on transfer work. I have been putting together a sensory tub for my dd for a few months now and she loves it. Last month I had colored (red and green) star pasta and in it I mixed in different theme related things (mini ornaments, sparkly stars, red and green pom poms, some other things too). This month I have dried beans, and it has gingerbread themed items in it (gingerbread cookie magnets and erasers, cinnamon sticks, brown pom poms and buttons, and different animal figurines that the gingerbread ran away from). I have different tongs/tweezers that she uses with it and she puts the items in a bucket. We've made cinnamon playdough too to go along with the whole gingerbread theme. She has cookie cutters, a rolling pin and sometimes she uses her scissors with her playdough too. Color mixing experiments with snow or shaving cream (just add some food coloring or whatnot).

I'm started to think of what I want to do for next month. Do a lot of you do themes? How far in advance do you plan out?

I've got to work on organizing my learning stuff but I'll come back later once I get everything situated and my trays ready.

[meetoo]

I have decided our preschool has become much more academic then I care for it to be. My son really enjoys that type of thing so I will keep putting it out for him if he chooses it. But my emphasis is going to be on creative play, learning new songs, and hands on exploration! So starting this week, I have set up one toy (we have a huge shelf of toys in the basement that i only bring up sometimes) , one messy art/sensory/etc, and sing some songs everyday. I will not be focusing on "learning activities" I.e. math skills, reading, skills, etc. I just do not believe it is where my focus should be. If he chooses to learn that stuff on his own, I will help him and support him, but I want to make sure it is his doing, and not some message he is getting from me.

[Tjej]

I just came across this today - it's a starting/preschool homeschool article about Christian homeschooling. It emphasizes basics and simplicity (and the Bible). So if you are interested in Christian homeschooling, check it out (if you are not doing Christian homeschooling feel free to check it out too, I'm not trying to be devisive, I just doubt it would be of interest).

Tjej

[Momma Aimee]

Originally Posted by Tjej

I just came across this today - it's a starting/preschool homeschool article about Christian homeschooling. It emphasizes basics and simplicity (and the Bible). So if you are interested in Christian homeschooling, check it out (if you are not doing Christian homeschooling feel free to check it out too, I'm not trying to be devisive, I just doubt it would be of interest).

Tjej

THANKS

[urchin_grey]

DS and I were lazy today... It was just us all alone so we ordered pizza and lazed about. We watched, err, a handful of old school Blues Clues episodes (a recent discovery thanks to Netflix). We did do about 10 Kumon worksheets though (these typically take about 10-30 seconds each and DS cried when I put them away ), he practiced writing the letter "B", and then we read over the first two BOB books he got for Yule. Now he's asking to play Candyland but he is way too tired and cranky so I'm not even going to attempt that one.

[heartmommyak]

DD just discovered Memory and loves it! I broke it up so she only gets ten cards at a time and she does really well with it. What were some of your kid's first games they really enjoyed?

[urchin_grey]

Originally Posted by heartmommyak

DD just discovered Memory and loves it! I broke it up so she only gets ten cards at a time and she does really well with it. What were some of your kid's first games they really enjoyed?

Candyland, Cootie, Hi Ho Cherry-O, and Don't Spill the Beans. I got Elephun for my nephew and he and DS play that together, though its not something you can sit down at the table and play. Seems like a good gross motor game though.

I'm thinking of trying Hungry Hungry Hippos too. Lucky Ducks is another good matching one. My sisters had it when they were small, but I haven't seen it in stores in a long time.

[Momma Aimee]

Having a pratical day.

Theo ASKED to fold laundry this moring, so we did. he is getting really good at matching sock and folding tea towles and making stacks (and putting away all the kitcehn stuff -- napkins, dish rags and towles all in their own place).

DH is home on a snow day -- and we are going to pack away Christmas today so i don't know.

we will read the Bible and read books,

but i don't know how much school we'll do.

Dad might do science with him, or math.

I have got to sit down and plan .... i have tons of cool ideas marked and tons of cool things i posess ....but i never get any of it USED


Memory was our first game -- Theo is great at it (got it at 3) we jsut got CandyLandy but he has a hard time sticking with it the whole game so we have yet to actually finsih a game.

i got them wooden animal dominos this year but we have yet to break them out

[ILoveMyBabyBird]

so last week was our official star of using PWB and HOP and it went okay, but this week i am finding doing school work with dh at home is not going to go well. Dh worked last week on his off days, so no problem there, but this week he was home tuesday-wednesday and ds did not want to do the reading for PWB, so I guess I will have to have a weekend day with it after all, last week we did the activities on Mon, tuesday, Wednesday and Finished up on Sunday and that seemed to work, we took thurs, friday off b/c of the holidays. So on a regular week, i'm thinking Monday, Thursday, Friday and finishing up on Saturday. or sunday. The last day was a lot of fun crafty projects that ds enjoyed rather well. Now I am following the MBTP set up for each day, but i'm thinking maybe i should divide up the story time extensions and craft projects, so we're not doing three or so projects in one day and reading 3-4 extra books in one day, I'm still tweaking this, but overall i think it is pretty good, and will be even better when we get the schedule worked out. Right now we are doing the 'schooly' stuff after lunch for a couple hours.. Ds and dh did play games on tues/wed, matching and memory games and chutes and ladders and the like, we did get tuesday PWB done and a bit of HOP with the help of dh, but I don't like forcing it, so I won't be trying to do PWB or HOP on our 'family' weekend again, we can just do the games and such then and if ds wants to read books then we'll do that too.

[ILoveMyBabyBird]

Originally Posted by Momma Aimee

Memory was our first game -- Theo is great at it (got it at 3) we jsut got CandyLandy but he has a hard time sticking with it the whole game so we have yet to actually finsih a game.

yeah my ds will usually finish a game and want to play again, but he gets frustrated so we rarely finish the second game, I know if we get through the first game, he will ask to play again and we do, until he starts getting frustrated, then i just put the game away and we do something else.

[ILoveMyBabyBird]

Originally Posted by urchin_grey

Candyland, Cootie, Hi Ho Cherry-O, and Don't Spill the Beans. I got Elephun for my nephew and he and DS play that together, though its not something you can sit down at the table and play. Seems like a good gross motor game though.

I'm thinking of trying Hungry Hungry Hippos too. Lucky Ducks is another good matching one. My sisters had it when they were small, but I haven't seen it in stores in a long time.

Ds got a lot of games for xmas, his favorites are hungry hippos and cootie, he also likes the number bingo that came with his HOP math package. That could probably made at home...

[marimara]

Well we did our trial of Time4learning.com. I just canceled our membership after about one week. My dd was in Prek1. We might reconsider when she's ready for K but here is my review of T4L for the PreK set:
BTW, dd is 3 and knows her letters, sounds, count to 20, knows all colors, shapes. Can read simple words like cat, hat, sad, mom, etc. Can write most letters. T4L has both Prek1 and Prek2, this review is in response to Prek1.

1. While it does cover both math and letters/sounds, Starfall is by far superior and FREE.
2. It is not as intuitive as some of the other sites I've seen (such as starfall). It asks the student both before AND after "Do you want to do this lesson" and at the end "Do you want to do it again" with smiley and sad faces. My dd found this annoying and so did I. It was also annoying in that you had to exit a certain (again, not intuitive) in order for the lesson to be marked complete. Often dd exited a different way and it was not marked done, so we had to do it over again.
3. Because it was not intuitive for her, I had to stand by while she did the work. This isn't that big of a deal, but I wanted the program for her to do by herself. Again, when she's older this might work, but not right now. I felt that if I had to stand by I might as be reading her stories myself, or playing blocks/tangrams, etc. I knew the work in Prek1 was going to be a review for her but I assumed she would be able to work by herself.

So overall, I don't feel it's worth it for the Prek/preschool set. I am going to let her continue with Starfall for reading/phonics etc. and get her another JumpStart CD ROM if I can find one for preschoolers. She loved the toddler one. I might look for another math program for her. All that, plus our standard arts/crafts/puzzles/blocks/games/play/music that she already does.