Spring/Autumn Pre-Homeschool Chat. :) - Page 3

[Treece]

Originally Posted by trghig 

All children are entitled under federal law....I believe the law is called IDEA. I know for a fact that oklahoma provides these services because my mil used them for my husband's youngest sister when she was homeschooling.

Good to know :) I just sorta assumed since the parents are taking the responsiblity to educate, that the Oklahoma Constitution didn't allow that sort of thing. I have a daughter that requires Speech Therapy so, that is GREAT news :D Thanks :)

[Momma Aimee]

I stronly support homeschoolers accessing all services at the public schools they can.  we pay taxes too!  and really even dual enrolled like we are, homeschooling saves the district so much money -- it is a nonissues.

my boys both get ST at school, i have a coupld of people that keep offereing classroom, but eveyone knows that our family is staying home.

[AFWife]

Bump! I need ideas for my 2 yr old

[OkiMom]

Hey everyone! I haven't been doing much lately with the girls. We are moved back to the states though and Dh has left and won't be back until march. We are getting settled in and figuring out what the girls want to do this year.

For plans I like to do 50/50. 50 percent of the time I do what they want ( usually it's more like 80-90percent actually) and the rest of the time I have a list of things to work with them with. This year my oldest has expressed interest in: learning to read ( again), learning to draw, learning to swim and learning to ride a bike. I'd like to work with her with: training our family dog, a basic chore chart, learning to tie her shoes and manners. My middle wants to learn to swim, bike riding and anything to do with monkeys. I want to work with her with a basic chore chart and self care(dressing, brushing teeth, etc). The baby is just along for the ride. He will probably learn to crawl and walk this year .

We are working on a do-able schedule right now. All four of us work best when we are running on a schedule. Otherwise I'm tired all the time, the girls are crabby and missing a nap can make the baby scream for hours. Only problem is getting everything to work out.

[revolting]

So, my eldest likes having special activities to do with me while her younger sibling sleeps. I dislike the idea of a curriculum. I'm not exactly the kind of person who could work up a schedule that say on this day we're going to do this every day. At the same time, with two kids, I find that without any sort of planning, we just kind of flounder. We miss stuff we want to do. By the time I get things together, my daughter will have moved onto something else. So, this year, my goal is to have a few themes for different parts of the year (tied in with the season) that I can have books and activities on hand for us to do (or not) during the appropriate season. That way, I will generally have something new to bring out during my youngest's nap time. So, I've been planning things: apple picking for late summer (since most of the sweet apples ripen around here in late summer); leaf activities starting a few weeks after the beginning of fall when the leaves normally change; Halloween stuff at the end of October...and then we get to November, and I'm out of ideas. I personally dislike Thanksgiving. I think the mythology behind the Thanksgiving story is racist. We generally finished harvesting the garden in October, so I don't care much for it as a harvest celebration, either. While we sometimes get snow in late November, generally little if any. Any good ideas for seasonal activities to do for November that are not about Thanksgiving or harvesting? I'd really like to have our plans for our "homeschool" up until the new year. Also, any good ideas for autumn chapter books appropriate for a 4.5yo or any autumn themed beginning reader (the first few levels of the beginning readers) you'd recommend? I have plenty of picture books, but no ideas for chapter books, and I'd be picking beginning reader books pretty blindly. (She has finished the BOB books, but she's not a fluent reader yet; she enjoys books she can read all by herself.)

[SweetSilver]

Originally Posted by revolting 

 Any good ideas for seasonal activities to do for November that are not about Thanksgiving or harvesting? I'd really like to have our plans for our "homeschool" up until the new year. Also, any good ideas for autumn chapter books appropriate for a 4.5yo or any autumn themed beginning reader (the first few levels of the beginning readers) you'd recommend? I have plenty of picture books, but no ideas for chapter books, and I'd be picking beginning reader books pretty blindly. (She has finished the BOB books, but she's not a fluent reader yet; she enjoys books she can read all by herself.)

     We love the "Henry and Mudge" series by Cynthia Rylant.  Mudge, the drooly Mastiff, is hilarious and the stories are funny and sweet.

I'm having a hard time thinking of other books that are for beginning readers, but here are other ideas for family reading:

      Mid-fall usually brings out the stargazers in us, anything about the night sky, even though November is the worst month in the Pacific Northwest for seeing anything but clouds!  "Zoo in the Sky" is a fun book, story oriented.  I like stories about hibernation, like "Mousekin's Golden House" (out of print?), an adorable story of a mouse and a pumpkin, (other stories by the author are equally wonderful).  "Sometimes Moon" is a sweet explanation of the moon phases, my favorite for that subject. I also like to begin stories about the winter solstice.  "Raven Steals the Light" is my favorite story to read for that time, though it's not a solstice story per se.  "The Story of the Milky Way" (did I remember that title correctly?) is a First Nations story about a dog stealing cornmeal and disappearing into the night sky.  And our girls love all the antics of the Trickster Coyote, and many of his stories involve his atrocious howling at the moon.  There any renditions of Bear hiding the sun.

     We usually have about 100 books checked out from the library at any one time, so I'll pay attention to books that fit your description.

[meetoo]

Hi ladies, 

I haven't been doing anything. I've been in a bit of a funk..... I hope posting here will give me some motivation. We do read and play outside, but I'm really not on top of my game. I feel like I'm not spending enough time with her, even if it's just chatting. :(. I'm feeling some  major SAHM burnout I think...... I'm trying to come up with a better daily routine right now. One let allows for chores, play time, mommy time, and all the other stuff I'm forgetting. I thinking a better routine may be just what I need right now.... Feel free to send my fun messy summer ideas to do outside. :) 

AFwife: 

My baby is 2 too. I think it's a lot about the materials you have at this age. Go scrounge garage sales for tons of different toys.I keep a few shelves in my basement with the toys we can rotate through. I pull out 1-3 boxes at a time and it keeps the kids much busier than leaving things out all the time. It also helps to give her choices yet I still feel I'm providing educational experiences. I have everything from flannel board cut outs, to math manipulatives, puzzles, train sets......It's a big shelf pretty packed. LOL.  I have found wooden puzzles, blocks, peg boards, gears, train sets, etc, etc, etc. from yard sales. Look for things he can be creative with, things he can figure out, things he can take apart, things that work small motor skills. I'm not sure what kind of area you live in but try to get out of the house every day for a small outing. It widens his world and vocabulary. Do a lot outdoor play, if you hit a local park at the same time everyday maybe he can make some little friends. Story time at the library can be fun...... This summer I'm hoping to set up one activity a day for my littlest.  I think we will do a lot of discovery oriented things. I would like to get into more discussions with her. We also will be spending a lot of time at the parks, pool, playing with siblings etc.  Come fall I hope to get back into setting up three activities a day for her to choose from. I think I might also do some FIAR style book themes too. I tried last year and she wasn't into it but this year I think she might enjoy it. 

Some of the things I hope to get to this summer is: 

-Goop in our sand table (corn starch and water)

-flour in the sand table (flour is sooooooo messy! I might do something else instead.

-I thought about doing beans in the sand table then adding some water and letting them sprout in there too. I might get to that. 

-home made magic bubbles with home made/found bubble wands

-bubble painting

-Let her "paint" the house / side walk with water or maybe even colored a bit with chalk)

-Finger painting

-fly swatter painting

-I really want to try to build  a larger sand box in the yard....Not sure if I will get to that. 

-Garden with her (we already started this one) 

-read, read, read

-rock art This is two parts because one day we will go to the river to collect them the next day decorate them. I saw a neat thing on a blog to heat the stones up then draw on them with crayons. I think we will give it a shot. I have two older ones though. If it was just the baby I think I would stick with paint. 

-catch lots of bugs

-use glitter  I do not allow glitter in my house lol. 

-make sun tea

-catch lots of bugs

not sure what else. I think I would like to set up some "extra" out in the yard every day.........or every other day...or once a week lol I mentioned I'm not really on my game right? LOL

[earthworm]

We're still here, I guess. Haha.

We haven't been doing much of anything because I've been having some health issues. I am a little concerned about how homeschooling is going to work with chronic health issues. I've always said we're going to take it year by year so that's what we'll do. Still a little upsetting to think about.
I've been looking at (Before) Five in a Row to possibly start using soon. Our library has it but of course it is always checked out during the "school year." It seems gentle and easy to use. I tried to find the books used/cheap on Amazon but people are selling them for $80+! We still love science experiments so we'll probably be doing a lot of those too. I've been looking at purchasing the book Science is Simple. Another book our library has, but I would rather own it (because I'll probably end up destroying it!). My oldest (4) loooves Starfall. We bought the subscription to "More Starfall" and it has been well worth it. He was very reluctant to do anything with numbers until checking them out on his own terms on that site.
We're also looking at signing up for a music class in the winter, maybe. It's one my kids could do together which I love. But so much money!
We're heading to the beach next week, so I guess I could have some fun beach-related things for us to do/read but I don't. Haha. I don't really care either. Vacation!!
Hope everyone is enjoying life!

[zebaby]

DS is all about writing, drawing, and reading at the moment, so I suspect we'll be writing a lot of stories this summer. My hope is to get out of the house every day and get some pool time as well, as he has started some swim lessons and is in LOVE with the water (funny, since he was petrified of it unless I was clutching him close, last year!). 

I'm also in the process of planning for fall with our co-op, which is planning on adding a second day for science and math. Can't wait to find some fun and easy science experiments to do with them!

Still continuing my online Montessori training, but I feel like a boob for not having stuff organized enough to start a formal program (curriculum, if you want to call it that) at home. I'd say I'd like to start it in the fall, but I thought I was going to start in the spring and didn't, so I'll try not to jinx it! LOL

[Stacey B]

There is a lot of travel for us this summer. We've started rock climbing with DS recently and he loves it (he tried to sleep in his harness). He and I are off for the East Coast (New York and New England) for three weeks in a couple of days. I am continuing to see him learning more and more every day and as we get closer to 5 I am more committed to Unschooling, it seems in our family every time I try teaching it only serves to hurt our relationship, but when I follow his lead and help with what ds is interested in we go so far. So for now we're focusing on outdoor skills.

Do we want to start a summer thread?

[LuxPerpetua]

I found this link for a homemade calendar that I'm think of adapting for us.  I think we'll just use thick cardstock and not do the foam, and instead of a painting or drawing we may collect things on our nature walks to glue onto the page for each month.  We may actually do a painting and then glue the nature bits on top of it.  I'm still thinking it through, but thought I'd post this in case anyone else wanted to do something like this:

http://familyfun.go.com/crafts/family-calendar-668132/ 

For our summer, we are basically gardening, riding bikes, swimming, vacationing, and camping.   A friend of mine gave me a recipe for sand dough the other day that I want to try out soon but we keep running out of time.  I'm trying not to feel guilty that we aren't crafting and such but that is so hard for us to do in the summer when we stay so busy.