I thought I should share the printables I created to introduce Space to Thing One (and Thing Two). Just click the links to download a pdf file of each.
Sun & Planet Posters (this file now includes pluto updated on 2.27.13)
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Tot School Letter Aa
I don’t know when we’ll officially step Thing Two up to PreK. He is pretty much doing everything from COAH’s LOTW right now…except the counting (correctly) and the fine motor tracing skills. He can do a straight big line, but he’s not interested in tracing “real” things yet. And’ I’m okay with that – he’s only 29 months old! Here’s some fun Thing Two had with learning this week…
He was SUPER proud if his “rainbow alligator”.
All of Thing Two’s fun Letter A activities came from COAH’s LOTW (as usual).
And he pulled out his Very Hungry Caterpillar Tot Book/Pack from 1+1+1=1. He loves this book and therefore is equally attached to the activities he has to go with it.
Our Place in Space (Kw1)
So, after a sloooow start last week due to sickness, we were back on track this week!
Thing One worked through the practice lessons in his A Reason for Handwriting K Workbook. I think he wasn’t thrilled with this, but next week we’ll get into making actual letters, so maybe he’ll be more excited about that? He has to learn to write, and I have heard good things about R4H from lots of places – including a preschool teacher. So we’re trying it out. I think it’ll be fine, most kids aren’t fans of writing because it takes time and concentration.
Math-U-See is AWESOME. Boy, do I with someone had explained Place Value to me this way – I might have understood what was going on! We worked in Lesson 9 of the Primer this week, as well as throwing in some extra worksheets from Lessons 1-8, which we mostly skipped because they were just counting. We did do a few last week to get familiar with the Math-U-See format and blocks. All I have to say about Place Value is this: Thing One really GETS IT…and now I do too! lol It is visual, verbal, and hands on – what could be better for boys?!
SPACE! We talked about space last week and then this week too. We learned about what the word “orbit” means. Thing One can now explain how the Earth orbits the Sun and the Moon orbits the earth. Want to get the template for our Sun-Earth-Moon Orbiting craft? Click here: Sun-Earth-Moon Orbiting Craft to download the PDF template.
I gave Thing One the “Big Picture” of where HE is in the world using a “Me on the Map” type flip-book I made.
It ended up being the perfect visual for him to learn from and actually begin to SEE where we are in the world. Now we can use it as a beginning to our 7 Continents Study!
Our Letter of the Week was the Letter A. So we had some fun with that as well.
I’m also including a Number of the Week now as well. I thought it would be a fun way to work on Number Words and also reading (some of the CVC words in our poems he can read for me), as well as rhyming words – which he loves.
AMAZING cutting job – I had to glue it and save it because it REALLY says a lot about his progress in this area.
We’re working on making an Alphabet Art Wall (well, it’s the coat closet door really!) Thing Two and I did the lowercase a. Both have apple seeds glued on them for remembering the “a” sound.
We’ve also been working through our reading with Ordinary Parent’s Guide to Teaching Reading. I don’t really take pictures though, it is kinda a focused Mom and Thing One time. He also gets to have some “review” time with Daddy as much as we can fit it in (or remember!) in the evenings. So far…okay. He likes it, but because of his speech issue the difference between short e and short i are really hard for him (and me to tell he’s making the right sound), as well as many consonant sounds.
That’s some fun from our official first week of Kindergarten! Time to prep for next week…
Homeschooling in My Living Room, Part Two
So now that you know the beginning of our story, here’s what our life has quickly become through pictures of our “school room,” aka the living room/dinning area. It’s a crazy life, but it’s really wonderful!
Then (actually these are from December 2011)…
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Here are the NOW photos of our little school house…I took these while we were on break and I was preparing our house for starting Kindergarten. Our school has grown a lot from the beginning in September!
The dinning area on one side.
The other side of the dinning area and part of the living area.
I made “stations” with mini pocket charts for more movement. Thing Two like to play in all of them with his matching games. Then there are our “workboxes” of a sort. The boys like the structure of boxes and it is a fun way to move from thing to thing.
Did this Nifty DIY Shelf Organizational System with Jars and Bins from the Dollar Tree, a camera, MS Word (for Mac), and contact paper. Makes me feel happy to see this all in its place and so clean looking!
Our Weather Station and Virtues, also the “entry” to “Mommy’s Area.” Using the many shelves and file cabinets for school storage and an Ikea shelf we sectioned of the corner of the living room into a space for me to work on school and store books and supplies.
The view from “inside” “Mommy’s Area”. You can see our school wall through the middle of the “wall” I tried to create with shelves and file cabinets.
The Ikea shelf is my best friend. It USED to be filled with my crafting supplies, but now it mostly houses school books and resources. Looks messy? Yes, because I face the book and binder spines out to the rest of the house. So, it looks much better to people coming into the house from the front door. 
Well, that and my area was messy when I took these pictures, but there’s no sense in falsifying the usual state of things for the blog, right?! No one really lives in the pristine state they post in pictures – it is impossible!
That’s a picture of what our homeschool is like living in an apartment. It is possible! But you do have to give up your house…especially if your doing elementary ages. I want school to be visual and fun. I don’t want the boys to “miss” any of the fun they might have at “regular” school – so I brought the classroom experience into the house: complete with posters, bulletin boards, centers, and pocket charts. We’re blessed to have a good space even without a devoted school room.
Simply said: they love it!
…and I do too!
And Here Comes Kindergarten!
Let’s call it week 0.5 – we got a whole two days in before The Geek and I were taking turns “worshipping the porcelain god” with the stomach flu. YUCK. We have Thing Two to thank, as he shared his stomach flu all over us, literally, on Easter!
Here’s the few snapshots I got of our 2-day week before the stomach flu hit us. I guess in a way it was nice to “ease” back into school after a couple weeks of breaking!
I’m making excellent use of our pocket charts now!
We hunted for things around the house that began with the letter J, pictured are “jackets” and “jelly.” It was an activity HIT! Who knew something so simple would be so much fun?
Thing One began his A Reason for Handwriting K Workbook.
We began Math-U-See. They thought watching the “bald guy” on TV was a funny treat.
The Solar System appeared on our staircase.
Thing One began learning to read!
So, what are we doing for Kindergarten? Well, lots of things. If any of you know me (or The Geek) well, you know we both have real issue staying inside the box. That being said, I suppose you could label us as “eclectic” homeschoolers, overall. So, of course our K curriculum is coming from all sorts of different places. For the “basics” of K level work I am actually following (mostly? lol) an actual manual/program/curriculum.
You can read more about out Kindergarten curriculum choices here.
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