Rabbits

Josh is obsessed with Rabbits right now so I am taking advantage of it! Feel free to join us.
Rabbits vs Hares
Rabbit Tangram (scroll down)
Simple Animal Report Idea
Animal Report Graphic Organizers
Rabbit Parts and info
Finish the Sentence writing idea
Peter Rabbit etc activities (scroll down)
Assorted Crafts
Rabbit Lapbook!!!!
Rabbit cardboard tube craft
Geography video

Wednesday's Website

Oh my stinkin' heck on Pioneer Woman talking about EDU-CATION! This is a nice take on homeschool vs sending your children to school.

Surprise!

I am going back to work (part time) starting tomorrow. I was not even looking for a job but received a phone call from Joshua's Young 5 teacher (from last year) on Wednesday. Her assistant changed jobs and they were wondering if I was interested. So, here we are 6 days later and I am back to work, eeeek!

The details are not yet worked out but they are getting there. The main issue is that I begin at 11am and Josh starts at 12. My Mom is available Mondays and Fridays to give him lunch and take him to school. Tuesday, Wednesday, & Thursday we are going to try to get him into a daycare for an hour. I will send his lunch and they will drive him to school. We have called 3 different places. One pretty much laughed at me for only wanting care for 3 hours a week, one has not returned my call, and the 3rd was fine with it and we are going to check them out before school tomorrow.

I have pretty much felt every emotion possible since Wednesday. I am nervous for sure, mostly about Josh. I kind of feel like I got what I wanted and now do not want it. I do want it of course but the whole daycare thing is stressing me out.

Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers and we begin another adventure!

If you Can't Beat 'em, Join 'em!

Just over 2 months left of school for Josh! It is hard to believe how fast it went, how smooth/easy it was for him, and how hard it was for me!

It has taken all these months but I think I have FINALLY figured out a better rhythm for meeting Josh's academic needs. Initially, I thought we would just do school in the morning at home since he was attending PM young 5's. But apparently, we are too lazy to actually get much done that way. I also did not really anticipate that he would have so much homework and extra little things to do.

Another part of this year that was unanticipated was that the curriculum was really MUCH better than I could have even hoped it would be.

So what has worked? Instead of just trying to do the subjects etc... we planned, I actually was able to just add to what he was already learning. Seems obvious, right? But I honestly was not expecting to have enough substance to work with.

When I read the themes they would cover before school began I totally rolled my eyes and laughed because we had pretty much already covered all of it. And of course when I discovered she was using Core Knowledge's Preschool edition I was just reaffirmed. We did that entire book in about 3 weeks over the summer. (By the way, I <3 Core Knowledge!)

But Josh's teacher is amazing and is super into science and challenging all of the students.

For example, right now they are studying oceans. She has taught them...

• Vertebrate vs Invertebrate (plus a bit with Kingdoms within)
• The 5 fins on a fish.
• Who lives where in the ocean and why.
• and much, much more!

So I have just added bits and pieces to it. I was able to dig out the fish parts puzzle so Josh could trace and label the fins. We put together a cool coral reef puzzle and pulled out the seashell cards. It is really allowing me to incorporate the Montessori activities that I want for Josh in a way that is natural and really comfortable for both of us.

Report Card and a question for YOU!

At Josh's school they do conferences a month or so before report cards so that a "turn around" is possible. I get the idea just not sure how I feel about it yet.

However, we are really happy with our school choice still. Josh loves his teacher and is really enjoying school. He is learning a ton because the young 5 class gets to do fun stuff like all the lifecycles and only inadvertently works on letters and sounds. Which is great for Josh since he does not need that. Having said all that...

Josh brought home his report card Thursday. It is a 5 page report that covers a ton of subject areas including math, science, language, social studies, and moral focus. Their grading scale is 0-4.

0 means does not understand skill or concept yet.
1 means beginning to understand skill.
2 means at grade level.
3 means at end of year level.
4 means exceeds expectations.

The included letter stated that we should see a lot of 1 & 2's at this time of the year.

Josh got 15 4's, about 18 0r so 3's, and 5 2's.

So I have a question, did we make the right choice? Should he have gone straight to Kindergarten? What do you think? I am too blinded by my utter fondness for his teacher to think it through.

I do want to say, we are really proud of him. We knew he was bright but we really expected to have some behavior issues. He can be a bit spirited! But he does really well...now if only he could extend that to his after school behavior....but that is for another post!

Geography Songs

I was doing a little geography research for Josh's teacher and figured some of you may be interested as well.

Here is a link to several continent songs. I personally have always used the Love and Marriage version about half way down. It has the continents and the oceans but does not include the newer Southern ocean.

For a good state song try The 50 States that Rhyme Song. I had a hard time with this but got better after a few tries!

Wednesday's Website

http://www.iknowthat.com/com which is basically online educational games for pk-6th grade. You do need to log on but they do not even require your email address, just user name & password.


(ht: http://www.sarahsellers.co.uk/blog/index.php)

November = Simple Machines

Books
Simple Machines (Starting with Science)
Simple Machines (Rookie Read-About Science)
Machines We Use (It's Science)

Videos
Bill Nye Simple Machines Video Episode 1 of 3 (other 2 on right hand suggestion list!)
Sid the Science Kid Simple Machines Cycle 5

Teaching Ideas
Step by step about how to teach about Simple machines

Activities
Simple machines Activities
Simple Machines Webquest including videos. (A bit advanced but worth checking out for videos and pictures!)
Great Simple machines Website! (Some info is subscription only)
Simple Machines Learning Site

Afterschooling

...or in our case beforeschooling, since Josh attends PM young 5's. School is going great for him. He is enjoying it, LOVES his teacher and is actually learning quite a bit! He knows more about frogs then anyone would ever want to know! However, we still feel the need to enrich his learning with more. He is way ahead of his class in both math and reading. They are currently learning to count to 20. He could do that at 3 years old. So here is what we are doing...

Science- (as previously posted!) We have chosen several areas to study and are doing one a month! (September Biology plans, October Physical Science plans)

Geography- Landforms and the Continents using Continent Boxes, Continent books, and any other resources I dig up!

History- Story of the World We are enjoying this but I am having a hard time preparing ahead. I just need to sit down and get things ready for the month in a basket or something so I can just grab!

Music- To our dismay, due to scheduling, Josh does not attend Music at school this year! Therefore, I ordered Story of the Orchestra : Listen While You Learn About the Instruments, the Music and the Composers Who Wrote the Music! and am really excited to get started. We plan to begin tomorrow. (Just got it Friday!)

Practical Life- Remember these? I plan to start back up working on Josh's cookbook. Today was my b-day so I am thinking of having him help make a cake tomorrow (good excuse, right?). We also want to continue working on skills such as...

• tying
• cutting with scissors
• cutting with knife
• pouring

Math- Our main focus right now is on addition and heading toward subtraction. On our shelf you would find...

• Addition Strip Board (info)
• Addition Snake game (info)
• Hundreds board (video)
• Other manipulatives such as counters, dice, etc...

Language- This is the easiest and most natural! We have a reading night planned for Tuesday where we all pile into my bed and read to each other until bedtime. However, he reads to us or we read to him every night before bed normally. So I am not really planning anything extra...yet!

Art- Want to work on a few drawing skills and of course we will do seasonal crafts. We are happy with his school's art program so just having fun here for now!

Really though, this seems like a lot. But we have the entire school year and all summer to accomplish these things. Some weeks we do a ton and some weeks (like last week!) we get NOTHING done. Either way, we are not stressing. Our intention is to have school for an hour 4 days a week before lunch. ...but sometimes...the Lego's just need more attention than the dining room table...ya know?

October = Physical Science

Physical Science - gas liquid solid, magnets, buoyancy, surface tension, evaporation, volume, weight, measurement

• Matter- gas/liquid/solid and Evaporation Water
  Reversible Changes
  Material properties
  Melting points
  Gases
  Ice Cream Science FUN Celebration!
• Magnets Curious George Magnet Video
  Magnets and Springs
  Experiments
  Magnet Painting
• Buoyancy
  Pumpkin Float and Sink!
  Easy Buoyancy round vs flat sinking
  Float vs sink
  sinkorfloat ideas
• Surface Tension
  Penny Experiment
  Floating Paper Clips
• Volume - Weight - Measurement
  Pumpkin Measurement worksheet
  Many measurement ideas Sid the Science Kid Exploring measurement And of course cooking!

We never get to all the activities I list and I often take longer than indicated to do a "theme". It is just my intention to do these activities in October. Hope you find something here you can use with your family!

School is...um...cool?

Well we did it! We survived Josh's first week of school! I tell you though, it was both worse and better than I expected.

The first day I dropped him off and for the most part it went fine. He was excited and happy...I held the tears until I got in the car. Sounds successful, right?

Pick up was a bit iffy. To begin with, the whole crazy pick up thing is CRAZY. There are no buses, so every parent is there waiting in line to pick up their child. CRAZY!

When it was finally my turn to get my kid...he was escorted to the car by his teacher... he jumped in and immediately burst into tears. I think he was a bit over tired. He is not generally that emotional. He had forgotten a book he made during Center time AND some little girl tore it and he had to tape it. It is still unclear to me which he was crying about...maybe both!

Anyway, then he says, "...and Momma, we did not learn ANYTHING today...you said I would learn something..." Oy, he has continued to complain about that everyday but at least now he is also adding that all they learned was about school rules...but nothing else! (Which by the way, is not true since he told me all about snakes on the way home today...BUT he wants to learn real stuff like math etc...) I just keep reassuring him that they will learn more as everyone gets used to school.

Which is only sort of true! He is not going to learn what he wants this year, and prob not next year, at school. But we are also continuing to work at home and he is loving that all of a sudden. Sort of a "you do not know what you have until you no longer have it!"


Right now at home we are working on

• Geography~ North America
• Science~ Human Body (esp. digestion this week!)
• History~ Story of the World (what is history/archaeology?)

Think I will add math to please Josh in the next few weeks, once we get a better rhythm in place.

I do want to add that I really like his teacher. I think she "gets" him. She pulled me aside already to talk about how SHE has the same sense of humor as him...hmmm??? And also, that he really is good at reading...uh, yeah...I noticed! I think when we had warned her she thought we were exaggerating.

So, any good advice about keeping him away from germs and mean kids on the playground? (He already has a runny nose and had a time out for pushing a boy who would not stop teasing him.)

Welcome to the world of school!