First Week of School

 

Day 1 of School. They were thrilled to receive their own pencil boxes. Behind them is our daily calendar and "to do" lists. We have prayer time, then calendar/circle time. I draw a "helper" out of a bag each day. Their favorite song this week was "5 Little Ducks Went Out to Play."

 Chloe and Colin have little scrapbooks they're free to paste work in, but mainly we concentrate on Hannah's so she has a good record of her work. After spelling/reading and math, we are focusing on a book of the week from Five in a Row. This week is The Story About Ping about a little duck who wants to avoid punishment but ends up on an adventure that makes him appreciate home. It takes place on the Yangtze River. They found and colored the river on a map of China and cut/glued photos of the river.

They also made their own version of the Chinese flag after we read a book about China.

 We also have a large world map on the back of our calendar board. As we learn about different countries, we'll add a flag to the board with a string pinpointing the country. That concluded Monday: Social Studies.

 

 For math the next day, Hannah was learning about Cardinal and Ordinal Numbers. We collected a bunch of their little toys and pretended they were lining up for a ride on the Batmobile, which would go over an exciting ramp : ) They discussed who would go 1st, 3rd. They switched places, etc. Then each kid gave the toy a ride according to their order. We had a fun time!

 After the math lesson, Hannah usually applies what we learned to a workbook, which she loves. She seems to have a knack for math, which is funny to us, since neither Dax nor I necessarily struggled with it, but certainly didn't love it too much either.

 

 We also use a little rubber fruit collection to talk about "sets" and addition.

Our second day of Ping focused on reading/comprehension. We talked about Fiction vs. Nonfiction. Anytime we read a book for fun, I also try to quiz them on the type of book. Hannah wrote two facts about China and put some story sequence cards in order. Now that I'm teaching them, I'm putting together the why of things I learned in elementary school. Of course everyone needs to understand sequencing, but I can see how this is a precursor to being able to retell or narrate a story, especially when we switch to Charlotte Mason when they're older. Right now, they're learning to read. Hannah read If You Give a Pig a Party in it's entirety to me. That's a 1st grade level book, so it's good to know that even though she did Pre-K instead of Kindergarten she's still reading with her age group. This goes for the math, too, as she's working out of a 1st grade level. And Chloe read her first tiny story about a Cat and Rat who Sat. : ) She was super excited.

 

 We've had school from about 9am-11:30 each day. This leaves plenty of time for play. I love when I suggest they play in the backyard and they immediately change into other clothes: a velvet medieval dress, leotard and tutu, and Batman wearing pink cowgirl boots.

 It's also fun to see them getting more creative. Hannah made a family of monsters.

I can already tell this school schedule helps the kids feel much more structured and peaceful. Cleaning is even much easier and more voluntary.  Hannah is being a big helper : )

 Our 3rd day of Ping, we tried art and music. We discussed the illustrator's technique in drawing water. We found some of our own books and compared how they illustrated water. The girls picked which ones they wanted to try for themselves..with a bonus of sparkle puffy paint. I helped them paint the Chinese symbol for Angel- then they invented their own. Hannah chose "oshen" (ocean).

For music, we listened to an erhu and zheng, with a couple of listening pop quizzes. It's fun to see their reactions to brand new things. Finally, I put on a kids' show all in Chinese. They were riveted : )
Thank goodness for YouTube and all the things it offers!

 

Thursday was spent at gymnastics and a co-op, then we were all looking forward to Friday. Dax has all Fridays and Saturdays off for the summer and got to participate in school. We went on a field trip to the Chinese/Asian supermarket.  Five in a Row has a Cooking Supplement, and for Ping, we chose to make egg rolls. I've heard of this place, but wasn't prepared for the size of it. Think Walmart-sized with a kind of shopping mall inside the perimeter. I also had no idea how much new food we would see.

So many new produce items to explore.

If you know our kids, then you know they are kind of scaredy-cats! Chloe saw all the live seafood and immediately ran away. Hannah was willing to take a closer look. They were also fascinated by packaged octopus tentacles, prawn crackers, and duck eggs.

Dax was fascinated by the $70 live fluke. It says it's a Mother's Day Special! ...maybe next time. :/

And I was fascinated by the entire Hello Kitty store at the checkout.

 

Back at home, Dax exhibits proper chopstick form at lunch.

The kids loved putting together egg rolls- we are not adventurous eaters, and this was believe it or not, a stretch for them. Hopefully that will change as school goes on.

   

If you know me, you know I tend to take on too many things at once. Colin has been potty training during this first week of school, too. He just turned 3, and it's about time we got going on this. He's has some good successes he was proud of this week, but none compared to how proud he was of his egg roll folding.

Chloe was sooo excited to try chopsticks. We bought a pair of "training" chopsticks and they each got a turn. Colin was pretty good at eating his rice with them. Chloe stuck to her hot dog pieces : )

I love reading the label translations.

     For our last day of school this week, the kids got a surprise snack of chocolate rice cakes- Ping ate rice cakes in the story. I've never really had them before, but they are addictive!

 We focused our science on ducks today. In a book, we learned they preen their feathers with oil so they don't get wet. We covered half a brown paper sack in vegetable oil then compared what sprinkles of water did to the sections with and without oil. Then we filled out a sink or float chart. The kids loved this. They made their predictions and cheered when they discovered they had guess correctly. It was a lot of fun. They also learned from the types of things we put in, that metal always sank and things made from trees always floated.

Overall, we had a wonderful first week of school, with really only one tough behavior moment I can recall. I know not all our days will work perfectly, but I'm relieved to know that this is all possible for us and really delighted that we can see our kids learning right in front of us and in a memorable way for the whole family. (I might post twice a week now, since this one was pretty long).

First Time for Everything

In two days, we will begin our first day of homeschooling. Our children are 3, 4, and 6, so this is mostly for our oldest, Hannah, but everyone in the family is invited. We plan to use a mix of curricula-  Five in A Row,  Children's Garden of the Theotokos,  Horizons Math, and various spelling and language programs.  I've bought some of this online and some at a home educators store (where much is second hand). My gracious mother is a teacher, so she's donated many supplies and worksheets toward our cause. I've collected many ideas off of websites, blogs, and magazines with hopes of forming something manageable for me and fulfilling for our children. We plan on doing 6 weeks of school, 2 weeks of mini-vacation. The structure of our day is planned for as follows- but we'll see how the kids do best as time goes on.

A real breakfast (not the rushed ones when we had to rush to preschool everyday)
Prayers and Circle Time including Saint of the Day
Math
Language
Five in a Row  -  alternating Social Studies, Language Arts, Art& Music, Math, and Science.

We'll hopefully fit in a mini-field trip each week along with some cooking.
Join us as we begin our adventure! We'll have our mishaps for sure, but I'm excited to see what's in store for us! I'm trying to remember a very important word for myself, since there is so much else going on in life that can change these plans around -  FLEXIBILITY

In the meantime, I'm still relishing in a wonderful trip I took with Mom to Whidbey Island, Washington. This picture illustrates how I feel about the upcoming summer : )