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Monday, January 10, 2011

First 2 weeks of January : Homeschool


Hello everyone! I just wanted to do a quick post about what we are doing in homeschool these days. I have been following the curriculum for My Father's World Kindergarten for Israel, but for Elijah (besides just sitting in) we do some Montessori-type activities. I have been so challenged since what I wrote in my last post about this. I am not a certified teacher for academics, just for music, so this is hard for me. It's tempting to spend all my free time searching the internet for ideas, reading more books and worrying. But I'm trying to keep my focus right. When I find myself stressing over it, I hear the words "Be still!" And I will be honest, it's hard to obey. But when I can get the stress out of my mind over it, we really have a lot of fun! Elijah really enjoyed building his tower:


So proud


Now the fun part!


Israel loved her moveable alphabet. She uses the letters to spell words on the card.




Elijah liked putting lentils on numbers. He lines the foam numbers in order and puts the correct number of lentils on each number



This idea came from Counting Coconuts. It's just a little box with clothes in it. The kids take the clothes out and practice buttoning, zipping and velcroing. I can't wait to add snaps and ties in there :)


Israel only did this one once, but Elijah wanted to do it again and again. The kids can pour water into their own glass, but they have a hard time knowing when to stop at the top. I put some green, red and normal color pasta (we're talking about Italy because we are going there in a few weeks!) into a kid-sized pitcher. They pour it into each glass.


Of course there were a lot of messes with this, but Elijah doesn't mind sweeping them up! :)


We did patterns too. Because we are learning about Italy, the kids are making patterns with red, white and green.


In My Father's World, we are doing a unit on Farm Animals. The kids have had this Fisher Price barn for a long time, but lately they haven't really played with it much. I put it out on the shelves along with this fun activity and today the barn was a hit! It started with Israel putting together basic words (red: adjectives, blue: verbs, black: nouns..but we didn't get into it that much!) to make basic sentences as she played. It was so fun and really cool to see her begin to read!



Last but not least...our composer of the month. We did this when I was a music teacher, but now that I'm teaching my own kids it's so much more fun! We picked Vivaldi because of the Italy study, but also because Israel danced to the Winter movement of the Four Seasons Concerto. Together, Israel and I made a scrapbook page about Vivaldi. Every week we will make a page or two about Italy, laminate them, bind them and take them with us on our trip. I think the kids will remember more that way.




And more about what is going on in our lives besides homeschool.....
Elijah received his first ice skating lesson with Jeff, one of our friends who plays on the hockey team!

I couldn't post without including this! Those of you who participate in Operation Christmas Child each year...a huge thank you! Because of all the shoeboxes given all over the world, we can minister more effectively. Here's a picture after our church's puppet show, where we distribute the boxes. We brought two of Israel's friends and their mothers this year. The girls loved their gifts!
Happy New Year, everyone!

Linked up with "Artists and Art" at www.theadventuresofbear.blogspot.com

5 comments:

  1. Fun, Taylor! You're doing a great job! Love the "pouring" activity and the box of clothes for buttoning/snapping, etc. You are saving yourself a lot of time in the long run by teaching those things....wish I had thought of that when mine were that age! Praying for you guys!

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  2. Thanks Em! I got a lot of ideas from different blogs, but one of my favs is Counting Coconuts. It's so fun!

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  3. Thanks so much, Taylor, for linking back to my blog. I'm so glad to know you've found some useful ideas! *hugs*

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  4. Glad you won on "Counting Coconuts" because that's how I found your blog :)
    I don't think you need to be qualified for more than music because it looks like you're doing a fantastic job, Momma!
    Have a good weekend.

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  5. i LOOOOVE all of these ideas!!! I will DEFINITELY be coming to you in the next year or so to learn all your fun activities!!!

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