Did'ja know? Little kids are supposed to be able to stick stickers, fold paper, scribble-with-direction and use safety scissors. Apparently, this is news to me.
I've been feeling like I'm sheltering LP way too much. As if, on the principle of letting my little boy BE a little boy, I'm actually stifling his growth. So we're doing more "school." It's really a mock school thing, because he doesn't have to do it, and if he's not interested, he's not interested, but... I needed some kind of kick in the pants on this. It's just not right that my trying to delay his growing up is actually killing his skills before he acquires them.
We're now, over the summer, anyhow, doing the exercises from Slow and Steady, Get Me Ready (this week is matching bowls/pots with their lids). We're catching up on exercises we've missed (like fingerpaints and two-piece jigsaw puzzles). And I'm adding in both BOB Book read-alouds, and the very early Kumon workbooks. The ones that are "Hey! Scribble here!" or "Hey! Fold this!" stuff like that. Nothing with actual reading or computation, but skills he probably ought to have, and I've been neglecting. He's proving absolutely capable of doing these things, and it leads me to wonder what else he's capable of that I haven't been letting him do. ;.; It's a step in the right direction. I don't want to push him, but I also don't want to stifle him.
Depressingly, my life has consisted of about two things for the last month - LP's education/skill-building, and my little backyard garden.
My little garden has carrots, radishes, lettuce, two green pepper plants and four tomato plants in it. I suppose we'll see what makes it, and what gets choked out. Hopefully nothing, but... We'll have to see. I also suspect that we will have to deal with slugs and with things eating my plants, but... one thing at a time, right? At least the plants are planted. ^_^
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Monday, June 7, 2010
For Reference.
Miquon Math: http://www.keypress.com/Documents/miquon/MiquonOrderForm.pdf
(three teacher's guides, orange and red books, and cuisenaire rods {provided mine never turn up})
Explode The Code: http://www.barnesandnoble.com
(Get Ready for the Code, Get Set for the Code, Go for the Code)
Handwriting Without Tears: http://shopping.hwtears.com/category/prek
(Get Set For School, Pre-K Teacher's Guide, Slate Chalkboard, Pre-K Wall Cards)
(three teacher's guides, orange and red books, and cuisenaire rods {provided mine never turn up})
Explode The Code: http://www.barnesandnoble.com
(Get Ready for the Code, Get Set for the Code, Go for the Code)
Handwriting Without Tears: http://shopping.hwtears.com/category/prek
(Get Set For School, Pre-K Teacher's Guide, Slate Chalkboard, Pre-K Wall Cards)
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Thinking School-y Thoughts.
I've spent the last two days making a plan for 2010-2011.
It is primarily made up of TotSchooling, the basic exercises from Slow and Steady, Get Me Ready, a monthly study of colors, and a weekly study of letters and themes. It's pretty blatantly ripped off of other people's ideas, but it does come from homeschooling families with a lot more experience than I have, and covers the things I want to see. I would like, in the next "school" year, for LP to learn:
Letters, Aa-Zz, and a partial awareness of the phonemes.
Numbers, 1-10, counting 1-10. *Possibly* skip counting by 2 or 5.
Basic Box-Of-Crayons colors.
Basic shapes.
An awareness of seasonal changes (snow in winter, heat in summer, etc)
In all truth, it simultaneously seems like an awful lot, and not much at all.
I've set up shop around the idea of a 36-week school "year." There are breaks for fall, winter, spring, and summer. There are two weeks allotted for vacation. There are several "free" weeks as well. Things like TotBooks and the Slow and Steady exercises will continue through the summer months as well. I'm hoping that setting up even a mild structure will help me going into the years where he is *actually* schooling.
I've also taken advantage of Evernote to help me keep track of the what's-the-what of our agenda. When it gets more specific, and he's covering things in "real" subjects, I'll have to see if it's possible to use spreadsheets in the program, but for now it works. I'm happy about that. And curiosity being what it is... I looked. On a cursory glance, it does not seem to support spreadsheets, but there is the ability to upload files to your notebook, which means that I can create spreadsheets and upload them, to be visible wherever I am. I can handle that. ^_^
All in all... pretty successful. Now to shoot for implementation...
It is primarily made up of TotSchooling, the basic exercises from Slow and Steady, Get Me Ready, a monthly study of colors, and a weekly study of letters and themes. It's pretty blatantly ripped off of other people's ideas, but it does come from homeschooling families with a lot more experience than I have, and covers the things I want to see. I would like, in the next "school" year, for LP to learn:
Letters, Aa-Zz, and a partial awareness of the phonemes.
Numbers, 1-10, counting 1-10. *Possibly* skip counting by 2 or 5.
Basic Box-Of-Crayons colors.
Basic shapes.
An awareness of seasonal changes (snow in winter, heat in summer, etc)
In all truth, it simultaneously seems like an awful lot, and not much at all.
I've set up shop around the idea of a 36-week school "year." There are breaks for fall, winter, spring, and summer. There are two weeks allotted for vacation. There are several "free" weeks as well. Things like TotBooks and the Slow and Steady exercises will continue through the summer months as well. I'm hoping that setting up even a mild structure will help me going into the years where he is *actually* schooling.
I've also taken advantage of Evernote to help me keep track of the what's-the-what of our agenda. When it gets more specific, and he's covering things in "real" subjects, I'll have to see if it's possible to use spreadsheets in the program, but for now it works. I'm happy about that. And curiosity being what it is... I looked. On a cursory glance, it does not seem to support spreadsheets, but there is the ability to upload files to your notebook, which means that I can create spreadsheets and upload them, to be visible wherever I am. I can handle that. ^_^
All in all... pretty successful. Now to shoot for implementation...
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