Unschooling

I love this quote from Marisa on Facebook, she was describing what ‘Unschooling’ is to another user and this really does sum it up for me

Unschooling is basically the opposite of school, the term came about from John Holt who was a teacher, he tried to reform schools in the US and failed and instead switched to encouraging parents to homeschool but not to do school at home. Unschooling comes from the same prinicipal of having an unschooled musician or an unschooled artist but is extended to every subject. Other descriptions that are used are child led learning, whole life learning, integrated learning, incidental learning, organic learning etc and if you search other peoples blogs or sites on homeschooling/unschooling you'll see those terms. In basic terms the school system is to learn xyz incase you need it when leave school, learn it now and it might have meaning or use later depending on what you do when you leave school. The school system decides that everyone needs to know the same set things to succeed and a big focus is put on reading, writing and maths. The unschooling way turns that around and instead we follow the philosophy that *if* you need to know xyz then you learn it at that time (and if you never learn it then there's no harm because you've never needed it so why know things you don't need to use), in context with meaning and because you want/need to, therefore it already has use and purpose and because the information is being learnt because the child wants to learn it it will be remembered. It also takes a big shift in thinking away from children needing to be forced to learn xyz at a particular age, tested or otherwise assessed, rewarded or punished for good/bad performance and instead we trust that children want to learn that their basic drive for knowledge, competence and independence is all they need a long with a little facilitating (showing them how to find the information, answering questions, helping when they ask for help, expanding their world so they experience many things), guidance, love and support. A bigger focus is put on relationships, there are no subjects, we don't do math or reading or writing those things are learnt through living along with everything else. A good example is to think of how we all learn to talk, we learn because communicating is important and talking is the best way to do it, babies have speech all around them as part of their everyday life and through just living they learn to talk, they don't need lessons in how to speak or to have it broken down in to tiny parts for them (i.e the way phonics does with reading).

 

Right now I’m currently working on the question ‘Is homeschooling what Rocket Boy needs?’ and I keep coming up with the answer ‘Yes’

But this doesn’t mean we’re going to throw out all our work books and just play with lego from now on, as while Rocket Boy would love this, I struggle with letting go.

I love lists, and routines and structure, I like having a set curriculum and goals to meet each week.  I have folders decided to different parts of my life, meal planning, daily schedules, even a Christmas planner with 2013 Christmas planning already started.  While I can and do just go with the flow and quite often make impulsive decisions (after all every move we’ve made as been decided within days of the itch to move) I couldn’t live this way every day.

I don’t think I can just unschool, but I can make steps towards unschooling and let Rocket Boy take back some of the control with his education.

We don’t do any work after lunch as he’s expressed many times that he’s had enough by this time of the day.  If he doesn’t want to do something I suggest, we don’t do it.

I still have rules around screen time, if he wants screen time he has to earn it by completing Reading Egg lessons.  He also earns money for new Lego sets by completing work such as Reading Egg lessons, reading books, and completing letters in his Handwriting Without Tears work book.  I know these are so very school like ideas but this is the control I just can’t give up yet.  Maybe with time I will be able to let go a little more.

Do you unschool? How did you find this way of learning/teaching? Was it easy to move to unschooling or did you never start ‘schooling’ in the first place?

Weekly Wrap Up

Another week, another wrap up.  I think Rocket Boy and I have worked out a routine as the amount of work completed each week seems to be rather consistent.  I would love it to be a lot more but I can’t expect  too much from my boy and he is progressing in all areas so that’s enough for me (that’s what I keep telling myself at least)

We started this week with a Star Wars preschool pack, even Lady bug had a go at most of it.  We rounded off the day with watching the movie Episode III Revenge of the Sith.

Rocket Boy and myself visited a toy shop while Lady Bug was at kindy one morning and I had to restrain myself as this particular toy shop focuses on educational toys, many which have a lot of open ended play (not sure if that’s a correct term, but basically the toy can be played with in a lot of different ways, and the child is only limited by their imagination)

The first was a set of foam magnetic shapes which Rocket Boy enjoyed making lots of different shapes out of, this one below is a castle.  Rocket Boy doesn’t have much of a imagination so stuck with the examples on the paper provided in the jar.

The next was impossiable to walk by as I LOVE Melissa and Doug products.  This was alphabet stamp set, with both upper and lower case.  It didn’t take Rocket Boy long to crack this open and start spelling words he knew.  This set is also good for completing work sheets or spelling games without the pressure of handwriting.

Both these toys were brought with Lady buy in mind but that doesn’t mean they won’t get used by Rocket Boy most weeks as well.

Rocket Boy also completed another weeks’ worth of lessons from the Blue Book.  As Rocket Boys reading level is more advance than the level in the blue book thanks to all his work in Reading Eggs we can complete a week’s lesson in around 20 minutes, sometimes less.   Rocket Boy handwriting is improving so much with the work sheets from this program, but as our main handwriting focus is from the Handwriting Without Tears program I don’t put any pressure on Rocket Boy on the end results of these sheets, I just ensure he starts with his pencil at the correct place.

Rocket Boy completed letter N with Handwriting Without Tears, there are less and less pages left in this book so I see us moving onto the next book very soon.

We also received our first postcard from Post Crossing from America, Rocket Boy did a great job of helping me find the city it came from and placing the sticker in the correct place.

That’s it for this week, next week is the first week of the school holidays here in New Zealand, and as I provide school holidays care I was going to give Rocket Boy a holiday as well.  I’ve since talked with the parents of my care kids and most are coming with some kind of homework so I may be able to get Rocket Boy interested in completing some work yet.

Starting a home business

Starting your own business can seem like a good idea and easy to do, while I do believe I have a good idea I’m finding that it’s not that easy to do.

I have all these ideas in my head and I want to get them down on paper but while I can talk to others about it and get across what I need I’m struggling to get it all down in a way it makes sense.

I’m not going to go on about my idea, I’m going to keep that under wraps for the moment until I’ve got all the T’s crossed and I’s dotted.  I also want to see if I can get a business grant to cover start-up costs.

The idea is less than 3 days old so I shouldn’t be feeling so much pressure to have it all on paper by now.  I just need to stop and breathe and maybe record my conversations so I don’t forget anything.  

Have you ever created a business from nothing?  Any words of advice to share?

Post Crossing - 1st Postcard

We received our first postcard from Post Crossing all the way from California, America.  The postcard was vintage and all about the California missions.

The text on the back of the card says:
The founding of the Spanish Missions in California furnished an epic in history.  These historical monuments are reminders of the great Franciscan adventure.  Years of patient labour, decades of heroic sacrifice by Fray Junipera Serra and his Franciscan brothers lie behind the era of the founding of the twenty-one Missions and their branches, the ruins of which still stand in wonder and beauty, at various points along 600 miles of California’s glorious costal region.

The sender was great and sent the postcard in an envelope so she could use several stamps -  6 in all.  This is what both Rocket Boy and Ladybug loved the most.  I will have to teach them how to remove stamps safely and get them a stamp collecting book soon I think.

 

I showed Rocket Boy the postmark which showed that the postcard came from San Francisco then we found it on the map.  Rocket Boy is always happy to find places in America as his favourite you tube show ‘brick show’ is made in America and every time we look at the map he has to point this out.

Rocket Boy even put the sticker on the map and managed to get it in the right spot so every time we look at the map now we can easily find San Francisco.

Star Wars

We had a fun family day filled with Star Wars yesterday.  When hunting through some old boxes I found some preschool packs I prepared so long ago that I forgot about them.  Rocket Boy took one look at the Star Wars pack and wanted to start right away.

I made a deal with Rocket Boy, if he completed everything I asked him to out of the pack we could watch the last Star Wars movie he had yet to see, Episode III Revenge of the Sith.  This really motivated him and he was very impatience and didn’t even want to wait for me to have breakfast or get dressed before we started, tuff luck my boy, this Mumma needs food and a shower first.

I found this pack at Homeschool Creations.  One of the many sites out there thh have a huge amount of free resources you can use with your children.  It only costs you paper, ink and if you want lamination pockets.

Rocket Boy was very keen for me to take photos of everything so I could share ‘on the internet with your friends Mum’  I also had to email Poppa to make sure he saw it as well.

Below you can see Rocket boy circling the first letter of each name of the characters, this was great for pre writing and phonics. Sorting pictures of characters with shapes on them onto a card with the name of the shapes, Rocket Boy did this buy sounding out the start of the word to work out what shape it was.  Then there was some pre writing exercises and measuring the light savers, keep in mind we use the metric system in New Zealand so the measurements are in centimetres.

Ladybug had to join in so she had a go at most things but really enjoyed wiping off the whiteboard pens off the laminated cards.

Several different activities here, the shape one again (opps didn’t realise I put that in twice) and some handwriting, as you’ll know from earlier posts, Rocket Boy does not like handwriting, but was happy to do this activity (most likely he was thinking of the movie at the end).  We only did the uppercase page as the Handwriting without Tears program starts with uppercase first so it’s what he knows.  I did have to write some of the letters for him on another page first but he did every letter on that page himself and even correctly formed each one as well.  The Yoda and Darth Vader pages were just tracing the letters but still good practise.  Spot the different, and patterning.  And last, I would place a number on the card and Rocket Boy would place the correct number of star ships.

Rocket Boy was not happy with his first attempt at the letter E and did not want this shared this picture so I made sure I took a photo of his second attempt which is below.

Rocket Boy had a LOT of fun this with pack, and even Ladybug stayed at table the whole time with us.  Ladybug is showing more and more readiness to start some work of her own so if I get myself organised you’ll be seeing some new preschool posts featuring my little Ladybug soon.

Meal Plan Monday 15th April - 21st April

Last week didn’t go quite to plan but I did make 5 out of the 7 meals planned even if they were on different nights.  But that’s the beauty of meal planning, everything is there ready for the meals so you can cook them when it suits you.  Just because you said you were going to have it on Tuesday doesn’t mean you actually have to have it on Tuesday.

I was actually surprised at what the kids ate, while they may not have finished everything, they did try some foods I would never have expected.



Please keep in mind that I’m not a photographer!!  

The Oregano Chicken Schnitzel and steamed vegetables was changed to Chicken fingers with chips and spinach but I did manage to use almost all the ingredients planned for the original meal

We also had grilled fish with home made teriyaki sauce and sautéed vegetables.  This is not the kind of food I eat never mind the kids and I LOVED it.  The kids even ate the fish which might have been the first fish they ever ate happily that wasn’t deep fried.  This dish is going to go on my regular list.

I’m having trouble coming up with a plan for this coming week as hubby is away for work from Tuesday and not returning until Friday so with just me and the kids I’m going to go for convenience as much as possible and that may mean take aways.

But I did get mince out today to make meat balls which didn’t happen so I will have to cook it tomorrow which means that’s one day planned.  The kids have asked for home made pizza and chicken nuggets so that’s another two.  So here goes…

 Monday – Butter chicken (this was a frozen meal from the supermarket)

Tuesday – Meatballs in a tomato and vegetable sauce with either pasta or garlic bread.

Wednesday – Take aways

Thursday – Home made pizza

Friday – Chicken nuggets and chips (will add a salad but I’m the only one that will eat it)

Saturday – Roast Chicken, vegetables, and chocolate fudge pudding (our friend is visiting so it’ll be nice to make a large meal that will actually be eaten, as this is not a meal the kids like)

Sunday – Chicken and home made pasta (using any left other chicken from the roast)

I also need some ideas for fruit based desserts, as Ladybugs dietician thinks that introducing new fruits to her this way might have more success that fresh fruit.  Ladybug currently only eats bananas, but will suck on oranges and apples.

So far we’ve tried fruit sponges, pineapple upside down cake, fruit crumbles, sticky date pudding, fruit in jelly, icecream or custard with tinned fruits, and she has turned her nose up at all.  If you have any other ideas please let me know in the comments.

Reading Journal

I first saw the  R.E.A.D. I.T. reading journal when my friends son was doing his homework from the local country school.  As part of his daily homework he had to read a book each night, the books were supplied by the school.  After reading his mother would list the name of the book, add a comment for the teacher and the son would add a mouth to the face.

As I’m Rocket Boys teacher I don’t need to add any comments.

After each 25 nights there is a certificate, the book comes with stickers to add to the certificates, which I’ve pulled out and hidden so neither Rocket Boy or Ladybug decide to use them.  Rocket Boy has achieved his 25 nights certificate but as it has his real name on it I decided not to show a picture of it.

There are also reading tips designed for the parents throughout the book.

At only $4.25 each this journals are great value.

Weekly Wrap Up

My phone started playing up so hubby flashed it for me and I lost all my photos since Easter.  I’ve been able to find some I posted online in other places so grabbed them for this post.

Monday was a really great day, we ended up having one of Rocket Boy’s friends here from 8:30 till 5:30.  I thought this would mean we wouldn’t get anything completed, but I was surprised to find out that I was wrong.  His friend actually helped motivate him to do his work and sat next to him at the dining table during the day doing having turns doing Rocket Boys activities after him.

I can’t remember all we did, as the photos usually help this preggie/mummy brain remember all the details but I do remember on Monday we completed letter V from the Handwriting without tears program. I also got the Do a Dots out for Rocket Boys friend to use on a car he was making, so printed off the V Do a Dot page from the Letter of the week program for Rocket Boy.

From The Blue Book I read the story of The Lion and the Mouse by Aesop to Rocket Boy, I then gave Rocket Boy some picture cards from the story and got him to put them in the correct order based.  Rocket Boy also completed a pre writing work sheet with circles, lines and m shapes and u shapes. 

Rocket Boy and his friend did spend a lot of the day playing with Lego which is a great learning toy.  The use of their imagination when creating what they’re building, the find motor gross skills when using the bricks are so important as well as many other things they learn from Lego.

Also during the week we brought a world map.  I’ve been saving up to get a really good one, rather than one with only had some countries labelled on it.  My geography isn’t that good so I need the counties labelled so I can work out where they are before I show Rocket Boy.

We’ve been getting some post cards from around the world, these ones are from a plea I put on facebook asking friends and family to send us some.  Rocket Boy and I have been looking at the information on the actual cards as well as the stamps and he’s now learnt what a post mark is.

The 8 we’ve received so far are from:

*Chichester in West Sussex England, this took a while to find on the map as while I knew where England was Sussex or Chichester wasn’t labelled.  Luckily I have a friend from the UK and she had a better idea so after phone a friend we placed a star sticker in the general area Chichester is in. 

*3 from Australia, 2 of them from Brisbane, and 1 from the Gold Coast, these were easy to find, and very close to each other. 

*3 from Canada, 2 of them from Montreal and the other we’re not sure where in Canada. 

*And Rocket Boys favourite postcard was from The Wizarding World of Harry Potter Universal Orlando, USA. This card even has a Hogsmeade Owl Post post mark.  Orlando was rather hard to find on the map as well as it was also not labelled. A quick phone call to daddy whose extended family is American and we had the general area to place our sticker.

Later when we have time we’ll do some unit studies on each country and maybe make a display board for all the cards but I expect it will take a few more cards arriving before I can get Rocket Boy interested in this kind of project.

 

As usual Rocket Boy did his daily Reading Eggs lesson and even managed to finish Map 9.  He completed the quiz at the end and while he did pass the quiz he got 4 questions incorrect.  In the quiz summary at the end it shows which lesson the question was from so I expect Rocket Boy to repeat those lessons before moving onto the next map.

Rocket Boy also started on a new area of the Reading Eggs world this week.  This is something I kind of knew about and wanted to start with him so was very pleased he found it on his own and started it without me even asking let alone knew about.

It’s called Skills Bank and is basically spelling lessons and at the end of each lesson there is a quick quiz to see if you can spell the words.  They’ve been all very simple so far which is what you would expect in the first 3 lessons and Rocket Boy is sounding out the words as he’s typing them.

It’s also been great for teaching upper and lower case as the computer keyboard is all in upper case yet the words he’s typing is in lower case.  He has struggled a little with the letters P D and B but if I tell him which line they are in he finds them himself.

The last lesson he did get two words incorrect which I might make him redo but will see how he goes on lesson 4 first.  The two incorrect words were add (which he wrote ad) and pads (which he wrote pas).  He’s also learning about the backspace, and starting to use it to correct any typos.

 

 

We finished off the week with the letter M from Handwriting without tears .

And another lesson from The Blue Book, I read the story of the Tortoise and the Hare to him which was written in a new paper style with three columns across the page, when questioned Rocket Boy showed that he already knew they you read from one column to the next rather than across the page.  Then Rocket Boy read an early reader called Nat Ran, Ann Ran, this book is very very easy for Rocket Boy and he has read it before, but he also had to do some handwriting and colouring in which is a major thing for him and I’m very proud of the results shown below.

Over all it was a very successful week when I look at all the work completed.  It may not have felt that way during the week but we did actually cover a lot. 

Only one week until the school holidays here in New Zealand and I will let Rocket Boy have a break at the same time as his school friends.

Why is Home schooling always to blame? (VENT)

Rocket Boy has some ASD (autism spectrum disorder) tendencies, it’s what makes him who he is, yes it’s his personality but all children with ASD are the way they are and any ASD tendencies they have are part of them therefore part of their personalities.

On Wednesday Rocket Boy had a doctor’s appointment and since I was already there I approached the subject with his GP who after a long long long talk (our 15 minute appointment became an hour long – sorry to those booked in after us) agreed that all of the many things we discussed could mean that he has ASD and would be happy to refer him on for testing. She also brought up that some of his tendencies could be a sign of ADD (Attention deficit disorder) and would recommend testing for that as well.

We then talked about home schooling, how Rocket Boy gets one on one time with his teacher (myself) in almost all his learning, he also has a curriculum 100% designed for him and his learning style.  He would not get all of this in a public school.  Because of all this we decided to hold off testing until he’s a little older as there is very little help he needs or that would be available to us without being in the public school system.  

But this is where I need to vent… Rocket Boy goes with a friend to a playgroup one morning each week.  As Rocket Boy is not enrolled in school we can still access the 20 ECE hours the government fund, so my friend gets paid to take him, it doesn’t cost me a cent, and I get a morning to myself once a week (Ladybug is at Montessori during this time)

The doctors visit was mentioned to the home base coordinator which I wasn’t too worried about until I talked to her on the phone.  Now with home base, the coordinator must see each child who is in care once a month.  It is the coordinator who has the early childhood teaching qualification, when the educator who actually cares for your child in their own home only has limited training.  So this coordinator only sees Rocket Boy once a month.  This coordinator is also my coordinator for my after school care kids, but she only needs to see school kids once a term, so visits us 4 times a year.

During this phone call the coordinator dismissed the one and only tendency I had a chance to tell her that I thought Rocket Boy had - obviously he has many, as I wouldn’t even consider going to the doctor and doing testing if it was just one thing.  She pretty much said all home schoolers have this one tendency, every point she tried to make she kept referring to ‘home schoolers my son knew’  She focused on Rocket Boys inability to ride a bike.  Rocket Boy has always been behind in his large motor gross skills (oh what isn’t that a ASD tendency?? She didn’t like that)   In one breath she was saying he needed to be around older kids more so he can pick up these skills (He is around older kids 3-4 times a week with my after school care I do, as well as the home school groups we go to) and in the next she was saying being in school would help that… how would being in a room with 30 kids his same age allow him to be around older kids????

I ended up shutting down during the phone call and just making the appropriate sounds when she was talking but I felt the whole call was her attacking my choice to home school.

Hubbys reaction to all this?  I need to quit home base as this coordinator is the cause of too much stress… and I have to say I’m very very tempted

New Zealand Postcard Exchange

I’ve been spending quite a bit of time lately on teaching Rocket Boy about the world and other countries and even managed to get friends and family to send us some postcards from many different countries – more about that on a post to come soon.  But I haven’t spent much time on our own country New Zealand.

It is very important to me that my children know about our own country and culture just as much if not more than other rest of the world.  New Zealand is also full of small country towns that even I don’t know much about.

I’ve posted on some New Zealand home schooling Facebook pages today and had 4 responses so far but hoping for a lot more.  My dream is to have a large group of people who want to participate and we all send and receive one postcard each week.  This will help keep costs down as well as keep the kids interested for longer.

I think I might need to open this up to those you don’t home school to get the numbers I really want and to cover more of the country.

Are you interested in joining this swap?

I thought I would add that this isn’t about the kids writing to each other, unless you want your child to do the writing.  It’s more about the actual postcards and learning more about the town/cities they come from

Image credit NZ Post http://stamps.nzpost.co.nz/new-zealand/2012/tiki-tour-no2

Handwriting Without Tears

If there is one thing that Rocket boy just doesn't enjoy, it's handwriting. This also means it's now the one thing I do not enjoy teaching. It is always a struggle and he always ends up playing up before long and we never get through everything I had planned to cover.

To try to make handwriting more fun and less of a chore I started the Handwriting without Tears program with Rocket boy.

I can't remember which blog I read about this program first but after that one blog post I needed to know more and off to Google I went.

It didn’t take long for me to realise that this was the program for Rocket Boy.  It teaches using multisensory tools, and takes a lot of pressure off the actual handwriting part and for Rocket Boy it is fun and he loves it.

The different sensory tools we use are wooden pieces, a magnetic board with magnetic pieces you can use to ‘stamp’ the letter and a ‘chalk’ piece to write the letter, a chalk board, play dough, and a work book.

There are also HEAPS of videos on youtube with instructions on using the program and the following video which shows the wet, dry, try activity is what sold me on the program.



We’re just over half way through the alphabet and I see Rocket Boy completing the current work book within the next two months.  I already have the next two work books set aside waiting for him, as well as a second copy of the first work book waiting for Ladybug.

How do you teach your children handwriting? Have you ever tried Handwriting without tears?  

Meal Plan Monday 8th April - 14th April



When home schooling I find I need to be as organised as possible and meal planning helps reduce the chaos, epically at the end of the day as I know what we’re having for dinner, all the ingredients have already be shopped for and if there is any prep needed I know what it is and I fit it into my day.

I usually plan my meals 2 weeks ahead so I can plan my shopping during the week around it.  I also try to plan meals where I can change the meat based on what’s on special each week.

This week’s meal plan has already been shopped for and everything I need is already in the kitchen.  This meals all I need to top up on when I got grocery shopping this week is fresh fruit and vegetables as well as the usual like milk and bread.

I have very fussy kids, and I don’t let this affect what we eat much.  I do plan 2-3 meals a week I know they’ll eat but there are still many that I know they’ll turn their noses up to before they even get seated at the table.  I do not make a second meal for my kids, I do not give them extra food (ok there have been exceptions to this when I gave them a piece of fruit).  The rules in this house is you don’t have to eat the food on the plate but you do have to sit at the table at dinner time.

If we have a dessert planned I still serve some up to the kids even if they don’t eat dinner.  I do not want sweets to be seen as a reward as this can set up some very negative eating habits.  But I do have one rule, they only get as much dessert as they eat dinner, so if they have a good try at eating their dinner they get a normal serve, but if they only lick, or one bite or not eat any of their meal they get one teaspoon of dessert.

Monday – Swimming lesson day so kids get quick and easy spaghetti on toast and the parents get takeaways once the kids are asleep in bed.

Tuesday – Spanish Beef and homemade pasta

Wednesday – Oregano Chicken Schnitzel and steamed vegetables

Thursday – Cheese & Bacon Cordon Blur with salad and mashed cauliflower

Friday – Take away night (Daddy is working late)

Saturday – Sheppard’s Pie

Sunday – Homemade pizza

Weekly baking – Chocolate date cake and marble cookies.

I have been trying out a meal planning subscription at www.grabandcook.com.au which is where I get most of my recipes but while it’s quick easy and healthy meals I’m finding my grocery bill is a lot higher – almost $100 more.  Also my fussy children have yet to like any of the meals I’ve prepared.  Last night was supposed to be Crispy chicken fingers with apple fries which may sound yum and kid friendly, with the way they were to be prepared and with the fries made from apples rather than potatoes I knew hubby and I would be the only ones eating.  So I changed the meal and ended up with potato fries and deep fried chicken fingers.  Not healthy at all but the first meal the kids got a full tummy from all week.

Weekly Wrap Up

A weekly wrap up post is mainly for me, it’s a record for myself of what I’ve covered with Rocket Boy and Ladybug. 

This week has been all other the place due to the Easter holidays and as my local school my after school care kids go to was closed until Thursday I had them during the day which made completing any of the planned work with Rocket Boy hard to do and we only finished a couple of things at the end of the week.

While I had extra kids I got out a magnetic pattern block set out, I’ve had this set since last year but had hidden it away so this was Rocket Boys first time playing with this set. 

It didn’t take long for all the other kids to join in, but as the set was rather small they had to take turns using the blocks to make their patterns.

 

On Friday I finally got the one on one time I wanted with Rocket Boy so we started on the Blue Book program.  For his handwriting skills I got Rocket Boy to draw some circles and lines.  His first two circles were great but the more I got him to do the less circle like they got. 

Next Rocket Boy found and cut out pictures of food from some junk mail I saved for this task and then glued it onto a piece of paper.  Cutting is a great activity to do with kids as it helps with their find motor skills and hand strength, as well as co-ordination so they actually cut out what they want to cut out.  Once everything was glued on I wrote the word ‘Food’ in the centre of the paper and put a box around it then got Rocket Boy to draw a line from each picture to the box, then Rocket Boy circled all the food which he loved.

Our next activity was to read ‘Who took the Farmer’s hat?’ buy Joan L. Nodset.  If I followed the program I would have read this to Rocket Boy but as I knew he could, I got him to read it to me instead.

After reading I asked him a lot of different questions about what was in the pictures, like ‘do you think the Farmer is a nice man? Why?’

In the program I was supposed to ask him questions like ‘I saw a big round brown mouse hole’ who am I? But I decided to make it a little harder for him so I made some cards with the questions and answers on them and got him to read it to himself and match them up.  He had no problem with any of these.

 

Rocket Boy also completes a Reading Eggs lesson every morning, usually first thing and quite often before I even out of bed.  This is where he’s learnt most of his reading skills, including sight words, sounds and blending.  He’s currently up to lesson 86 and has just started learning the sound ‘sh’ and the ‘ine’ word family, line, nine, pine etc.  At the end of each lesson there is a book which the program does read to you but if I’m near I turn the sound off and make Rocket Boy read to me.



Over all it wasn’t really a bad week, but not a great one either.  I did try to push Rocket Boy a bit too much on Friday and really had hoped to complete more work than we did.  But I managed to hold myself back and let him play during the afternoon.  There is always next week after all.





The Blue Book

I brought the Learning Language Arts Through Literature - The Blue Book last year when I was going through my ‘must buy stuff now’ phase.  I did end up buying some stuff which will probably never see the light of day at least not at my house (really need to start selling off some of this stuff) but this one has come out three different times so far.

It actually seems like a great program which covers phonics, reading, spelling, grammar, vocabulary, handwriting and higher-order reasoning.  The teacher book has weekly and daily lesson plans, so all you have to do is read ahead and make sure you have all the supplies needed.

The boxed set, which I got, comes with the Teacher’s Manual, 28 Story Readers, Colour Coded Cards (letter cards, sight word cards, game cards, and letter dice) and a Student Activity Book (as mine was 2^nd hand this was missing from the set but was easily replaced).  The program also uses classic children books (like Caps for Sale, and Goodnight Moon) which I was lucky to get about half of them with the program but the rest are available from my local library so I’ve been able to reserve the ones I need as I need them.

When I first got this when Rocket Boy was 4 years old I was into it as soon as it arrived and I was straight into it trying to get Rocket Boy on board but he just wasn’t ready, so it was put away and forgotten about.

As Rocket Boys reading level has improved with the online reading program we use (Reading Eggs, which I’ll post about later) I wanted him reading some real books rather than the ebooks he’s used to so I dug out the Readers from this program and it only took us a week to get through the first 12 books, but the next book was a little too difficult for him, as it was different sounds he had been focusing on.

This week I decided to pull the whole program out and we’ve started it for the last time from the very beginning.  It is a bit simple for him in some areas, but in others he’s right on par.

We did manage to complete a weeks’ worth of lesson plans in one morning, I did skip several things he didn’t need like identifying letters and learning sounds but I’m hoping that we can get through the first 17 lessons in only a couple of months (each lesson is designed to take a week)

I’ll post a weekly wrap up tomorrow which will show the kind of activities Rocket Boy completed this week.