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California State Parks Checklist
After this last year plus of quarantine, I’m itching to get out more. But, not too far out for now. So, as I plan for next year, I was thinking we could start a couple longterm goals. 1. Get to all the national parks in the U.S. and its territories.2. Get to all the California State parks (and future goals of many state parks of states we don’t live in…not sure we have enough time in our lifetime to hit them all!) So, I easily found a free checklist for national parks here. But, I had a much harder time finding a checklist for the state parks. All the ones…
- 12-14 Year Old, 15-18 Year Old, Adult Book Club, Adult Education, Book Clubs, Book Focus, Life, the Give Way, Teaching, the Give Way, You Not Them
The Give Way Reading Challenge
One of the things I love about the TJEd philosophy, is the aspect of “you, not them.” Essentially it’s about making sure I keep focused on my own education as a way of improving myself and following my passions while also being an example of lifelong learning for my kids. I found a great list of 52 book genres related to a weekly reading challenge. Since, I’m focused on classics and recently found how wonderful audio books are (thank you, Librivox!), I figured I could do it! So, I used their list, but created my own after that first year. This is such a fun challenge! It got me out…
- 3-5 Year Old, 6-8 Year Old, Book Clubs, Book Focus, Curricula, Elementary Level, English, History/Social Science, Interest Led Homeschool, Math, Science, Teaching, the Give Way, Theme
Learning Plan: Age 6
Well, the new year has started! This is our first official year, paperwork included, as a private school here in California. California doesn’t have homeschoolers. Those who are homeschooling without the support of a public school system (like a charter school), file paperwork just like any private school here in the state. So, we decided to have a name for our school. It took us awhile to decide, as we wanted something we could use until they’re out of school. We also wanted something meaningful to our mission as homeschoolers. It took us two days of lots of not so great ideas to come to one that, knowing us and…
- 3-5 Year Old, 6-8 Year Old, History/Social Science, Interest Led Homeschool, Preschool, Teaching, the Give Way, Theme, Tot School
Tot School: Community Worker (Helper) Theme
Another post that fell to the wayside with my second pregnancy…so mainly pictures here. 🙂 But, hopefully you’ll get some ideas and be inspired for your own look into it. I put “helper” in the title to help for those searching for ideas, but I always said “worker”. I think it’s a misnomer to call people “helpers,” because their job involves helping people. Pretty much any job does, but nobody ever says a community helper is a cashier. Yes, firefighters help people, but they also get paid to do it. They’ve chosen it because they like the job, and they get paid to do what they like. As is the…
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Tot School: Beach and Ocean Theme
- 3-5 Year Old, 6-8 Year Old, 9-11 Year Old, Book Clubs, Book Focus, English, Historical Fiction Book Lists, History/Social Science, Interest Led Homeschool, Kids' Book Club, Preschool, Social Activities, Teaching, the Give Way
Kids’ Book Club: Creek Exploring with Minn of the Mississippi
This month’s kids’ book club book: Minn of the Mississippi This is a 5th grade reading level book. It’s a wonderful mix of fact and fiction, but I’d say my newly turned 5 year old had a hard time focusing. We skipped a lot. I’d recommend this book for the 7 and up age range for sure. The illustrations are beautiful! Looking forward to reading more by the author. We live in an area that is not abundant in rivers, even in the winter. The nearest thing we have is a little creek. Since it was summer when we did this one, there was just enough water to make mud.…
- 3-5 Year Old, 6-8 Year Old, 9-11 Year Old, Curricula, Interest Led Homeschool, Parenting, the Give Way, Teaching, the Give Way
Mentoring Goals: Age 5
This is my first year being a bit more formal and organized. I’ve started with a bare bones outline for my 5 year old, and will add as we go. In looking at what I did when I first started, I can see elements of the school system still with me. I thought I was doing so much better, but I again caught myself this past year falling back onto the conveyor belt. I had created these cute passports for our book club. They’re exactly what I would’ve done in the classroom. Kids would use the stamp at each station, and they’d have a little record of all the “places”…
- 3-5 Year Old, 6-8 Year Old, Curricula, English, History/Social Science, Interest Led Homeschool, Math, Science, Teaching, the Give Way
Learning Plan: Age 5
And so it begins! For reals! Well, kinda. My homeschooling, in a legal sense, will start for real next year, but I’m going to use this year as a sounding board for the best way to keep records for the state. You can find my own goals and ways of doing things on my mentoring page. This page is for my oldest. She’s a go getter and has a really great memory, so lots of academic type stuff sticks, even though we aren’t doing any forced academic program, she loves to play school and do lots and lots of activities (more than I’m willing to provide, actually!). As long as…
- 3-5 Year Old, 6-8 Year Old, 9-11 Year Old, Book Clubs, Book Focus, English, Interest Led Homeschool, Kids' Book Club, Preschool, Social Activities, Teaching, the Give Way, Theme, Tot School
Kids’ Book Club: Oh, the Places We’ll Go with Dr. Seuss
Books for this month’s kids’ book club: Any by Dr. Seuss (I’ll link all of them at the end of the post. We almost got to them all!) I tried to do some Wacky Wednesday things. Balloon tree — wacky! Shoe tree – wacky! She dressed up as a wacky Daisy-Head Mayzie. That was a real flower! 🙂 Here’s the star machine from the Sneetches book (my favorite!) I put sticky stars out for the kids to put on (and take off). 🙂 Then they colored a picture I found of Hop on Pop on the Seussville website. I also set up flowers and pipe cleaners for them to make…
- 3-5 Year Old, 6-8 Year Old, English, Interest Led Homeschool, Letter of the Week, Preschool, Teaching, the Give Way
Letter of the Week – Letter Z
Day 1 Find z stickers and put on Z Color and assemble Letter Z Book Go to library and get z books Make a zebra Lego Day 2 Fill in Z Outline and z Outline with carrots (zanahoria). (Other options: zeros, zippers, zebra stripes, zucchini painting) Draw a zig zag color by numbers She had to make me one too. 🙂 That I of course completed. Video: Olive and the Rhyme Rescue Crew Starfall Computer Activity Day 3 Run/walk in zig zags Make a Lego zig zag Activity Sheet 1 Activity Sheet 2 Video: Get Squiggling! Day 4 Zucchini muffins Sing zippity do da song “plenty of (z words) coming…
- 3-5 Year Old, 6-8 Year Old, English, Interest Led Homeschool, Letter of the Week, Preschool, Teaching, the Give Way
Letter of the Week – Letter Y
Day 1 Find y stickers and put on Y Color and assemble Letter Y Book Go to library and get y books Video: Olive and the Rhyme Rescue Crew Day 2 Fill in letter Y Outline and y Outline with: (Other options: yarn, yellow things) Stand and make a letter y Old versus young (look through photo album and see who is old and who is young) Sang the Yankee Doodle song Video: Get Squiggling! Day 3 Real yo yo Aluminum foil with yellow yogurt to write and play in. I had the baby playing with it too, so I decided to use turmeric and saffron to make it yellow…
- 3-5 Year Old, 6-8 Year Old, English, Interest Led Homeschool, Letter of the Week, Preschool, Teaching, the Give Way
Letter of the Week – Letter X
We only did three days for this letter. Day 1 Find x stickers and put on X Color and assemble Letter X Book Go to library and get x books Video: Olive and the Rhyme Rescue Crew Play the xylophone and make a Lego one. 🙂 Starfall Computer Activity Video: Get Squiggling! Day 2 Put an x on paper with tape and let her paint it and then pull it off (see picture below) Color in X Outline and x Outline with: toothpicks that make an x (other options: old x-ray film, q-tip x-ray, sixes, foxes, boxes) Play tic tac toe Activity Sheet 1 Activity Sheet 2 Video: Sesame street…
- 3-5 Year Old, 6-8 Year Old, 9-11 Year Old, Book Clubs, Book Focus, English, Interest Led Homeschool, Kids' Book Club, Preschool, Social Activities, Teaching, the Give Way
Kids’ Book Club: Berry Picking with Milly Molly Mandy
This month’s kids’ book club book: Milly Molly Mandy The book is a 5th grade reading level and would interest kids 3-8ish. I’m a huge fan of this book. I kept expecting the plot to include Milly Molly Mandy making bad choices and dealing with consequences, and then the moral. But, what actually continually happened was that she chose the right way! It was wonderful and refreshing to read about a kid doing right. If I had read this book before, I would have definitely planned the activities at my house. The book is full of parties. 🙂 We looked for a pink and white striped dress. But, that was…
