English
- 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, 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, 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…
- 3-5 Year Old, Curricula, English, History/Social Science, Interest Led Homeschool, Math, Preschool, Science, Teaching, the Give Way
What A Four Year Old Can Learn
Last year I realized that it was a bit of a misnomer to call this list “goals,” as I wasn’t really focused on trying to get her to accomplish them. It was more just keeping track of what she was learning. Moving forward to get something done is a pretty inherent aspect of the word “goal.” So, instead, I’ve been focusing more on my own goals and learning more about how to facilitate a natural way of learning. The baby was six months when my daughter turned 4, so we were not structured much at all early on. Fortunately, I had put together the letter of the week activities before…
- 3-5 Year Old, 6-8 Year Old, Book Clubs, Book Focus, English, History/Social Science, Interest Led Homeschool, Kids' Book Club, Preschool, Social Activities, Teaching, the Give Way
Kids’ Book Club: Up the Rhine to Switzerland!
Book for this month’s kids’ book club: The Overall Boys in Switzerland (This link is for the kindle or hardback version. DO NOT buy the paper book! I did and immediately returned it. It was terrible! No pictures, tiny print. I ended up just printing a pdf of this Google ebook.) This book is a sequel to this reading primer. I don’t know if I’d actually read it again. My daughter loved it, but it was really basic. So, not really a classic. Just old. 🙂 But, it’s great as a secondary reader. And, it’s a great informative story. We had a Swiss book club get together, so a mix…
- 12-14 Year Old, 15-18 Year Old, 9-11 Year Old, Adult Book Club, Adult Education, Book Clubs, Book Focus, English, Interest Led Homeschool, Life, the Give Way, Social Activities, Teaching, the Give Way, Teen Book Club
Book Club: Mad Hatter’s Tea Party
Book for this month’s adult/teen book club: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Even though this book club is for older teens and adults, sometimes, when we read kid’s classics, we’ll ask the rest of our families to join us. This was one of those instances. Nursery Alice is a simpler version Lewis Carroll wrote for younger children. And Great Illustrated Classics are always good abridged versions for the lower to mid-elementary range. Here was what my event description said: Everything’s a little topsy turvy on Daylight Savings day — the perfect time to have a Mad Hatter’s tea party! This is a family affair, so read the book with your family…
- 12-14 Year Old, 15-18 Year Old, Adult Book Club, Adult Education, Book Clubs, Book Focus, English, History/Social Science, Interest Led Homeschool, Life, the Give Way, Social Activities, Teaching, the Give Way, Teen Book Club
Book Club: A Tale of Two Cities – Bangers and Baguettes
Book for this month’s adult/teen book club: A Tale of Two Cities This book is about a 9th or 10th grade reading level and would interest 14/15 year olds and up. If you’d like to include younger kids, I would suggest Great Illustrated Classics: A Tale of Two Cities, which is a 5th or 6th grade reading level. But, again, the story itself is for older readers, with this kind of content, I would say a 12 or 13 year old might enjoy it too, but it’s unlikely that anyone under 11 would enjoy this story. I preferred this free audio version. I found she was easy to listen to…
