Horn Homeschool: Week 1

Last week I impulsively jumped into homeschooling Chloe at the kindergarten level. After researching many curricula in the various subjects, I decided to move forward with a conglomeration of materials and teaching methods.

A BIG part of me wishes I could plop down $300+ for a total kindergarten curriculum package. It would ease my fears knowing that everything I need would come neatly packaged in a box. But since I don't have $300 lying around, I'm doing the mix-and-match method of teaching kindergarten.

And honestly, I'm glad! It seems to me, novice homeschooling-teacher that I am, that one of the essential benefits of homeschooling is flexibility. The ability to try one method on your student and then scrap it if it doesn't work well is an option traditional educators don't usually get.

It also seems to me that educating your child should cost significantly LESS than $300.

I'm gradually learning that homeschooling should NOT look like classroom-teaching-at-home. It's not simply traditional school with a change of setting. I'm certain that will be a huge hurdle for me to overcome since I have traditional teaching in my background. I've already succumbed to the temptation to buy lots of workbooks -- who can resist those cute ones in the Target dollar spot? NOT I!

Several older experienced homeschooling moms advised me that they wished they wouldn't have put so much pressure on their kindergartners. So, trying hard to go slowly, easily and with lots of fun tools in my belt, I dove in.

And looking back at our first week, I can't believe how much we got done in such a short amount of time!

As a way of record-keeping and accountability for me, it's my aim each week to chronicle on the blog our week's school progress. I'm chronicling this for my benefit; feel free to skip the long boring details and just leave me a generic comment.

This first week was all about the letter A (original, I know). Clive did several of the craft activities with us and then I did the other activities one-on-one with Chloe in the afternoons during the boys' nap time. Here's what we did:

Monday, August 23
* Made an "A" poster: I drew a capitol A and we all drew and labeled A words on the poster
* A craft: Glued pasta and other objects to a paper in the shape of an A
* Had apricot snacks and quesadillas cut into letter A shapes for lunch

* Read alphabet books together

* Handwriting page (from A Reason for Handwriting level K)

Tuesday, August 24

* Talked about alphabet order, sang the alphabet song together

* Mixed up alphabet game (I wrote each letter on a sticky note and then took the first 10 and mixed them up on the board while Chloe went out of the room. She came back in and had to rearrange the letters into proper order. We did this 3 times each time increasing the amount of letters to rearrange. By the 4th time, I mixed up all 26 letters for her to organize.)

* Reviewed short A and long A sounds

* Read several "ai" and "ay" words together

* Read the book "Play Day" focusing on the long A sound

* Wrote "ai" and "ay" words on a small chalkboard mixed in with short A words and Chloe had to identify and circle the long A sounding words

* Sorting activity

* Read alphabet books together

* Math workbook page

* Handwriting page

Wednesday, August 25

* Long A scavenger hunt game (I wrote 15 long a words on the blackboard omitting the first letter, using paper letters/blends I had prepared ahead of time Chloe had to match the beginning sounds with the long A endings to make words. When she made a word, she had to run upstairs to find that item hidden in the kitchen. I used easy to find items/toys like "plane", "mare", "train", "game", "plate", etc.)

* Read "Play Day" together

* Painting with fruit craft (Sliced a green pepper in half and then dipped it into paint to use as a stamp for making cards)

* Math workbook page

* Handwriting page

Thursday, August 26

* Read "ang" ending words

* Pictionary game with long a sounding words (I wrote 12 long a words on a grid on our small blackboard. Chloe and I took turns drawing one word from the board and the other person had to guess the word. When the word was guessed correctly, Chloe had to find it on the board and cross it off.)

* Read James Herriot's "Moses the Kitten" story from Treasury for Children (GREAT BOOK!)

* Drew pictures of our favorite scenes from "Moses the Kitten"

* Math workbook page

* Handwriting page

* Tangrams (I'm a BIG fan of using tangrams and other manipulatives for demonstrating math concepts and developing problem-solving skills. Since this was Chloe's first time ever playing with tangrams, we just played freely and made various silly shapes with them.)

Friday, August 27

* Drew and cut out lowercase a's and Chloe & Clive had to find "A"s from bowls of Alphabits cereal. Glued cereal A's to their lowercase a's

* Starfall reading journal book, 3 pages (This handy phonics/reading journal goes hand-in-hand with starfall.com, one of our favorite fun educational websites.)

* Wrote thank you cards (we skipped handwriting today since Chloe did plenty of writing on the thank you cards)

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Additionally, Matt did several math lessons on his own with Chloe. He wants to be a big part of homeschooling Chloe. But since Matt teaches college level English it's oftimes difficult for him to stoop to kindergarten mentality. When I went downstairs and found him trying to teach Chloe double-digit adding in rows, I had a little talk with him and brought him back to reality. :) He altered the lessons and instead focused on simple addition. Matt even crafted an addition chart with her pointing out patterns in the sums.

All in all, I think Chloe had a great week of kindergarten! Since I eased into things slowly, I didn't think it wise to add all subjects this past week. I want to hammer away at reading, math and handwriting for sure each week and then when I see an opportunity for a science lesson or history application we'll slide that in.

If you're homeschooling, when do/did you begin? What are you doing and how are you keeping things light and enjoyable?

Stay tuned for week 2!