A Great way to $ave when Homeschooling

A simple idea that works great!

We use a lot of workbooks and worksheets for homeschooling. As a mom trying to figure out different ways to keep the cost of homeschooling down but also keep a kindergartner moving through many different subjects I came up with a great idea. Instead of going through the work of taking a workbook apart and laminating every sheet or re-buying workbooks- just cover the sheet with a clear paper sleeve holder. Just cut the side and use dry-erase pens then just pull the sheet off when done and wha-la a reusable workbook. So far its worked great! Some things require coloring and others cutting and gluing but anywhere that I can cut $ corners, I'll take it!

DINOSAUR WEEK!

Dinosaur Week!

  

The kids and I were so excited to start dinosaur week. We began our week by pulling out our kids dictionary and looking up the meaning of the words 'Dinosaur' and 'extinct.' Then we read in our cool Dinosaur Encyclopedia about what a dinosaur is, the different kinds of dinosaurs and the time periods in which they lived. We learned about the insides of a dinosaur what type of food they ate depending on their teeth. Why some were small and some very large, some fast runners and others slow. How they lived and that they mysteriously disappeared.

I love using workbooks to teach mostly because its fun. For example, I found a dinosaur workbook from Target at the beginning of the year and saved it for this week as a daily activity for Jr.'s work-boxes. It covered everything from learning about different types of dinos, fun mazes, a word search and connect-the-dots. AND I laminated most it so we can reuse it in the future!

For our daily reading we enjoyed a cute Dr. Seuss book entitled "Oh Say Can You Say Dinosaur." The book does a great job of breaking down the pronunciation of the dino names. Plus the boys always find it hilarious at the end of the book where the 'cat-in-the-hat-a-saur-us' appears!

On Tuesday we practiced painting and coloring by number dinosaur pages of the boys choosing. Jr. especially likes color by number because it he's so left-brained when it comes to organization and logic when coloring. My little engineer is more right-brained and artistic using whatever colors he pleases- that or he's just too young to care;)

Later in the week we used Play-Dough to mold into dinosaurs. Unfortunately I didn't get any usable pictures of the boys doing this activity but it was still a lot of fun. We also pretend played as dinosaurs. And let me tell you that walking on all four and pretending to eat leaves from a tree was a real hoot and seriously funny. Then I had Jr. try out his Dino-Doodling book with ink pens. One particular pic goal was to try and finish drawing the scales on the dinosaur. Then we talked about how dinosaurs' skin might have felt.

On Tuesday and Thursday the boys took turns using the LeapPad to learn more about dinosaurs. The dinosaur book takes you on a journey with 'Leap' the frog through the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous time periods to return a baby dinosaur to his homeland. Super cute and fun. Even my Tiny Queen Bee sat on the couch with us to listen to the story. Interactive toys work great to capture my kids attention and as a added bonus its not tv. Yay! On Thursday Jr. used a different book about dinosaurs from a general Kindergarten phonics LeapPad book, also cute and fun.

 And the denouement...
An actual dinosaur DIG! Given as a gift last Christmas it was the perfect way to end the week. A little messy, YES, but so worth it. The dig activity came with a big chuck of plaster with bones buried inside. The tools were actually a little insufficient in getting the job done so I donated some scrapbooking tools to the boys. Jr. worked hard to clean the pieces once we dug them out and my Little Engineer worked hard chipping away at that thing for at least an hour. Once we had all the pieces we put it together and the boys were SO proud, as was I. Oh and fyi, the toddler was napping away in her crib while we pounded loudly with a hammer for 90 minutes;)

The boys were great about keeping this goggles on.

Jr. cleaning the remaining plaster off the pieces.

The Little Engineer chipping away!

Figuring out how the dinosaur went together was quite a task.

Delicately holding the model of the Brachiosaurus.

Little's turn.

Both boys we SO excited to see the final project.

 I was very proud of the boys for being patient in this project because it took a lot longer than I had anticipated at the beginning. So to see it finally compete was just awesome. I recommend having a dinosaur week with your kiddos especially if homeschooling boys. They really need these hands on activities that let them explore their natural 'wild at heart' side.

That wraps up our dinosaur week. In the future we might try adding some harder things like a trip to a museum where they can actually see some molds of bones, we'll see. But for now the week was a success, even with so much to do. Keeping the boys interested was not a problem and it really was a blessing to see so many 'ah ha' moments.

 

Smart Start: Something for my youngest student!

We got these over Christmas from Nana and Papa...they are great, Great, GREAT! Both my Tiny Queen Bee and Little Engineer love reading these books. They have built in 'finder' holes that are not easily broken, torn, or anything else little hands can do to books. Having something for her to do that's hands-on reading is awesome. 
by Just for Kids PRESS, A Charles Reasoner Book
What's the point in teaching WH questions to a child who is learning to speak and pre-ker? Because while they are learning to read at age 4-5 they will already understand and use their brain strategically for comprehension.
Teaching Reading Comprehension

TEACHING READING COMPREHENSION

A Look At Reading Comprehension Strategies

---

As Steve mentioned on the Teaching Reading Page, comprehension is the only reason for reading. Without comprehension, reading is a frustrating, pointless exercise in word calling. It is no exaggeration to say that how well students develop the ability to comprehend what they read has a profound effect on their entire lives. A major goal of teaching reading comprehension, therefore, is to help students develop the knowledge, skills, and experiences they must have if they are to become competent and enthusiastic readers.
For many years, teaching reading comprehension was based on a concept of reading as the application of a set of isolated skills such as identifying words, finding main ideas, identifying cause and effect relationships, comparing and contrasting, and sequencing. Teaching reading comprehension was viewed as a mastery of these skills. Comprehension instruction followed what the study called mentioning, practicing, and assessing procedure where teachers mentioned a specific skill that students were to apply, had students practice the skill by completing workbook pages, then assessed them to find out if they could use the skill correctly. Instruction did little to help students learn how or when to use the skills, nor was is ever established that this particular set of skills enabled comprehension.

Taken from http://reading.uoregon.edu/comp/comp_features.php
Research indicates that we build comprehension through the teaching of comprehension strategies and environments that support an understanding of text. It is important for educators and parents to teach children active strategies and skills to help them become active, purposeful readers. Teaching reading comprehension is an active process of constructing meaning, not skill application. The act of constructing meaning is:

Interactive – It involves not just the reader, but the text and the context in which reading takes place.

Strategic – Readers have purposes for their reading and use a variety of strategies as they construct meaning.

Adaptable – Readers change the strategies they use as they read different kinds of text or as they read for different purposes.

Homeschooling for Kids with LD from Smart Kids With LD

This is not a job for the fainthearted, easily discouraged, perfectionist, or disorganized. 
Homeschooling for Kids with LD « Smart Kids With LD
Could it work for you? A great article and some helpful tips if you're considering homeschooling your child with a learning disability. From the website www.smartkidswithld.org under the Guide to Action are some helpful articles and tips on homeschooling a child with LD. 
The website it also good for learning ways to track your child's progress.

Kindergarted Health

Lately I've been feeling an overwhelming sense that I'm not covering all the subjects I'd hoped to throughout the fall and into the winter months of education. I am beginning to think about our schedule and re-organizing everything into a less complicated and more simple day. The only problem is that I have my hands full and piling on extra stuff would be a hindrance to our already lesson-filled days that I'm trying to simplify. Henceforth I concluded in my own brain that this was just not applicable this academic year and next year we could explore some new topics such as health education. However, knowing that health actually is REALLY important for my children and myself I've decided to boldly open-up the Health Kindergarten curriculum I ordered and thus right in my face the truth...A simple reminder of the task at hand during my introductory year of homeschooling lay right in front of me as I read through the introduction:
       Christians believe that God created each human as a organic unity. The Genesis 2 account of creation says that the Lord God formed man from dust, breathed into him the breath of life, "and the man became a living being." The Bible does refer to various aspects of the person-such as mind, flesh, soul, spirit, or heart-but the stress is on the unity of the whole being. The various aspects of a person-the intellectual, emotional, social, spiritual, and physical-are interdependent. In the New Testament the apostle Paul, writing to the Corinthian Christians, supports this point of view. Some Corinthians, influenced by their pagan culture, apparently believed that gluttony, drunkenness, or promiscuous sexual activity did not affect their "spiritual" life. Paul counters by strongly denouncing this attitude (1 Corinthians 6:12-19).
      What is the significance of this Christian view of the person for education? It means that health education cannot be treated as incidental to the curriculum. Rather, it must be an integral part of the curriculum at every level. Physical fitness, nutrition, personal health, emotional health, the functioning of the body systems-all strands of the health curriculum-affect the whole child. We must recognize that since healthy living affects us in our totality, health education plays a solid role in developing children and equipping them to serve God in the world.
Ok so now I know I cannot continue to procrastinate on health education. Therefore, as a secondary study to the Christian curriculum units that we will be studying, I have decided that I really need to do some 'research' in my Bible about what it says about my whole being and see things in a new light rather than rehearsing stuff I've already known my whole life. fyi-I am a fan of Jesus Christ and believe speaking boldly in truth. Stay tuned!