Classroom Signs

Some signs I made to start our new school year:

I saw this on pinterest and was inspired and had to make it. It's a reminder to myself that I want to teach my kids character, not just textbooks.

I know I will be saying this to my oldest throughout this school year! (Just spray painted a piece of wood someone was getting rid of and wrote words with the kids' finger paints.)

2012-2013 Homeschool Plan

Weekly Unit Studies

Date	TOPIC
27-Aug/31-Aug	Calendar/Whole Body Listening/Name Practice
3-Sept/7-Sept	Seasons
17-Sept/21-Sept	Seasons
24-Sept/28-Sept	Weather
1-Oct/5-Oct	Weather
8-Oct/12-Oct	Creation
15-Oct/19-Oct	Bugs
22-Oct/26-Oct	Bugs
29-Oct/2-Nov	Halloween
5-Nov/9-Nov	Community Workers
12-Nov/16-Nov	Transportation/Road Signs
19-Nov/23-Nov	Thanksgiving
26-Nov/30-Nov	Adam & Eve
3-Dec/7-Dec	Adam & Eve
10-Dec/14-Dec	Christmas
17-Dec/21-Dec	Christmas
22-Dec/30-Dec	*Christmas Break
31-Dec/4-Jan	New Years
7-Jan/11-Jan	5 Senses
14-Jan/18-Jan	5 Senses
21-Jan/25-Jan	Noah’s Ark/The Flood
28-Jan/1-Feb	Noah’s Ark/The Flood
4-Feb/8-Feb	Health
11-Feb/15-Feb	Valentine’s Day
18-Feb/22-Feb	Plants
25-Feb/1-Mar	Plants
4-Mar/8-Mar	Emotions
11-Mar/15-Mar	St Patrick’s Day
16-Mar/24-Mar	*Spring Break
25-Mar/29-Mar	Easter
1-April/5-April	Easter
8-April/12-April	Where I Live
15-April/19-April	Where I Live
22-April/26-April	Landforms (Mountains/Rivers/Oceans/Valleys/Deserts/Local)
29-April/3-May	Landforms (Mountains/Rivers/Oceans/Valleys/Deserts/Local)
6-May/10-May	Time
13-May/17-May	Time
20-May/24-May	End of Year Review/Party!

Nehemiah's (age 4) Learning Goals (in addition to what is implied from unit studies): advance reading skills, story interaction, learn sight words (ie: name, the, a, I, of, to, you, she, my, is, are, do, does, colors, numbers, ), know vowels (a, e, i o, u), handwriting letters, rhyming, describe positions (ie. above, below, in out, by, behind,...), color mixing (ie. blue+yellow=green), patterning, sequencing, greater than/less than/equal to, count to 100 by ones and by tens, writing numbers, describe 2 and 3 dimensional shapes, state changes (ie. liquid to solid), improve gross & fine motor skills,

Reading:
Read BOB books as well as stories related to unit study. Do craft projects, re-tell stories (felt board, act it out, verbalize it as mommy writes it, puppet show ...)

9:00-11:00 Three-five days a week.

Elijah (age 3) Learning Goals: no set learning goals. Planning on him doing schoolwork with us and letting him pick up what he can.

Letter Pp Week (And Rest of Year Wrap-Up)

We finished off P with some activities and did a fun pom pom activity to boost motor skills and counting.

 We only made it through letter P and then summer hit. We finished up our letter book and number tracing and letter tracing pages and shape practice that we've been doing all year. We also finished up our ice cream scoop colors and will leave that up for next year. Here's the only picture of the world-wind of work we did in a few weeks:

Can't wait for the new school year to come soon!

Homeschool Group Stations

One thing I remember about elementary school was the fun stations you got to switch to when the teacher rang a bell. You would get to the next one and see a whole new thing to explore. Not only will my kids not miss out on fun things like that because we homeschool, but we also get the pleasure of doing such fun things with friends who homeschool too! I love this group!

 We had three little tables set up with two different activities so the kids did a total of 6 stations for five minutes each. Tons of gross and fine motor skills practiced!

Station #1: Transfer water from a dish using different types of syringes and spoons into an ice cube tray. 

 Station #2: Lacing practice.

Station #3: Shape Construction with Popsicle sticks.

Station #4: Puzzle assembly with math blocks.

 Station #5: Use tongs to pick up pom-poms and put in egg carton.

 Station #6: Get a glob of PlayDoh and hammer nails into it.

Letter Oo, Number 15, Diamond Week

 O for octopus (glued eyes for correct number), Hipp'O' paper bag puppets, circled Os, glued cheeriOs to our O letter, practiced name writing, and did some water coloring of numbers, the picture is of my mom who the kids call Oma

 Of course some O letter practice...

 Number practice...

 And shape tracing...

 Introduced P for next week (that's a playdoh penguin):

Letter Nn

 Wrote out our name that starts with N using a finger paint and shaving cream mix.

 N for needle (stamp) and N for nest.

 Mini Nn book, name page, write the missing letter page.

 Zoophonics: Nigel Nightowl.

 Mixed hair gel and food coloring in a ziploc and traced our LOTW and NOTW.

 We also practiced our letters on the chalkboard.

 And attempted to draw pictures of things that started with N...like nest...

Star

 Rainbow Star!

 My 3 yr old cut out all of these shapes by himself and matched them to the shadow!

Our learning book is always a hit at the start of our week as we discuss the LOTW, NOTW, and Shape or Color of the week! We also did this follow the directions worksheet.

Number 13

 We practiced our NOTW with magnets. We had a 1 and a 3 and I asked which one went first. We tried 3 then 1 and saw it was different. We discussed that for a few minutes. 

 Tracing has not been very popular lately, but I am trying to encourage my 3 year old in the love of learning. He's digging the fine motor skills in our sticker book though!

Letter Mm

This week we came up with a lot of Mm words, wrote them on index cards, hung them up, and then took turns choosing a card to an activity with it. Since we were learning about the star-shape, we also starred our card when completed.

 M for Music.

 M for Magnets.

 M&Ms and Monkeys.

 M for Mmm Mmm Monsters.

 M for Mess! (I chose this activity--cleaning up an mmm mmm mess!)

 M for Marshmallows.

 M for Magnifying Glass.

 M for MOO! (For this activity, I had the boys find an animal that makes a sound that starts with M...Moo. They each found a cow, then ran around the house with it in their mouths.)

 M for Marbles.

 M for Mr. Potato Head.

 M and m tracing worksheets.

 M for Mouse.

 M for Mail. (We colored a picture and then sent it to relatives by mail.)

M for Market and M for Money.

 My niece joined the fun that day..

We also had M for Mommy, M for Mac and Cheese, M for Movies, and M for Michelle (auntie). We did some fun things with these too.