Wednesday, February 29, 2012

February 29, 2012

Language arts -- context clues (figuring out the Spanish words in a story through context clues)

Math -- homemade fraction circles (1, 1/2, 1/4, 1/8) and how to write fractions; self-made patterns; an entire workbook of dot-to-dot

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

February 28, 2012

Math (in the car) -- fractions: review halves and quarters, introduce fifths and other terminology.

Math (SWO co-op) -- read stories about measuring, measure park bench with inches, centimeters, and hand span.

Science (in the car) -- introduce the atomic nature of matter and provide examples of what is composed of atoms (everything!)

Social -- SWO homeschool co-op @ local playground

Monday, February 27, 2012

February 27, 2012

Handwriting (HWoT) -- lowercase c, o, s

Science (BFSU) -- discuss state transitions (ice -> water -> steam) (Lesson A-2 part 2)

Social -- library storytime

Sunday, February 26, 2012

February 26, 2012

Math -- hundred board (assembling, noticing vertical pattern of numbers, completing a worksheet of missing numbers)

Breakfast, crazy hair, and the hundred board


Science (BFSU) -- introduce three states of matter (Lesson A-2 part 1)

Handwriting (HWoT) -- review all capital letters

Saturday, February 25, 2012

Curriculum

Her interests -- This is our most important "curriculum". We try to answer her questions as completely as we can, following them down various rabbit holes. We do so with conversation, experiments, field trips, etc.

Math -- RightStart level A. We got through about 1/3-1/2 of this in the fall, but I didn't feel like it really "took". In January, the introduction of an abacus in the car kick-started Nugget's interest, and she started figuring out a lot of early arithmetic on her own. Since then, I've gone back to the beginning of RightStart A and we've been covering a couple lessons as a time.

Handwriting -- Handwriting Without Tears K. We covered HWoT Preschool (just capitals) this fall. Nugget was doing a lot of independent writing, so after a gap of a few months, I moved her on. We've finished all of the capital review and are just starting lowercase.

Science -- Building Foundations of Scientific Understanding. I'd intended to hold off on starting this until Nugget officially started kindergarten, but she begged each day to "do science". We've been moving slowly through this, about a week for each topic.

Reading -- We're using an assortment of programs (Hooked on Phonics, Bob books, Ready2Read, "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons"). Nugget is moving slowly in the reading area, but right now she can read CVC words and the Dolch pre-primer sight words.

Logic -- Lollipop Logic

Geography -- I plan to start a homemade curriculum over the summer.

History -- I plan to start a homemade curriculum over the summer.

Introduction

Welcome! This blog is my record-keeping for our homeschooling. 'Nugget' (her blog name) is 4.5 years old and, by age, a preschooler. In Florida, once we register with the state as a homeschooler (at age 5 or 6), we must keep records "contemporaneous with instruction". Officially, Nugget doesn't require record-keeping yet. However, we've started kindergarten level work already, and I want there to be a record of that. Also, I want to have good habits about this ingrained by the time it becomes required, so here's my effort to start the habit.

I don't intend to keep detailed, picture-heavy records of what we do. Instead, this will probably be quick but frequent blurbs of daily life. It will include both our progress through curriculum as well as learning events in daily life.