A homemade book

For Ayyam-i-ha Rylan made a beautiful book for his Dad. Complete with a hardcover, copyright information, and signed by the author! ;)

Our 2010-2011 curriculum

Over the last week I have been doing a lot of research, sifting through catalogues, books, and websites; and have finally settled on an outline for our upcoming year. I ordered everything we did not already have yesterday, and both Rylan and I are eagerly awaiting their arrival (yes, I know we are total nerds! ;) ).
Here is Rylan’s 1st grade curriculum (oh my gosh, I have a first grader!?! Where did the time go?) Although I have this outline to follow, everything is subject to revision if it doesn’t work for us:
Reading: I purchased Rocket Phonics last year, and we worked through the first few lessons. Although I like what I have seen so far in the program, and we may continue to work through some of it, Rylan has by in large taken learning to read into his own hands and doing very well, so we will see if is is necessary to add this into our days. Either way, I don’t mind having purchased the program because I will use it for Damian eventually.
English language and writing skills: we will be starting with First Language Lessons this year. As well as using The Complete Writer: Level 1 Workbook for Writing with Ease.
Math: we will continue working through the Math-U-See program. I will also incorporate math work into other areas of study, as I have before, because Rylan does tire of working on math only through the workbook.
Handwriting: We will continue with Handwriting Without Tears, this year using My Printing Book.Spiritual/religious: We will continue with our virtue lessons as a part of our daily circle time, as well as learning new prayers. In addition, we will continue reading through "Children’s Stories From The Dawn-Breakers" and Rylan will also be working through the Baha’i Children’s Workbook.Spelling: We will be starting with All About Spelling using Level 1 of the program. I am very excited about this program because I have heard a lot of great things about it from many people.
History: I just ordered The Story of the World and its activity book.
Geography: For now we will continue moving through the continents as a general introduction to world geography.
Science: I read through Rebecca Rupp’s Home Learning Year by Year as a general guide for what should be covered for science in first grade, and to be honest Rylan has already covered most of the areas, since he has such a passionate love of science related subjects, especially animal and nature studies. So, I am not investing in a science curriculum of any kind. We are going to stick with interest led learning here, although I think I will plan a unit on the human body at some stage during the year.
Spanish: I just ordered Rosetta Stone Spanish (Latin America) Homeschool Edition Level 1. And I am going to do it too! :)
Art: We will continue working through Drawing With Children. I am also looking into using Discovering Great Artists to incorporate some art appreciation (thank you Jolanthe for pointing out this book!).Music: Music appreciation with Ramtin on weekends, focusing on classical music.
PE: Rylan will continue with swimming lessons and gymnastics during the year.
Damian at 2 1/2 will have no set curriculum, of course, just lots of play and reading time! He will, however, participate in much of what we do, like virtue learning, prayers, circle time, and so on and so forth. As he gets older and I see the need for more focused learning I will incorporate it into his days, but what is most important for him now is to learn through play and to continue to develop a love of reading, so that will be our focus.
And I think that is a wrap! I am super excited about this year and cannot wait to get started! I am aiming to start in about two weeks, we have to wait for the materials I just ordered to arrive and for me to get a look through them and a feel for how to use them. I also need to fix up the school area. Over our unplanned (but much enjoyed) summer break our school area has become a storehouse for various items I have piled up to go be sold on craigslist or go to charities. I need to actually get those things out the door so we have a nice, organized space to work in again!

Learning About Africa Part 2 (printables included)

So I am finally getting round to posting part 2 of our African Studies (part 1 here). I have been putting it off because I knew I would have to gather various images, books, and info and honestly, I feel like I am leaving something out, but hey, at least you'll get the general idea of what we covered! We started by reading general information/facts about the African continent and then we cut and paste this poster together with the facts and images we found in our research. Rylan also colored and labeled a continental map and some African animal coloring sheets I found for him online. Rylan put together this South African flag puzzle that I made for him, and we glued it onto the poster as well. After going through this book, Rylan built the included African savannah diorama.

For maths work with an African flavor I created these "African Addition Worksheets" which you can download here if you are interested in using them.

I also made these "African animal skip counting worksheets" which you can download here.

I put together some African themed writing practice, using this site.

Rylan completed this word maze after reading Lions at Lunchtime with Dad (bedtime reading). I downloaded it from a teacher resource site, but I cannot find the link for it right now!

We took a close look at all the African art we have in our home - my husband and I collected many beautiful pieces before leaving Africa. We have various stone, metal, and wood carvings, bead work, woven baskets, small pieces of furniture, drums, clay pots, and even a clay mask hanging over our television. After this Rylan made an African mask himself:

We also listened to African music and read many picture and non-fiction books, most of which can be viewed in the carousels below. I had planned to cook up an African meal, but we didn't get round to that, we may do it sometime in the near future, but I am kind of hoping my sister-in-laws will send us some biltong instead! ;)

This has been addded to: Preschool Corner & 5K too

A Montessori exercise: making sentences (printable)

I created these word lists so Rylan and I could do a sentence making exercise, also as a basic introduction to words like adjective, noun, and verb. The word lists are below, I added pictures to the noun column just for fun and too add some color to the activity.

I laminated them (just one sided lamination to make them a little easier to work with, and so they would last for re-use) and then cut them into single words. I started by laying all the cut out words on top of their corresponding words on the sheets above, so he could see the word lists and their headings, and then he started to use them to make sentences.

If you would like to try this exercise with your children, you can download my word lists here. I actually thought afterwards that it would have been nice to have a column with punctuation marks too. I think I will add some for the next time we do this activity.

This has been added to: Preschool Corner & 5K too.

Workboxes: what's in the box Monday?

This is what the boys found in their workboxes today (another review, with more details on how we work through the boxes can be found here).

In Rylan's: lacing cards
Pattern blocks.

Lacing beads, which he had to lace in a clear pattern.

While Damian was napping: we covered several pages in his maths workbook.

He did two pages in his draw and write journal.

We played "Go Fish" with his Rocket Phonics cards. We had so much fun playing this game together, that we kept playing until Damian woke up, and skipped the last drawer (which means it will be the first one for tomorrow). I am going to do a post some time in the future on Rocket Phonics (this is the reading curriculum I ended up choosing and we are just getting started on it).

On to Damian's boxes: a number/picture puzzle. You will notice the wording is in Hebrew. :) I bought these in Israel when Rylan was little. I was thinking I should probably stick English labels over it so as not to cause confusion, but it puts a smile on my face every time we use these because it brings back lots of happy memories!

Lacing beads - 1 to 5.

Stacking barrels: first I had him nest them, then stack them from biggest to smallest, then smallest to biggest. Then we went through colours, then counted them.

Damian loves these little books. Each page has a single word and picture. We went through each of them and basically he "reads" them to me.

Texture puzzle.

Find this and more workbox ideas at: Wednesday Workbox Day and What's in the box Wednesday.

Workboxes: what's in the box Monday?

I am not going to do these posts every Monday, just once in awhile, to share with you what we are doing during school time. In general our mornings go something like this - after breakfast and washing up, we go downstairs, say prayers and study our virtue of the week (a.k.a. circle time), have calendar time, and then we move to the workboxes. Rylan usually works on his own through the first three boxes, during which time I work through all six of Damian's with him. After that is completed we go on to do other things (depends on the day). Later, when Damian is napping, Rylan and I go back downstairs to complete the remaining three boxes together. I save items that require my assistance or observation for during this time (although sometimes like with the boxes pictured below, he can pretty much move through them without me. I needed to do some work myself today, so I arranged things I knew he could do with little input from me).

So, here we go - these are Rylan's boxes: 100 chart, haven't used it in a while, so pulled it out and had him circle all even numbers on the chart and then count them out loud to me.
An awesome puzzle picked up from Costco this weekend. He put it together to spell 20 words.
The children's Dawn-Breakers (stories on the early history of the Bahá’í Faith). We read one chapter of this every week day. I am using Charlotte Mason style narration with this book - meaning I read a complete chapter to him, then he narrates the chapter back to me.

Domino math, again hadn't used it since I posted about it and Rylan really enjoys it.

Reading race: I printed out these words (in this case I focused on words that end "in a silent e" which makes "the vowel say it's name"). I placed half the cards on one chair and the other half on another chair a couple meters away, he had to run back and forth (get some exercise too!) reading the word cards. For fun I timed him to see how fast he could do it. Rylan loves challenges like this.

Lastly, writing practice. Photocopied out of his Handwriting Without Tears workbook. He had to write the words and build "Mat Man" using the foam letter pieces I made.

Now to Damian's boxes. Damian is really into puzzles right now, hence all the puzzle work...this is an animal puzzle that I cut out of one of Rylan's old Click magazines.

A farm tractor number/shape puzzle (also bought from Costco this weekend - they had a special pack of 3 puzzles for $10!).

Peg sound puzzle by Melissa and Doug.

Letter practice - I usually give him about 3-4 letters at a time. This time we used Leap Frog Fridge Phonics.

Sand paper letters, again just a few.

And that is what we did this morning (plus play with friends at the park).

Wet and dry chalkboard writing practice

I have mentioned in previous posts that we are using the Handwriting Without Tears curriculum for Rylan's handwriting practice. The more I use this programme the more I like it. If you just do the workbooks it can get boring, but if you use the more tactile aspects of the curriculum it is fun (there is also a CD which I am toying with getting, but haven't tried yet), plus I add to it with other fun activities, one of which I shared here.

One of the activities Rylan enjoys is the wet/dry writing practice on a chalkboard. We start all letters and numbers this way, first on the chalkboard, then onto the workbook. I write the letter/number first while giving "instructions" (for example: 8 - start with an S, then close it up!), and then Rylan uses a little wet sponge (I just cut a corner off a new dish sponge) to trace the shape. After that he writes his own over the wet outline, and then we flip the board over and he does it completely by himself. The chalk and sponge are easier to manage then the pencil for beginner writers, it is fun activity, plus the chalkboard allows you to make much bigger shapes than in the workbook. It means they are likely to have success on the chalkboard, and go to the workbook with confidence in their ability to form the letter. Win, win situation.

The board in the picture I purchased from the HWT site, and the lines definitely help with good formation, but I am sure it would work with other boards too.

Some of our work today: math games, sight words, and ETC

For math today we played Domino Parking Lot (you can find the board here from mathwire.com). Last time we did this Rylan was still counting the dots to figure out where to place them, but this time he was actually adding, and also counting in twos. It is so wonderful to watch the learning take place first hand. After we finished the first round of filling each "parking place" I had him carry on until the box of dominoes was finished, so we could see which number there was the most and least of.

For reading today we worked on sight words. I gave him a handful of checker pieces, and had him cover the word I called out. Then we switched and I covered the words he called out, either way, he had to read the words to play.

I downloaded these beautiful sight word lists from Jan Brett's website. The pictures make word lists a lot more inspiring!

After finishing off two more pages in his write and draw journal for writing practice, we moved onto Explode the Code online. I mentioned a while back that I was investigating this programme...well they have two versions, one workbook format, the other online. I have kept the computer pretty much off limits for the kids. Quite frankly they have shown no real desire to be on it, since we do not play computer or t.v. games in this house, they have had no real exposure to such things. The only real "computer time" they have had up to this point, is to talk with grandparents on skype. But when I saw that they have an online version of ETC, I thought perhaps it was time for Rylan to start learning how to use a computer...so I asked him (I want him to be involved in his learning choices, after all!) workbook (which he enjoys) or on the computer? Can you guess? It took all of 0 seconds to reply, "On the computer!!".

I did a little more looking into the programme and found they have demo exercises online, so Rylan has spent a little time over the past two days working through the demos. I wanted us both to get a feel for the programme before investing in it. And I think it is a keeper, he definitely enjoys it...and unfortunately, so does another little someone who woke up from his nap while Rylan was still working. :)

Dinosaur writing practice

Dinosaurs have been big in our house since Rylan turned two. So big at times, that I have felt as though I could be living in the Cretaceous Period! But for a while the interest died down somewhat and I thought maybe we were moving onto other things. But then about a month ago we were at the library, and Rylan said to me, "Mom, I'll be right back" and off he went to the librarian to ask her where he could find more factual books on dinosaurs, and she introduced him to the dinosaur section (I hadn't purposely been avoiding this section, I just hadn't been looking for it either, you know there is only so much you can read about dinosaurs and still maintain your sanity...), this dino section is BIG and Rylan was in pure awe. And so now when we come back from the library, this is what the selection looks like:
And there you have it, right back in the Cretaceous Period...except this time little brother is joining in. Oh yes, two of them! Dinosaur talk, dinosaur games, making their dinosaur models talk to each other, running around the house roaring at each other.

I figured it was time to work dinosaurs back into our school work (I have done this many times before with his learning), although I have not launched into a full unit study on dinosaurs, they are making their appearances in his everyday school work. After all it makes writing practice SO MUCH FUN if we can write about dinosaurs...oh and prehistoric animals work too!
{These are draw and write journals from the Handwriting Without Tears programme. I have been pretty happy with this programme so far. I like the two line design of their workbooks much more than the typical three lined ones.}

Developing reading comprehension

I have mentioned before that my boys are avid readers (actually Rylan loves reading so much that I cannot keep up with him, thank goodness he is learning how to read, so that he can feed his thirst for knowledge by reading to himself as well!). Not only does he love pouring over books, but when finished with them, he likes to re-tell what he has learnt or heard. So, his ability to recount stories and information verbally is very well developed (as a friend of mine will attest, having learnt all about rattlesnakes during a play date this afternoon!). But I also want this exercise of reading comprehension to be learnt in a written form, since this will become increasingly important as his schooling progresses.

A while back I found these story logs and knew they would work perfectly. They allow for written or picture format, which is great for the beginner reader/writer because when spelling is an issue, he can always switch to drawing a picture. Plus for Rylan, whenever art is involved, writing is that much sweeter! So, occasionally when we read a story, I will give Rylan one of the variations of these story logs or maps (you can find a free download for them here). He works on them mostly by himself while I am busy with Damian or housework/cooking.

The story logs in these photos were based on the book “Snow Bear” given to us by our wonderful friend Darlene.