School this week

I'm learning that Joshua and I both aren't that crazy about a planned curriculum. Fortunately, we are both pretty creative and have been able to manipulate the curriculum to work with us. For example, this week we've been going over the concepts of taller and shorter and longer and shorter. One of his worksheets in the practice book had an assignment with 5 different length lines on it. The directions instructed us to have Joshua draw a line longer than the line that was there, and then draw a line shorter. So we did that the first day. The next day was a review of the concept with the same directions on a very similar worksheet. As I was pouring a glass of juice, I look over and Joshua has completed the worksheet before I even asked him to. He then declared, "This is boring." I had to agree, it was boring. So we decided to use his ruler to measure the line on the paper and walk around the house finding things that were shorter and longer than the line. He was measuring everything from forks to shoes to trying to get the cat to sit still so he could measure her.

Science this week focused on balance. We both love science because it is hands-on. We practiced balancing different things on our heads walking around the living room. Even Daniel got in on that one, but he tried to balance a pumpkin on his head and was very upset when I took it away and gave him a bean bag instead. A big lesson in balance came the night we started our paper mache project. Joshua quickly learned that if he put too much newspaper on one side of our balloon that it was going to roll off the table and make a big mess. He figured it out on his own and explained the concept of balance to me. Today we practiced moving our bodies differently while keeping our balance. Even Daddy got in on it. They were all walking like tall giants and then like small mice and then like crabs and then like dogs. Then we played Simon Says and made up a silly song to the tune of the Farmer in the Dell, but focused on parts of the body - 'there's a bow on my toe, a bow on my toe, hi-ho-the-dairy-o, a bow on my toe' and then we worked our way up with knee, belly, shoulder, head. Joshua did great finding rhyming words and Daniel liked trying to find the parts of his body and Megan just enjoys anything that lets her dance around.

Joshua's comprehension of stories is incredible. In the past 10 days or so, we've read Goldilocks and the Three Bears, The Three Billy Goats Gruff, The Lion and the Mouse, Henny Penny, The Little Engine that Could, The Little Red Hen, and The Three Little Pigs. When we finish a story we compare and contrast the story to the ones that we've already read (and he uses the words compare and contrast). We have just a few chapters left of his chapter book - The Trumpet of the Swan by E.B. White. We are planning to finish it Saturday night. I borrowed the DVD from the library to surprise him, and I hope we get a chance to watch it Sunday night.

We always start our school session with a reading from our Devotions for Toddlers book and we take a few minutes to get settled in. There is a discussion topic in the Calvert curriculum. This week focused on being 'unique' as a homeschooled student. It discussed helping around the house and around the community. We created a new chore chart for Joshua. He is trying to earn a trip to go bowling.

Math is a little fluffy right now. He knows much more than the math that is in this early part of the curriculum. He's been adding single digit numbers for a few months now in his head with out worksheets. It's just something he started doing one day. Today we sailed through the math lesson, so I decided we should have some fun. We played Chutes and Ladders and he worked on his math skills. So if he was on block 26 and spun a 3, he added the numbers together and then moved to that block. It was fun playing just the two of us. Keith had the other kids engaged in constructing things out of legos.

His reading readiness skills are getting better every day. We love Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons and recommend it to anyone that would like to lovingly find a way to help their child read. Joshua's confidence soars when he can do it himself. We are registered as a homeschool in the Pizza Hut Book-it program. However, instead of counting books read (because we'd be earning a pizza a day at this rate!), we count letter sounds that are introduced in the Teach Your Child to Read book. It looks like this week he'll be earning a personal pan pizza certificate (I have a bunch to give him).

The Calvert curriculum is a good curriculum, but it does not include any religious themes. We studied about Moses this week in our My Bible Friends book series. Unfortunately, the VCR has taken a vow of silence. So once Keith figures out how to fix it, we'll be able to watch our videos (and send out the ballet/soccer videos!).

We've been supplementing Calvert with the Core Knowledge Series. This week we continued learning about the continents and began learning specifically about our country. Joshua can not only pick out the U.S. on the map, but he can pick out many of the states and tell me a bit about them. We also look at pictures of where we've been and he tells me what state things are in, like Niagra Falls is in New York, here is New York.

This week Megan stayed awake through nap time. I am considering allowing Joshua some computer time on Starfall.com while I work with Megan on a few skills after lunch. Keith and I are still discussing it, we don't want her to feel pressured, but she keeps asking to play school too.