The school year is getting started

  We've joined a new co op.  It's called TWIGGS.  We actually went to a few of their open play dates last spring, and enjoyed ourselves.  So this year we submitted an application.  It's nice in that they take applications yearly, so that they can weed out the folks who never participated the year before, or moved away.  It keeps the group small enough that the families get to know each other, yet large enough where there is a variety of activities.  We have a beach play date coming up next week.
  We also have orientation with the co op we were in last spring.  Our boys are both taking an art class and book club, and then Superman is taking a herp class.
  This year we are also officially registered as homeschoolers.  This past week I printed up some review work to go over, and we've done a few worksheets.  Just slowly getting back into our school pattern.  We'll be doing a little more this year, and it looks like it may be busier with field trips.  I am also working part time, so it's going to be an adjustment, but I'm confident everything will work out.

Homeschool catch up & family

  Whew, I need to catch up.  I was pretty much off the pc for awhile.  We had some family in for a few weeks last month.  Our cousin brought her mom down with her, so that was a huge surprise.  It was very nice to see them.
   Then some of my in-laws came for a visit.  They rented a beach house near us.  In all, it was a lot less stressful than I thought it would be.  Both women are former teachers, though one was an elementary teacher.  When they visited last summer, they were very against home school.  I'm sure they still are.  But, after looking at our Phonics Road, math and some of the things we have gone over, as well as just observation, the former elem teacher, was impressed.  She mentioned that what we are doing is good for right now.  We talked briefly about what we would do with our little guy if we had to place him in school.  Would he be bored?  How far ahead would he be?  Things like that.  And, my husband is coming around a little more.  He said we would continue with home school for now, though he'd have questions later on.  I am happy, but sad because it is causing friction between him and his folks.
  Anyhow, on to my review.  Last was week 16, and if you count the weeks, you'll see we took a small break.  I think I took 2 weeks to cover one of those weeks, and then with family here...But, that's the great thing about home school.  We can go at our own pace.  And considering we are technically kindergarten....

Home school week and organization

  It was a pretty good week.  We still worked on the basic math, but ventured into some three dimensional shapes.  We went around the house pointing out different cubes, spheres, cuboids, cones and cylinders.  Then Superman started thinking of things outside the house that matched the shapes.  He enjoys doing shapes and they're easy enough.  I think we'll incorporate some of the shape learning into arts/crafts.  On Valentines day the math was an add and color the correct sums, to form a picture of a heart.  The Batman had his own paper that was color matching to the number, instead of adding.
                                                    Math home work from co op

                                      
  We officially covered compound words this week.  He knew what they were already, but phonics road covers it and we finally reached it.  Just a sheet that has one word + one word = combined word.  I pulled some sentence worksheets out to do, to break up making up one each day.  The comprehension story was about pets, which Superman seemed to enjoy illustrating.
                                                  
                                           Week 16 words, some sentences and a worksheet

                                       An illustrated sheet from the story and some compound words

   I found some very cool science workbooks, by accident.  I checked one out of the library, intending to flip through, check it out, and copy anything I liked.  It turns out there is a small series.  Gifted and Talented Science workbooks.  They seem like a nice addition to any science curriculum.  We also found some nature series books at Target.  They are a level 2, so grade 1-3.  We of course got 3 bug ones.  A few of the words are a little above my guy, but I'm amazed he knows most of them, as well as comprehends the material.  He excitedly was telling me that yellow jackets live underground, and some type of caterpillar had stingers.  I am so happy he enjoys reading.
                                                     Reading a super hero book.

 

   This week I also started to tackle the extra home school supplies that I have.  I don't know how I ended up with so much.

                                    
   And that's only some of it.  I have some curriculum on the office bookshelf that I'd like to resell.  I took all these workbooks and papers, and ended up with this-
        

    Two piles for the Batman-a prek/k one and a first grade one.  A current pile of various things for Superman, and a third grade pile.  Another pile got the trash, and the final pile is going to a friend-extras that I had.  I'm actually glad I have these extra workbooks.  Now I just have to file away the extra books in the file cabinet.  I spent a long time looking for the curriculum I wanted to use, and actually changed a few.  But on days I'm looking for something extra, or we're having a light day, I can pull a worksheet or two from one of these books for my guy to do.  They also work for summer work, since I believe in year round schooling.  Especially for the lower grades.  Too much information is forgotten over the summer.  We school a few weeks on and a week off.  I admit, I was a bit more scattered until I read Susan Wise, "Well Trained Mind".  It makes sense to me, so we are following the path, until/unless it doesn't work out for us.

Home school co op starts

  We had a light week for schooling.  Both kids had colds, but the nice thing about home school, is that we are home!  No missed work.  No make up assignments.  No absent marks.  And though ill enough to have been taken out of school, the little guy was well enough to do some work.
  We started our comprehension stories from Phonics Road.  It was, "The little red hen".  He had to read the page, then illustrated what he read.  By Friday, he had his own five page, illustrated book.  It's a nice way to see if the kids understand what they are reading.  He'll be doing a weekly book now until the end of the school year. Along with the comprehension, there are still new spelling words for the week, and review of spelling rules, along with some other new things like compound words-which we will be doing next week.
   We did a little math review of addition and subtraction this week.
 Thursday was the first day of our local home school co op classes!  The kids were well enough to go, and I figured we could leave if they started to feel sick.  Wow!  So many families were at the co op.  And we didn't even see half of them, since they were taking other classes.  We singed up for four classes-math bootcamp, science, music and art.  Everything went well.  Both the science and art classes are very cool.  The science teacher had a bunch of neat animals for the kids to see and learn about.  In the art class they did wet on wet painting.
   In all, the day went pretty well.  The sun came out and started to dry off the play ground, which was good, since I was going in and out of the classes with my youngest.  I'll be better prepared for him next week, on things to do.

  Now of course, the cold in my youngest has progressed to a nice wet cough.  The eldest still has a slight dry cough, but since my youngest had a very odd cough back in December for 2 weeks, I figure some of the cilia in his lungs was probably effected, hence he is showing more coughing symptoms than his brother.  All is good though.  I'm mainly using high dose Sodium Ascorbate (Vitamin C), along with Borion's cough syrup and cold calm.