The Homeschool Mother's Journal Week #1: January 18, 2014

In my life this week…

I have been working toward my goal of being organized this year. We have gotten rid of 7 (or maybe it was 8) bags of girl clothes from newborn up to size 4T. Yes, they were all in my laundry room. Now. They. Are. Not!! It is such a relief to have space in my laundry room. I haven't gotten anything else organized this week, but I have kept up with vacuuming the dining room all week and have kept clutter from once again building up in the one corner. Little steps at a time.

In our homeschool this week…

We started back in with our regular schedule. We had school 3 days this week, went to playgroup on Tuesday and co-op on Wednesday. We had our gathering time each of the 3 school days, though I think having over a month off has gotten the children out of the routine so they were forgetting things and I was getting frustrated. 

Our My Father's World unit:

We started K: Kangaroo and learned that "I am safe in God." Mommy learned some really fun stuff about kangaroos right along with the children.

• Did you know a baby kangaroo is only the size of a bean when it is born after only 30-40 days gestation? Did you know the newborn joey needs to crawl through its mother's fur to the pouch using its sense of smell. 
• We learned that a kangaroo can jump as far as 27 feet and they can not walk (alternate feet) at all. We all took turns jumping to see how far we could jump. Tabitha took the initiative to write down the results. 
• Did you know the kangaroo uses its tail to help it balance?
• And we also learned that they use their front feet to dig holes to lie in to stay cool. And they also stay cool by licking their forearms and drooling (the girls loved the last two facts).

Here is what we did each day:

On Monday, the children colored their K pictures and made kangaroo collages. Tabitha and Amelia also worked in their Fun with Shapes workbook (it is part of the 1st grade Math Mammoth). Harold practiced his cutting.

On Wednesday, we sort of finished up our Penguin unit with our Kids and a Mom in the Kitchen. We made Penguin Rice Krispies Treats.

On Thursday, Tabitha and Amelia worked again in their Fun with Shapes Workbook. They used rulers to connect the dots to make and identify shapes. They also worked on their handwriting and sound discrimination sheets. Additionally, Amelia enjoys the upper case/lower case sorting activity. I don't know that she really needs it anymore, but I allow her to do it.

Hannah worked on her K Book. I was so impressed that she wanted to do the actual writing of the words by herself and she formed the letters pretty well.

Tabitha also worked on her cursive.

On Friday Tabitha and Amelia worked on fractions, wrote out their words for their cut and paste and wrote out their Words to Remember. They prefer to write their words that go with their phonics lesson cut and paste. Tabitha is beyond this for reading, but I like for her to spell the words and work on her handwriting.

Review Learning:

Our Crew review year has started. This past week we were working on Week 2 of Kinderbach. The children worked on hearing high and low sounds plus learning about quarter notes. The week before we had been introduced to Dodi the donkey and Frisco.

Helpful homeschooling tips or advice to share…

Mommy needs to remember that the children are just children and mommy is the mommy and needs to be consistent so the children can feel secure and learn what is expected.

Places we’re going and people we’re seeing…

This week was our last time to go to playgroup for a while. While this may be a bit disappointing, I am actually relieved. The children haven't enjoyed playgroup as much as they used to, mainly because the mommies are participating in Bible Study while the children play with minimal supervision. Yes, we are in the other room and yes there are older kids watching them, but it just doesn't seem the same as it used to be, especially because they are always complaining about other children being mean to them. Don't get me wrong, I am not in any way saying they are completely innocent, but I have seen them be picked on and I think it wouldn't have been happening as much with us mommies in there. It also comes at a perfect time. The hubby and I have decided to speed up the MFW Kindergarten so we can start 1st grade as soon as possible. By going from two weeks (6 days of lessons) to 1 week (4 days of lessons) we should finish in just two months.

My favorite thing this week was…

Was seeing Hannah actually write her letters. I had no idea she could do them unassisted. 

My kiddos favorite thing this week was…

Tabitha really enjoyed making the Penguin Rice Krispies Treats and Amelia thought it was fun to boing boing boing like kangaroos.