Reading...Part I

Guess I'll stick with the basics to start...though "reading" really is rather broad, isn't it? Today, then, I'll just talk about the very basic part...letters and learning to actually put letters together and read words.

So. Let's start at the beginning I suppose. :) Let me start by saying that my approach to teaching reading has been a somewhat hands-off one. From the varied reading I've done on the subject and my own observations and experiences, children learn to read when they're ready. I've tried to follow that and allow my sons to learn at their own pace...so have tended to wait until they asked specifically for instruction before actually "teaching." (This, of course, does not mean that we didn't talk with them about things like letters and words. We've always tried to explain things as we go and view any moment as a potential for education.) In any case, back when Noah started asking to learn to read...

I'm almost embarrassed to say that I don't recall ever sitting down with any of my boys and saying "now let's learn the alphabet" or working on writing letters. Strange but true. ;) Instead, um, I showed them this dvd one day and it was amazing. From that, they learned the letter sounds and what they looked like. It was weirdly fast. I'd help them from time to time if they asked about a specific letter or sound. And that's pretty much what I did about letter recognition (despite the many cool things I'd purchased and collected for that purpose, lol). 

After that, we used things like these to hone the letters and decoding/phonics:

Bob Books. Simple little books that help build confidence as kids learn to read. Mine weren't overly eager to read these but it was nice to have something that we knew they *could* read. There are a number of sets similar to these and we've tried many but still come back to the simplicity of these. 

Maze books. It may sound odd, but I found that having the boys do mazes helped their penmanship. It was all about pencil control...and it was more fun than pages of repeated letters. ;) 

Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading. For Noah, reading workbooks were too repetitive. I relented and switched to this book. It's designed to do a short lesson each day and worked great for Noah. We sat together and read this lesson daily, and before long he was learning the "rules" and reading. It didn't work as well for Asher, though, so do keep that in mind. This approach seemed much more suited for a child who doesn't need as much repetition or review.

Explode the Code. These are the workbooks we started on with Noah. Though they didn't click for him, Asher and Micah like them. They have software and online exercises now, but we've always just used the workbooks. They teach the letter sounds and reading "rules" in a straight-forward and fun way. The illustrations are great and not distracting (and not always obvious, which means that the boys can't always just guess based on the pictures). A single lesson is an easily manageable size, and the books are designed to be used from K/1st to 4th.

(They also have pre-K workbooks about letter recognition and practice in writing just letters. We tried these with Micah but they ended up just being busy work, as he would whip through a whole book in one sitting...generally while waiting for his brothers or wanting something to do like his big brothers were doing.)

All About Spelling. This is our most recent find in this area. While it's presented as simply a spelling curriculum, I've found that it covers a number of things in more typical "reading" programs as well. I don't know exactly what it is, but the boys love this program...which means *I* love it! If I had to guess, I'd say it's a combination of how it incorporates all the different ways of learning (saying the sounds, moving the letter tiles, and hearing the dictation) and the fact that they all do it together.

(Yes, Noah is five years older then Micah. This is review for Noah right now. But he can use the review and works better with the confidence this gives him. It's probably a bit more than Micah needs and just about perfect for Asher. Micah, so far, can handle it. And. They're happy.)

Honestly, too, I'm learning spelling/reading rules that I never knew. And it makes explaining spelling and reading soooo much easier when you can tell them a "rule" rather than just saying "just because...just remember it." ;)

Hmmm. I think that's pretty much it for this area. As always, I'd love to hear any of your suggestions as well! I'll cover more soon...

Math

I figured I'd start with one that's fairly straight-forward. :) Here's what we've used for math...

Singapore Math. We've used the Earlybird workbooks and the Primary Standards editions from 1 through 5 so far. I anticipate that we'll continue to use this curriculum. All three of my boys have enjoyed these workbooks, particularly that the exercises are challenging without being repetitive or intimidating. (Each topic is covered in a straight-forward manner without pages and pages of exercises to make the same point. This works well for us, though I can see that it might not be ideal for others.) I like that it encourages mental math, something that I (as an incredibly visual learner) never excelled in. (Right now, each boy has his own workbook and does about six exercises a week.)

Life of Fred. We've just begun using this program. Okay, actually, Noah and I have just finished the first book. So far, I'm pretty happy with it. It presents higher math in a fun and different manner with only a handful of exercises. I'm not sure it would work as a sole curriculum yet, but it definitely provides a framework that I can use and expand on. Noah loves the story...enough that he requests to do a few chapters each week, wanting to know what comes next. ;) I know we won't keep up that pace, but just appreciate this new approach to what can be a stuffy subject.  

Books. We have quite a collection of math-oriented books that we've read with the boys since they were little. In particular, the Math Start books by Stuart J. Murphy and the Sir Cumference books are fabulous. Extra workbooks like Code Breakers also add more problem-solving to our lessons. (Right now, Noah works on a Code Breakers book weekly also.)

Games. Math lends itself superbly to games. We play lots of games. Count Down, Yahtzee, the Prime Card game, Sequence Numbers, Make 7...so very many. Additionally, simply having dice around makes for quick and easy math. Roll two and have your child add/subtract/multiply/divide them. Go a step further and roll two and have your child use graph paper to draw a rectangle using those dimensions. Now find the area. Viola! 

Other. Beyond all of that, we simply talk about math in our lives all the time. And. Money is a huge motivator. Last summer we started giving the boys a weekly allowance and it's made such a big difference. They understand how money works...what taxes are (and, in Noah's case, how to figure them)...the benefits of savings...what things are worth (to them)...how long it takes to save for certain things...and so much more. Seriously, even if you don't want to give your kids a heap of money for an allowance, a small amount regularly is a fantastic math lesson.

So. That's what I can think of right now that we've used for math. Do you have any math products/tricks that you'd be willing to share?

Our homeschooling plan...

...as of right now. ;) 

So. I homeschool. Over the years, I've had countless conversations with folks about this and numerous questions. By way of answering some of those, I'm going to talk you through our little homeschool approach here in the coming days. 

(Tangent: Also, I love documenting things and this seems like as good a place as any. Actually, I'm thinking I want to make a mini album that I can add to over the years with stuff we've used in our homeschooling journey. I'm working on a plan/system for yearly homeschool albums for each boy, but a separate album just about the curriculums would be nice, too. The hope is to get my ducks all in a row by summer's end. We'll see...;) Any other homeschooling scrapbookers have input on this?) 

To start, though, let me set the stage. We've always homeschooled. None of our three boys has ever been enrolled in a public school. We don't have anything in particular against public schools and actually both had fairly happy public school experiences ourselves. Many of our friends and family are teachers. This is just what works best for us, for various reasons that would require many additional posts. ;) 

Yes, we plan to continue homeschooling for the foreseeable future. The boys have always known that they have the option of going to public school. They prefer homeschooling, and we'll accommodate that so long as it continues to work. 

Right now, Noah is 9 and just "officially" finished third grade. Much of his math and science is higher than that. Asher is 7, will be 8 this summer. He's just "officially" finished first grade. (These grade things are rather confusing for me sometimes, lol. My "official" grades correlate to what grade they'd be in if we'd sent them to public school. It doesn't always reflect what they're working on.) Micah will be 5 this summer and will "officially" start kindergarten this fall. (Yes, that means that if we were sending him to public school I think we'd send him this fall even though he has a late July birthday. The kid is just too anxious to grow up, lol.) 

That said, let me walk you through our "routine" as it stands now...

I've recently decided to switch to a roughly three weeks on, one week off type of schedule. I find that taking large chunks of time "off" doesn't work well for us...difficult for both the boys and myself to get back on track and we lose time in trying. My hope is that planning just three weeks at a time will be more successful (and less overwhelming than trying to plan an entire year) and that the one week off will be just the pick me up we need to maintain our enthusiasm for learning while also having some fun and being able to tackle "other" stuff like household projects and holiday obligations. (I anticipate that things like the week before Halloween and the week of Thanksgiving will be "off" weeks...which should help things run more smoothly.)

On a day to day basis...we use a four day week schedule.

During the school year, the boys attend Options on Mondays. Options is an enrichment program where they go to a "school" with only other homeschool kids (grades K-12) for the day. They switch classes every hour and take classes like Hands On Science, AmeriTowne, Music/Drama, PE, Art, and the like. The classes give them a bit of experience with classrooms and other teachers and being part of a class but they aren't truly designed or intended to be their academic program...they're enrichment classes with the realization that the true academics are going on at home. (In other words, they get to do fun stuff like build volcanoes and play with bubbles while I cover acids/bases and chemical reactions at home, lol.) Since this is our normal Monday routine most of the year, I'm sticking with it during the summer and using Mondays for things like errands and just free play. 

The remaining four days of the week, we do our "basics" in the morning. These are the things where the boys all have their own workbooks/levels going on...mostly math and reading. I have it broken down so that Asher and Micah do 1/3 of their weekly work in math and in reading each morning. The other morning, we simply read together one-on-one. Noah prefers not to take quite the same "a little bit at a time" approach and likes to finish all of his math in two days instead. He also has an additional math program that he does with me and a number of critical thinking workbooks that he works on independently. I think I'm going to start working with him on cursive, too. In general, this all takes about an hour to an hour and a half each morning. Then they can play until lunch. :)

After lunch, we tackle our subject(s) of the day. These are the things that I do with all three boys together for right now. (I anticipate that this will change at some point, but right now it still works...I know I'll have to go back and cover things for Micah again and will likely also go into more detail for the others at that point.) So, afternoons are for things like science, grammar, geography, history, Latin (okay, I haven't started this yet, but plan to soon), and art. Some days are quick and some take longer, but the goal is to still be done with everything by the end of the "normal" school day so that later afternoons are free for extra-curricular activities like soccer practices and swim lessons and karate classes. 

And that, in an admittedly large nutshell, is what we do right now. ;) 

Stay tuned for subject-by-subject lists of stuff we use and love...

Our weekend...

...went like this:

FRIDAY: We did our usual morning exercise (me) and schoolwork (boys), ran a bunch of errands and headed out for Noah's soccer tournament. Their Friday game was at 5:00 and it was, um, hot. Really hot. Oh, I'm sure it could have been hotter and am quite appreciative of the occasional cloud cover. But it was muggy. Bleh. In any case, Asher and Micah had fun with our new spectator dealio:

Very happy with this find. So much better than just bringing umbrellas and trying to keep them from blowing away or from being twirled around by boys. It's lightweight and sturdy and easy to assemble by just one person. Perfect for us. (Incidentally, on day 2 of the tournament, we saw a number more of these appear, as we'd been asked where we found it. (Sam's Club...only $40)) Asher and Micah treated it as their own little fort and played math games and read library books during the game.

Anyhow. The first game was competitive but our guys just weren't at their best. Oh well. Two weeks off and the start of baseball season along with the heat and the fact that a number of them spent the first part of the day quite busy = not their best game. Still. It was close. :) 

After that, we treated the boys (just ours, not all of them, lol) to some frozen yogurt, some window shopping at Toys R Us, and Five Guys burgers before heading home. 

SATURDAY: Though we'd have loved to sleep in, we all woke up bright and early to take Asher and Micah to their first karate lesson. We signed them up at Karate West upon the recommendation of a friend, and couldn't be happier. First, the boys are so stinkin' adorable in their little uniforms. Second, Asher's gonna be a natural at this, you can already tell. Third, Micah (with his less flexible little body and the fact that he's three years younger than Ash) is darn cute...hilarious even. (Nathan had to remind me to stop laughing at him more than once. I wasn't really laughing *at* him, but, dang, he's just funny.) Fourth, both boys are already in love and I'm looking forward to seeing them continue in this. They're so happy. :)

After that, we headed home for an early lunch before driving back up to the soccer complex for Noah's 1:00 game. That one ended in a tie and was really so close. Three of the boys on the other team had played on Noah's team last season and two of the boys on Noah's team used to play on the other team...so, lots of knowing what the other team was going to do, which made it a hard fought game. ;) (And, yes, it was similarly hot and muggy as Friday night. Probably hotter, as the cloud cover was much less. Lovely.)

Drove the 20 minutes or so back home to enjoy some air conditioning briefly, pick up the trophies and such for the team party, and adjust our sun protection (yeah, I got a bit too much sun during that first game...had put on sunscreen and all, but pulling my hair up exposed my not-normally-exposed back so I grabbed a long sleeve linen top for the second game, even though that just made me hotter, lol). Drove back up to the soccer complex for the 4:00 game.

Here's Noah in his last game:

He's not going to sign up for next season. He's at the age where most of his friends signed up for Intermediate instead of Recreation...we'd told all the boys up front that we couldn't do competitive soccer, as it's expensive and requires travel and wouldn't be fair to the other two at the same time. Anyhow, he still has the option to do rec soccer but doesn't want to, as it will be a different coach (in all his six seasons, he's only had two coaches...the same one for the past four seasons) and his friends wouldn't be there. It's sad, because he loves the sport so much and has really grown in his skill level and emotionally through his seasons of soccer. We're still thinking on this... 

Regardless, the team played a hard last game but ultimately lost by one (Noah will tell you that the referee's calls made an impact here and that they should have won the game...which may be true). Still. They had fun and played well. And, because there probably isn't a more beloved coach:

It was Noah's idea. Honest. :) And bringing the water cooler to all the games did come in handy with the heat and boys whose water bottles emptied early. Fortunately, the coach was a good sport about it all (and we'd made sure he'd have an extra shirt). Afterward, we all went to a local pizza place for the team party and handed out trophies and pictures and all. We also presented the coach with a little scrapbook documenting his coaching experience and with thank you notes from each boy. 

And then we went home and crashed. ;) Tired.

SUNDAY: We haven't really done anything today. Woohoo!

So, how was your weekend?

FYI

Just so you know, the "not sweltering" thoughts didn't work tonight. Noah's game was at 5 pm and, dude, it was hot and muggy. Lovely. Two more tomorrow afternoon...