Day 7, 8 & 9

Corb's mood:

Tuesday-increased irritability, agitation and opposition. Mostly just his typical intentional constant annoying of pretty much everyone, non-compliance with everything and immediate frustration with everything from school to siblings. Became very upset with his Math at one point and told me "just kill me". Was not able to finish everything for school.

Wednesday-Same mood. Lighter school work because we had a play date. He did well on the play date, but preferred to play alone. Finally began interacting once we had been there for a few hours. No major incidents.

Thursday-Greater irritability, agitation and opposition. Could not finish school work due to a meltdown during Math. Other children were running away from him frightened that he was going to hit them or throw something at them. I had to keep him with me from late morning until after lunch. After lunch he told me "I want to play outside. I don't feel angry anymore". I let him go outside where his interaction with the other children improved but he was still "touchy".

Mostly this week for school he has been reading a Bob Book and doing some Math. I think for today I am not going to push any school but resume Monday. I only plan a month at a time so we won't get too far "off" schedule.

Day 6

Corb was in what I would call a "one step above stable" mood all day. Irritable and argumentative. No major inncidents. I am preparing myself, this usually grows for a few days leading up to a few days of full blown out of control behavior. He did his school work well, only having one issue with his Math.

Math-SM1B Worked on adding up amounts of money then identifying which amount was less or more. When he had to decide what was the least amount between 2 dollar bills and 2 sets of change(85 cents and 95 cents) he insisted the $2 was the least amount. I explained to him that $1=100 cents, he told me he "does not believe me". I will address it again today.

Language Arts-
Grammar-Mad Libs
Phonics-ETC 1 page, Bob Book
Writing-HWT and Garden Journal

History-Read Chp. 1 part 1"Nomads", then he answered the review questions.

Science-We began a week long study on Birds. We added birds to our types of animal wall chart. We identified the characteristics that make a bird. We looked at the wings and feathers of birds, comparing their wing arm to our arm. We looked at the different way birds move then tried to move like them. We read "How do they find their way" and "It's a Hummingbirds life". We hung out our Hummer feeder, decided to plant flowers that hummers like outside our window so we can watch for them then researched what flowers would be best to plant. Corb made an entry in his Garden Journal.

Day 5

Corb's mood Friday-excited in the morning because he was knew that his final school thing for the day was going to be his "I Did" dino egg. He flew through his school work in 2 hours. In the afternoon he became angry when Hadley wouldn't give him a dish(they were using plates to make a pizza shop). He took the plate from her and smashed it on the driveway. When he was telling me about it he said he was happy and giggling about it. When asked more about it he said he was feeling very angry at Hadley, he smashed the plate and then he felt "very, very happy". When I explained to him how dangerous it was to do what he did he said "Stupid". Later that evening he got into an empty rubbermaid container, that is used to hold toys, and told the other kids to put the lid on. Clint heard this and told under no cicumstances was he allowed to do that, he could suffocate..etc. Corbin retorted that there was a little hole through which he could breath. Clint said to me he was right, he probably was right that he would be able to breath but he still enforced this rule, which duh. Corb became very angry, he told Clint he wanted to punch him. Clint asked Corb to go into his room for some quiet time. Corb went but then proceeded to move almost everything into a pile in the corner saying he wanted to sell it. He has yet to move it back. He went to bed around 9pm.

Saturday-very good day. Spent the day at Gran's house, then at a friends house for the remainder of the day. No issues at all.

Sunday-Good day. In the evening started getting agitated because he wanted to come inside but Clint and I were not finished with our yard work. He followed us around for about an hour talking about wanting to go inside. When I suggested that he pick some raspberries, his favorite, he got excited. He got a bucket and started picking but then began to cry because there weren't enough for a pie. Yet, he was also angry. He clenched his fists and told me he was very angry with me because I said there were a lot and there weren't. I told him he had a enough for a little pie just for him since he did the work of picking them. That made him happy again.

Friday school:

Math-SM1B, worked on coin values

Language Arts-
Grammar-FLL Lesson 2, begin memorising a poem and illustrating it.
Phonics-ETC 1 page, Bob Book
Writing-HWT

History-Read "Arch. Dig for Clues", watched an Eyewitness video on digging up dino. bones, then he opened one of his three "I Dig" dino eggs. He really enjoyed that.

Science-Read"Baby Whales Drink Milk", "Whales" and "Whales Passing". Watched whale videos on you tube, also listened to the sounds they make. Corb really likes Blue Whales.

Day 4

Corb was very...what is the word? Excitable? in the morning. He was talking a lot, singing, and dancing around. He couldn't even sit for breakfast, he had to stand. He did very well school. I noticed he played alone a lot yesterday. After supper he took his ice cream cone outside to eat alone. He was easily upset in the evening-in a crying way. He was up later last night, until 10pm. Wondering if he isn't getting the fever the younger kids have.

Math- SM1B, reviewed subtraction. He did really well. Note-he solves subtraction word problems by adding. Example-Joe ate 5 cookies, Jane at 2 fewer cookies than Joe. How many cookies did Jane eat? He solves by starting at 2 and adding what he needs to get to 5. 2+?=5.

Language Arts-
Phonics-ETC 1 page, next Bob Book in 3rd set
Writing-Journal exercise 2

History-Read "What is Archeology?" in SOTW and answered the questions.

Thursday seems to be our light day, it was made even more so yesterday due to the 2 kids with fevers. I had planned on Sience but it got pushed forward to today.

Day 3

Corb was in an ok mood yesterday. Not really much to note other than some intentional antagaonizing in the evening followed by defience. Shortly after he went to sleep. He did really well with school, quickly going through everything.

I set up a "safe place" for him Tuesday night, this may have helped him over the course of the day. I removed a bunch of furniture from his room, added a desk I scored at a consignment shop that I plan to stock up with the coming school sales. I also added a bean bag chair and a spot for all of his favorite books. A few toys that are just his, some new puzzles and I popped my Lego cherry by buying our first set of Legos and a small table I also found at the consignment store.

We told him he can go into his room, no questions asked, when he starts to feel angry or just needs to get away from everyone. We also told him that if we notice he needs some alone time we will ask him to go there, but that he is not going because he is in "trouble". He was very happy with this idea.

Math-SM1B 3 number subtraction, he picked it up very well.

Language Arts-
Grammer-First Language Lessons 1st Lesson "What is a Noun?"
Phonics- ETC 1 page, 2nd Bob Book in 3rd set
Reading Comprehension-1st exercise in workbook to help with reading comprehension
Writing- HWT 1 page

Science- Continued our talk about Mammals. He picked Elephants as one of the Mammals he wanted to study. We read "Watch me Grow Elephant". Looked at African and Indian elephants on internet and learned how to tell the difference between the two. We also listened to different elephant noises and watch a few videos on youtube. Corb liked the elephants charging..ahem. We also walked like elephants. Last we followed the migration of the Elephants of Cameroon, it is a Google Earth download and pretty cool.

I am going to start recording Corb's mood everyday for my own reasons.

Corbin was in a very argumentative and irritable mood most of yesterday. This did affect school somewhat, mostly in Math. He was only happy if he was playing on his own. He did well controlling his anger most of the day, only incident was when he slammed his toolbox lid on Lennon's hand because Lennon wanted to use his tools. He was craving sugar.

Math-SM1B, did 2 pages of higher number subtraction. Trudged through but when promised a break after he finished the page he did it very quickly and correctly. Maybe he knows it but is bored?

Language Arts:
Phonics-ETC 1 page, read the 1st book in the 3rd box of Bob Books.
Writing-1st exercise in a Journal workbook.-he really enjoyed this and even assisted in sounding out words.

History-SOTW Activity "History of my Family" book, read "Me & My Family Tree"

Science-Corb named 3 mammals(elephant, blue whale, giraffe), identified the mammal when presented with a group of their toy animal figures, told me the characteristics of a mammal. Read "What is the Difference Mammal".

Other:
Listening skills-exercise 1 in a workbook to practice following directions.
Logic-Lesson 1 in a book about logical thinking.
Helped Clint replace the alternator in the Jeep.
Went to the bank to find out how much money he had in his account(he has been asking to do this for a few weeks).

And, we're back!

Today was our official start day for Corbin's 1st grade year. Here is what we did:

Math-Singapore Math 1B, we are working on larger number subtraction. Once I feel he has a good grasp on it(he is very close) we will move on to money.

Language Arts-
Grammar: Mad Libs
Phonics: Explode the Code 1.5, Last book in the second set of Bob Books
Writing: Handwriting without Tears Power Printing 1st page, Garden Journal

History-we are using Story of the World 1 book and activity guide
Read "What is History?" then answered the review questions

Science-we are using "Let's Read and Find out" as our spine books mixed in with Singapore Early Bird Science. I am using "Learning through the years" as a guide for what topics to cover.
We talked about Taxonomy. We are keeping it to Mammals, Reptiles, Amphibians, Fish, Birds, Insects and broad Invertabrates. Over the next 7 weeks we will cover one "family" per week. For our first week we are covering Mammals. Today we talked about the characteristics found in Mammals. We hung the Mammals up on our wall chart(that will eventually hold all the different families). We listed a bunch of animals then followed the characteristic "clues" to decide if they were mammals or not.

Corb has also been following the pumpkin seeds he planted 7 weeks ago. Each week he makes a journal entry about the growth of the plant. This week he discovered 2 little pumpkins. He drew them life size in his journal and wrote "There are 2 little pumpkins."

Hadley started back up with her Math, Writing and Phonics. She decided to join us for Science and Mad Libs but not History.

We took an unplanned trip to the Vet today as well.

I am going to start offering ETC and HWT to Lennon after his birthday on the 14th, but it will be entirely up to him if he wants to do anything or not.

Summer Vacation

I should have posted before, we are taking a break for the month of June. Everyone needs a break, right? The only scheduled sit down school type thing Corb is doing for now is his weekly Garden Journal. I asked him to pick a plant in the garden to Journal about from planting to harvesting. He picked pumpkins-his favorite. They are in their 5th week of growing, and growing fast.

I decided to take this time to pull my thoughts together for the coming "new" year. I am putting together plans for Corbin's 1st grade year, so far I've gotten July done. I am hoping to take it a month at a time in the planning arena. I want to get our planned schedule posted on here once it is all finalized. I am still toying with the idea of starting an art curriculum, but I am also afraid of adding too many new things at one time. As it is we will be picking up grammar, history, full time science, and some critical thinking/logic/reading comprehension/listening skills.

Hadley's First Story

We have a good sized tadpole that we are going to watch morph into a frog. We've been learning about the process. Hadley wrote her very first story today all by herself. It is about a frog...

The letal frog fond(found) a grl. The grl pikt(picked) up the frog. She gav it a hug. The End.

Nature Studies

Yesterday was Nature Studies with our homeschool group. Lot's of fun. The kids played a whole bunch of nature related games. Afterwards, the kids and I(my kids) searched the pond for tadpoles. I really wanted to bring some home to watch. We found a huge tadpole and caught it. We are going to make a home for it today.

I am very happy with what the kids have been doing. For now we do math, phonics and handwriting every day. They also each read a Bob Book to me. I am going to cut them back to 2 x per week on the HWT because they are moving through it too quickly. I am going to introduce other ways of doing copywork. In the next couple of weeks I am going to order the last few things we need for the new school year-we start in July. Clint and I decided to have Lennon start on a few things at that time, he will be turning 4 in July. Just a few simple goals-recognizing his name, writing his name, letters and sounds, numbers, colors, shapes. All the basic stuff.

Corb's Quetion

I love some of the questions Corbin asks us. He asks things I am sure I never questioned or even gave a second thought to. Yesterday, while he was doing his handwriting, he was given the word "Six" to copy. He was quiet for a little, then asked me how you spell "a". I told him it was "a". He rattled off a few other letters, then fell quiet again. When he spoke again he phrased this question "Why don't the letters have words? Why do only the numbers have words?" Hmmm.... Well, I never thought about it before. I told him that sometimes you have to write out the word for a "6". I thought that was a pretty lame answer so I went on with...Well, letters make up words and they are all sounds so we don't really need a word for letters. But then I thought some more about it, I asked Clint about it. His reply was that you need the word for "6" so that we know what "6" sounds like to say otherwise, it is just a symbol with no clues as to how to say it. I retorted with but so are letters. Why don't we spell "B" like it sounds-"Buh"? And maybe we do and I just don't know it, or we don't use the "words" for letters very often. Of course by the end of our conversation(Clint and I), Corb having long grown bored with us was off playing.

He can READ!

Corbin read his first book all by himself yesterday. He was so proud! I was so proud! We celebrated by eating popcorn for lunch. Hadley is so close, she just needs a little bit of help anymore. YAY YAY YAY! I just can't get over the excitement.

We went through a slump last week. The kids didn't want to do much. I didn't feel like doing much, I was much to frustrated with the house. Then, yesterday everything just got better. The kids did a lot of work at their own request. Corbin finished Singepore Math 1A today, he is excited to get started on 1B tomorrow. They are both more than halfway through their HWT books. Since he started actually reading he is enjoying doing ETC now, too.

We've been doing a lot of talk about plants. How they make food, what they need to grow, etc.

I discovered the kids like to act out stories. I found a great book in the library that has short plays that teach about something in history. We've been acting them out much to the kids enjoyment.

I took books that teach how to draw animals out of the library. Hadley is really enjoying that. We do something almost every day since I've had it.

In other words, last week school sucked. This week has been so, so much better. It is starting to be warm enough to go outside to do school, too. That is super nice.

Tomorrow, we are having an Earth Day celebration with our homeschool group. We can't wait!

Unschooling for the week

Due to the crazy weekend, colds and general feelings of ickiness we are unschooling this week. Today, we planted seeds outside. Poked around at a bunch of ants. Put up our window view nest box, and placed nest friendly materials such as dried grasses, newspaper and string nearby. We looked at kidney bean number 2 to see how it was growing. We read books. We played outside. This is the plan for the rest of the week until we all feel normal again, or at the very least are sleeping better and over our colds. Wednesday we do have a field trip planned to a local living museum that is hosting a homeschool day. That should prove to be a ton of fun.

Of steam and potatoes

I love when natural learning comes from being curious. Yesterday, Corbin got the idea to put a cardboard tube on the top of his humidifier. The results were fun.

Combo of yesterday and today:

Corb and Hadley both did Singapore, HWT, and ETC.

Science-We talked about the parts of a tree and their functions. We started a potato growing in a jar of water. We read "Seeds" and " A Seed is Sleepy".
Health-We read "The Busy Body Book". We talked about what our bodies need to move and grow. We discussed ways to keep our bodies busy.

We read "What is a Noun?" and played a few Mad Libs to start learning parts of speech.

We discussed the duties of a Squire. Yesterday, he fed all of the animals to fulfill his Squire duties. Today he is going to go on a Quest(I still need to figure that out..hmmm). We read 2 more chapters of "Knight Before Dawn". Corbin did 2 worksheets that involved phonics and "knight" words.

The plans are to dye Easter Eggs later today if it gets warm enough to go outside. I hope it does. I really don't want to do it inside.

Week of Knights

Corbin requested to learn about knights, kings and castles for school. I obliged. We are starting off with a week of knights. I might have over planned considering all I have to accomplish this week(Hadley's bday) but I think we will get to do it all.

Both Corbin and Hadley did ETC, HWT and Singapore Math today.

Since Easter is this week we are taking time to read books and do activities involving Easter. Today we read "Max's Chocolate Chicken" and we designed our own eggs(paper print out of a plain white egg that they colored).

We started doing Science/Nature this week. Today we talked about the different parts of a plant(Stem, root, leaf and flower) and what their role is in helping the plant grow. We read "How a Seed Grows"-a Lets Read and Find Out book. We planted flower seeds. We also planted 12 kidney bean seeds in plastic egg halves. In 3 days we are going to take the first one of the ground to observe any changes. In a few more days, we will take another out..and so on until the plants are out of the ground.

For Art we looked at Picture That with Knights and Castles. We looked at and discussed a painting of the battle of San Romano fought in Italy.

As an introduction to Knights we learned about the steps it takes to become a Knight. Page, Squire, Dubbing then Knight. We read the first chapters of "Knight at Dawn", "Joan of Arc", and the section about becoming a knight in "Knights and Castles"(a Magic Tree House Research book). For this week I am going to have Corbin follow the steps to becoming a knight ending with a dubbing ceremony on Friday. Today he is fulfilling the requirements of a Page. He is going to serve dinner to us, practice his manners and be kind to ladies. The kids did a listening skills worksheet on knights.

Other-They watched a video about John Deere tractors-to go with planting seeds.

Decompressing

I've been taking it really easy on Corbin this week. He needs a fairly long decompression time after having his schedule messed with(our weekend away). He is doing much better today. He wanted to do more formal learning today. They have both been doing their HWT, ETC and Math but I've been letting them both chose when they want to stop. Usually I plan Corbins out to how far I want him to go that day. We've been reading a lot. We watched a video about families in Sweden. We baked some cookies. They spent a lot of time outside. All easy relaxing things to allow Corbin his time to readjust.

All this decompression has left me with ample time to plan school for next week. Corb has requested to learn about knights, castles and kings. Giddy-up that sounds like fun. Next week is all about knights. I am going to have him go through the week as a page, squire and finally a knighting ceremony. I found a bunch of fun activities. We are also going to start up some Science/Nature study.

Friday we may go meet with a homeschooling group. They are going to playing group games. Not sure what that means but they seem like a fun group. Corb was showing some resistance to going to chess this week so we may just skip it since we are "going to town" on Friday.

Lumber, Nature and Maple Syrup..oh my!

I might get some pictures up here later. No book learning Thurs-Sun. Thursday and Friday were busy packing for the weekend. I figured since our entire weekend would be full of learning we were good.

Saturday-We visited the PA Lumber Museum. Learned about the "Civilian Conservation Corps". Very neat museum set up with buildings to represent what a lumber camp would have looked like. Corb, of course, liked the train the best. After the museum we headed to the PA Grand Canyon. Where we were once again reminded of Corbs' fear of heights. We ate a picnic lunch in one of the many pavilions provided at the top of the mountain. We talked about how the canyon was formed and found a lot of interesting things to discuss in the forrest.

Sunday-We visited 3 different Maple Syrup Farms. We got to see the process from tap to jug. We saw demonstrations on making candy, cream, cotton candy and sugar. It was fun to compare what each farm did differently or the same. It was also interesting to hear the stories each farmer told. One told us about a bear that chewed on his tap line tube, then he showed us the tube with bear teeth marks. Another man had a hook hand. One place had been doing this for over 40 years. We discovered the steam coming out of the sugar shacks smelled like maple syrup, which is delicious! At another place we learned about a beetle that is making its way into PA that destroys maple trees.

We stayed in a cabin in a nearby state park. That lead to more discussion about nature. As we drove along we saw many beaver dams and homes. A new thing to us since we don't see that much down our way. We made plans to get books about beavers from the library so we can see inside a beaver home. The kids also played around with spelling/reading and some everyday life math.

The children weren't very into their book studies, and I can't blame them with the warmer weather outside. Finally starting to warm up again. We spent a lot of time outside exploring today. We spent some time looking for signs of Spring. We found daffodil and tulips starting to emerge from the ground. Also, buds are forming on the trees and lilac bushes. Robins are everywhere. It is has grown noisier with all of the birds calling. We heard a woodpecker. We also discovered a dead Robin that one of the cats had caught. Hadley got a little emotional about it, but we got through it.

Phonics:
-Corbin ETC 1.5 pg 19-20
-Hadley ETC 1 pg 15

Handwriting:
-Corbin HWT pg 21-26
-Hadley HWT pg 17-19

Math:
-Corbin S1A pg 98-101
-Hadley SKB pg 7-10. She also used the multi-link cubes to demonstrate "greater" and "lesser" numbers.

Art:
-Both "Come Look With Me: Exploring Landscape Art with Children". Fun book that gets children to really explore famous works of art. There are a few questions for each painting. Today we looked at "Hunters in the Snow", "The Lackawanna Valley" and "The Oregon Trail".

History:
-Both I read another chapter of "Ben and Me" out loud. Then we watched a video from the library about Benjamin Franklin.

Other Books: "Sugarbush Spring", "If You Give a Pig a Pancake" and another chapter of "Charlotte's Web".

Regular ho hum day today. I haven't been very creative this week due to our upcoming trip. I did a lot of wash in preparation for our trip. The kids brought in a load of firewood since it is bloody cold out. I thought it was Spring. Darn you Mother Nature!

Phonics:
-Corbin-ETC 1.5 pg 16-18
-Hadley-ETC 1 pg 10-14

Handwriting:
-Corbin-HWT pg 15-20
-Hadley-HWT pg 11-16

Math:
-Corbin-S1A workbook pg 95-97(for some reason he is really resisting math right now, which is usually his favorite)
-Hadley-SKB pg 1-6

Books: "The Gift of the Tree", "Maple Trees", another chapter of "Ben and Me", and at the kids request we began "Charlotte's Web"

Other: Corb spent a lot of time working with his Snap Circuits. They all had some computer time in the afternoon. They also did some painting.

Weekend,Frogs,Hadley

This weekend was chock full of fundamental fun. Saturday marked the arrival of our African Dwarf frogs with bonus snail. They are going to permanently reside in the school room as a living example of a mini eco-system. We have to feed the frogs one to two times a week. The living plant provides oxygen and the snail keeps everything clean. You are supposed to only have to clean it once a year. The frogs can live up to 5 years. The children think it is fun. Corbin's favorite is the snail, who is named Slug. Bert and Ernie are the frogs names. Clint said if they spawn, they are out of here. HA!

Sunday provided a lot of hands on experience in Science. We spent part of the day watching chickens lay eggs. No matter how many times I see that it is still neat. Corbin and Hadley can both predict when the chicken is ready to pop an egg out. Really, we were out there trying to identify our egg eaters. We caught 3 of them in the act. We hope that is all of them.

We observed Mouse(the cat)catching a snake. That was pretty wild. She didn't eat the snake, just played with it for a long time. We observed how she moved slowly or quickly, and how she got down low to the ground.

Finally, we got the cold weather plants and seeds into the garden. We planted potatoes, carrots, lettuce, broccoli, cabbage, strawberries and blueberries. The children really got into it. Our rows might not be perfectly straight, and the potatoes might be planted too close together but it was great watching the kids. They learned why we put "poo"(horse manure) in the around the plant/seed, they also learned that it would not result in "yucky" tasting food.

Today we had regular school lessons. I decided to see what they did with Handwriting today. They both loved it! It is going to be a regular thing. I am thinking about adding a new "subject" in once every couple of weeks so we can gradually work our way up to the heavier 1st grade load. Corbin did really well using words on papers to make sentences again. Our "focus" for this week is Maple Trees and Syrup. On Friday we are leaving for a weekend of Maple Syrup making in the northern part of the state. Can..not...wait.

Phonics: ETC 1.5 pg 14-15

Handwriting: HWT pg 9-14

Math: S1A-looked at text for adding and subtracting numbers to 20. He worked with multi-link cubes for a bit but did not want to do the workbook.

Books: "Police Patrol"-really neat book talking all about Police. We discussed many things while reading this. "Maple Tree"-talked about the life cycle of a maple tree. "Maple Harvest"-talked about harvesting maple syrup. "Sugaring Time"-more maple syrup. "Ben and Me"-book written from a mouses perspective about Benjamin Franklin. I remember watching this video when I was a child and loving it. I saw the book at the library and decided to make it one of our older book read-aloud. We will read a chapter each day.




Now, for Hadley. I feel kind of bad not mentioning her on the school blog. I am going to start keeping track of what she is doing. I realized I should today since she is doing the same subjects as Corbin, is actually a little ahead of him in "reading", and has started asking to do school everyday. As with Corbin I let her go as far as she wants each day in any giving subject. Someday's it is one page, others it is 10. This is her get up to date section:

Phonics: ETC 1 pg 6-9. She does really well. Where I have to read pretty much everything but a few words for Corbin, she can do this almost completely independently. She was reading sentences today with little help. She was very proud of herself.

Math: SKA pg 142-158. When we began today she told me she wanted to go all the way to the end. I wasn't sure if she would, but she did. She finished the Singapore Kindergarten A book, tomorrow she gets to start on the B book. Again, very proud of herself.

Handwriting: HWT pg 7-10.

Books: The same as Corbin

I will just start combining all of this tomorrow.