"Explorer Spirit…Servant Heart…"
Mar 18th, 2007 by leigharev2
Wednesday, March 14th:
We went to a playdate with friends who live in Sammamish. We spent the morning with them, then went to Costco and Fred Meyer. That was pretty much our day!
Thursday, the 15th:
This was a MOPS day. Speaker Joy Zorn spoke on Sibling Rivalry. The boys went to their class. ‘A’ had martial arts in the afternoon.
Mar 18th, 2007 by leigharev2
Today was DH’s birthday! Happy birthday, honey! His mom and sister surprised him by visiting for lunch. Grandma M brought cowboy hats for the boys. Too cute! (She also made the birthday cake, and Sister S made cookies, YUM!)
Fingerplay
“Jesus Did Miracles”
Bible Story
Luke 8:41-55
Children’s Bible: Jesus raised a girl from the dead
Dramatic Play
We played doctor. I was the patient and the boys took my temperature, wrapped my arm in bandages, operated on my toe, gave me “shots”, etc. We talked about how doctors care for patients.
Letter Activity
The boys practiced making the letter ‘S’. I assumed this would be easy for them, but they struggled with it. I had to make dot to dot ‘S’s for them.
Bible Activity
We acted out the Bible story. Each took turns being “dead”, and each took turns being Jesus who touched the girl and brought ehr back to life.
Mar 12th, 2007 by leigharev2
Fingerplay
"Jesus Did Miracles"
Bible Story
Luke 5:18-20,24-26
Luke 7:12-16
Luke 8:23-25
Jesus healed the sick and raised a dead man and calmed the lake
Devotional Activity
Isaiah 55:6 "Seek the Lord while He may be found"
We read a story that taught about how we need to seek God through His Word.
Letter Activity
Math Activity
We played "Deal or No Deal" online for number recognition 1-26.
Social
We had some friends over today. They listened to one of the Bible stories and paticipated in a couple of the activities.
Active Exploration
I had the kids feel their hearts. Then, after jumping up and down, they compared the difference and learned that the heart has to pump harder and faster to support the body with increased activity.
Letter Activity
The kids glued cotton balls on the letter ‘s’
I had a mother’s helper today. She taught the kids how to play "hot potato" with a cotton ball.
Bible Activity
We talked about our grandma that has died and how she is no longer I alive on this earth, but alive in heaven.
We also acted out the story where Jesus rebuked the storm.
Art Activity
The kids tore up paper to represent the lake, fish, and a boat. They placed the paper into a jar and shook it to represent a storm, then the calm after Jesus said ‘Stop!’
Mar 12th, 2007 by leigharev2
No official "homeschool" today. I had Bible Study and the boys went into their own class. They learned about "The Good Samaritan".
We visited my grandfather on Saturday. We all had a great time. It is his birthday next week. He will be 85! (He does not look (or act) a day over 65!!)
Mar 12th, 2007 by leigharev2
Fingerplay “Jesus Did Miracles”
Bible Story
Luke 5:1-7
Children’s Bible: So many fish!
Math activity
I placed a goldfish crackers on the table and made piles of different sizes. We talked about more, less, larger, smaller, etc.
Letter activity
I showed the boys the ‘S’ flashcard. They thought up words that began with the letter ‘s’:
A: sad, soon, side, seed, stone, soup, strawberries, spider
R: sun, Scooter(our cat)
Bible Activity
Orange is….the boys picked out items in a magazine. They did some cutting (I refined) and they glued the items on the paper.
Mar 8th, 2007 by leigharev2
Fingerplay: “Jesus is the son of God”
Bible Story: Mark 3:13-14 and John 2:2-11
Children’s Bible: Jesus chose his disciples and turned water into wine
Active Exploration: We created shadows on the wall and noticed that wherever we went, our shadow followed. We experimented walking fast and slow, and making the shadows larger and smaller.
This coincided wuth the lesson that the disciples followed Jesus wherever he went.
Letter Activity: The boys colored a big ‘R’
Then, they practiced writing ‘R’
Bible Activity: I set out 12 objects to represent the 12 disciples. Each boy took turn counting them. ‘A’ can track and count to 12. ‘R’ can get up to about 6. We assigned each object a disiples name: Simon Peter, James x2, John, Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James, Thaddeus, Simon the Zealot, Judas Iscariot.
Math Activity I filled 6 bowls with water (to represent jugs of water getting turned into wine.) I then made 6 index cards, each with a number 1-6. I placed a card on the flor, not saying what it was, and each boy took turns setting that number of bowls aside.
Bible Activity I filled two glasses with water and added purple food coloring to one of them. I had the boys look at them and tell me what they thought they were. (water and grape juice). I had them taste each one and they realized that the “grape juice” was just water. I explained that even though items might look different, they are still the same thing. They also learned that mom can’t turn water into wine, unlike Jesus.
Mar 7th, 2007 by leigharev2
Fingerplay
"Jesus is the son of God"
Bible Story
Matthew 3:13-17, Matthew 4:1-4, 7, 10
Children’s Bible: Jesus was baptized and Satan tested Jesus
Dramatic Play
I had the boys stand in the center of the room with their eyes closed. I started talking and they had to point in my direction, then move towards my voice. We reversed roles.
Letter Activity
Hide and Seek ‘R’/ ‘A’ is the purple, ‘R’ is the red
Bible Activity
BLUE is…I had the boys think of things that were blue. ‘R’ kept running around the house and pointing to objects that are blue. ‘A’ said: water, sky, and blue jeans. I added blueberries. I cut out these items and the boys glued them and painted them.
It was such a nice day today, so we went outside. I made "R"s in chalk and the boys ran their cars over them, saying "rrrrrrrrr’. (this is one of their favorite activities)
The boys asked if I would make them a larger ‘R’…
‘A’ and I decided to move inside, but ‘R’ still wanted to play, so I made yet another ‘R’ on our back deck so ‘R’ could continue to play!
Math Activity
‘A’ and I played "Deal or No Deal" online. It helps with number recognition from 1-26. He is solid on 1-10, the rest he needs help on.
Devotional Activity
"Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy." Exodus 20:8
We learned that Sabbath means "rest", and Holy means "Set apart".
We read a story about the importance of keeping the sabbath day holy, and learned that Sunday is the first day of the week.
We reviewed five previous scritpure verses.
Nature
We went for a nce walk throughout our neighborhood, then threw rocks in the river. The boys found some nice walking sticks that we used to walk home. They turned them into "horses" and rode them.
P.E.
‘A’ had martial arts today.
Mar 6th, 2007 by leigharev2
Fingerplay
"One Special Baby"
"Jesus is the Son of God"
Bible Story
Luke 2:25-32
Children’s Bible: Simeon saw Jesus, and Jesus taught adults at the temple
Active Exploration
I took "Tigger" the stuffed tiger and covered a part of his body. Then I uncovered it and said, "Peek a Boo, I see a ________", and the boys had to say what that body part was.
The boys thought this was hilarious and after we ran out of parts on the tiger, I covered parts of myself. I focused on parts we don’t typically use in conversation (shoulder, collarbone, elbow, wrist, ankle, knuckles)
Letter Activity
The boys practiced writing the letter ‘Q’. Surprisingly, ‘R’ chose to write with his right hand, instead of left. (Don’t worry, Dad, we will make him a ‘lefty’! LOL)
I also introduced the letter ‘R’ with a flashcard. I had the boys think of words that began with the letter ‘R’
‘A’: rabbit, R(brother’s name), ride, read, raccoon, rise, rats
‘R’: rain, ray
Bible Activity
The boys took turns being Simeon. I was holding ‘Tigger’ AKA ‘Jesus’. They asked me to hold the baby Jesus, and I had them perform the following actions:
-gently rock him in their arms
-stroke his face
-sing or hum to him
-pat his back
-say a thank you prayer to God for Jesus
Art Activity
I traced the boys hands and feet and they glued lentils on the paper.
Bible Activity
Even though Jesus was only a boy, he knew many things. I had the boys show some of the things they know by naming objects and their color (colors in both english and spanish), counting, walk, spin, somersualts, jump, sing the alphabet song, hold fingers up to show age, and say a memory verse.
‘R" does not know a verse, but ‘A’ said: "A soft answer turns away wrath." Proverbs 15:1
Mar 1st, 2007 by leigharev2
OK, so I have fallen hopelessly behind on these assignments, but rather than give up, I will re-start now with assigment #20.
Our assignment this week is to blog from our “hearts” the details behind our choice to homeschool. We are encouraged to write out our educational philosophy, our general teaching approach/method, and if we have a homeschool name.
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My initial (mis-) understanding of what the homeschool world was that everyone was odd, anti-social, not able to make it in the real school system, and/or had behavioral , social or learning disabilities.
When my first son was born, I looked at this precious little bundle and said, “how am I going to fill up our days together?” I wanted to enrich him in some way, but did not know what to do.
We were living in Seattle at the time and were researching other areas. The Seattle school district is pretty poor and it was important to us that we either enrolled out children into private school or find a better public school system. Since we were not in a position to pay for a private school, moving was our option.
I pored over the school scores in our region and was pleased to find that the area that we now live in ranks quite high. This was a big factor in why we chose to move here.
I also began surfing the internet for activities I could do with my baby. Websites I discovered kept mentioning how this activity would work well with homeschoolers. I kept running across this term and became curious.
At the same time, I was also growing in my faith, and began to discover the belief of “training up your child”, and how parents are able to provide a strong, solid foundation for their children through homeschool.
I began to realize that there is a whole world out there full of proactive, responsible parents who have their child’s best interest in mind when they choose to homeschool, and not a reaction to their child not “making it” in the school system like I thought. Once I was able to wrap my head around this, I became even more curious about it. This soon became a passion that God had laid on my heart and I really felt that this was something we needed to consider for our children.
Well, DH was not so keen on the idea. His initial concept was similar to my original one. He was concerned about the fear of raising social misfits or outcasts. I did not know what to do, so I just began to pray to God to either make it clear to me that homeschool was not for us, or to make it clear to him that it was.
I spent about a year just researching. I checked out all the books I could at the library, copied my favorite parts into a notebook, surfed the itnernet and bookmarked over 100 sites for future reference. I learned about different educational approaches, terms, and philosophies. I learned that there is no one way to teach, and no one way to learn. This was super hard for me to accept because what I initially wanted was a cookie-cutter process, and that proved elusive.
I suggested to my DH the possiblity of homeschooling preschool. He agreed, I think, for two reasons:
But, he made it clear that it was just for preschool.
When ‘A’ was around 18 months, I began very simple, loosely structured activities. I relied on letterofthe week.com, our public library’s “Books to Grow On”, Starfall, and then, when they were a little older, “Before Five in a Row”.
I loved teaching my boys. For the first time ever, I felt like I knew exactly why God placed me on this earth. I have never felt such purpose or passion for something, as I do for homeschooling. I decided to continue to pursue my own education in the homeschool world and enrolled in a homeschool course by Barb Shelton. This course meets the requirements set by Washington state to homeschool. Barb really helped me cement my conviction and confidence to homeschool, and also taught me how to create a “lifestyle of learning” environment for my children.
I started to do a little bit of “lapbooking”, but discovered that it is not much fun (and not too educational) when I am the one doing most of the work. We were able to complete two lapbooks, but this has been shelved until they are old enough to do it on their own. The great thing about homeschooling is you can shelve something that does not work for you, and move on to something that does.
We finished ‘Before Five in a Row’ and moved on to “Little Hands to Heaven”. By this time, I had become enthralled with the Charlotte Mason approach, as well as the Sonlight curriculum. I loved the philosophy that Charlotte Mason embodies, and I loved the literature rich environment of Sonlight. I felt confident that a combination of these two would create a well balanced, cuturally rich education for my boys. I was excited about this prospect, but would not go any further without my husband’s blessing.
Late January, while vacationing on Maui, God created some incredible interactions with DH and strangers that, I think, helped shift his thinking about homeschool. Then, in July, he gave me his blessing to continue homeschool, and take it “one year at a time.” He said that what he has witnessed to date has been incredible and feels much more confident that this is what is right for our family as well.
It’s funny, but what was so alien to me a couple of years ago is now so normal. I now cannot even comprehend the idea of placing my boys into a traditional school setting. I am occasionally stunned when I receive a negative comment about homeschool and am placed in a position where I have to defend myself. Fortunately, I am in a community and area that has a strong homeschool support system, and for the most part, Washington state is pretty supportive as well. I am also blessed to have a family where some whole-heartedly agree with our choice, and those who do not quite undertand it or agree with it, trust our judgment as parents to make the right choice for our children.
I guess I have kind of answered the “how” we came to homechool, but not really the “why”. The “why” is a much longer answer. I guess, for that, I will refer you to my Book Review link, and Soft Answers to Hard Questions.
If you have made it this far, thank you. You really do love me! 🙂
Oh yes, and our homeschool name is ‘Riverbend Prep’, named after our neighborhood.
Mar 1st, 2007 by leigharev2
A: "What are you doing to my mom?"
Nurse: "I am wiping her arm with alcohol."
A: "Is it hard alcohol or soft alcohol?"
Me: "Um, A, where did you hear that?
A: "Daddy"
(HAHAHA, I am so glad he did not say me!)