January Activities

Tuesday, 17 February 2009

January Review

January was our first month "officially" homeschooling as Alex would have started school full time as a rising five if we had chosen to enroll him. We missed a few days here and there due to stomach flu, head colds and me being evaluated for possible premature labor and told to reduce my activity level but there was still plenty of time for learning.

Daily Intro

We introduce poetry into our start of day routine and read a poem each day about winter. Here are some photos of our recent snowfall and these were two of Alex’s favorite poems as he learned the concept of metaphors and similes...

Crumbs on the Snow

Lucretia Penny

When it's winter and the snow

Like a tablecloth is spread,

I remember hungry birds

And see that they are fed.

On their snowy tablecloth

They find my gift of bread.

Winter Morning

Ogden Nash

Winter is the king of showmen,

Turning tree stumps into snow men

And houses into birthday cakes

And spreading sugar over lakes.

Smooth and clean and frosty white,

The world looks good enough to bite.

That's the season to be young,

Catching snowflakes on your tongue.

Snow is snowy when it's snowing,

I'm sorry it's slushy when it's going.

Phonics

We continued on with the Jolly Phonics program we started using last year. Alex's retention of the phonic sounds was very good but he still struggles with blending to create words so we alternated between adding new sounds and doing various activities to help with his word comprehension and blending.

JOLLY PHONICS LESSON: We always follow the same order of activity in learning a new phonic sound.

1. Sound Book: We start with the sound book which Alex has made. Each day he sticks his new phonic sound into the book and at the beginning of the lesson we go through from the very beginning and review every sound. If he struggles to remember a sound we write it on the white board to review again later.

2. Letter presentation: The new letter to stick in the sound book is presented on a tray along with the Finger Phonics page for the day and worksheets. I tell Alex the letter sound, show him the action and give him the letter to stick into his sound book.

3: Jolly Music: We then listen to the Jolly Phonics song for that letter several times and practice the action.

4. Finger Phonics book: I tell him the story for the letter of the day then he spends time tracing the cut out shape of the letter and saying the sound several times. He then reads through the words that use the new letter or blend and then looks through the picture on the page and picks out as many items as he can that have the new sound in them.

5. Handwriting Practice and Colouring Sheet: Finally I give him the two worksheets for the day and show him how to write the letter. He then spends time on his own doing the handwriting practice on the worksheets and colouring in the pictures.

OTHER PHONIC ACTIVITIES...

POCKET CHART: We used the pocket chart for initial sounds practice where Alex had to pick out the picture of the object that started with the letter up on the board. We also used the pocket chart for putting up sentences for him to practice reading. He memorizes things very quickly and after having read a sentence once or twice in a book he remembers the sentence by recognizing the picture on the page and so will recite it off without actually reading the words. The pocket chart in a great asset because I can put up new words or sentences for him to practice on and there are no pictures to clue him in to the words, this keeps him from guessing instead of reading.

INITIAL SOUNDS GAME: This game is a combination of pictures and letters and is good practice for him to pick out the initial sounds in words. There are two to three pictures for every letter and multiple letter tile charts to go through. This game is self checking as the correct letters are on the back of the pictures for verifying once the exercise is done.

INITIAL BLENDS MATCHING TILES: These are two sets of wooden tiles, one with pictures the other with either initial letter blends for the words or ending blends for matching. The tiles are also self checking with letters on the back of the picture tiles to verify answers.

STARTING LETTER PUZZLE: This activity consists of 26, two part alphabet puzzles with a picture on one half and upper and lower case letters on the other. I give them to him in sets of eight to match up. This is another self checking activity as the puzzle halves will only fit together with the correct mate.

WORD TREASURE BOX: Every day Alex opens the treasure box and picks out between three and five words to read. I add more words as he learns new phonic sounds and we do this exercise each day before doing the standard Jolly Phonics lesson or other reading activities.

WORD PICTURE MATCHING: I have many sets of words and pictures printed up from the computer. I stick a small ball of blue tack on the back of the words and pictures and then he has to go through and read the word then match it to the correct pictures. This is another exercise where I can switch the order of the words around to keep him from simply matching from memory without reading.

LIBRARY BOOKS: Because Alex memorizes so quickly we take frequent trips to the library for him to pick out books for us to read together and we are saving the books we own for later when he is able to read more fluently and isn't tempted to just memorize or guess at the pages.

Numbers

Even though Alex knows how to count and recognize numbers he hasn't had much practice writing them. So we went back to basics and started at one with worksheets to practice writing.

BEAD JAR WORKSHEETS: I introduced the Montessori bead triangle and also gave Alex a bead jar which he added a coloured bead to each day as we went up through the numbers. This corresponded with a handwriting worksheet for him to practice writing the number and also a picture of a jar to which he would draw in the correct number of beads.

CUISINAIRE RODS:

I also used this opportunity to introduce the Cuisenaire rods that we would be using when we started doing basic math. Alex built a Cuisenaire wall display above his desk to use as a quick reference for remembering which rods corresponded to which colours.

ODD AND EVEN NUMBERS:

I introduced the concept of odd and even numbers using two sided counters, wooden numbers and a sheet of A4 paper with a line down the middle. Each day he would take the new number he had learned, count out the correct number of counters and then divide them between the two sides of the paper. He knew if he ended up with the same number of counters on each side it was an even number but if he ended up with one more counter on one side than the other that it was an odd number. He would then place the counters over the top of the numbers turned either to the red side or blue side depending on whether the number was odd or even.

TEST WORKSHEETS: Alex was given two tests this month to verify he was able to count a group of objects and match the amount to the correct number.

NUMBER PUZZLES AND MATCHING GAMES: Alex also did various number puzzles, sequencing cards and played games with matching numbers to pictures of groups of objects.

VOCABULARY: As each number in the sequence one to ten was introduced we also introduced the concepts of first, second, third, etc. and also did a basic introduction to fractions and the phrases whole, one half, one third, etc. This is in preparation for next month when we will make a fraction pie game and learn more about fractions and how they work.

Science

SEASONS: We started off the year learning about seasons. We read a chapter from a great text book called “God’s World” which talks about the seasons and their purpose both natural and divine. Alex also watched a DVD called Nature Baby which is full of beautiful video of the changing seasons, poetry, puppets and classical music. He used to love this series of videos as a toddler and liked to watch it again and connect it with what he was learning. We studied about animals in different seasons and introduced new vocabulary such as “hibernation” and “migration” and talked about their meaning in different species. I made him a season matching game with six pictures from each season and he had to look at the content of the pictures and decide which season they were from. We also had a great time experiencing the joys of Winter first hand when we took a “snow day” from school to play outside.

PLANT PROJECT: Our plant project spanned several weeks of activities. In learning about the seasons Alex was also eager to learn about how plants grow. Since I had been planning to do a kitchen window herb garden it was the perfect opportunity to accomplish two things at once.

1. Book Research: We took a trip to the library and got out a book called “How Thing Grow: Sunflowers” that details the entire life cycle of a sunflower plant from seed to flower to falling seeds. We talked about the difference between plants that grow from bulbs and seeds.

2. Planting seeds and bulbs: Alex and Ethan both helped to fill window planters with pebbles for drainage and the potting soil which we then placed under cling film in the windows for several days to warm the soil. One day was spent planting the seeds for the kitchen garden and another day planting bulbs for Alex’s playroom window.

3. Observation and documentation: I helped Alex to make a journal to record our observations regarding the seeds growth and over the next two weeks he would check daily to see what was happening in the pots. He used his digital camera to take pictures of the plant growth, a ruler to measure every three days to see how quickly the Dill was growing and then told me what to write down in the journal. He also eagerly watched as his Hyacinth and Narcissus bulbs sprouted and bloomed in the windowsill of his playroom.

4. Parts of the Plant Matching Game: I downloaded flash cards with the various parts of a plant, one labeled the other unlabelled and he played a memory matching game to put the two pairs together and also practiced reading the words on the labeled cards.

Free Range Learning

Alex enjoyed all kinds of fun in his free range learning time. He had access to the games and materials he had been given for phonics and numbers and also enjoyed the following activities.

FINE MOTOR SKILLS WORKSHEETS: These included your basic colouring pages and also connect the dots and tracing sheets to help him continue to improve his hand control for writing. He also enjoyed colour by numbers as well. His colouring skills are excellent for a child his age and he has a very artistic streak. This is a picture he did for his Daddy since “Daddy is always looking at the fish in our fish tank.”

MONTESSORI: Alex loves the various home made and internet purchased Montessori materials that we use. If you would like to know more about the various materials used in Montessori then this is a great website to look at and also has ideas for lessons with each of the supplies.

http://www.infomontessori.com

1. Cylinder Blocks: These are a favourite of both Ethan and Alex. Alex will use all of the sets while Ethan is only given one at a time. Alex takes out all of the cylinders and mixes them around to make it more challenging but Ethan is given the block with the cylinders in place or set up with the cylinders in front of their matching holes.
2. Sound Boxes: I made these sound boxes from cheap Tupperware style storage containers from Tesco and filled them with everything from rice to flour and glued the lids shut. Each pair of boxes has its own distinctive sound and Alex sets them out in two rows, then puts on the blindfold and matches them by sound.
3. Scent Bottles: These were made with cheap specimen cups from an online laboratory supply store. I made muslin pouches for the herbs or cotton balls soaked in essential oils so that when Alex opens the lids he can’t tell by looking what is in each bottle. He loves to smell the different scents and even noticed when we were planting our kitchen herbs that several of the seeds smelled like his scent bottles.
4. Baric Tablets: Alex loves to do the exercise with baric tablets. There are three sets of six tablets. Each set is made from a different wood and so the first set is quite light, the second set is heavy and the third set’s weight is between the other two. These are various exercises we do with the tablets. http://www.infomontessori.com/sensorial/baric_sense_baric_tablets.html
   

Ethan

Little Brother has continued to learn right along with Alex. In addition to sorting exercises, colour matching, flash cards and stories he also enjoys Montessori style pouring and spooning exercises. He likes doing puzzles as well and when all else fails Mummy calls in Barney or Boz to babysit when we need 20 minutes peace and quiet.

Well that about sums up our month. We did study a few other things, mostly reading from books that Alex picked out from our Dora Kingsley sets on things like Jungles and Volcanoes. He also enjoys “reading” and listening to his leap pad. He also has been learning a lot about animals from watching “Go, Diego, Go” . Alex has also started Karate and is doing very well. It is excellent for helping him learn to focus and follow instructions and he loves it so much he asks to sit and watch part of the big kids class after his 45min class ends.

Len is learning what it means to be the Dad of a homeschooled child. The most recent amusing incident was when they were playing with Alex’s plastic animals and I listened to the running dialogue from the other room. Here is an excerpt from that conversation

Daddy, picking up an animal toy “I’m a hungry crocodile and I’m going to eat you.”

Alex looking at the toy, “Daddy that is not a crocodile, it is a caiman!”

Daddy looking at the toy, “Are you sure, it looks like a crocodile to me.”

Alex heaves a sigh and gets up and goes over to the bookshelf and pulls out a book on animals, pages through till he finds what he is looking for, brings the book over to Daddy, shows him a picture and says, “No Daddy, this is what a crocodile looks like. That (pointing to the toy) is a caiman; see how their noses are different!”

Daddy, “I’m a hungry caiman and I’m going to eat you”

Hope you enjoyed our update and stay tuned for our February update where Alex gets to learn about addition and subtraction, fractions and tangram style puzzles, just to name a few items on the upcoming schedule.