This week

This week we did some hands on science.

These are simple models of plant and animal cells made with jello and fruit. I think a little finger or two sampled the jello while making the model :)

We did some fun history learning

J made this history pocket, published by Evan Moore. We just discovered them and all agree they are great. They are wonderful for crafty kids who like to draw, cut, and paste, and are looking for a more creative approach to learning history

and started an ancient history time line.

We've been reading our favorite fall books, and making some fall art.

and doing some fall knitting.

My littlest one is a busy bee this year, learning right alongside her sister and brother, making me realize how big she is getting.She insists on doing her own "work" each day.

Happy fall!

Reading - How We Learn It

When we started out as a new family, long before we actually became a homeschooling family, I knew I wanted to instill a love of books and stories in my children. I read to my children in utero, and when they arrived we read as much as possible and brought books along everywhere - to the beach, on picnics, to church for wiggly toddlers and basically any place where we might have a minute or two to sit and thumb through a few pages. I wanted them to hear stories that are rich in content and beautiful in language, so from the beginning we read classics like Just So Stories, Peter Pan, The Jungle Book, Alice in Wonderland, Charlotte's Web, The Wind in the Willows, and the Little House series. I looked for beautifully illustrated versions of Mother Goose and children's Fairy Tales. I remember staying up late with my then 6 year old D, night after night, unable to put down the Harry Potter books, even though he was already yawning. In the car we listened to books on CD - so, so many books on CD! We love absolutely anything narrated by Jim Dale. He is amazing!

When my children expressed an interest in learning to read, I tried to help them along, keeping it fun and lighthearted. We sang songs about the letter sounds. We played a lot of games. We used sandpaper letters and the moveable alphabet A LOT! My kids loved those. A good friend of mine showed my some old primers she used for teaching reading, published by Houghton Mifflin in 1957, called the Reading for Meaning series. These are 'whole language' primers and my kids have truly loved reading them. Having been written in the 1950's they provide lots of opportunites for historical/cultural teaching moments, such as "Yes, that mommy does look beautiful baking cookies in high heels and red lipstick, but your mommy prefers to kick it in sweat pants" and "nowadays some mommies go to work too!" I supplement with MCP's phonic readers as well so that they have some phonics learning as well. D started decoding words at about 5, but really loathed reading what he called 'baby books'. I encouraged him to sit with me and read a little bit each day, but eventually he decided that he wanted to do it on his own. I was a bit skeptical, but he took some books upstairs to his room (where I was sure he was jumping on the bed and building with LEGOS) and in a few months was a fully fluent reader! I have no idea how it happened, but it did, and I can honestly say I had very little to do with it. He was about 8 when he began reading chapter books.

From the time she was very little, J has wanted to learn to read. When she was a toddler she would sit with us on the couch for story after story, as long as we would sit with her. K, however, is a wiggler and has gone through times when it was very difficult to get her to sit and listen to a story. So I told stories while she played with play dough or while she snuggled in bed. Now she asks for the Three Little Pigs every night and loves acting out the voice of the wolf (done in Jersey-shore/Cake boss type accent). J is six now and just read her first chapter book - a Magic Tree House book! She is very, very proud of this accomplishment and I am very proud of her too.

K

I often feel that K is somewhat neglected around here. While I review how to find the area of a trapezoid with D or listen to J work on her phonics, K can often be found padding around the house, often still in her p.j's at noon, drifting from stuffed animals to coloring books to play-do, back to stuffed animals. She doesn't seem at all put out by any of this, and I suppose I should be thankful to have such an independent almost-three year old. Every once in a while she surprises me with something I know she has absorbed somewhere along the way, listening to books, or hearing her siblings talk about what they are learning, and has been storing for just the right moment. Today she matter of factly explained to her dad that animals who can see at night are nocturnal. And after sorting her blue knobless cylinders by height, she announced that they looked like stairs and decorated them with calico critters. It made me smile, and I have to share the pic.

everything i need to know i learned in kindergarten.

Ah, Kindergarten. Remember the naps? The snacktime with those little cartons of milk? Learning to raise your hand before speaking? Sitting up front on the bus so as not to be inundated into back-of-the-bus-mayhem at too young an age? I have fond memories of playing with the letter people in Mrs. Erikson's class, of striving to color inside the lines, of finding the courage to hang upside down from the monkey bars with no hands, and of dressing up as Ms. A in the Kindergarten play.

Kindergarten has most likely evolved since 1981, and kindergarten here in our house certainly differs from my kindergarten experience in many ways. First of all, J hasn't napped since she was 2. I often encourage her to color outside the lines just to shake things up a bit, you know, think outside the box and all that. I'm sure the concept of learning your letters at age 5 would seem absolutely ridiculous to her. However, our mutual love of snacks very much lives on. I mean, who doesn't love snacks? And the sweetness of early learning - the snuggling up while reading together, the crafts and creating, the wide-eyed wonder of learning something new, the pride in mastering a task, are things that are very much present here as J begins her Kindergarten year with much pride. I hope she holds on to that wonder and joy in learning in the years to come.