(And All My) Work Be Praise

This sat in my drafts folder for six months. I never finished it, but I'm going to post it anyway for my own future self to read at some later date. :) I realized I haven't posted a blog in over four months, and truthfully, I don't foresee having time to do it again any time soon. But I couldn't let a birthday go by without taking a few minutes to record a bit about my middle son! Silas has been reading proficiently for over a year, though I haven't taken the time to determine his actual reading level. He most often has a Magic School Bus book in his hands. He's been carrying around some chapter books and staring intently at the pages, but I honestly have no idea how much he comprehends. (I really ought to figure that out at some point.) This spring, Silas asked to do math "like Levi and Owen," so I pulled out Saxon. We're not super consistent -- maybe two or three days a week -- but he enjoys it. Right now we're working on doubles f...

As I mentioned a few weeks ago , I'm trying to pick up on some kindergarden-ish things I might have missed with Owen (5.75) using the ABC Jesus Loves Me 5-year curriculum . Over the past month, we've done a week-at-a-time overview of the four seasons: simple information like what months are in each season, what the weather's like, what holidays are included, and which family birthdays fall at that time. To go along with this, Owen read through the Poppleton series by Cynthia Rylant , even though they're a bit under his reading level (and even though there is no Poppleton in Summer).  It also gave me an opportunity to do a special craft with just him once a week. All of my kids like to do projects, but Owen is particularly artsy, and it was nice to spend a few brief minutes connecting with him over this each week. The first week, I painted his arm and hand brown, and we made four hand/armprints on four pieces of paper. Each one eventually became a tree, decorated fo...

As I've mentioned dozens of times, but some of you (I've met new friends since last year!) probably don't know, I'm a big fan of the ABC Jesus Loves Me preschool curriculum. You can buy workbooks, but I never have; the weekly lesson plans are all available for free online. The author, Heidi, now has curricula available for one-year-olds (though I'm skeptical of the point) through five-year-olds (which can be supplemented to be kindergarden, depending on your state's requirements). She has suggested activities for a 36-week academic year, including Bible stories, Bible songs, character development, finger plays, nursery rhymes, classic children's books, shapes, colors, numbers, letters, pre-writing skills, letter and number formation, gross motor skills, fine motor skills, literacy, social sciences, self-care . . . seriously, everything. I've never done it all! We tend to be a bit ahead of the game in academics in my house, but I would honestly NEVER thi...

Owen has been what most would call a "beginning reader" for a few months now. When I realized he was sounding out simple words, I got the first set of Bob books from the library, and he buzzed through them easily, and with great delight. (This was a surprise to me, as Levi hated them.) Isaac happened to mention this to a long-time homeschooling mom, who promptly lent us her entire nearly-complete collection of Bob books! Owen read two or three of these a week for most of the fall, and it really wasn't until the twenty-fourth book that he came upon some sight words that he didn't recognize at all. (Twenty-four might sound like a lot, but remember these are almost 100% three-letter words.) So, as of last week, we've started working more diligently (but still pretty relaxed, if you can be both) on sight words. I'm using this list of the Dolch sight words , but there are several lists out there. (Read about Dolch sight words here .) In my usual interest of ke...

Even though we don't make a big deal out of Santa at our house, it seemed like the logical thing to do to finish up the semester's animal studies with reindeer. Besides, if you can't use your red sparkly pipe cleaners in December, when can you?! Always, always with the googly eyes. And a red pompom nose, of course. Because, besides not really knowing much about Santa, they really didn't know anything about Rudolph, either, we got on youtube to watch the 10-minute movie from 1948  and also to listen to Gene Autry sing it. Levi has been pretty taken with the song since, humming when he doesn't know the lyrics and asking to learn it on the piano. We have a few more animals to study, scattered over the next few months, but will largely be concentrating on the human body for several weeks after the holidays. Should be interesting!

Due to the lethal combination of seasonal busy-ness and house-wide cruddy coughing, we didn't actually read any books about alligators, fiction or non-fiction. If I'd had my wits about me, we would have at least pulled The House on East 88th Street off the shelf to re-visit our beloved Lyle the Crocodile, but 'twas not to be this week. Still, our little craft was too cute not to share! ( Idea found here .) Two handprints: one with only three fingers painted, opened in a V to be the mouth, and another with all four painted and close together as the body. Peel-and-stick foam cut into triangles for the spiky skin, and of course the ever-present googly eyes! Peeling stickers: great fine motor development. I decided our alligators needed a riverbank scene, and the watercolors were already out, so I took a turn with the paintbrush. :) Top right: Levi's scattered spikes. Bottom left: Owen's meticulous straight line of spikes. Aren't pe...

Levi brought me a small pad of paper today, on which he had written his first story (as in, not just told a story out loud, which he does frequently). Mostly for the amusement of myself and my family, here it is in its entirety, including spelling errors: One day there was a happy liveing lion and a little chicken liveing quite happley. Suddenly, BOOM. BOOM. It was going to rain. The lion ran away. But the chicken looked around. He saw rain. Lion running through the rain. BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM That yellow squiggle is lightning. BOOM So the chicken ran away; to find the lion. He met her at 2pm. a fire [???] Hey, lion; the lion was asleep. The chicken yelled ahhhhhh. Chicken yelling at lion. (Those blue lines are sound waves.) The chicken woke the lion up. The End.

I haven't given a full list of Levi's curriculum for this year, but I've been mentioning his subjects here and there. I don't think I've touched on his literature study yet: First Favorites Guide (Vol. 2)  by Veritas Press. We don't do this every week; I've mixed the books from this guide in with other books I want to spend time on. These literature guides -- a mixture of all sorts of activities, like answering questions (full sentences!), fill-in-the-blanks, write a postcard, color a map -- are really perfect for Levi right now. Most  of the time I'm a big fan of reading just to enjoy reading, plus a craft or activity to make it fun. Levi started reading so early, however, that I've never been quite certain about his comprehension level, and this is helping me know what to expect when he reads books on his own. Included in this guide are two selections from a series I'd never heard of: Nate the Great . They're longer stories but not yet...

This year, besides our thankful chart , we focused a little bit more on the history of Thanksgiving -- you know, Pilgrims and Indians and all that. It's fun that the kids are getting older and able to understand and remember some of these things! Levi had two lessons on Thanksgiving in his history curriculum , but we went beyond that and used this kindergarden unit on the History of Thanksgiving  as well. (It's kind of hard to see the link on this page; it's in pink, sandwiched between two rows of social media links.) The unit includes books (we got two from the library and didn't worry about the others), links to videos on scholastic.com (which the boys loved watching), craft ideas (which we never got to), and more. I highly recommend it, and will be watching this blog for future units! (Actually, that's not 100% accurate. I get e-mails from freehomeschooldeals.com , and immediately download anything that looks like it might be useful some day. It's been a f...

As I sat down to write this post, I thought to myself, "gosh, another childhood favorite. I wonder why I'm using so many of my own books this year." And then it hit me: getting to the library with all of the children, without ruining any naps, requires a mid-size miracle. So it is that we pulled another fun one off the shelf this week: The Day Jimmy's Boa Ate the Wash  by Trinka Hakes Noble. Craft:  snakes, of course! ( Idea here .) Paper bag, paint, foam cut into triangles, glue, and the ever-present googly eyes. Silas wanted in on the painting action this time. These boys are serious about their gluing. (Never mind the weird lighting. It was not the middle of the night, honest.) Snakes! Science:  I got several library books on snakes -- hold up. Didn't I say above that we never get to the library? It's mostly true. But my favorite local library branch is open on Sundays, so once a month or so I sneak off by myself in the middle of ...

Last week we re-visited another old favorite, Corduroy  by Don Freeman. I'm pretty sure the copy we have was mine as a child. We covered bears a little bit during our berry month over the summer, but there is no shortage of bear stories and activities in the world! Levi reading the story to his brothers. Food :  teddy bear toast  with banana and blueberries. Cute and easy! We also made these  peanut butter button cookies . It might interest you to know that the holes in Corduroy's button are only pictured on one  page in the entire book: at the end, when Lisa is sewing his new button on. (It might also interest you to know that I spell "Corduroy" wrong first every single time.) Even though it's a two-hole button, we decided it would be okay to make both two- and four-hole button cookies. Poking holes in the cookie dough with a straw.  Silas joined in the "flattening" (er, smashing) of the balls of dough. Unflattering pictu...