Well, the time has finally come for us to start our school year…Little Bro’s preschool and Big Bro’s 6th grade. Woohoo!! I’ve been waiting for this time for so long and now it’s finally here!
I can’t say that the boys necessarily felt the same but deep down I think they were pretty ready to begin as well. After months of planning lessons, organizing workboxes (more on that later) and the tweaking of our schoolroom many times over, we are prepared for anything that comes our way. (By the way, FLVS stands for Florida Virtual School which is what Big Bro is doing.)
Here’s a glimpse of what we did this past week (Aug. 23-27):
1st day of FLVS Working… Still working…
Not so many photos of Big Bro this week as he does his core classes on computer so the photos would be pretty boring after the first handful! Since this was his first week, most of the days were spent figuring out the FLVS system for emailing teachers, learning the pacing charts, turning in assignments, navigating the site and having welcome calls with each of his teachers. I anticipate as he gets more comfortable with the way it works, we will be able to add some more fun things into the day…science experiments to go along with his topic, DVD’s that correlate with his World Culture class and hands-on math application activities as well.
Big Bro with his first workbox…as I researched homeschooling last year, I found a popular HS system of having a child’s lessons prepped and ready with all materials in the box, all are numbered with velcro so they move the disc over to a tag when box is completed. All kinds of assignments are included, writing journal, games, vocabulary practice, penmanship activities and so on. Boxes are numbered and planned so that one can work independently on their project while Mom is helping the other and then vice versa. Great, great system!!! Both kiddos know that their turn with Mom is coming so I’m not torn and they both have learned how to get their next box and keep working without disturbing my work with the other child. Here’s some photos of our boxes:
Big Bro’s box with various aviation theme photos (no significance to the themes but just something to entice each child since they represent their interests). The photo of the stack shows the boxes out of order…not sure why but we weren’t using them yet at time of photo…now they are stacked in order from 1-9.
Big Bro is taking Science, Math, Language Arts and World Culture with FLVS. I am filling in with reading (that’s my field!!), art, writing (is partially included in lang. arts with FLVS but want to do more), character education, keyboarding, practical life skills and whatever else I can think as we go along. We also joined a homeschool co-op so on Wednesdays (starting on Sept. 1) Big Bro will be doing a video game design class along with P.E. while Little Bro will be doing his own Pee Wee P.E. class, a story time with projects and one more that I can’t remember right now. So pictures from that to come next week…
I began an “Aa” unit with Little Bro this week….here’s some of what we did…
Reading the “A” board Matching capital and lower case
(Saved board from my K teaching days!) A’s on an apple tree
Making an alligator using his fist for the body and fingers for legs and mouth…messy fun!
Rainy Day Investigation (borrowed the concept from “Sid, The Science Kid”) with best buddy “B”, spent the morning in drizzling rain looking for worms, digging under pavers and then eventually ended up in the fort playing fisherman on a ship. How fun for two boys!!
Our friend, B, comes over every Tuesday and boy, do we love having him visit. Now that school’s in, he even gets to participate in our school day. He and Little Bro are very close in age, two days apart! So you’ll see him in our photos every Tuesday, too.
Here the boys are using a toothpick and poking holes in the letter A…good tactile letter activity…they loved it!
Little Bro “B” Little Bro looking at the holes in the light
This week we also learned about rainbows and even painted one with a pencil eraser which he loved and is a good fine motor activity, too.
Finished product Building a letter A with foam blocks
Alphabet recognition wheel practice Making an “A” collage with Apple Jacks
Some pre-writing practice…he loved this activity the most
A little reader book Learning to make a sandwich…it’s never too early to train!
The highlight of the week was an apple taste test involving most of the family (Nana was working so we ate some extra for her)…planned for lunch so Big Bro and Dad were able to join in, too…all enjoyed trying the four types of apples and picking their favorites. Papa had lots to teach and tell us, too, since his family owned apple orchards and he was raised on one!
Digging into the first one Taste testers at work!
Papa’s favorite Little Bro’s favorite Big Bro’s favorite Daddy’s favorite
Wednesday we took a couple hours out of the day to head over to a Homeschool Ice Skating Bash. It was Little Bro’s first time on ice and though reluctant at first, ended up loving it and didn’t come off the ice for 1 1/2 hours! That’s pretty amazing considering my ankles were killing me within five minutes! This was a good opportunity for the boys to interact (yes, homeschoolers do socialize!) with other kids. Of course, Papa joined in on the fun, too!!
Friday we took a little break mid-day and went to a presentation about the Sunshine Skyway Bridge, it’s history, construction and up-keep.
And as a special treat to top off the week, I surprised them with a trip to Cici’s Pizza! It was odd to go in on a weekday with Big Bro but the best part was that we had the whole place to ourselves. The staff joked that each time we went to the buffet we could pick a different table!
So the moral of the story is: so far, so good! We’ve had a great first week and am looking forward to week number two! I love being home with them and since I love, love teaching that part is super fun, too!
My “plan” is to post at the end of each week the events and activities from the previous week. I’m hoping I can stick to that!
Thanks for checking in with us and we’ll see you in about a week!
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1 comments:
It sounds like you had a great week. You brought back some of my kindergarten days too. We had fun teaching together.
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