Our First Day

We did it!  We finished out first day of homeschool!  It really went much better than I anticipated. The boys even said it was better than they thought it would be.  I'm sure this won't be the feeling every day, but I plan to enjoy it for the moment.

Here's a rundown of our day:

8-8:30 - Got dressed, made beds, ate breakfast
8:30-9 - Circle Time (yoga, prayers, intentions)
9-10 Main Lessons/50 States project
10-10:30 Math
10:30-11 Recess
11-12 American History, Spanish
12-1 Lunch, free play
1-2 Reading and Literature

Once everyone was dressed and ready to learn we warmed up with a little yoga.  The boys have taken a few yoga classes with me at the Y this summer, so they have a little knowledge about the basic poses.  We worked on a few cat/cows, sun salutation and tree balance poses.  Then we sat down at our table, lit a candle and read our intentions for the day (from the Waldorf Essentials post here). We added in the Prayer of St. Francis since that has always been a favorite of mine and Will was going to be learning about him today. We concluded circle time with the thoroughly delightful book This is My Home, This is My School by Jonathan Bean.

Will's Grade Two form drawing

The boys are going to be working with the 50 States as an independent activity while I alternate Main Lessons with them.  Today they did the first few pages in the activity book.  Going forward they will alternate writing about two states each week, with Jack memorizing capitals, and completing activity book pages.  Today Will's Main Lesson from Waldorf Essentials started with a form drawing.  Will found this very challenging and  really enjoyed working on the form. The Main Lesson was on St. Francis so I told the story and he made an illustration.  Tomorrow he will summarize the story verbally and we will work on a written version to go with his illustration.

Fourth Grade form drawing

Jack was not quite as thrilled with the challenge of the form drawing, but I think it was a really good exercise for him.  He did enjoy drawing the compass rose and coloring it in.  We talked about map features and looked at several kinds of maps.  I drew a map of our neighborhood on the blackboard (which I made with a piece of plywood and chalkboard paint this weekend, and realized it is a total mess because it rubs the paint when propped up against a wall, ugh).   During this time Sean (age 3) played with the chalk and wrote in his purple notebook and colored, happy to be a part of everything.

We came back together to brush up on math skills.  Neither boy really understand how to add large sums by lining up the numbers by place value and carrying.  Seriously.  And, they are amazing at math.  Thanks, common core.  We quickly remedied that situation and added large numbers.  Everyone was ready for a walk to the little playground, especially Sean.

On our way home from the playground, we picked up those empty water bottles from around the treehouse fort in our neighbors yard and had a talk about leaving places better than how we found them.  In Judaism, a good deed is called a mitzvah, and so we decided to try to do one together each day.

We gathered on the couch for American History storytime with Leif the Lucky.  The boys were pretty into it.  Viking ships and baby polar bear wrestling matches are very exciting!  We talked about the Native Americans and Columbus and "discovering America," as well as geography.  We should finish this book up tomorrow but will spend the week exploring the concepts more in depth.

Our final joint subject was Spanish.  I had recently read that you should teach a foreign language the same way we teach babies English - with picture books!  I love this concept.  We read a counting book today.  They remembered most of the numbers at dinner this evening, so we will go back to this one again.

After lunch and some free time we moved on to our Brave Writer literature units.  Jack chose Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder and Will selected The Mouse and The Motorcycle by Beverly Cleary.  They each read a chapter.  We got the audio book on CD at the library for Will, because we are worried we may have pushed too much with our early reader, but he chose to read today.  The option is there if he wants to use it.  They wrote out their dictation passages and we discussed grammar, vocabulary, spelling, punctuation, possession and parts of speech.  I really love the concept of learning this all through dictation.

Wow, that was a busy day!  They worked on loom bands (I know, not the proper Waldorf handwork with plastic and neon colors), legos and played outside until their friends got off the bus.

Curriculum for 2016

I have spent years poring over various homeschool curriculum. I have read books and posts about Waldorf, Montessori, Charlotte Mason, Project Based and Unschooling.  The more I find out the more I know how much I do not know.  Finally, it was time to make a decision on how to work out this year before my brain exploded.

Jack & Will's curriculum will be centered around the Waldorf Essentials lesson plans.  I think they make a great backbone for structuring our year.  Since I'm not a trained Waldorf teacher and we are joining this movement late in their schooling, I've tried my best to catch up.  The lessons are supposed to take a few hours each day, but to me it seems we will finish them quicker.  I know the point is not to speed through, but I think this will be part of the learning process for how to slow down from the programmed school speed.  A bit of a decompression period.  The lessons mention practicing math facts and lots of read alouds, but we are also going to try to incorporate a few other things with the daily lessons.  

Both older boys will be doing a Fifty States project independently.  I'm hoping this gives me a little time to spend on the main lessons with one child while the other does this.  We will record two states a week noting the capital, flag, location on the map and a few interesting facts of their choosing.  Jack will be memorizing capitals this year.

As a family we will be working on the Early American History pack and guide from Beautiful Feet Books.  This is one that I did not realize had a Christian emphasis until after I bought the guide.  We are not opposed to this, I am Catholic, but my husband is Jewish and that is the way we are raising the boys.  Luckily, at their core, the values of those two religions align well and the emphasis on religion can be applied to Judaism with very minor changes.  I think these books will be great for family read aloud time and retelling the stories for main lesson work should be fun.  As a history buff, this is definitely a portion of the year I am eager to start.

Fourth Grade

Waldorf Essentials focuses on Norse Mythology this year.  The first unit is maps and local geography, so we will incorporate early North Carolina history along with this.  Some road trips and a book about the Lost Colony of Roanoke are planned.

Jack is doing really well with reading and math.  We will be doing daily math facts and trying to incorporate real world math.  We have always tried to incorporate math in daily life and I'm not sure if the boys like math because of it or we were encouraged to do more math at home because of them.  We constantly ask them about dividing food up fairly, question them about using different measuring cups for baking and have them figure out sums on any situation that arises - they love tabulating lego set costs vs. the money in their wallets.  We love to share with them about how much rent costs in our area, a car payment, insurance, groceries, etc to help them understand why we need to budget and why it is so hard for so many to be able to afford all of these things.

Writing is an area that needs some improvement, both in neatness and content.  He tends to write without thinking about the sentence or idea first, often leaving out or adding words that make his writing confusing. I am going to try to get him to think about what he wants to say before putting pencil to paper.  We will also spend some time trying to make more complex sentences by adding more parts of speech.  Spelling is another area he struggles with and this I would like to gently correct by making him read it back to me and hoping he can figure out that it doesn't sound the way he wants.  We may do some spelling or vocab lists from our literature work.  We will probably use units from The Arrow by allowing Jack to pick the books he would like to read.

Second Grade

Waldorf Essentials focuses on Saints and Heroes this year.  The first lesson blocks focus on St. Francis, a Catholic saint I have always felt great admiration for and I even have some props from a trip to Assisi years ago.  We are very excited about celebrating the traditional Waldorf festivals.

Will is definitely up to speed on math and reading, but he needs to work on comprehension.  One of his biggest problems in school was comprehension questions.  He read at a third grade or higher  level but the scores he got on comprehension pulled his reading level back down to first grade.  Which is fine, he was in first grade!  The questions that tripped him up were usually multiple part and he lost focus and only answered the first portion.  Sometimes the question would ask for three instances in a passage and he would only cite one.  I always felt this was way beyond what should be expected in first grade, but, alas, we will continue to work on comprehension, probably doing more aloud.  His writing, spelling and vocabulary seem great for his age, but we will also work on more descriptive writing.  He loves to learn new words, so we may add in a vocabulary component as we go.

Preschool

Sean will be going to preschool a few mornings a week - he loves it there and doesn't any kids his age around us like his big brothers do.  The mornings that he is with us for school time, we will have a more traditional circle time in the morning.  We will focus on fairy tales and include lots of art, music and movement.  Hopefully he will be able to play independently while I work a little with his brothers and then, they, in turn, can work independently while he gets some mom time. 

Jack baking muffins for the Muffin Ministry through St. Matthew's Catholic Church

Extracurricular

The boys will continue with piano and swim lessons.  They are also signed up for a soccer league at the Y this fall, which my husband is coaching.  We plan to do a few science classes at Discovery Place and I am still working on ways to incorporate Spanish into our days.  My husband and I both took it in high school and college, but we are far from fluent speakers.  I feel like the natural way of learning through exposure would be better than the vocab/grammar heavy way we learned, but I'm not sure how to provide that yet.

We also want to add a service component to make sure we are helping to make the world a better place.