Weekly Round Up- Week One!
We are finished with our first week of school for the 2012-2013 school year!
It went really smoothly, I think because I spent SO much time planning and prepping for everything. I had all my lesson plans for all our subjects planned out and knew just what to do and when. Even more importantly, I knew when I could STOP. In the past, this has been a huge issue for me, we get going, and Bug is so focused, and before I knew it, the kid had spent an hour on math.
I suppose that really isn’t an issue, as long as he was happy. I, on the other hand, was never *really* sure when we could call it done, and began feeling burnt out. I broke all of our curricula down into bite sized chunks, and it was almost strange this week, because before, we would spend an hour on phonics, and this week, we only did 15 minutes a day, and I know it was enough.
My favorite part of the day has been our new circle time routine. It helps the kids know we are getting started and gets them excited for the day. I don’t let them look at their “workbox” schedule sheet until we are IN circle time, and they have really been enjoying the suspense to see what “bonus” tickets I have scheduled for the day. That snack card has come in handy also, and we have had NO whining this week, because he sees that snack coming up on the schedule.
Mr. Man did SO well this week. I had been worried about him because he isn’t one to enjoy sitting still. Luckily Dad had a day or two off from work for the holiday, and was able to do a couple lessons with him. Nothing gets a little boy more motivated for school than Daddy doing math with you. They set up counting bears for a “battle” and determined which “Army” had more fighters, and practiced writing his name on the big white board. Hopefully the fun he had this week was enough to keep him motivated next week!
Bug’s favorite part of the week has been Story of the World- This week we did the introduction and chapter one, which define “history”, explain archeology and discuss Nomads and the Fertile Crescent. I bought the audiobook as well, and have been playing those two chapters in the car. By the third listen, Bug and Mason can both tell you about Nomads and how they lived. Money well spent!
That’s about it for this week- Next week we’ll start studying Ancient Egypt!
Did you make your own timeline cards or did you buy those? Those look AWESOME.
Do you have a blog entry on those?
I am making my own to go with the ones I got for free from the Hannah’s homeschool helps yahoo group- http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Hannah_hs_helps/
She did a wonderful job on them, and we use them every morning to review what we have covered so far on our timeline.
There are some topics I wanted to cover as well, that she didn’t have cards for, so I am making more as we go along. I’ll post the ones I make as I have them! (I have only made two, for the Fertile Crescent and Jericho so far)