Progress of Organization

I thought I'd share how the Lesson Plan form has been changing as I get more in to the rhythm of our learning process with a 22 month old. I'm a visual person so I definitely like the color, organization and symmetry of a spreadsheet. My prior professional experience gave me quite a bit of exposure to Excel. I know, nerd alert, but it works for me :-D

You can see we will have daily tasks for our basic learning that can happen as we work on our two major themes for the week. How M experiences those concepts each day will change.

For now, I'm going to use a guideline for what I've some to see is the primary ways we learn through Printables, Manipulatives and Arts/ Crafts. The days that can fluctuate every week. There will be:

1. Intro day on Monday that will be about every day living learning with toys, books, conversations with mommy, errands, doing laundry etc. I listed a few toys but, we never run out of teachable moments.

Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, the core days will include : 

2. Printables Day- Activities with corresponding print outs to help with the major themes and  concepts

3. Craft Day- Art & Crafts. Aka: M gets to wear his smock day

4. Manipulatives Day - Montessori style activities that are M driven like the sensory bin.

5. Field Trip/ Assessment - Just to give us a planned activity for the day. We work well with focus & structure. I have Ladies Bible Study each week at my church which also gives M some group play time with other children. 

 I have listed all the resources at our disposal so I can pick which we will do that day. It's not my intent to  fill every waking moment of M's with an activity. We do school for about an hour and a half a day broken up by nap and lunch time. M learns in maximum 20 minutes spurts, then he goes off to play. He'll come back or respond when I suggest and then I know he's ready to learn again. The ebb and flow to our day works perfectly for us.

Screen shot of our week at a glance

Books & DVD's happen through out the week: I read to the Bible stories and repeat scripture to the boys during breakfast, lunch and snack.  We have a reading chair and box that has all of our basic academic books I've posted about before by a reading chair. M through out the day will bring me which ever books he wants and says 'read pease'. While I nurse D, I have accumulated quite a few Educational and Bible DVD's for M to watch that apply to our numbers, colors, shapes, letters and bible stories. D has to feed in the football hold. Mommy doesn't feel comfortable being mobile with a baby in that position using a shield. We make that time as positive and constructive as possible.  This is our phase in life and I remind myself  both the joys and challenges are temporary. Life's too short for guilt. Where was I before I felt the need to defend our choices?? Anyway.....

I've spent the last few days organizing Printables, Manipulatives and Craft supplies. The Arts and Crafts required some extra TLC. Tubs, boxes, cups and caddies help keep all the craft supplies handy for what ever M is inspired to do.  The materials listed in the first column can be used with any Letter, Number, Color, Shape, Bible or Unity Study Craft. The craft idea list is great for vocabulary and counting too :-)

Craft Ideas for 26 of our 43 weeks of learning.
14 of those left over weeks are Unity Study based with built in crafts
So, I have 3 weeks of craft ideas to come up with
and the first one isn't until February.

 I'm trying to streamline the Craft process. I'm efficient, not necessarily creative. So I've researched ideas to help inspire me on Craft Days. Once I feel the process itself is not time consuming, I can start adding some other fun activities I have in mind. The result of organization give me a more peaceful feeling and also eliminates distractions in our surroundings. Plus, we donated our old small TV and stand to charity over the weekend, so that freed up some space in our playroom.

Letters. Letters Everywhere

Ideas gathered to bring letters alive :-) 

I have some homework to do by Tuesday to research the promises and names of God.  I won't have to go far, this is in my dining room:

Planning

After looking through many planning resources, the planning and assessment pages from 1+1+1=1 worked best for me. I have started some initial assessments based on just playing, watching some DVD's and our test runs ( go to August on the side of this page and the drop down menu will display if you want to see the test runs) so I can go from here.

Here are my planning sheets so far. They will be added to as we find activities and exercises that are effective and cross off ideas as we find out that the boys either aren't ready for or doesn't help learn that information/ skill.  I'm not necessarily following what it says per day, but used this planning tool as a gathering of all materials, ideas and resources. There is one for alphabet, bible, lapbook unit studies, colors, numbers and shapes. I also just came across this post on Ingles 360 about teaching the alphabet based on whether your student is a visual, tactile, auditory, physical or multisensory learner. This will definitely add ideas to my planning sheets.

Bible

Colors

Lapbook Unit Studies

Numbers

Shapes

Alphabet

An initial assessment I preformed with M on primarily his upper case letters this morning. So August was in blue pen, and I'll use a different color with each check so I know when he reached the goal. I changed the headings to suit me as well.

I also placed an Amazon order this morning for the last of my priority one items to start next week, we are counting down to the start of our Tot school :-) 4 days!

School Supplies

Like freshly sharpened bouquets of pencils.... Great line from a movie :-) There is something about fall and school supplies. Now that I'm completed my mom binder and lesson plan forms, my next task is obtaining my list of necessary items to teach. I've updated the previous projects with my results.

The Don't Haves....

And the Haves...

Lessons Plans

A Teacher's Plan: Templates

The Mom Binder project is done for now to the extent it can be. The Printables section is really the most unfilled. I will print out paper materials as we go along. Most of what we are doing is activity not paper driven since M is only 21 months old.

The second unfinished section is Lesson Planning. So, I'm looking for some ideas as how to schedule out our time by day and hour. This site was great inspiration! I'm going to start planning out a month at a time and see how that works. I have chosen at least through preschool to go with the spiral teaching method. Since I know our local public school district's Kindergarten Readiness Plans centers mostly around letters, numbers, shapes and colors, I will teach those core concepts in increasing degrees of difficulty for the next 3 years. That will bring us to the fall M turns 5. Year one of preschool - age 2- will be speaking and identification. Year two of preschool - age 3- will be phonics and one to one correspondence. Year 3 - age 4- will involve writing and counting to 20. Bible, life & social skills, art, music, PE, and unit studies will be taught each year.

Age 2 Overview

Weekly Lesson Plan Forms

Planning Ahead

How do I know what to Teach?

It's been interesting receiving feedback as we've slowly started mentioning how we have chosen to educate our boys. I have been praying to give them a very thorough education. I'm still researching Common Core Standards by Grade as well as accessing the TAKS tests from 3rd through 11th grade that Texas students are required to pass. I've broken the subjects down by grade to see what concepts are taught when. Based on information I found posted on public and private school sites, I've come up with a broad big picture guideline so far through 8th grade.

I saw an interesting article today that I want to keep in mind. It stuck with me as a perfectionist. Failure to me is a negative thing and I don't want to pass on that to my sons. Failing at something could be God's plan to teach me, reach a lost soul or help someone else get a yes to their prayer. I have to remember it's not all about me. I don't see the entire picture, only God does. I could - easily- stress about this homeschooling journey and focus on the degree of perfection, thoroughness, completeness, how far ahead, accomplished my children are and ultimately lose sight of a relationship with, need for, trust in, relying on God journey and that's what I want both for myself and the example we set for our sons:

4 Easy Steps to Help You Fail at Homeschooling from Five J's
Posted By Joy On December 31, 2009 (11:34 am) In Homeschooling

Thousands of books and internet articles have been written about how to succeed at homeschooling. But I'm going to offer you something a bit different.
If you've ever wondered how to fail at homeschooling, you've come to the right place. Here are four easy steps to help you fail as at homeschooling. This vital information has been gleaned from five years of intense experimentation with my own children, and it's sure to work every time.

1. Plan too much.

When you sit down to make your lesson plans, make sure you schedule every minute of your 6-8 hour school day. Be sure to plan the exact page numbers to be covered every day, and include several non-core classes each day, at least an hour of daily read-aloud time, field trips at least once a week, and hands-on projects every other day.
If a homeschool publisher says that a particular curriculum should take 36 weeks to complete, you can double up on the lessons and finish it in half the time. Oh, and when doctor visits interrupt your homeschooling day, be sure to make up the lost school time to get back on your schedule by having your children work late into the night or on the weekend. Your children might have to forego spending time with friends, but remember, finishing your curriculum is of the upmost importance, so sometimes sacrifices have to be made. The most important thing to remember is that under no circumstances should your lesson plans ever be more than a half-day off track.

2. Plan too little.

If you know you want to cover science three times a week, English four times a week, and mathematics five times a week, simply make one weekly schedule that will be good for each week of the school year. There's no need to write down the exact pages or units to be covered each day since you'll just cover the next lesson in each subject on the assigned day. When doctor visits interrupt your homeschooling day, don't worry, you can just leave the school work until the next day. Afterall, you won't technically be 'behind' since you don't have specific assignments worked out. Oh, and for those extra curricular activities like teaching your children art or how to cook? Don't worry about planning out exactly what you want to cover; inspiration for art and cooking lessons always come best at the last minute.

3. Plan too frequently.

Make out your lesson plans only a week — or even better — only a day ahead of time. That way you'll be able to adjust your plans to your ever-changing family schedule. Don't worry that you won't know if you're on track to finish the curriculum by the end of the school year, or that you might finish it too quickly so that the last couple months of the school year are a little lean on the curriculum-side. Oh, and when sickness, unforeseen family commitments, or a simple lack of motivation strikes and you're not feeling up to planning? Never fear, your husband will step in, and through his amazing ability to read your mind, he will plan the next day's lessons for you — exactly as you would have done it. No worries!

4. Plan too infrequently.

If planning on a weekly or daily basis sounds like too much trouble, instead take a few days at the end of the summer and plan out the entire school year. Make sure that you allow sufficient time to finish up each curriculum; so if the curriculum says it'll take 36 weeks to finish, go ahead and take it up to the last day of the school year. After all, you don't want to have finished up all your curriculum two months before school is officially supposed to end for the year. Oh, and when you realize that a particular curriculum isn't working for your child a few months into the school year, you'll just have to deal with it. If your child changes curriculum mid-year, it'll mess up your perfectly-planned schedule and the new curriculum won't be finished by the end of the school year. Don't worry though, you can work the new curriculum into your plans for the next school year.

So how do you actually succeed at homeschooling?

Obviously I've written this article with my tongue firmly in my cheek. But really, each of these four points I have undertaken with gusto at one time or another — and I've failed miserably each time.
What I've come to realize is that to succeed in homeschooling your children, you have to find a balance in your scheduling — somewhere in between each of these points above — where you and your children can operate the best.(For me, that balance is doing a general year-long curriculum plan at the beginning of the year — making sure the curriculum is assigned frequently enough to finish in a year — and then planning specifically only six weeks at at time.)

It's okay to fail.

In fact, I didn't plan well enough for our December term (that'd be my point #2 above) and we ended up not doing any school work for most of the month because I didn't plan specifically enough. But the important thing is to get back up and try again — just with a different method.
Eventually you'll find the balance you need, and believe it or not, your children will likely not be worse for wear. In fact, seeing that adults don't always get things right the first time might actually be a great life lesson for them, especially if they also see how those same adults react to their failure.
So what about you? What learn-through-failure experiences have you had in homeschooling?

Hopefully through it all, we will all be Growing and Learning His way.

Courtesy of: Abiding Mom

Super Mom/ Abiding Mom

Does/ Is (Psalm 46:10)

Tries to impress others / Pleases the Lord (Eph. 5:10,Proverbs 29:25)

Is controlled by an agenda/ Is controlled by the Holy Spirit: (Gal. 5:22-26)

Her self worth is found in her accomplishments/ Found in who she is in Christ Jesus (Eph 2:10)

Her peace is found in the “perfect” environment/ Found in Jesus in the midst of any storm (Is 26:3)

She is discouraged by failure/ Failure reminds her that God's strength is made perfect in weakness (2 Cor. 12:9-10)

She expects perfection from herself and others/ She practices grace with herself and others (Eph 4:32)

She teaches her kids to be good/ She teaches her kids to be Godly (Proverbs 22:6)

She is frustrated with her lack of spiritual fruit/ She abides in Christ and bears much fruit (John 15:5)

She does things with her children/ She builds a relationship with her children (Deut 6:6-7)

Her perspective is based on what is seen/ Her perspective is based on what is unseen (Col 3:2)

She chooses quantity of activities/ She chooses the most excellent Way (I Cor 13)