Number Practice

Apple Prints

These first two pictures were taken by Jamieson, and show his persepective of school :)


Here's a picture of him doing the prints, and the final product as well.


This was a fun project, we talked about the different parts of the apple, and what it would look like if we cut it vertically or horizontally - he was very suprised to see a "star flower shape" in the center of the apple when we sliced it horizontally!

Well, it WAS a good idea...

So much for using our old laptop for school... I wiped the hard drive on the six year old laptop I got as a graduation gift and put all of Jamieson's school programs on it. We just bought some new software at the store and came home to install it and this is what I found:

Two perfect circles of damaged crystals - my guess is that one of the kids had been enjoying the pretty colors that happen if you press on an LCD and they pressed too hard... twice. So. I've taken the thing apart and I found a new panel on eBay for $36 after shipping but have yet to compare the model numbers to make sure that it really is the correct one.

Oh well, it was nice while it lasted - at least it gives me a good excuse to tear a computer apart (I love it, really).

B is for Button

Yes, I'm aware that I wrote the wrong date.
hehehe, whoops


and a bonus of my cute little man:

Shape Apple

Todays project taught math (What is the name of the red shape? How many sides does it have? How many shapes do you have in all? What if you take one away?), coordination (he cut the pieces himself as well as gluing them on and using a line drawing to guide him in his placement of the pieces),


creative thinking (What do you think you can make with these three shapes? A stop sign? Very good! Do you think you could make something that looks like a fruit?), and matching (I drew the shapes on the right of the paper and had him color them to match).


Here's the finished project:

One Apple

Neither one scanned very well, so I had to adjust the colors so you can see what they actually drew/wrote on the pages:

Turtle!

Daddy found this little guy crossing the street behind our house (from W. Lake toward our house) so he brought it into the yard for the kids to see.

After our little science lesson (Where do you think turtles live? Nope, not trees, they have webbed feet... yes by the water is right! They like to swim! What do you think they eat? Food? That's a great answer!) Daddy returned it to the same spot he found it.

First Day of School 1

Today was our first official day of school, and Jamieson reminded me of the beginning of Finding Nemo where Nemo wakes up in the morning saying, "First day of school! First day of school!" because he kept saying it over and over! I'm delighted that he is so interested and ready to go with this stuff!

Zoey (who was quite unimpressed with the camera flash) modeling the kids' art/color/counting project from today:

September Newsletter

(click to enlarge)

New Curriculum Details

Here are some detailed shots of what's included in that snazzy red folder (I'm calling it Mommy's Manual, hehe)


Located in the left pocket when you open the folder is a lunch menu for the week (which will be supremely helpful because I fail miserably in the department of planning ahead for anything, just ask my husband), and a brief newsletter which details what will be covered this month in school (I'll add a scan of it monthy to share with you all).



There's also a blank calendar which I am going to try to use for planning ahead -hahaha-! I'd like to know exactly what's up for the month, or at least even the upcoming week... oh who am I kidding - if I get the next day done the night before I'll be lucky! The facing page is a quick outline of what is included for the month, and the following pages are detailed instructions for each lesson/project/game. I've also taken a quick picture of what the reproducible lessons look like.

New Curriculum Package

Our curriculum package arrived! Here are some pictures of everything that was included (you can click on them to enlarge). We were excited to find an extra couple of things in the envelope, too - a "new customer gift" of two pencils, a glue stick (what homeschooling mom can't use more of those!), and a box of 24 crayons, and a "freebie" which is a pretty fun logic game where you have to choose what two pictures go together and if you're right they form two halves of a picture on the other side of the card (think hammer and nail, shovel and dirt...).


Also a pic of the little man to illustrate just how excited he was to tear into the package - good thing it's tyvek ;)

Sample Curriculum - Jamieson

This curriculum comes with a toddler and Pre-K version of each lesson, which is really handy! I can make as many copies as I like, too. I made two copies of the tractor one, and the cow, and then they each got a letter and a number page (Selah's was basically a color in the letter/number, Jamieson's was a trace on the line, write it yourself kind of thing).


I went ahead and ordered September's curriculum pack because I liked the samples so much, and the customer service is just supurb - not to mention that the kids really had fun with the "lessons".


You can click on any of these tiny, tiny images to see a larger version if you like.

Sample Curriculum - Selah

These pages were done from a sample packet of toddler curriculum that I ordered along with Jamieson's Pre-K stuff... she does pretty well with this while I'm giving instruction to Jamieson. It's great to keep her busy, and the cow pages were funny because the whole time she was "coloring" she was mooing! You can click on them to view larger if you like.

Brought to you by the number 10...

Here's a pic of our little guy from the other day.

Yep, We Home School

As the first day of school hits us, it dawned on me that a school blog might be a fun thing to do.

Many of our friends and family have expressed interest in various degrees about our choice to home school our kidlets. I realize that it seems foreign, exciting, insane, and hundreds of other things - I also realize that it's kind of a new thing to a lot of people we know. For this reason, I thought it might be nice to share what our school is like with all of you!

Feel free to comment on anything you see here, I'll be posting some of the kids' daily work and probably some random stories and such. I know this will be a huge learning experience for myself as well as the kids, and I hope that you all learn something from us as well :)

Much love and many blessings,
Angela