September Reflections & Great Web Resources

 The past month has been a whirlwind of moving in all while getting settled into our Kindergarten homeschool year as well. We have been loving rowing our first few books with Five in a Row, which we may refer to as FIAR on the blog sometimes. In the past few weeks we have read A Story About Ping by Marjorie Flack, Lentil by Robert McCloskey, Madeline by Ludwig Bemelmans, and this week are wrapping up September with A Pair of Red Clogs by Masako Matsuno. Through the stories we have covered a few geographical and cultural lessons about China, America, France, and Japan.

W is now on lesson 9 in his Math-U-See Primer and we are working on place value by using the "tens" and "units". Each lesson has 7 pages and some days he does a full lesson while others he will do one or two pages and then other math related projects. He enjoys playing with the blocks after he finishes the lesson part so that keeps it fun. We try to work math in other ways as well, like in FIAR projects and cooking (although he got pretty frustrated when actually trying to use chopsticks for their intended purpose). :)

Initially I did not know where to begin with teaching science. FIAR has a few science projects, but not many, so I picked up The Giant Science Resource Book for grades 1-6 which will be useful in the next few years. We used the section on leaves and trees to identify some leaves outside and then Will wrote the names onto cards which are now adorning our refrigerator.

W has wrapped up Hooked On Phonics Kindergarten levels 1 & 2, and is using a few different materials for handwriting which he is slowly improving with. I wouldn't push him into it except I do want him to be on the same "level" as the public school kids as he will have to be evaluated before homeschooling first grade in NH. Most of all right now we are enjoying settling into our new home and spending more time outdoors. Over the past month we have also attended a Colonial Fair in Massachusetts and an Apple Fest in NH, and have been lucky enough to meet some new friends in our town.

We are always on the lookout for homeschool resources on the internet, and here a few of W's favorite sites for reading, games, mazes, and music.

• Boowa and Kwala
• Starfall
• PBS Kids
• Playhouse Disney
• Childcareland - free printables and activity ideas
• Usborne-Quicklinks - if you have any of the excellent Usborne internet linked books this website has all the related materials. We have used it for the First Thousand Words in French book.

We would love to hear about your favorite kid friendly web sites and homeschool resource sites!

Kindergarten Lesson Planning

We will move to NH at the end of August, and W will begin homeschooling Kindergarten this September. Our main curriculum for this fall will revolve around Five in a Row and the Math-U-See primer. We are also planning a unit study on Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder. W loves the "My First Little House" books so I can't wait to share the originals with him. Combined with some gardening, cooking, crafts, history, science and geography from FIAR, along with several phonics and early writing workbooks, I think it will be a pretty well rounded curriculum. We joined a wonderful forum with local homeschoolers and I can't wait to set up a play group and coop activities once we get settled in.

I picked up several teacher planning books at the Target dollar spot similar to the one I used for PreK last fall. They have blocks for each day of the week and make it easy for planning. They should help keep us organized. After the move I am hoping to turn our old changing table/shelves into a work-box style education station where we can keep all of the current books and supplies organized and at hand.

One surprise of moving to the Live Free or Die state is that there are actually more legal restrictions on homeschoolers. For age 6 and onward NH requires an annual evaluation along with your annual letter for intent to homeschool, while in MA you merely need to send the letter with your intent to homeschool to your local school district. Granted, some MA towns are more homeschool friendly than others, but I was certainly surprised that moving to NH means adding extra restrictions.

Often we hear that there should be more standards and tests, although please ask yourselves the question of who makes these tests and sets the bar. Every child learns differently and has different talents in life, and I see homeschooling as a way to more naturally express these talents and focus on their interests. Learning is about context as well as content, cramming meaningless dates into your brain when learning history does not spark a love for history, yet spending time to understand the events and how they affected people often does.