Homeschooling Report - Month 1

I realize it's been forever and a day since I last posted anything. Well, there's been so much stuff going on lately that August was pretty much a blur.

We just finished our first month of homeschooling and, based on the experience, I already adjusted the plans for the second month. It's definitely a learning experience for both M and myself. Some worries I had prior to starting out never materialized. For example, I was afraid M would hate worksheets, but he doesn't. Some things that I thought he would be interested in, such as our geography lessons, he has no interest in.

Here's what we normally do:

Math Games - starting our days with math is working out really well. We usually play a simple, usually hand-drawn, game. For example, a game where we take turns rolling the dice and placing glass marbles on the sun rays.

Math Worksheets - last month M did 2-3 worksheets every other day. This month I will try daily worksheets and will concentrate more on logic and fine motor skills ones (i.e. mazes)

Math Lessons - we are using Al Abacus from The Right Start Math. It's a bit of a slow going right now. We usually go through the entire lesson one day and then review key parts the next day.

ABCs - right after math we usually do our reading lesson. The first part consists of reviewing a letter of a Russian alphabet. I'm using this really fun primer, "Учимся читать", and I like it so far. M seems to be ok with it although he's definitely not excited. He's doing a fabulous job figuring out first letters in words, but last letters are still very challenging. However, he blends sounds much better now.

ABC Games - these are simple games for reading and writing that I put together for him. For example, we played a "letter chain" game where I named (and wrote down) an object in the family room, M circled its last letter and then had to find another object in the room that started with the same letter.

Reading - boy, we've been reading A LOT lately. This is M's most favorite "lesson" by far. I was thinking we'd be reading fairy tales or short stories, but M chooses books for his story time and so far he chose to read "Девочка с Земли" [Girl from the Planet Earth], "Приключения Незнайки" [Adventures of Neznaika] and "Карлсон, который живет на крыше" [Karlsson-on-the-Roof]. These books are rated for elementary school-aged children, but M loves them.

Art, Science, Geography - I haven't been very successful at any of these. So next month we're trying something different. Instead of having these as separate activities, we will incorporate them into math and reading lessons.

Starting Homeschool - What Level Are We?

We've started our first week of more official homeschooling in August. I figured, 4.5 years old is just about the perfect age to start getting ready for an Ivy League school.

All kidding aside, I'm pretty relaxed about the whole academic performance thing. And no, I'm not trying to make a genius out of my child. What I'm trying to do is to get across an idea that learning can be a lot of fun and do it in a very informal way.

This semester I decided to concentrate on Russian language (reading), maths (counting, arithmetic, basic geometry), and geography. Along the way I'm hoping to work on M's fine motor skills and a few other things.

We're starting pretty early because in September we'll be in NY for a few weeks and I want to get some routines established before that. Also, we simply couldn't wait any longer and that goes for both of us, honestly. Seeing all my prep work, M'd been asking me if we could start school right away.

So I created a schedule back in July. But now after a week of actually doing it, I'm already making big changes to it. I expect that I'll keep adjusting it as we progress. For example, the first day we did all the activities back-to-back with just a few breaks. But later in the week I adopted a less overwhelming approach. Early in the morning we'd do the math and reading work (which would take about 20-30 minutes total). Then we'd spread all the rest of the fun stuff - science, sensory play, geography, some writing games - throughout the day. It seems to work better that way and doesn't even feel much like school, just like a really fun play.

I also made some changes to the activities themselves to adjust for M's current interests. For example, the last couple of days he was busy painting a wooden rocket. He spent quite a lot of time on it too, working mostly independently (even getting the paint of the top shelf and pouring it carefully into the paint cup). So I cancelled one of the art activities.

Math games we play had to be adjusted as well. But more about that a bit later. Also, our daily story time is taking much longer than I thought it would. That's because right about the time we started our lessons, M got really into this Russian sci-fi book for kids called "A Girl from Earth" [Девочка с Земли]. The book is really for 8-10 year olds and I'm not exactly sure how much of it he really understands. But he loves it!

So his vocabulary now includes such words as "индикатор" [indicator], "грузовой отсек" [cargo hold], "бандит" [bandit], "склисс" [skliss, an alien flying cow], "звездолёт" [starship], "кают-компания" [mess hall], "отражатель" [reflector] and many many more. He also is busy playing out some of the parts of the book (and a cartoon based on it), such as buying the indicator from a giant snail, fighting space pirates, loading the flying cow into a cargo hold of a spaceship, etc, etc.

Back to homeschooling through... This week we

• played a bunch of math games
• practiced basic math (subitizing to 4, addition, subtraction to 4, sorting, grouping)
• reviewed letter "A" and found it in a lot of words
• identified beginning sounds of words
• read A LOT of the "Girl from Earth" book and "Dad, Mom, Grandma, 8 Children and a Truck" book
• built short words with magnetic letters
• made playdoh and played with it
• did a couple of science experiments
• did art - sun art, tennis ball toss art, and paint with marbles art projects and painted a rocket
• learned what a map is
• learned a whole lot about Thailand, including tasting some jackfruit (never again!)

And, for Friday field trip, we went to a planetarium!

Some people asked me if I'm teaching M at a preschool level or above. I honestly don't know. Some of it seems to be totally preschool stuff, like most of our art projects and most of letter-learning activities. Math is a bit more complicated since he is working on addition/subtraction. Besides, I don't have a very clear idea of what they teach in preschools here anyway since it kind of varies.

I'll post more on the math and reading later.

My Search for Preschool Curriculum

I have a problem with the teacher supply stores, you know the type that sell everything from huge bundles of #2 pencils to classroom furniture and charts. We have a store like that not far from the house. It's an "education super-store" for sure. And I get totally overwhelmed every time I go there.

I can browse this store for hours and end up buying nothing or, worse, things I don't need. So to save time, I now put together a list first, which I (mostly) follow.

Today I got my list and with Mr. M and the hubby in tow drove to the teacher supply store. I really meant to strictly follow my list, but got a bit side-tracked by curriculum books. This place has dozens of preschool curriculum books - general, arts, science, math, nature, multiple intelligences, literacy, seasons, you name it.

I really tried to stay cool, but couldn't help but think that Mr. M, being homeschooled, is missing out on much of the education he's supposed to be getting. Panicking, I grabbed a couple of the thickest books, but willed myself to put them down once I saw their price tags. Instead, I got back to my list - letter stamps, red poster paint, blunt-end scissors - alternating between anxiety and sticker shock.

This is not the first time I ask myself this question - is Mr. M learning what he's supposed to learn age-wise? I tried searching for homeschooling curriculums for 2-3 year-olds and found quite a few, but none fit our needs. Turns out, secular bilingual preschool homeschooling curriculum is a sort of white unicorn (if you sight it, let me know).

Fortunately, some time ago I bought a wonderful book by Rebecca Rupp, Home Learning Year by Year: How to Design a Homeschool Curriculum from Preschool Through High School.

Here's what Rebecca has to say on the subject of preschool curriculum:

... preschoolers should be given the freedom to explore. Chances are, they'll learn more in an afternoon spent making mud in the sandbox than they will from even the best-designed curriculum.

Ahh, I'm breathing the sigh of relief every time I re-read these words. I think I might make a wallet-size copy of the above paragraph and carry it with me.

Homeschooling Day by Day - Week 4

Last week I made a mistake of planning too many activities that required advanced preparation, such as a geoboard (which, by the way, we haven't yet made). I really don't have much time in the evenings to make toys/games/activities for the next day. And it doesn't always work out to prepare those during the day, when I'm busy with Mr. M.

Monday

Art - making greeting cards for grandparents
Math - counting dishes and silverware
Writing - yes, I know, it's really too early to teach writing, but we can practice building words like mama, papa, grandma, grandpa, etc out of magnetic letters

Tuesday

Fine motor - I have a few pictures of family members that would be great for making puppets with
Language - if the above goes well, we might even put on a little puppet show
Math - we'll make award buttons for each puppet in the show

Wednesday

Art - I'm thinking about something like making a family tree
Cooking - time to make cookies
Language - we'll look at family photographs (something Mr. M really loves) and make up little stories

Thursday

Thanksgiving - lots of cooking, setting up the table, reading Thanksgiving books
Table game - The Very Hungry Caterpillar
Art - we haven't practiced drawing faces for quite some time

Friday

Fine motor - folding laundry, pretend ironing
Language - we might try family puppets again
Math - matching socks

All Is Sort Of Well - Week 3 Wrap-Up

It's been a roller-coaster week, including the weekend. Mr. M must be going through some kind of phase that's especially trying. I have some ideas, but I'll save those for later. I'm not too worried since I've heard many times that terrible 2's are nothing compared to the horrible 3's.

The great thing was that Mr. M had terrific sessions with both his occupational therapist and physical therapist. He was such a joy, doing pretty much everything he was told to do and loving it. And the big news here, of course, is that he now jumps. Ok, he's been jumping straight up for some time. But now he does the broad jump, even without holding my hand. Hooray!

Monday and Tuesday weren't so bad. We did pretty much all activities, except for the leaf rubbing mural. Mr. M tried it, but didn't care much for it. What he did love was to play with birdseed. The weather was great and I took the birdseed container, plastic critters, and all sorts of measuring spoons and funnels out on the deck - fun, fun, fun!

Then again, we had some pretty bad moments. The worst was probably on Wednesday when I tried to make the turkey wreath with Mr. M. Not only Mr. M didn't want to join in, but he hated that I continued on with the project without him. Things got so bad with all the crying and whining, that I had to cancel all other plans for the day and instead get us both out of the house for the rest of the day.

As a matter of fact, the only art project we did this week was the pumpkin boat. And it came out splendidly! First, I had Mr. M make the sail - sprinkling cut-up bits of magazine pages on Contact paper. Next, I attached this sail to a wedge of pumpkin (good ol' Jack-o-Lantern got recycled). And we both decorated the sides with some stickers.

On Thursday I tried doing some math with Mr. M - sorting building blocks by color and size. That didn't work out well. He doesn't really care much for sorting. It's not like he doesn't know colors, shapes and sizes. So I modified the game into building a block tower with different-colored levels. It's kind of like sorting, right? And then we spent the rest of the day at the Kids' Museum.

And Friday was split between making a cookbook-tionary, pretend cooking and reading about and listening to classical music.

Homeschooling Day by Day - Week 3

I guess the main thing I learned from last week's lessons is to be very flexible and not to worry if on some days NONE of the planned stuff gets done. And I decided to temporarily put our town-building game on hold.

Every time I attempt to continue, Mr. M gets absorbed with his train set. Or, if I move the activity to the family room downstairs, he brings some trains alone and demands to draw train tracks for them.

This week we're going to get ready for Thanksgiving (had to double-check the calendar today. I ran into a Santa's elf today at one of the department stores and thought maybe I missed something). So all the art work will be Thanksgiving-y.

So here it goes:

Monday

Art - fall leaves banner (if you read Filth Wizardry, you know exactly what I'm talking about. (And if you don't, hurry up and subscribe today - that blog is AWESOME!)
Fine motor - more play with birdseed. We might even make a bird feeder out of spare toilet paper tubes covered in peanut butter and rolled in birdseed.
Language - we'll take about what we do with our hands, feet, eyes, etc.
Science - mystery object match (I'm going to use this Guidecraft Feel & Find game for this activity)


Tuesday

Gross motor - I'm thinking about playing a wind-chime piano game where I hang windchimes up high so that they can only be reached on tippy-toes or with a stick. So either that or an obstacle course.
Listening - do you know the sound canister matching game? Well, we'll do that, sans the writing part. I don't have the canisters ready yet, so it'll be on my to-do list for tomorrow.
Science - sound glasses (ok, it's a Listening Tuesday) - if this sounds confusing, think back to Ms. Congeniality (the movie) and Sandra Bullock's character's performance in the talent portion of the beauty contest. I do have nice glasses, but before I risk those, I'm going to try some canning jars.
Art - we'll make some boats out of our old Jack-o-Lantern.


Wednesday

Art - Thanksgiving wreath (nothing fancy, just a themed collage)
Math - geoboard (another task for my to-do list)


I'm counting on having at least one "great weather" day this week so we can spend time outside. That's why I'm not planning much for Wednesday. Of course, if it happens to be a nice Monday, I'll just shift Monday activities to Wednesday. And if Wednesday turns out not so great, I'll do Thursday activities instead and will plan on being outdoors most of the day on Thursday. All about being flexible.


Thursday

Art - we'll be ambitious and try to make a turkey centerpiece
Game - pin the tail on a donkey sounds good (I have some leftover felt)
Fine motor - finger play with rhymes
Math - sort blocks by color and size and then build a tower
Science - learn about different wild animals


Friday

Art - I thought about making a favorite foods collage, but given Mr. M's love affair with all things Word World and cooking, we'll make a cookbooktionary.
Language - read, write, talk about recipes - nice tie-in with the Art activity
Math - I think we'll classify pictures of food stuff (i.e. veggies, fruits, cakes, yummy and yukkie)
Science - continuing with the food theme, we'll do some tasting and sorting - salt/sugar, flour/baking soda, watered-down lemon juice/water, etc.

Homeschooling Week 2 - Wrap-Up

Seems like we're getting into the rythm of our homeschooling. As I look through my notes, I see much more successes and only a few activities that Mr. M didn't like or didn't care for. Then again, we only did 3 full days of homeschooling this week, not the usual four and a half (more on this later).

Monday was a warm-up. First, we made a little "scarecrow" out of a brown paper bag. To be perfectly honest, Mr. M didn't really care about it all that much. Since I had to pretty much take care of the whole project, we were done very quickly. And then went to the Kids Together playground for a couple of hours.

Then we had a great session with our occupational therapist and I felt that Mr. M got plenty of fine motor work done. So instead of playing the stickers game, we made painting dough. That was a huge hit! Gotta do it again soon.

As much as I tried, Mr. M simply refused to participate in the body trace game on Tuesday. Nor did he want me to trace his favorite teddy bear. He just wasn't in the mood for anything that morning. Anything but the Marbles (our awesome kids' museum). It's always a huge hit with him. Except that the place is usually packed in the mornings and I try not to take him there until about noon time. Nevertheless, we had great time there for a couple of hours and Mr. M even built (and instantly demolished) several of tall towers out of foam blocks.

Wednesday was our best day EVER. Every single thing that we did, he LOVED. Early in the morning we played with bubbles and that got me thinking about trying some bubble art. Simple really - just mix some paint into the bubble soap and put a big sheet of paper on the floor. We both had great time.

And then I showed Mr. M paper clips and how they can be picked up with his magnet. I've never seen anyone so excited about paper clips before. His eyes went big as he saw the clips practically jump to the magnet and he said "WOW!!! LOOOK!!" (accidentally, that was his reaction to a trailer for the 2012 movie).

The "what's missing" game (I dubbed it the line-up game) right before lunch was a success. I chose 5 small toys - a toy train, a dinosaur, a small nesting doll from his set, a wooden block and a red marker - lined them up and named each object. I then directed Mr. M to close his eyes and "no peeking" and hid one of the objects. Then I asked him to tell me which of the toys was playing hide-and-seek. We repeated the game about 10 times before Mr. M started getting distracted and a bit bored.

The only activity that we didn't do from Wednesday was water play. But that's ok since Mr. M got to bake pie crust (from scratch) with Papa. Needless to say, he loved that (he loves all kinds of cooking and baking).

Then came Thursday and Friday when we didn't do anything of what we planned because Mr. M got sick again. Yes, this is the third time in less than 2 months - a new record for us (and not the one we're happy about). Understandable, he didn't care to do any of the activities.

Today, Saturday, he's feeling a bit better though. So I asked him if he'd like to have a birthday party for one of his toys. I thought he'd love the idea. He absolutely hated it though and kept saying "No, Mama, I don't want teddy bear to have birthday; I don't want Thomas have birthday; I don't want..."

Later in the day, as he was playing with Play Doh, we did have a tiny birthday party for Monster, complete with Play Doh cake, cupcakes, candy, Play Doh towers, a candy train and a birthday song. Which reminds me that I better put the Play Doh back into the container before it dries up and I have to buy more of it.

Homeschooling Day by Day - Week 2

Last week's main lesson was not to stress if some of the activities don't happen as planned or don't happen at all. The beautiful part is just about any experience can be turned into an educational one.

Plus that's the beauty of homeschool - I can go with the flow. In my planning I try for at least 1 hour of playground time each day (or going to a park or a greenway). On a rainy day we can stay home or go to a toy store or a Barnes&Noble (mostly to play with trains and look through the latest issue of Drumhead, no kidding!). But on a sunny day, we're going to be out for way more than an hour without worrying about sorting bears, lacing beads or putting together puzzles.

With this in mind, here's my very tentative schedule for Week 2:

Ok, I just realized that I it's already Monday evening and I haven't posted it yet. So we did make a scarecrow, but out of a brown bag (see picture above). Mr. M wasn't too much into it, but compensated by doing not 1 but 2 other art projects later in the day - playdoh drawing and drawing a rail road (with help of his trains).

Monday

• Art - making a scarecrow; it was a huge hit the first time we did it and Mr. M keeps asking about it now and then. We might also make another scarecrow out of a brown bag. This one will include mostly painting, drawing and gluing.


• Fine motor - we're back to the stickers are fun phase and I'm going to use this to learn body parts (I'm thinking heel, toes, individual fingers, elbows since Mr. M already knows most body parts)


• Science - making thumbprints and examining them through magnifier


• Blocks - we haven't made much progress with building a town, so we'll pick up where we left in Week 1 - buildings, signs and hopefully a railroad signal.

Tuesday

• Art - body tracing (or at least teddy bear tracing) would be fun


• Blocks - building the tallest tower we can build


• Game - I'm dying to try Twister with Mr. M


• Math - making a face out of felt to learn different shapes (ok, so Mr. M already knows most basic shapes, but never hurts to review)


• Practical life - pouring rice (can you tell I'm reviewing my Montessori books?)

Wednesday

• Art - doodle art


• Fine motor - paper-clip pick-up (with a small brush, a magnet and a pair of strawberry hullers)


• Language and memory - a game of "what's missing" with 3-5 objects


• Game - water table (ok, so it's actually a sink, but it's a ton of fun nevertheless)


• Practical life - I'm gonna get ambitious here and try to teach Mr. M to set his table for each meal

Thursday

• Art - paint to music


• Cooking - making little pizza faces out of pita bread, cheese, raisings, carrots, etc.


• Taste - tropical fruits tasting

Friday - Bear's Birthday Party

• Art - make party invitations (and deliver them to Chef Pig, teddy bears and other guests)


• Cooking - bake and decorate cupcakes


• Math - sort birthday candles by color


• Fine motor - gift wrapping (and unwrapping)


• Game - Bear's birthday party

Homeschooling Week 1 - How Did It Go?

It's the end of the first official week of homeschooling and I'm ready to pat myself on the back and have a celebratory bowl of ice-cream (or anything else sweet). Better yet, I'm going to slice me another slice of this amazing SweetWater Pale Ale bread I bought today at Whole Foods.

Munch-munch, back to the recap of the week. Well, I have to admit that I had a lot of help from Word World's Chef Pig. Currently he's Mr. M's best buddy and MIC (Most Influencial Character). This week, Chef Pig is everywhere with us - riding trains (real and toy ones), baking bread (real and imaginary), reading books, building block towers. He's a great influence too - if Mr. M doesn't want to do something, Chef Pig leads the way.

Monday went absolutely great. We actually did every single thing I planned for us. And, even more importantly, Mr. M was eager and willing to build with blocks, play with buttons, do puzzles (he ASKED for them), etc. The only thing that didn't go as planned was the balance scales game. He simply didn't care for it at all. He understood the concept and could easily point to a heavier or ligher object when asked. But his heart was absolutely not into it. After a few minutes he just walked away. That's ok too.

The highlight of our Tuesday was objects tracing. I love this activity - it is super simple to set up and is quite fun. All you need is some paper, a crayon or a marker, and some shapes to trace (we used simple cookie cutter shapes from our Play Dough set). Oh and I also added a ruler to draw straight lines. Then Mr. M added a new twist by turning each outline into a face. And then he added some stickers too.

We also built a new train set with some leftover poster board, an empty Klinex box, and some markers. The huge train set upstairs was quickly abandoned and Mr. M concentrated on giving rides to Chef Pig and helping sorting bears get to their color-coded islands.

On Wednesday Mr. M rediscovered chalk. I give him very small pieces (to ecourage proper grip) and we both draw. We start off with a little imitation - lines, crosses, circles and his favorite letter of the moment - "C". Then we do little mazes and connect the dots-type games. This is really much cheaper than buying Kumon Mazes workbooks (although I LOVE them).

On Thursday we did little of what we planned. The day was simply too gorgeous to spend indoors. Instead, we went to the lake to feed the ducks and for a little playdate. And then we went for a train ride and a hot dog.

Finally, today- Friday - we went completely off our schedule. Instead of playing with blocks and house-cleaning, we were busy making Play Dough cakes and pasta, talking about different letters, and baking real bread.

Other things we did this week in addition to or, more often, instead of the pre-planned activities were

• reading, lots and lots of it
• music - mostly drums and some kazoo
• magnets and magnifiers - Mr. M ran around the house one day trying to stick a magnet to everything; the next day he marveled at how everything - leaves, pine cones, acorns and Chef Pig - looked big through a magnifier
• outside play - playgrounds, lakes, parks and front yard - the weather is gorgeous and we're making the most of it!

Homeschooling Day by Day - Week 1

I'm trying to build a more structured approach to our preschool-level homeschooling and keep records of the stuff we do each week (both for sentimental and practical reasons).

Not having Mr. M going to daycare I always wonder whether he's learning all he needs to learn at his tender young age of almost 3. After all, we don't have circle time or sing alphabet song. And sometimes I feel like we just need a bit more structure and direction in our daily goings-on.

So starting this week I'm trying something new - I put together a little activities list for each day of the week. Ok, so I really started it last week and it worked really well. But I made some adjustments and changes to the process (as I'm sure I will again). Plus last week I included my homeschooling plans into my larger daily to-do lists, which created some boo-boo messes.

This week I'm starting a new activities planner (a simple 3-subject notebook). Our regular events - occupational and physical therapy sessions, playdates, trips to museums and playgrounds, etc. - are not included in the daily lists. We just do it. What's included are ideas for various developmental areas - art and crafts, fine motor, language, science, etc.

I found this book - The Complete Resource Book: An Early Childhood Curriculum - absolutely invaluable in putting together my weekly schedules. Of course, it has to be modified since it's just me and Mr. M here and many activities simply don't make sense in homeschool setting. Plus I have to tweek language activities, suggested story time selections and songs since I only speak Russian to Mr. M.

This week our preschool homeschooling curriculum includes:

Monday

• Art - collage art
• Blocks - start building a town - make roads
• Fine Motor - scooping big buttons with a small brush
• Language - playing Shape and Color puzzle
• Science - exploring balance scales (I bought these a few months ago at a local teachers' store and haven't used them yet).

Tuesday

• Art - easel painting
• Blocks - building a castle out of big cardboard blocks
• Field trip to a grocery store - instead of shopping, we'll concentrate on the produce section - colors, textures, smells and names of fruits and veggies (plus there are always samples to taste)
• Fine motor - tracing simple objects (small blocks) on paper

Wednesday

• Blocks - we will continue building our town and will add some buildings to it
• Fine motor - stringing beads
• Math - playing with a Lauri Shape and Color Sorter
• Science - exploring objects with a magnifier glass
• Writing - chalkboard "writing" - drawing lines, shapes and simple letters in imitation

Thursday

• Art - ConTact paper collage
• Fine motor - playing with Theraputty
• Dramatic play - finger-puppets (the Three Bears story)
• Science - exploring magnets

Friday

• Blocks - we will continue building town and will add trees, people and animals
• Home - hopefully, Mr. M will help me with some clean-up and laundry
• Science - some more magnifier
• Taste - tasting various breads