Unschool-ology

Unschool-ology
Unschooling: Living Without School; Living Free Range-Freedom to Learn What One Wants When One Wants

Friday, December 30, 2011

End of the Year

Okay, so the end of the year is almost here. I have done a few lessons with "Winter Fun" and "Christmas Time," but to be honest, I did them half way, but I may post a little about them when the new year stars back up and so do our lessons. With things being rough around here the last few months I haven't got much done, but now that my medicine is starting to work, I am determined to get back on track. Her lessons will start back up in January. I am considering giving her breaks and such at Christmas time and Summer and eliminating some of her lessons, but I am not sure yet. That is a work in progress. At the beginning of the next school year, I need to get serious about weather or not we are going to be homeschooling her. I have a lot to think about when it comes to that because it is a big decision. Well, that is all until next year! 

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Week 35: Reading

Monday: We read some of Samantha's Level One readers. We also read a ton of other books. I had a huge pile of all her books and I just let her pick one after the other. She really enjoyed that. 

Tuesday: We played some matching games with letters, upper and lowercase. And we also practiced writing. (Samantha is getting really good at tracing her name.) 


Wednesday: No story time. I cannot remember why either. 


Thursday: Her art project was to make a book. It is one of those that you try to re-write the words of the book and color the pictures. 


Friday: We tried some new recipes for Christmas, but to be honest, the only way that tied in was "reading" the recipes. 

Saturday: We played a ton of computer games, reading games of course like the ones on Star Fall and the PBS Word World games. 

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Week 32-34: Fun In The Kitchen, Nutrition, and Thanksgiving

Whew! I am 3 weeks behind! Forgive me. I am going through a tough time. 


I am going to be honest. Due to some personal issues I have recently been dealing with, and the fact that I have been keeping my little brother way more often, which is going to stop soon, Samantha has not been learning as much and we do not spend as much time on lessons. But at the beginning of the year I am hoping to pick the pieces back up and start over-spend more time planning her lessons and more time on the lesson itself. I also plan to add the Bible stories back in and do a lesson once a week with numbers. (I don't feel like we are spending enough time on numbers. It is so easy to integrate reading into things because we can just read a book during calendar time or something.) 


Also, a side thought I have been plagued with is that Samantha keeps talking about school school school. She just wants to be where all her friends are, but she doesn't understand why I want to keep her home for school. Obviously she doesn't understand what a curriculum is or why I feel that the schools in this area are not teaching children-mainly middle and high schools. I don't know much about elementary anymore, but I have heard that they are pressuring younger kids too hard with testing testing testing, and that is not fair to the kids. I don't know what to do. I want to homeschool her. But I want her to love to learn, and her environment has a lot to do with that. I have several options...1. Make her do homeschool and make it as fun as possible and just hope to God she decides she likes it. 2. Put her in a co-op, which I would do, but I can only find one around here, and I don't really like the curriculum they use...3. Let her go to elementary school and give her the option to pull out around middle school to do online school or some other alternative. But I am afraid she will be bored to tears in Kindergarten. She knows how to read and she is working on writing, and that is what one of her friends, who is in Kindergarten, is working on! Eh...so complicated...I need to figure it out. She will be 4 next year, and if we are going to opt for homeschool, we need to figure it out. If not, then we don't have to worry about anything until she is 6-because of how her birthday falls. Think of how much she will learn in the next 3 years. Do you really think she is going to enjoy Kindergarten? Ugh...Co-Op is actually sounding really good right now...Sorry for the rambling...trying to reason with myself. 


Fun In The Kitchen: 


Monday: We read the "Milk and Cookies" book from her Kindermusik set. We also listened to her Milk and Cookies CD. (We did the lesson in the kitchen.) 

Tuesday: We started out looking around in the kitchen for various kitchen tools. We picked things like measuring cups, a can opener, a pizza cutter, potato peeler, and cheese grater. Then I set them all out and let them take turns picking one up and checking it out while I explained to them what it was called and what it was used for. 

Wednesday: We attended story time at the library, which is now a weekly thing. (It was a food theme, for Thanksgiving coming up.) And like I said, at the beginning of the year, I wil pick the Bible stories back up. 


Thursday: We did not do any art. I could not think of or find a project. 


Friday: We tried some more new recipes, actually throughout the week we tried several. We are always trying new recipes now. This time we did stuffed bell peppers. 

Nutrition/Thanksgiving:

I integrated two weeks because the week of Thanksgiving will be extremely busy. 

Monday: We did not read a book. I am not sure why. But we did listen to the song, "Peel the Banana" sung by Dr. Jean, our favorite! 

We also read a book about Thanksgiving, but to be honest, we checked it out fromt he library and I do not remember the name. It was cute though. And I printed out a poem off DTLK called "Five Little Turkeys." They got to paint the turkey at the bottom of the print off. 

Tuesday: We did a "food pyramid." We went "grocery shopping" in the cabinets and I made sure they got at least one of each food group, and built a flat pyramid, based off the old model. I am not sure what is up with the old pyramid! 

Wednesday: We missed story time this week because Samantha had a Parents As Teachers meeting that I scheduled before we started going to story time. However, the meeting went well. We played bored games and talked about the importance of them and what they learn while playing certain types of games. 

Thursday: We colored pages with the new pyramid on them. I also had them talk about different foods that they liked to eat and what food group those foods belong in. 

We also did our annual Handprint Turkeys. 

Friday: We had a healthy snack. We ate fruit, cheese, and juice. The fruit was organic and the milk was Whole Milk. We do not drink 2%. 

And then for the cooking portion of Thanksgiving, obviously she will be assisting me in making the dinner on Thursday. 

Next week is Reading. We are going to dive a little deeper into reading and see what needs to be worked on and what I can do to help her. 





Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Week 31: Food

This week went well. We added a few more things to "Rug Time." These were added per Samantha's request. We are practicing writing her name I used a website awhile back where you type in their name or whatever word you want them to practice and it will print it out on that lined paper that kids use to learn to write. Anyway, I put that in a plastic page protector so she can use a dry erase marker and try over and over. She is doing really well at it. 


I also re-organized her school closet. She has so much school stuff it is hard to keep neat. She has her calendar, art supplies, Judy Clock things, counting bears, tangrams, lacing cards, homemade games, her parachute and bean bags, etc. It looks amazing now though. I took a trip to the Dollar Tree and bought a bunch of plastic bins and school supplies and even posters. (There were 2 posters in each pack for $1.00.) They had all kids of posters. I grabbed posters that I knew would work for the next few years. I got shapes and colors, which she already knows, but it is nice to have for the word recognition. Alphabet and numbers. Just as reminders. Days of the week. Months of the year, which we are working on. And then short and long vowel sounds. Which we will get to, but not quite yet. We are struggling with the next step in reading still, so I am taking it one day at a time. She is still young. No reason to push her. Point is that she is recognizing that letters make words and words represent things. She still sounds them out and she can recognize words like on the EXIT signs and STOP signs, but she is nowhere near fluent with her reading a book or something.


Anyway, our topics for the whole month will be "Food" related, in celebration of the upcoming holiday, Thanksgiving. 


Monday: We read the book "Pancakes for Breakfast," a book they introduced to us in Kindermusik. 

Tuesday: We went through her plastic foods and sorted them out by type. Fruit, Vegetable, Dairy. Etc. 

Wednesday: Still waiting for the church to catch up. I am about to just move forward.

Thursday: Samantha and Brennon made fruit and vegetable baskets. I cut them out. They colored them and glued them. Samantha did vegetables. He did fruits. 


Friday: We tried a new recipe for dinner. A new type of lasagna. YUM, I must say. 





Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Week 29: My Body and Week 30: Halloween

Week 29's lessons were about the Body. 


Monday: We read the rest of her anatomy book. She really enjoyed it. She has always been interested in Anatomy. (I took Anatomy class when she was a little Baby and I would read my stuff to her and teach her the stuff. I ended up teaching her all her bones, and she still knows them!)

Tuesday: We watched the movie Curious Buddies: Let's Move because it got her moving and dancing and jumping and everything. 

Wednesday: Still waiting for the church to catch up. 

Thursday: We were supposed to trace her body and color it and everything, but I did not get to get any of that butcher paper. :/ 


Friday: No cooking project. (Apparently we were slacking off this week.)

Week 30 was Halloween-another fun week. I Love the holiday and season lessons. 

Monday: We read a book from the library, and I can't remember what it is called because we already returned it. Jessie picked it out. It was a Level One reader about a truck on being scared on Halloween. 

The rest of her week was getting ready for and incorporated in her "Halloween Party" with my little brother where we listed to Halloween music, played games, painted pumpkins, and baked cookies. I also let them watch the movie Toy Story because they were both Toy Story characters, and we ditched Netflix, so we couldn't watch a Halloween show on it. And On Demand didn't have anything good for kids really. (Anything that they like or anything they hadn't already seen.) 

(We were supposed to do foot print ghosts and fist pumpkins, but I forgot, so even though it is after Halloween, we may do them today.)





Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Week 28: Senses

This week was the sense-hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting, and touching. 


We continued to do "Circle Time" with music-usually her Dr. Jean CD, a book-usually a Level One Reader from the library, her list of sight words, the clock and the calendar/weather chart. 


Monday: We read part of her anatomy book. It's a short book with a page about the senses and stuff and then each organ system. 


Tuesday: I asked her questions like, "What do you hear with?" And she would answer. Then we would walk around and listen for different sounds. We did that for each sense. She really enjoyed it. 


Wednesday: Still waiting for the church to catch up. 


Thursday: We did "texture paintings" with salt and powdered sugar and such. She did NOT like it. She has always been picky about textures, so she didn't do it more than a second before she said, "Um. I don't like this." We also did some more Fall art. We cut apples in half and made apple prints. 

Friday: We cooked. And as we did, I let her touch the different stuff and smell the spices. Porkchops was a good choice for this one because we dip them in milk and egg and then put them in the pancake mix. She got to feel those too, and smell them. Then she was able to hear the grease popping. And of course taste it all and touch it. 

Saturday: We played Simon Says. And I would say, "Simon says, Touch your ears." And them I would ask her, "Do you smell with your ears?" Etc. 





Monday, October 10, 2011

Week 27: Time

So this week I have been struggling with the decision of whether or not to do some somewhat formal homeschooling with her. I say no because she is so young and I do not want to burn her out. But I say yes because she is at the age where she is starting to ask about school and get excited about it, and I want to encourage that!


Jessie and I talked about it and decided to do like a small 30 minute session of "school" each day. I sit out her materials around lunch time in the area of her choice, usually the back porch. And then I just let her decide when she wants to do it. She will just sit down and say, "Let's do the calendar!" or something along those lines. I got a big bulletin in board calendar with the month, date, day, "Yesterday and Tomorrow," and the weather on it. I also put all her school supplies in the hall closet. (There was nothing in it, and it is right next to her room, so it works, like an extension. So far she has an activity mat, some parachutes-like the ones used in gym class in Elementary School, a Judy Clock, a Rubber Band Shapes Board, Counting Bears, Tangrams, some books with puppet characters, a bunch of art supplies, and some other small stuff. I really want to get some primary colored plastic tubs like the pastel ones in her room. It think it would look a lot more organized that way. I guess one thing at a time.


I think she likes this new idea. We always do her calendar, some site words-10 every two weeks from the pre-primer dolch words list, read a book from the library-a Level 1 Reader, and then her activity for the day, whatever it is.


So with that said, this week was Time.


Monday-We read her "Judy Clock" interactive book. Then we listened to some songs by Dr. Jean "Days of the Week" and "Months of the Year."


Tuesday-We played with the Judy Clock. I had Brennon that day so I had one of them pick a time and move the clock to that time. (We just worked on hours.) And then the other one acted out that time. Like 9 o'clock was wake up time. And 12 o'clock was lunch time.


Wednesday-Still waiting so that we are aligned with the church.


Thursday-We drew her favorite time of day. She chose snack time and she drew herself eating grapes. However, she once she decided she was done with her picture, she started drawing something random over it, which she normally does. So you can't tell what it is.


Friday-We used a timer when we were cooking dinner.





Sami Eating Grapes

Saturday, October 1, 2011

Week 25 and 26: All About Me and Week and Fall Fun & Reading

We did All About Me the week before her birthday because we didn't do lessons the week of her birthday.  And I thought the topic went hand and hand with her upcoming birthday.


Monday: We switched things up and instead of reading a "normal book" we went through her Baby Book. We looked at pictures and talked about when she was younger. And I read what I had written about when we found out I was pregnant and that she was a girl. We also listened to the song, "Special Me" by Dr. Jean. (I really admire that woman. Something about her songs and activities that just get my daughter excited about music and learning.)


Tuesday: We did a "Fill In The Blank About Me." I just asked her a series of questions like, "What is your favorite color?" And she answered them. She did pretty well. Here it is: (Brennon also did one, so I will put his too.) 



About Me:

My name is Samantha Mays. I am almost 3 years old. My birthday is September 23rd 2008. I have blonde hair and blue eyes. I live in Ringgold, Georgia. My favorite color is pink. My favorite food is chicken nuggets. My favorite animal is a cat. And my favorite thing to do is play in my kitchen, especially with Mom and Dad. I have hobbies. They are dancing and singing, but singing is my favorite.

About Me:


My name is Brennon Ellis. I am 3 years old. My birthday is March 28th 2008. I have blonde hair and blue eyes. I live in Ringgold, Georgia. My favorite color is green. My favorite food is hotdogs. My favorite animal is a cat. And my favorite thing to do is play with my Thomas trains




Wednesday: We are putting the Bible lessons on pause for now because I am writing the curriculum for the preschool at church and I want to get caught up on that so that her lessons on Wednesday correspond with her lessons on Sunday. 


Thursday: I had Samantha and Brennon draw self portraits. Samantha drew hers and then got sort of bored and started scribbling over her portrait, but if you look you can see it. Brennon drew himself with another person. 


Friday: She picked dinner. Chicken Nuggets. ;) 


Week 26, Fall Fun, I have been looking forward to for awhile. 


Monday: We read the book "Boo, The Not So Scary Ghost." (I am in the mood for Halloween) And we did the fingerplay, "Five Little Pumpkins." 


Tuesday: We played outside in the leaves, which are everywhere now! 


Wednesday: No Bible Lesson


Thursday: We did hand/fingerprint tress. And did a painting with Fall colors. She really enjoyed this. 


Friday: We will be baking pumpkin seeds. I just decided to wait until we went to the pumpkin patch later this month so that we can take the seeds out of our pumpkins. 


Saturday: We played an "Autumn Fun" memory game on dtlk. We got to work with the computer and do an activity for this week's lesson. 


Also, not sure if I posted it on here or not, but Samantha is reading and spelling now. She can read and spell 3 letter words and we are working on sight words too. (I am going to get some sentence strips to hang up with a few dolche words every week.) Words like "cat" and "dog" are quick for her. But words like "stop" she has to sound out. We are starting our weekly trips to the library again and she got her own card. (I told her when she learned to read she would get her own card.) At night, I will read a book to her and stop when I get to word I think she can read. I am very proud of how she is progressing so quickly. I hope to she keeps up her Love for reading. 


If you look close you can see her face in the middle of the page. 

We did a "Five Little Pumpkins" coloring sheet. 


She says this is a picture of Sami playing in the leaves. 

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Week 23 and 24: Emotions and Family

Sorry I have so been slacking, but I have been so busy with the house and planning Samantha's party. And Jessie started school back, so I have been helping him so he knows what work he has to do and if he doesn't get it, I help him. Just eh...so much. But here I am now. 



Week 23 was emotions. 

Monday/Tuesday: We read "ABC Look at Me." It is one of Samantha's favorite books-also from Dolly Parton Library. It has pictures of babies showing different emotions. We also sang, "If You're Happy and You Know It..." They enjoyed that song because it was interactive. Thursday was mirror faces. We explored out emotions and talked about what we were feeling. I asked her to make a "mad face" and she would show me what "Mad" looked and sounded like. 

Wednesday: We went over Genesis-Cain and Able. We learned a song to go along with the lesson because I felt like the art activity was too old for her. 

Thursday: Her art activity was making a paper bag puppet with a face on it, any emotion. I would have her draw it, but she is not ready for that yet, I do not think. 

Friday: We played a "Match the Emotions" game. 

This week we did not have a baking activity. 

Week 24 was all about Family. 

Monday/Tuesday: We looked through Family Albums as our book. We talked about all the different members of the family and how all families are different. We also listened to the song on her Barney CD about Family. It also talks about how all Families are different, and that your Family is what is best for you, and not everybody. I especially like this song because people tend to make Samantha feel like she needs a brother or sister to be complete, and I feel like that is starting to get to her. I want her to realize that being an only child is not a bad thing. 
Her activity for this week was Family Time. Simple, but meaningful. I want her to understand the importance of spending time with Family. 
  
Wednesday: We went over Genesis-Noah's Ark. We read the story and she played with a Noah's Ark play set she has. We talked about the animals and why they were in sets of two. 

Thursday: I had her draw a Family Portrait...Which apparently we all look like little squiggles, but she knew exactly who was who. 

Friday: 
I let her assist me in making the table and a little on dinner. We had a Family dinner, which is an everyday thing, but we also talked about why it was important. 

Next week is "All About Me" just in time for her Birthday. 

Just a thought...I am going to move Bible lessons to the end of the week so that there is not a "pause" in the lesson. I feel like introducing it on Tuesday and then doing her Bible lesson on Wednesday is sort of an interruption...Hmm..



This is an old picture. She wasn't in a picture mood, but that is the ark she has. 





Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Week 22: Letters and Dentist

This week was letters-basically working more with spelling. And then we also threw in another activity each day to help Samantha get ready for her very first REAL trip to the dentist, where they will actually clean her teeth this time. 

Monday/Tuesday: For letters we read "Barney's Alphabet." And for our activity I picked 4 random letters and then filled brown paper bags with items that started with that letter. For example, B I put in a "Baby Doll" a "Ball" and a "Banana." I am sure there was something else, but I forgot to take pictures. I let them take turns pulling out and item, naming it, and then once all the items were out of the bag, I asked what letter they all started with. "B." And then I would ask them to name some more words that started with that letter. They really enjoyed it. 


Then for the dentist, we read the Bearenstain Bears Go To The Dentist. :) And our activity will be her trip to the dentist. 

Wednesday: Her Bible story was the story of Adam and Eve. We learned a little poem about how God made her. Then she made a face-her face-on paper with plastic eyes, a pom pom, and a pipe cleaner. 

Thursday: For her art project, we did letters in shaving cream, not technically art, but it was similar to finger painting. 

The dentist art project-we made head mirrors with construction paper and tin foil. We also used popsicle sticks and such and the kids took turns pretending to be the Dentist. I showed Samantha several pictures of real dentists on Google images and the Kool Smiles website, and she informed me that the only thing she was concerned about what the mask he was wearing over his mouth, so we talked about that too. 

Friday: We did not do a "Letter" food project. But we did a dentist project. We made a peanut butter sandwich on one piece of bread and then lined it with marshmellows and folded it in half to be a mouth! 


Saturday: We played a game with letters. We did an upper and lower case match game that I printed and laminated. Then we built words with the letters. She read several words, simple words. I was so proud of her!  


Obviously the show we watched for letters was Word World


Then we watched a show for a dentist-Calliou Goes to the Dentist. 




Showing me her clean teeth at the dentist. 









Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Week 21: Numbers


This week was numbers. They already know their numbers 1-15ish, so I decided to go further with the numbers and also focus on true counting. I also decided to add a Bible lesson every Wednesday because I don't think she gets enough from church on just Sundays and we don't have Wednesday church for kids. 

Monday/Tuesday: We did the finger play "Five Little Monkies." We also read "Barney Numbers," but I didn't get a picture of it for some reason. We played with counting bears, working on adding and subtracting, without actually telling them that is what we were doing of course. I didn't want to confuse them. But I didn't get a picture of that either because I have a million pictures of her with her counting bears. We use them a lot. 

Wednesday: We went over Genesis-God creating the world. I found a website with worksheets and coloring sheets and crafts to go along with the lessons. There is also a simple version of the story that I read off to her and then taught her a song-one of those they teach you in Sunday school. She Loved it. And now if you ask her, "Who made Earth?" or "Who made you?" She will say, "GOD DID!" 

Thursday: We did number caterpillars. I got a pic below. They absolutely LOVED them. I did all the preparation before the project-makes things much easier-so the circles were already punched out and the numbers were on there. They just had to put them in the right order and name the numbers as we put them in order. (Earlier in the week they made butterflies with Parents As Teachers, so this lesson went right along with it!) 

Friday: I spent Friday and a good part of Saturday getting those games cut out and laminated. I have one that is a number matching game. You match the numbers to the dots. I am pretty excited about that one. The laminating was pretty easy. I used contact paper and I was a beast at it! I didn't really get any bubbles. I tried to borrow my Nana's straight cutter, but I found out it was a rotary cutter, not a straight cutter, so it took me awhile to come to terms that my pieces would not be exactly straight ever, but it is close to it. 

Next week is Letters. 






Sunday, August 14, 2011

Week 20: Shapes

This week was shapes. I decided to start adding back in a song or finger play of some sort. They seem to be enjoyable for the Babies. However, I took out the movie because it is getting hard to find a show for every topic we do. I also added in a game. If I can find a game for us to play, weather it be on the computer, a video game on the tv, a board game, whatever, then we will play one sometime during the week.
Monday: We read "Colors and Shapes," a simple Dolly Parton Library book. We also made puppets from construction paper and popsicle sticks and did the play, "I am Susie Circle." I posted it at the bottom.

Tuesday: We played with tanagrams and the rubberband board making different shapes and dividing them up into smaller forms of the shape.

Wednesday: We just ate "shape food." We had round bologna, and a banana, which we cut up into shapes, triangle chips.

Thursday:We did a pre-writing activity. Samantha really enjoyed it. She traced some shapes, with my assistance of course, but after awhile she was able to do it with very little help. She was so proud of herself, which was a big change from the, "I just give up!" that she was saying at first.

Friday: I printed off a shape game, but we didn't do it yet. I want to laminate it. I am going this weekend to get stuff to laminate. I am also going to check out the dye cut machine at the library.

Next week is Numbers. Now that they are getting older, they are able to do more, and so my lesson plans can have more in them. I am very excited about that! I have decided to start printing off charts and flashcards, games, and such. We still aren't going to do a lot of worksheets. I still don't know what I think about them. I am going to stick to hands-on activities for the most part I think.



I am Suzy Circle.
I'm happy as can be.
I go round and round.
Can you draw me?

Sammy Square is my name.
My four sides are just the same.
Turn me around, I don't care.
I'm always the same.
I'm Sammy Square. 

I am Ollie Oval
A football shape is mine
Some people think that I'm an egg
But I think I look fine! 

I'm Tommy Triangle.
Look at me!
Count my sides.
One, two, three. 

Ricky Rectangle is my name.
My four sides are not the same.
2 are short and 2 are long.
Count my sides, come right along.
1, 2, 3, 4. 
I am Danny Diamond
I am like a kite
But I'm really just a square
Who's corners are pulled tight






I am pretty proud of these! 

Big hit! They were making them talk. 

I got these at the homeschool expo for Samantha. 


Not sure why my pictures look pixelated.