Sunday, August 8, 2010

I Should be Planning

Maeve decided that school will start on August 11th and has been diligently doing her homework. I haven't had the heart to tell her that homework is assigned and done after the start of school. I have most of her first week planned out, but need to fill in the blanks a bit. We will do school Monday through Thursday and my goal is to do our more organized stuff right after breakfast.  Most of what I'm doing with Maeve is kid interest driven. She made a list of things she wants to learn about and I plan to have her make a lot of lap books. She is a lot like me and loves to fill things out and do worksheets.

Finnegan wants to start school on August 20th. I'm going to do a letter each week for him. He already knows his alphabet, but he needs to work on writing his letters. We'll tap into his crafty side (or see if he has one) and read a lot.

We'll see how this goes. As I am typing this, I'm realizing there is probably no way I can really separate lessons for Maeve and Finnegan. I should probably focus on a letter a week sort of theme for the both of them, but incorporate more stuff for just Maeve. Like "A" is for alligator and we will learn about their habitat, food, place of origin, etc. and then visit them at the zoo. Maeve will do a lap book and Finn will pretend to listen while he's shooting his guns at the wall.

I went through the scope and sequence stuff for kindergarten and it seems Maeve is about half way through it. In addition to working at home, the kids will do tumbling and I'm hoping Maeve will get into a home school art class that is held once a week and join a local Clover Kids group.

I'm very unschooly in my approach it's been challenging for me to sit down and write out plans. Things we'll do for certain:
-read from The Real Mother Goose, Aesop's Fables, Hans Christen Andersen, E.B. White
-science experiments
-nature walks
-Progressive Phonics
-lap books
-a letter a week for our letter tree
-cook and bake
-lots of crafts

We are all excited and looking forward to learning together.

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