Why Tot Schooling is saving my sanity

Homeschooling a kindergartener is fun!  They are excited about learning and have enough patience to sit for at least a little while.  They don't play in the litter box or the toilet or paint the kitchen floor with tooth paste/lotion/soap/sharpies, but 2/3 year olds DO! I found out very early (my first week of homeschooling 3 years ago) that the hardest part of home schooling might be the toddler!  Over the years I have accumulated lots of games, hand eye coordination, concentration, or just time consuming activities for toddlers to do while I discuss the difference between communative and distributive properties to the older boys.  Tot school (Google that) has endless possibilities and it is a great way to keep those busy little hands and minds going without destroying my house!  I found that the more planning I put into the toddler curriculum/play the more I can actually concentrate on teaching the other kiddos.  I am so grateful for websites like totschool.net and confessions of a homeschooler and countless other bloggers/teachers that have endless ideas that are fun and creative.  I find Pinterest and Teachers pay teachers are both great places to start when looking for fun ideas! 

It's A New School Year

Well this year I almost didn't homeschool!  I sent my kindergarten, third and fourth graders off to a brand new charter school in our area.  But within one week I knew I had goofed on the kindergartener.  Please refer back to my first post to know why I had goofed!  I forgot why I had homeschooled the older boys and all the sudden I was struck with guilt knowing I wasn't giving my precious third born the same care and attention to his education that I had vowed to do for my older two boys...so in a quick gesture I pulled him out on day 5 of school after already annoying the teacher by picking him up at half day instead of leaving him all day. (we had a choice) It turned out, though, I was the only parent that had chosen half day out of two full classes of TK/K classes.  Anyway, it was for the best and I felt so relieved when I did it!! Surprisingly Isaac was also very excited to be heading towards homeschooling and back to CHeP.  We started school last week and the boys Isaac in kinder and Owen 3 (tot schooling) are loving their school time and they are enjoying their play time too.  These two are getting to bond in a way they couldn't with their older brothers around.  Isaac is getting to be the big brother for a change and getting some much needed responsibility and Owen is loving the attention he is getting from his roommate and closest in age bro! So we are back in the homeschool world with two boys in a public charter and two boys at home! 

We took a year off, but here is the Review

I know sometimes things get crazy and this year was one of those years, so yes, we took a year off blogging so that we could focus on other things but as this school year is winding down we are back.  There will be lots of school changes around here and it is still all up in the air, but I'm excited for them!  Here is a little bit of what we have been up to this year.

We will start with the most recent and work out way back...

Isaac and his bots

Owen and Isaac blowing Pom pond into the square

Camping!  So much to learn while camping! 

Knotts Berry Farm...taking a break...

Just funny and true

Knotts Berry Farm Field trip, who knew there was so much to learn at Knotts.

Hiking in Laguna Beach!

Reports on Harry Potter at CHEP! 

"Macbeth, the musical comedy". Adam was king Duncan and Kevin was McDuff...

Watching a bridge be made at the Port of Los Angeles (architect:  Bryan Low aka...dad) 

Vacationing In Lake Tahoe! 

Native American Field trip...this was cool...included archery and ax throwing...

Discovery Science Center...fossilized poop! 

He devours Books

More of the Native American Field Trip...

AND......WE ARE DONE!

So we made it!  One more year of crazy fun learning down the hatchet.  This was such a rewarding year for me.  I cannot begin to explain how much I saw Kevin and Adam grow this year.

Kevin started piano last fall and has excelled like crazy and in doing so, I think his math was affected for the WAY better.  Last year was tough with math and Kevin and so followed the first half of this year.  The second half, though, something clicked.  Everything he saw he understood.  He caught on quickly and did not miss a beat.  Finally he began reading...I mean really reading.  like reading a 200 page book every day and half.  I wish I loved my local librarian at our branch because we have been there a lot.  I can keep up with his appetite for books.  I love it!  He will read anything ( that I will let him read)  He has really just taken off.  He also started a blog in order to log the books he has read and what he thinks about them or anything.  It is called Books First, Elementary Reviews

Adam was always good at understanding math concepts and this year was no different.  He worked his way through first grade and began second grade math this year.  He is great at concepts and seeing the big picture.  He too is reading very well.  Adam played flag football this year and absolutely had a blast.  He won an award for being the guy on the team that could make something out of nothing in every play.  (Most Crafty)  He was the quarterback this year and a flag pulling machine.

I am excited for summer...so excited for summer.  I do love the play that happens at summer time.  I am so grateful for this, another year to home school my boys and give them the absolute best start I can give them.

Plans for this summer:  Trip to Lake Tahoe and Virginia City
                                   Harry Potter, Musical Theater Camp
                                   Beach Days
                                   Tons of Swimming
                                   Camping with old friends
                                   Magic Mountain!

                           

Field trip (S)

Last week I decided I would take the boys to the Natural History Museum for their free home-school day on the following Monday.  Sometime between last week and this past Sunday I forgot I had decided that.  But I had told people that I was going apparently.  Sunday I got a Facebook message from someone I didn't know, a friend of a mutual friend, asking if I was still planning on going and that she had heard I was.  Well although I had never met this sweet lady, I decided it was a good kick in the butt for me and thought why not lets go, even though it seems like a lot of trouble this late in the game.  So Monday morning she came with her bigger than my van and picked us all up and we got to know some new friends while riding up to LA.  We ended up having so much fun and the boys and I met a new friend that lives right here local and they are super sweet and fun.

We actually ended up hitting both the NHM and the California Science Center right next door.  The boys loved the dinosaur bones and the woolly mammoth bones.  They got to touch some real fossils too.  We also barely escaped a dino stampede

 Next we headed over to the CSC and the boys got to test their physical abilities on the rock wall.  Adam made it all the way to the top along with his new friend!  But what could be better than a day full of bones and dinosaurs for a bunch of boys?  That same day ending up at a space shuttle, that's what!!  The boys were excited to see how people pottied in space for sure...that was the dinner conversation that evening along with all the glorious things they saw in the Rot Room.  We had to quickly change the subject so that no one truly lost their appetite.

I'm so glad we went and got to meet some new friends and see some fun and exciting new things!

Energy and Motion Cont...

Today we learned about energy using ramps. The boys got to roll their bouncy balls down a ramp at different heights. I wish I could claim the idea, but I got it off TPT. They learned that a ball gains more energy making it faster going down the taller ramps.








We are getting so excited for school to end! I am not sure if me or the boys are more excited. I did lesson plans through the end of April and we are sooo close to finishing all of our books. This year has been crazy easier than last year which I will attribute to a few things. 1. Little man (4) is in preschool 3 days a week. School is pretty smooth without his cute face wanting endless attention. Little Guy (2) is still at the into everything age but can be easily entertained with activities like this.


He loves putting it away and even more fun dumping them out...but then he has to put them away. This can go on for 30 minutes.
2. I am a little more seasoned and so are the boys. By the end of this year I felt we have had a great rhythm and my tough one (8) stopped being tough. The things he was struggling with really clicked midway through this year and he has been an ace ever since. I have enjoyed this year but oh how I love summer days, no schedule, vacations, beach days, tide pools, swimming pools, pop cycles, and a good tan! Hurry May we are so excited for you to get here!

Forces and Motion Playground Lab

Last week we spent some time at the park learning about force and motion.  We tried out all the equipment and decided what kind of force we were using to move it or us.  Pushing or Pulling. The boys had a blast.  We met our friends, Viktor and Carmen, there to do our experiments.

Then yesterday we did another set of experiments about Motion this time.  We had several objects that we tested.  We tested whether bouncy balls bounced higher when dropped from a higher or lower place.  Then we learned about friction with race cars and tops.  We learned about energy with bubbles and pinwheels.  The boys had fun, even Isaac got in on the action.

Owen loves his tub of small objects to put in the hole in top.  He does this a lot during school time.