Saturday, August 27, 2011

First Week of School 2011




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This is our first week of school, and if you remember from our curriculum post, we are going to use K12 this year.  I will still be adding in some things of our own. 
Our week began with an online assembly to meet the teachers.  Then we went right into testing.  They test at the beginning of the year and at the end, to see how far you’ve come.  The tests were honestly a huge pain.  Emily hated them mostly due to internet problems we were having that day.  I tried calling and of course so was the rest of the town, so I didn’t get through.  UGHH!  Ok, back on track.  Later that night they had our internet back up and Emily was able to finish her tests. 
The next day felt like a regular (if there were such a thing) homeschooling day for us.  Emily did everything I asked her to do that day.  We are using K12’s curriculum, however, I am not exactly following their schedule. 
She had previously done a few lessons, so she is already even ahead in her work, according to them.  I am grateful for that even though I did plan it that way (and obviously a plan I stuck to =)).  This way when we do our “stay-cation” we won’t have to worry about falling behind to their standards.   
I have to mention how weird it feel to write this post, all this they say and falling behind, being ahead, it just feels weird.  I am not giving up because of that yet, though. 
Day 3 felt like a day that was more our way.  We worked on our assigned schooling for that day in the morning, then we had lunch, cleaned up and I told the kids I had a surprise for them, that they need to put socks and shoes on.  We went bowling and got a way cool tour of the back of the alley.
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Emily stayed up late, late with me and we watched Top Chef, Just Desserts, while I worked on some advance prep work for Katey and Tyler. 
Day 4 We woke up at our regular time ready to learn.
Emily got out some art supplies and decorated her math notebook.
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She has always struggled with lining up numbers properly in problems.  Our solution to this has been to use the notebook sideways.  She never misses a problem now because of the numbers being lined up wrong. 
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Day 5 Fridays are usually saved for science, art and/or music. Here are some highlights from that day.
Emily did her first actual science experiment of the K12 curriculum.  She is learning about the ocean. 
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Yes, that is a towel and my head, and Tyler, my two year old was the photographer.  This is life!

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So sorry about the two year old fingers. 

Her experiment was to see the layers of the ocean water.  She mixed up 3 cups of different colored water, each with varying salt levels. She slowly filled them with a beaker and then let sit for 2 minutes.  Then she examined it and filled out a science journal. 
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It was hard to see the layers unless it was in natural light. 
 Katey’s week is all mashed together here.
She worked on letter L from All About Reading,
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she moved right along in ' target=_blank>Explode the Code as well.  She is also working on counting all the way to 50 without any mistakes.  She can count that high, actually higher, but it seems to be that she gets flustered and skips a number or two (usually 12 or 13 and 27).
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So we tried counting objects in groups of 10.  We will just continue counting daily for now, hoping this corrects that. 
She is also reading words with sounds, th, sh, ck, and wh.  We made a sight word ball to help with that.  
We have also been discussing where we live, city, state, country, continent, world.

While we didn’t get everything on the list done each day, I still feel very great about what we did.  I really feel like we are beginning to get  into the groove of things.  
To keep this blog completely honest, I feel I should disclose that Emily did have rough spots every day, except today, where she would just break down in tears over simple things.  I am still trying to decide if it is the curriculum, or if it is the lovely pre-teen years.
Next week, I will go back to my regularly scheduled format, with highlights by age. 
Tot School
What the two year old has been up to can be seen posted on Sunday.

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In my spare time
I have still been busy reading The Help every free minute I get, which obviously isn’t much or I would have finished it by now. 
That is it!  I have barely been able to sit down this week. 
I am really hoping to finish it this weekend!

This post is linked up to Weekly Wrap Up over at Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers.

1 comment:

MissMOE said...

I LOVE the 2 year olds pictures! That is life. Looks like a great start. We started this week as well. Starting is always the fun part for me.

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