Homeschooling Moments

I love homeschooling. I love the relationships it creates and the time the family has to spend together. When people worry that us having 'too many' children means the children don't get enough time, I only need to state that homeschooling children see more of their mums than public schooled kids do. My children are here all day. When they have a need I am there for them. Some things are less critical and so they get put off, but when they need me I am available. I am so fortunate in this!

 

Listening to Audio Books

 Beginning to Read Already!

 Savannah Loves School and Works So Hard!

 Raine is a Competitor. She is Determined to Keep Up With Cooper.

 Cooper. What Can I Say?

 If you could have seen the six photos I took before these ones. *smile* He was anywhere but doing his math. Feet on the desk, hanging upside down on his chair, chewing on his shirt, walking around. Now, the girls, on the other hand, have no problem attending to their work! *grin*

 Briton in Speech Therapy. 

Sadly, because are homeschooled he is now cut-off from support. But we got an assessment in the hopes of keeping his support going, but funded by our private school.

 Briton and Savannah Love Making Playdough Letters

This is a great, concrete way to learn the letter formations and sounds!!! I should have done this with them all.

 Cooper Copying Out Bible Verses

 Cassidy Doing Online Schoolwork

 Austin Typing a Narration of a Book He Read

Narrations are a wonderful way for the children to put to practice what they have learned in spelling, punctuation, grammar, vocabulary, memory, and understanding. They read or listen to a literary piece (my children read about 1 hour a day from school books) and then they are required to type up a specified amount. Austin finds this very easy, so I don't put an amount on him. He uses big words and great sentences without prompting, so I let him go. Cassidy struggles in this area, so he has a required amount of about six to eight sentences. What I am noticing is that Cassidy is improving, as time is passing. I have been teaching him some simple punctuation rules, which make all the difference:

IC/CI  - this means that if there is a complete sentence followed by And, Or, For, Nor, But, Yet, or So, and then there is a complete sentence following the Coordinating Conjunction, then there is a comma following the CC.

Ie:   John went to the store (complete sentence) AND, he picked up some bread.  (complete sentence)

What wouldn't work is: John went to the store (complete sentence) AND picked up some bread (not complete sentence after AND).

By drilling these as we go (and there are about five rules) I have found he is able to use semi-colons and commas in a much better way. The book to buy is Jensen's Punctuation. I love, love, love it!! The lessons are taught using passages out of a book, and then the student simply punctuates the sentences based on punctuation rules they have learned. *I* have learned so much using it! And so now, with Austin, I immediately teach him the simpler rules (and there are only five main rules!) so that when he gets to Jensen's he will find it a breeze. Cassidy's teacher has already told him that most adults don't know how to use semi-colons, so he is ahead of game!

Briton did a fabulous job cleaning out the pantry!! This time I showed him there was order and then left him alone. When I came back I found he had it totally organized. Well done!

 It was wonderful the day I realized my younger set were capable of peeling potatoes! This took a job away from the bigger kids or me, freeing us up for more jobs, or more time to play games with them all!

A little bit of a homeschool day. *smile*