The Best Laid Plans...

When I started homeschooling a few months ago, I had many expectations as to how my days would go. I started out with plans and page numbers and projects and supplies. I'm sure that for some people the planning would have been successful, but not for us. Structure does not work for us.

The more structure I try to put into our days, the more difficult they become. Allowing my children to lead has been far more productive.

For instance, last week my older daughter had a fantastic week. She was slamming through the math workbook and her Draw, Write, Now book. She did a few pink series exercises and we did some really fantastic reading together. This week it's like I have an entirely different child! She doesn't want to sit down and work at all. I settled for having her sharpen her box of colored pencils today. My younger child is just the opposite, for weeks now she's been playing when we work and ignoring my nicely laid out Montessori shelves. Over the past week, she's blossomed. She did the pink tower, sandpaper numbers 0-2, and every single one of the Melissa and Doug tangram puzzles...in one sitting! She's loving it!

I think that structure doesn't work because this is not school, there are not 15 other children to set and follow examples. We don't have a set start time. We don't have a set recess time. We start when everyone is awake and fed and after morning "chores" have been completed. Today it was 11, some days it's closer to 9, sometimes if I know the weather will turn in the afternoon we just go outside all morning and worry about school in the afternoon. If my daughter starts an art project and loves it, she is free to continue with it for as long as she pleases (which sometimes can be days!). So much for those plans and page numbers!

In the grand scheme of life, I don't think taking a few days off is going to hurt my four year old (in fact I think it might help). We may not be sticking to our plans, but we are happy and we are learning...something.

DIY Sandpaper Numbers

I decided to make a set of sandpaper numbers for my two year old. When my older child was using the sandpaper numbers, we made them out of notecards and glitter glue. They served their purpose, but I wanted to make something more lasting this time around.

The cost to make these wass negligible, as the only item I had to buy was an eighteen inch square of balsa wood from the craft store (and I used a 40% off coupon so it was less than $2). I already had dark green spray paint and extra sandpaper lying around the garage.

Cut the wood into rectangles about 3''x4'' and sand them.

Apply one coat of spray paint and then sand again.

Apply the second coat of spray paint.

Trace and cut out numbers from the sandpaper. I used a font called MontessoriScript that I found here. I made it bold and increased the size to fit my cards.

Use glue or Modge Podge to stick the sandpaper numbers to the wood.

I'm pretty excited about how these turned out. I'm hoping they get a lot of use.

Seed and Plant Matching

I made this great work tonight. I can't wait to show the girls in the morning! Montessori Print Shop has a number of completely free printables. I downloaded the nomenclature cards for seed and plant matching twice. I mounted them on bright yellow card stock and laminated them. They turned out beautifully, if I do say so myself!

I also used a pattern from Montessori Print Shop, here, for making a folder for my nomenclature cards. I think it turned out great as well. I don't think I'd use it for a classroom because I don't think it would last, but for our home, it's perfect!

Then, for an added task, I found most of the matching seeds (I have a massive number of seeds saved...for what? I'm not sure...). I'm going to place some plain white squares of paper in the tray and have my older daughter create a seed book by writing the names of the plants, drawing the plants and pasting the matching seeds on the page.

DIY Montessori Felt Parts of a Tree

The girls really love them some science! I would love to purchase all of the botany puzzles and cards, but unfortunately as a homeschool family I not only can't afford them, but I also don't really have the space to store the entire set of materials. I decided to make a felt tree to stand in for the parts of a tree puzzle.

The quality of these drawings is pretty low, but I thought someone else might benefit from having the pattern ready to print. Perhaps someday when I have lots of spare time I will make higher quality patterns. I will also try to add other simple patterns as we go along. The pattern can be found here:

• Parts of a Tree Pattern

Please link to this page!

DIY Montessori Pink Tower

The pink tower is such a classic montessori material that I knew we had to have it for homeschooling. It and the brown stairs were my older daughter's favorite "work" for the better part of a semester and I'm sure her sister will love it too.  We already had a set of the cardboard nesting blocks, and those are great, but they lack the weight and flexibility of the pink tower.

My husband made these for us on a Saturday afternoon. He used a scrap 4x4 that we had left over from building our house. The pink tower is made up of ascending cubes, 1cm x 1cm x 1cm up to 10cm x 10cm x 10cm. He used a combination of the table saw and the mitre saw to cut them to the right size and then sanded them.

The hardest part of this is cutting and sanding the 1 cm and 2 cm blocks. They are so tiny!

Our 'pink' tower is still the natural wood color. I think we will paint it someday, but I really like the way the raw wood looks.

Our next project will be to make the brown stairs.

Curriculum Choices 2014-2015

I have put SO much effort and research into our curriculum choices for kindergarten in the fall. I think I've finally got it all figured out.

History and Reading

We will be using the Build Your Library curriculum for kindergarten. It's a fabulous, inexpensive, literature-based curriculum. I really debated between Bookshark and BYL and decided on BYL for a few reasons:

1. It is much less expensive, so if I end up not sticking with it I'm not out a bundle.  
2. My daughter is only four, and the curriculum is a bit less intensive than Bookshark. 
3. I really like the activities/art/ideas that are presented in the curriculum. Bookshark really didn't have much in the way of "extras" and my daughter absolutely loves her arts and crafts. 

Art

We will be using Artistic Pursuits for our art curriculum. I got a great deal on this from another homeschooler who was finished with the book. My daughter loves art so I wanted to make sure that I picked out something that was very thorough. This curriculum is great, it gives a sort of tour of the various art materials and styles. 

Math

We will be using Singapore Math Essentials for our main mathematics program but we will be using Montessori materials like the golden beads to supplement the text. The Essentials Kindergarten A text is very basic and probably better suited for a three year old. I think we will move through it very quickly and move onto the next one. I will keep updating posts about how we combine montessori and Singapore Math.

Phonics

We will continue using the Primary Phonics system this year. We finished their K book a few months ago (the consonant book), and we are now starting to use their Level 1 workbook and reading series. My four year old wasn't too excited to begin this work a few months ago so we put it aside. Last week she brought it to me and wanted to try again!  I'm also using the Explode the Code Level 1 workbook from the same publisher. This seems to be a nice bridge between the two primary phonics level. 

Science

The BYL curriculum that we are using has some science, but I will definitely be adding more. I plan on incorporating Montessori science and possibly getting the Singapore Science - My Pals are Here book for even more extras. Science is the most challenging curricula to find for this age group. Most of it really jumps around or is just purely experiment based. I will be posting updates about the materials I put together for our science. 

Handwriting

My daughter is only four and I really don't see handwriting as a necessity yet. She loves to do the Draw, Write, Now! books, so we will stick to those for the year.

And there you have it! Questions/Criticism/Concern always welcome!

Learning Our Colors

I realized that Little Duck, who is two, doesn't yet know any of her colors. I attribute this to "second child syndrome". When our first was little we were constantly talking to her and pointing out colors and shapes, but we just haven't done as much of that with Little Duck. I decided to make it a goal to spend at least an hour a day "working" with her. She's started really looking forward to "working" with mommy and that makes mommy happy too.

We started with the Montessori color tablets (Montessori Color Tablets #1). I introduced them the first day, saying "this is red" and placing the red one on the rug, then "this is blue" and placing the blue one on the rug, then "this is yellow" and placing the yellow one on the rug. Then I just let her play with them!

The second day I decided to focus on just one color. I brought out the color tablets, saying "This is red. Can you find me another one that looks just like this?" She was able to do that so we moved onto coloring with red crayons and talking about things that are red. Before nap time, we read a few books, and I had her find the color red on each page.

Each day we will add one color until she is able to identify each color in the Montessori Color Tablets #2 box.

One of our favorite toys for learning colors (and shapes) is the Lauri Toys Color and Shape sorter. My older daughter loved it and would carry it around for hours pretending that it was a birthday cake with candles. She loved stacking and dumping the rings. I brought it out for Little Duck the other day and she loved it too. It's amazing to me that the most simple toys are often the most popular with my children.

Here are a few of our favorite color-related books:

• The Color Kittens by Margaret Wise Brown - My children love this book!

• What Makes a Rainbow by Betty Ann Schwartz - The text in this book doesn't do much for my children, but they love playing with the rainbow ribbons. This is a great book to keep a very small child entertained.

• White Rabbit's Color Book by Alan Baker - This is a really great little book. The kids love the pictures of the little rabbit playing in the colors and then taking a shower.

• Clifford the Big Red Dog by Norman Bridwell

• Green by Laura Seeger