Friday, November 22, 2013

Fun, fun, and more fun... I mean, school

I don't know about other homeschool parents, but we count our hours at Awana club toward our school time.  Someone besides me is just doing the teaching!  And the boys LOVE the time spent there.  In Max's Cubbies club they learn one verse each week, so we just work on that one verse with him all week.  Jackson is a Spark though and he can work through the book at his own pace, which has been like lightning speed.  And this is a good thing for him, because he kind of missed the first year of being a Spark.  Last year, I had him stay back as a Cubbie with all his friends and his brother because that was most comfortable for him (and for me; call me protective or something like that).  

Jackson finished with the first Sparks book last Sunday, which puts him on track to move on to the first grade book now and then he can start the second grade book at the beginning of next year.  I tell you, the kid has a memory like a vault (which is what we say about his Daddy too).  This is a photo of him at our last Awana meeting when he was called up on stage to be recognized for earning his next book.  He was super happy!!  


It seems like Jackson gets the crafting bug around the holidays each year, or at least, it happened last year too.  Every single day he wakes up and after getting dressed and breakfast his first statement is, "I want to do a craft today."  You would think after he said it the first time, I might have preplanned a few things out, but no, no.  Not me.  I just get him started with some other school work and then start surfing Pinterest, hoping to happen upon something we have the supplies for.  Painting is something I can almost always pull off, so when I saw this, it looked good.  It was supposed to be a tree and then you dot the leaves on in different fall colors using Q-tips.  Well, the boys started off that way and then decided to branch off into their own ideas.  Jackson told me, "Mom, I'm just gonna do my own idea."  Okay buddy, just as long as you like how it turns out and we have a pleasant time, lol!!




Another one of our favorite school things is board games.  I personally like the ones that teach for me best!!  This is one of those:  Very Silly Sentences.  Max did not used to like it all that much, but he has come into his own now that he is working on site words.  You roll a dice and put together sentences with cards of Nouns, Verbs, Adjectives, Articles and Prepositions.  But each sentence is all mixed up and comes out sounding pretty silly.  The boys love it, as it brings many giggles with it.  And it slowly teaches them new words as well, so that is a benefit!! 



My version of teaching the boys how to read has been a make-it-up-as-you-go-along approach.  It started with Jackson when my mom-in-law sent me a packet of post it notes with site words on them and we put them up all over the house and we just looked at them together and kept going over them.  We read simple books and sounded out the words they had in them and eventually he started picking up on it himself.  We played games wherever we went, making letter sounds, drawing words in the sand and sounding them out, playing Very Silly Sentences over and over and over, lol.  I think somewhere in there, he just eventually picked up how to read.  

Now, it is Max's turn.  Since Jackson has a more set school thing going on this year, it makes it easier to be more focused with Max.  But it turns out we are doing basically the same thing, keeping it really relaxed and just going at his pace.  The sticky notes on the door wall behind him are most of the words he knows at this point and he is proud of himself.  He has been less interested in reading than Jackson, but he seems to be picking up on reading just the same.  




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