Switching

Yikes!  I'm doing something I thought I would never do - changing homeschool curriculum in the middle of the year.  I started researching for the fall because I wasn't entirely happy with My Father's World this year and wasn't sure Lucy would place very well in their next level.  I intended to find something to do for a gap year before moving on with MFW.  Once I started seriously comparing and thinking about what was working for us and what wasn't... I decided to switch.  Well, sort of, I just placed my orders tonight and am excitedly awaiting their arrival.  We plan to start our new books as soon as we have them all.  Here are some of my thoughts on the topic:

Just to be clear, I think that My Father's World is a great company and admire their goals and work.  We may end up using more of their curriculum in the future.  I've thoroughly enjoying being a part of various yahoo groups for MFW users as well as their helpful message board.  I do not want to detract from their company or discourage anyone who is using their curriculum.  However, I know that I enjoy reading well thought out curriculum reviews and comparisons.  The beauty of homeschooling is that we get to tailor the learning experience to fit our children and what works best for our families.  Take my thoughts with a grain of salt.  ;)

Lucy started school when she was four.  She was ready and eager to learn.  After much thought and prayer, we started with My Father's World K.  She did very well, and continued on to MFW 1st grade this year.  There are many things I have enjoyed about MFW and our learning experience so far.  Lucy learned to read and has had many fun learning experiences.  Just so that this post doesn't become a mile long though, here are some of my reasons for switching:

(Ok, I'll let the cat out of the bag.  We're going to be using Heart of Dakota Little Hearts for His Glory.  Its quite similar to My Father's World, yet I'm hopeful it will be a better fit for us.)

- Too much work.  I felt like MFW was a bit teacher intensive.  At this point with three little kids and not a lot of planning time, I struggled to feel prepared.  Science and math both required books from the library as a pretty integral part of the learning.  Even with having an online library request system, I just couldn't stay on top of this.  We did really enjoy the math literature books and I think I will refer to that list even in the future.

-  Lack of information.  In MFW K, the teacher's manual would say things like "present information on insects" and leave me scrambling and wondering how much to cover.  Much of the science information relied on library books and the teacher finding information.  In first grade I felt like this happened with the memory verses.  The teacher's manual says to discuss the verse and apply it to your lives.  I felt like I needed a bit more of an idea on how to do that.

- Bible application.  Going along with the above thought, the personal Bible application for my child was lacking.  The proverbs studied are great, but we need more help on applying them.  There is not any direction given other than to "discuss and apply the verse".

- Bible stories.  The Bible stories (history) are read right out of the teacher's manual.  I found them to be over Lucy's head and included too much information for her.  Again, these were fairly dry with not much explanation.

- Science.  Lucy was really overwhelmed with the Usborne books used as science texts.  I feel like the pages are cluttered and there is just too much information all at once for a younger child like her to think about and absorb.  We struggled to get the experiments done.  Without a clear text to tie them to, they didn't really seem to make sense to Lucy.

- Read Alouds.  This is not necessarily a big issue for me, but reading out loud is not scheduled in the teacher's manual.  You are supposed to use Honey for a Child's Heart to find good read aloud books.  I like that Heart of Dakota schedules the read alouds and includes some discussion questions and direction in this area.

- Confusing.  As the teacher, I felt a bit confused as far as what I needed to include daily.  At times the teacher's manual would say things like "from now on, make a chart every week" or "use these games to review reading", but not remind me to do it.  The manual contains fun games and learning ideas, but I felt like I was not remembering them or getting to them because they weren't scheduled.

- Lacking.  The teacher's manual just sort of dies off and becomes pretty minimal towards the end of first grade.

Of course as you read through these and consider your own family and teaching style, these might all be reasons for you to choose MFW!  Hopefully my thoughts on this are helpful to you either way.  If you have any questions feel free to ask.

My plan is to continue phonics and math with MFW 1st grade.  Its easy enough since Heart of Dakota lets you make your own choices for these anyway.  We'll keep using the blue workbook and Bible reader for phonics as well as keep adding to our Bible timeline.  I'm going to continue MFW math for a while and switch to Singapore math once we finish the MFW book which should be about half way through.  Starting in the next few weeks will allow us to get a good portion of the way through the program before summer.  I imagine we'll take a summer break and pick back up in the fall, maybe moving to the next level in January?  We'll have to see how that goes.  For now I'm happy about finding a better fit for us and anxious to try it out!

See here for more curriculum reviews.  :)

Homeschool Organization

We started school this week!  Here is a look at how I have organized things.  We do not have a schoolroom, so I've taken over the hall cupboard and some bookshelves in our bedroom.  We are using My Father's World First Grade.

The cupboard in the hallway contains our art supplies along with a small box labeled school supplies.  The school supplies box sits on the middle shelf and holds the bean cup, coin cup, music CD, pencil, and a few number of the day sheets (all items Lucy needs to use daily).  The drawers next to it are for blank paper, construction paper, and magazines to cut up.  On the top shelf we have boxes labeled:
-play doh
-play doh toys
-scissors, glue, and paint
-markers
-stickers
-pencils, pens, and colored pencils.

The bottom shelf is full of coloring books with a box of crayons separating Lucy and Julia's books.  Yes, we have that many coloring books and crayons!  They get used all the time too.  Oh, and there are paint shirts tucked to the side of the drawers.  The girls also place finished artwork on top of the drawers and I go through them every so often tossing some and saving others in a large box in the basement.  I have one box for each child's work.

Lucy and Julia can both reach things in this cupboard and are welcome to play with them all.  I have another cupboard in the basement that contains other art supplies - large bottles of tempra paint, my stash of new school supplies to dole out as needed, reams of paper, posterboard, etc.

I moved our sheets out of the hall cupboard last year in order to make room for all of this.  I now store our sheets in a large plastic tub under our beds and that works well.  Our house is small, so we have had to get creative at finding storage for everything.  Most of the school books are on these shelves in my bedroom:

I love snooping on other people's bookshelves, so I'll give you a closer look at the shelves eventually.  The books are divided by subject, with the plastic boxes holding small manipulatives and games for each subject.  Esther's cloth diapers are on the bottom shelves.  The other side holds games and preschool activities.  One of the clear file boxes is for file folder games and felt stories.  The other clear file box is MFW papers.  I have folders labeled: student worksheets, number of the day copies, restaurant game copies, general MFW information, and finished student worksheets.

I think that about covers our set up.  Lucy does her work at the kitchen table, along with lots of snuggling and reading on the couch.  Thanks for letting me share!

Fall Homeschool Planning

We are gearing up to start My Father's World First Grade in a couple of weeks here.  I've been talking to the girls about starting a schedule and getting dressed right away each morning ready to start the day.  I'm doing some final preparations, ordering a few more books, and organizing the school/ art cupboard.  For some reason I'm a bit nervous about this year, maybe because its the year Lucy would be going to Kindergarten if we weren't homeschooling.  I'm not anxious about our decision to keep her home at all, just a bit worried about getting everything done that I need to in a day.  I feel like I'm taking on another full time job, but I know that it will all fit in somehow.  As you can see, Esther is a big help already!

I'm not going to post about our schooling every week (I tried that last year and couldn't keep up!).  I will, however, post various resources, fun activities, organizing tips, and more as we go.  Back in May I chatted a bit about the books we will be using.  Here is another resource that I recently found and love:


The Jesus Storybook Bible is an awesome children's Bible!  It tells the Bible stories unlike any other storybook I've read.  The stories come alive and captivate the listeners with fun details.  The whole storybook is written in a comprehensive manner that helps one understand the Bible.  I bought this from Amazon for only $16.50 including CDs of the entire book being read aloud.  We are enjoying it and the girls ask to be read to from this book often.  My mom purchased one as well and was very impressed.  This is a great resource to go along with My Father's World 1st.

I did not receive any product for this review.  I just love the book and wanted to share this resource.  I am an Amazon affiliate so I do get paid a small amount if you purchase something after clicking through my links.

Thank You, Stuart J. Murphy!

My girls absolutely love books. They read books all the time, they quote phrases from books, they pretend to visit the library with their baby dolls. They speak in book form saying things like: "Lets go, yelled the fairy." and "Stop, she said." while playing. We read books before bed. Lucy reads books to Julia, and books to Esther, and Julia reads books to Esther. We read books out loud together and look through library books for school. We have a million and one books and are probably going to buy another bookshelf this weekend just so we have room for them all.

I was so excited when I saw that My Father's World First Grade includes a huge list of books that reinforce math concepts. The list in the back of the teacher's manual is very extensive. For each concept (patterns, addition, etc) there is a list of books. We'll be checking these out from the library as we go through the curriculum, but I'm also going to purchase a few. (Using my Swagbucks for Amazon gift cards!) Browsing the list, I noticed that they include a large number of Stuart J Murphy's MathStart books.

MathStart books are fun fiction stories that include math concepts. Each book even has two pages of activity ideas you can do with your children to further the concepts. The stories are engaging and fun, so much more than your average counting book. With 21 books each in three different learning levels, there is something for everyone. The books have even been turned into a musical.

I contacted Stuart J Murphy about doing a review of his books and he was kind enough to send us some. Lucy, Julia, and Esther received two signed books each! They were so excited to open their packages and we read several of the books right away. You can read summaries of each book here, as well as see some of the activity ideas included in the books.

Just Enough Carrots has been read at bedtime several nights in a row now. I overheard Lucy and Julia explaining to Daddy that the bunny wanted more carrots but his mommy was buying worms and peanuts too. After reading The Greatest Gymnast of All only once, Julia was saying "zipping zooming Zoe" at the dinner table. Lucy likes Lets Fly A Kite and has read it many times over already. Henry the Fourth is adorable and clearly presents the topic of ordinal numbers. Missing Mittens has a fun twist at the end that makes the girls giggle. Same Old Horse is probably my favorite, I think it does a great job of discussing making predictions.

Each book is clearly labeled with the level and math topic. These will be great to read throughout the year to reinforce math concepts that we are learning. You can find many of these books on Amazon as a part of the 4-for-3 promotion. For more information about MathStart books, check out their website or sign up to receive email updates. Thank you Stuart J. Murphy!

Homeschool First Grade

After much debating, researching, hemming, and hawing... ;) here is what we've decided to use for the next school year. I like to plan way ahead of time so that I have the summer to look over the books, find extra related things at sales, and just feel prepared overall.

My Father's World First Grade - Lucy is doing great with My Father's World Kindergarten right now. We are on Unit 17 of 26 because of our big break when Esther was born, but she's moving along quickly. I expect to finish sometime this summer and have a short break before starting First Grade in the fall. There is a lot that I like about My Father's World, and a few things that I wish were different. After considering other options I think we'll stay with it for now. I do think the K program is light, we've basically been using it as preschool.

I like the multi-sensory approach (drawing letters in sand, using the textured letter puzzle, etc). The amount of worksheets has been great, and we've enjoyed the topics this year. One of the things that I think could be added just involves some of the prep. For example, it will say to draw a kangaroo for a craft project, make a penguin from colored paper, or color a map of the world, and then not give me the worksheets for that. Otherwise it is pretty "open and go" except for some of these projects. I do find that we have needed to add some things to the curriculum, and I've tried to carefully choose what I add so that I'm not overwhelming myself with things to do.

My Father's World is our core curriculum and we do try to complete it fully. I wouldn't want to skip anything like reading out loud daily, fun math games, science literature, etc in favor of completing another "program". With that in mind though, I have chosen a few things that I think will enrich our year.

My Father's World Deluxe Package for First Grade - We've enjoyed the deluxe items for the Kindergarten year. This time I am changing it just a bit. I have Honey For A Child's Heart already and will purchase the math workbook and music selections. I debated about the pattern blocks and book but we already have Mighty Mind and I think we'll just use that instead. I am going to be doing something else for art.

Artistic Pursuits - I've been searching for a good art program because Lucy seems to excel in this area. I've not used this yet, but it looks great! The book and needed art supplies are somewhat expensive, but at least the book can be reused with other children. I liked this curriculum so much that I bought the preschool book to use now and through the summer and then we'll start book 1 in the fall.

Activity Bags - I have done two swaps for preschool activity bags in the past. I am running a swap right now (locally) with their Science Book 1. When we are all done we will each have 19 science experiments in a bag ready to be used. The science topics seemed to go well with MFW 1st. I'm also planning to run a swap creating Reading Games and Math Games in a bag. All of the prep work for these will be done this summer so that in the fall I will have reading, math, and science games and experiments ready to use.

Friendly Farm Counters - This is a fun set that I picked up. There are farm animals in six shapes, six colors, and two sizes. We will use these all year long for adding, subtracting, and much more. These math trays look like fun too:

I'm actually excited to show Lucy the Venn diagram because I think she'll get it and it will be a fun mental challenge for her. I'd love to buy these, but they're a bit pricey so we'll see. I may just draw the charts on paper and laminate them.

I recently purchased Phonics Pathways on the recommendation of a couple of friends. We are using this now for extra practice and will slowly work our way through it. I'm not sure how many of the extra games we'll do, but reading the book itself is good practice.

I saw this science kit reviewed on a blog and loved it! It may end up being a birthday gift this summer. I think the girls would have fun playing with this and it could be used for school too.

Another birthday idea? We love DK books and this looks like a good reference book to have.

I still need to pick out a good Bible reference book with photos of artifacts and Bible times to go along with MFW 1st grade's focus on Bible stories.

I also want to purchase some of the math literature books listed in the teacher's manual. They include a huge list of children's literature books that specifically teach or deal with math concepts. These can be checked out from the library, but I would like to own some of them.

What about you? Any fun resources you've found for this age? Are you planning for the fall yet?

My Father's World - Dinosaurs

Catching up on our homeschool posts... Our dinosaur unit took up most of December since we had lots of breaks for cookie making, a ballet recital, card and ornament making, and more. Some of the fun things we did include: drawing dots on a big "D", drawing a dinosaur, writing a story, reading dinosaur poems, making dinosaur finger puppets, and more. One day we ate a dinosaur smile for snack (apples, peanut butter, and marshmallows). Lucy also enjoyed making dinosaurs from play-doh.

Books we read:

What Really Happened to the Dinosaurs? by John Morris and Ken Ham

Danny and the Dinosaur by Syd Hoff

Four and Twenty Dinosaurs by Bernard Most

Curious George and the Dinosaur by Margret and H. A. Rey

Lucy's favorite part: "My handwriting page."

What Lucy learned about dinosaurs: "That they're big. That the sound they make, growling."

Muffin Tin Monday - Octopus

For Muffin Tin Monday today I just had to do the octopus lunch that I've seen a couple times. We're studying Octopus this week! We've had about a six week break from school and Lucy was begging me to start up again with her. Even Daddy is getting into things this week with us, watching video clips of octopus was very interesting. Did you know they can change colors and even make themselves patterned? Octopuses are very smart and can open a jar to get food out. We're learning all kinds of fun things. Anyway, our lunch today was a big hit! Octopus hot dog, seaweed (pesto noodles), and fish. :) Check back later this week for a summary of our Octopus activities if you're interested.

My Father's World K - Us Unit (The Five Senses)

This unit took us a while to finish because of Thanksgiving break in there and a few other days that we just didn't get to our schoolwork. I'm not in a hurry to rush through the curriculum since Lucy is only 4 1/2, but we are trying to keep going for now since we'll likely have some breaks when the baby comes in January.

Some fun things we did - played with playdough (for sense of touch), made a tambourine (for hearing sense), smelled some foods with our eyes shut (onion, lemon juice, pumpkin pie spice), and played “what’s missing?” (sight). I lined up five little people and took one away while the girls had their eyes shut. Lucy was great at knowing which one was missing, even if I mixed them up. Julia will randomly go up to a pile of little people now and grab one and say “which one is missing?” to me. They had fun talking and thinking about the different senses and when they use them. (They would say “We’re tasting this apple.” etc.)

Books We Read:

My Five Senses by Aliki

How Kids Grow by Jean Marzollo

Here Are My Hands by Bill Martin Jr and John Archambault

All About Sound by David Knight

Hearing by Lillian Wright

Seeing by Lillian Wright

What’s Inside You by Susan Meredith

Usborne First Encyclopedia of Science

On The Move by Deborah Heiligman

Inside Your Outside by Tish Rabe

We're also enjoying reading Haffertee Hamster Diamond - a series of books that my mom read to me when I was little. The chapters are not too long and both girls look forward to this. The stories are all about a little stuffed hamster and his adventures in the Diamond family household. The books aren't in print, but can be found used on amazon.

Lucy’s Favorite Part:

“Doing my math page. Where you pick a number and then you draw how many. My really favorite is doing my handwriting page, I like that one.” She’s also really been proud of learning to read simple words lately.

My Father's World K - Turtle Unit

Still catching up here...

For the turtle unit, we enjoyed painting a paper plate to make into a turtle, reading books on perseverance, and making tortoise and hare puppets. I drew simple turtle and rabbit figures and Lucy colored, cut them out, and glued them on popsicle sticks. We used them while reading The Tortoise and The Hare story. For a tactile letter activity, I used pieces of an alphabet puzzle and put one under a playsilk. Lucy had to feel it and guess which letter it was. She actually did really well and had fun with the game. painting to music - We also spent time working on some Christmas gifts that we've been making (I'll post them soon!).

For our books, we had success again just raiding the library of all the books in the "turtle" section. We read:

Reptiles and Amphibians of Michigan Field Guide by Stan Tekiela

DK Watch Me Grow Turtle by Lisa Magloff (shows mating, not sure if we're ready for that)

Turtles by Anita Baskin-Salzberg and Allen Salzberg (good photos)

Turtles Life In a Shell by Sara Swan Miller

Turtles by Julie Murray (good simple info book)

All About Turtles by Jim Arnosky (good info book)

Sea Turtles by Gail Gibbons

Turtles In My Sandbox by Jennifer Keats Curtis

Turtle Crossing by Rick Chrustowski (good)

Scoot! by Cathryn Falwell (cute)

Many of my extra ideas come from things people share on the My Father's World message board. There is a section for K, and a section for each unit where people list ideas and post links to things they find helpful. If you're using My Father's World, or just want fun ideas on one of the topics, be sure to check this out.

My Father's World K - Nest Unit

Its been awhile since I've posted our My Father's World Kindergarten fun. Partly because we've slowed down a bit, and partly because I just haven't taken the time to write it up. We finished "Nest", "Turtle", "Us", and are just starting "Dinosaurs" this week. Lucy is still loving it! Over Thanksgiving weekend, on Friday she asked me what day it was. I told her it was Friday and she said "Oh, good! I was going to be sad if you said it was Saturday or Sunday because I can't do my school on those days." I hadn't planned on doing schoolwork that day because of the holidays, but ended up pulling out a workbook for her because she had to do something. I'm glad she enjoys it.

Grandpa and Grandma found a bird nest that we got a chance to look at up close! (see photo in post below). Because all of the leaves are off of the trees, we have been able to see lots of nests in the trees as we drive places in the car. One day we made Rice Krispie treat nests (regular recipe shaped into nests) and put m and m eggs inside. A few other things I printed off for Lucy:

an animal homes matching game she colored and cut then I laminated

an animal homes mini book to color

color and cut out nest page

My girls love learning about birds, looking at the bird book Grandpa made for them, and watching the birds outside that come to our bird feeders. The books that we read focused on all kinds of animal homes:

Can It Live Here? by Jennifer Gillis

Peaceful Moments In the Wild: Animals and Their Homes

Even an Ostrich Needs a Nest by Irene Kelly

Birds Build Nests by Yvonne Winer (great book)

A Nest Full of Eggs by Priscilla Belz Jenkins (another great book)

Nature Files Animal Homes by Anita Ganeri

(We've had good success just going to the library and typing in "nest", "turtle", etc to the computer system and then pulling a few books from the section indicated.)

Coming soon... "turtle", and "us". :)

KidBean.com Product Review and Giveaway

This month I've been posting about Toxins In Toys and talking about some of the choices our family is making regarding toys. With our switch to natural safe toys, we've found some wonderful toy companies that have great high quality products. One of the stores that I've been impressed with is KidBean. They thoroughly research every company and product they sell, and will even tell you why they don't carry certain products. Here is a quote from their about us page:

"You can find natural, organic, earth-friendly children's products, like wooden toys and organic cotton baby clothes at hundreds of online retailers and an increasing number of local stores. However, you may notice that most of these products are made overseas from foreign components (such as organic cotton clothing made in India from Indian-grown organic cotton or wooden toys made in China or Germany). Were the workers who made them treated fairly? Which organic certification do they have (GOTS, CU, or..?)? What is the impact of their packaging? Are all the ingredients really safe?"

I love the questions they are asking! KidBean is a vegan company and very concerned about being green in every way they can. Just looking at the list of green things that they do at their office is inspiring. Also inspiring is the story of how the company started - a passionate mom wanting to stay home with her new baby girl, determined to start a business that sold earth-friendly, labor-friendly, vegan products. Today they are a thriving business with well over 750 products in numerous categories.

KidBean's toy selection consists of all wooden toys made here in the US. They focus on simple, open-ended toys that feed your child's imagination. The toys are all guaranteed to be lead free. Lucy and Julia had the chance to review the Uncle Goose Antics Ant Blocks recently.

Uncle Goose blocks are handcrafted in Michigan from basswood. They use child safe non-toxic ink on the blocks. The Antics Ant Blocks set has 16 blocks with ant trails, a queen ant and her eggs, little ant hill entrances, and even a spider. We are going to be studying ants as part of our My Father's World homeschool curriculum in a few weeks, so I thought this would be a fun set to have. I like the open-endedness of being able to create unique ant trails each time. It was actually not as challenging as I thought it would be since all of the pieces fit together in any way. Ross did point out that the ants were headed in certain directions and Lucy and I had them crashing into each other because we hadn't noticed that detail.

The girls both enjoyed playing with the blocks. Julia pointed to a couple of ants and said "maybe these are the friends and these are the mommy and daddy." In the photo she's yelling something about her king falling off the steps. Lucy had fun making a trail of ants running away from the spider and into one of the ant hill openings. The blocks are a nice big size - 1 3/4". We also received a sturdy canvas drawstring bag perfect for storing the blocks in. I'm not sure why, but they actually liked putting the blocks away in the bag - they normally don't do well cleaning up. Lucy and Julia give this toy two thumbs up for sure. The next morning after we had been playing with the blocks, Julia went straight to the closet and pulled them out again.

KidBean is giving away one set of Uncle Goose Blocks, your choice! (excluding the wagon) Uncle Goose makes a great selection of blocks including many other languages, bugs, and more. Visit KidBean and tell me what set you would choose. While you're there, check out their other great categories - bedding, clothing, diapers, and more. Leave a comment on this post being sure to include your email address. I'll close the giveaway on Dec 11 at midnight and use random.org to select a winner.

**The giveaway is now closed and a winner has been contacted. Thanks for your interest!**

My Father's World K - Apple Unit

If you're following our My Father's World Kindergarten adventures, I've been posting our activities weekly. I'm going to be switching to simply posting about each unit after we complete it. MFW K has six days in each unit, so we don't end up doing an entire unit each week. This way you will be able to see all of the ideas we used for each unit in one post rather than having it broken up at times between weeks. We enjoy the six day schedule because then we aren't pressured to finish a unit each week and can occasionally add in a day or two where we need it without throwing off the schedule.

We completed our apple unit last week and enjoyed lots of fun apple activities. We had already taken a trip to an apple orchard and started reading apple books because they tied in with our leaf unit as well. Most of what we did was straight from the teacher's manual, I only added in a few things:

Apple pie - paint glue on a paper plate, sprinkle with cinnamon and add paper punched apples. These are hanging in the hallway and make our house smell nice.

Making applesauce - Lucy used this little knife to help me chop up apples to make applesauce. She hadn't used a knife before and did well with it. The knife is dull, so it was a good one to start out with. I had never made applesauce before! I just piled the chopped apples in a pan and added a bit of water and cooked until they were mushy and then used my potato masher to mash them up. It was a bit chunky, but we all enjoyed it.

I also had an apple felt poem that the girls played with, and an apple song that we sang:

Apple Up High (sing to "Twinkle Little Star")

Apple, apple, way up high

I can reach you if I try.

Climb a ladder,

Hold on tight.

Pick you quickly

Take a bite.

Five red apples, hanging on a tree

The juiciest apples you ever did see

The wind came by and gave an angry frown

And one little apple came tumbling down.

(repeat - Four red apples, etc)

I have a collection of felt stories and it works well to store them in file folders in a file box:

Books we read:

How Do Apples Grow by Betsy Maestro - good info book

The Seasons of Arnold’s Apple Tree by Gail Gibbons

“A New House” in Grasshopper on the Road by Arnold Lobel

A Year Round Tree by Susan Blackaby (about an apple tree)

A Tree Is A Plant by Clyde Robert Bulla (about an apple tree)

A Day at the Apple Orchard by Megan Faulkner and Adam Krawesky

The Story of Johnny Appleseed by Aliki

I don't want to type out the whole teacher's manual for copyright reasons but we are enjoying our lessons and I'll keep sharing fun things that I add in myself. We are also learning sign language and having a blast with that. I will be reviewing some sign language flash cards soon so check back for that.

Weeks 5 and 6 - MFW K, Moon and Leaf

For the past two weeks one or another of us has been sick with a cold so we've slowed down a bit with our schoolwork. I love that My Father's World is flexible enough to allow us to do this. We took two weeks to complete our leaf unit and will hopefully all feel well enough on Monday to start fresh with the next topic (apple).

We took a trip to an apple orchard/ pumpkin patch last week:

Lucy and Julia really enjoyed this paint bag writing activity:

We collected leaves, made leaf rubbings, identified leaves, counted and sorted leaves, measured leaves with a ruler (Lucy really enjoyed this), read tons of leaf books, and more. For our books this week, I simply raided the library of all the leaf books I could find. I think the favorites were tree identification books, both girls loved paging through those.

Books we read:

Trees of North America (identification book)

DK Eyewitness Explorers Trees - lots of info, good photos

Be a Friend to Trees by Patricia Lauber - good info book

Why Do Leaves Change Color? by Betsy Maestro - good info book

Fall Leaves by Mary Packard

Trees, Leaves, and Bark by Diane L Burns

How Do Apples Grow by Betsy Maestro - good info book

Trees by Ernestine Giesecke

My Favorite Tree by Diane Iverson

Trees - Usborne First Nature book by Ruth Thomson - good info book

Leaves by Rena Kirkpatrick

Look What I Did With a Leaf by Morteza E Sohi

A Tree Is Nice by Janice May Udry

Taking Root by Allan Fowler

The Signing Time dvd "Going Outside" went along perfectly with our studies as it included signs for sun, moon, stars, grass, tree, leaf, and more.

Lucy's favorite part:

Well, she's not really going along with this anymore. Whenever I ask her what her favorite part was, all she says is that she liked all her school. She did really enjoy the paint bag writing and measuring leaves with a ruler. Several times during the week she told me that she really likes when I have new activities for her to do and enjoys doing schoolwork. The poor girl was begging to do schoolwork after having a couple days off due to sickness. I'm glad she's enjoying it!

Week 4 - MFW K, Moon

This week we learned all about the moon and the letter "M". Most of our activities came right from our My Father's World Kindergarten and we were a bit sick all week so I didn't add much else to our days. I'm really enjoying MFW, there is a great mix of hands on learning, art projects, and paperwork. I can pick and choose a bit between the activities they list (although I usually want to fit them all in and more!) and schedule our days with more or less in them as needed. Lucy really enjoys "doing school" and usually asks if we can do schoolwork on the weekends too. The work is at a great level for her, not too easy, but not too frustrating for her either. She is doing a great job at working carefully and enjoys showing off her papers to anyone who will listen to her chat about it all.

Some of the highlights this week included:

Making a big spaceship (tent) in the living room - We included an old computer keyboard for controls, brought along a snack, books, and pillows, and counted backwards from 10 to blastoff. We also made space helmets from paper bags to wear on the moon and collected moon rocks (crumpled pieces of brown paper).

We used a tennis ball and a globe to show how the moon rotates around the earth. Lucy and Julia took turns holding the globe or running around the globe with the tennis ball while spinning it.

Lucy really enjoyed illustrating her own "Goodnight Moon" book. I stapled some white paper together and she drew a picture on each page and then had me write "Goodnight tree. Goodnight flower. etc" She loved reading her book to Daddy and Grandma.

Playing with our star counting game - see this post for photos.

Books We Read:

All About the Moon by David Adler

Mooncake by Frank Asch

Oliver's Wood by Sue Hendra

Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown

God Made Outer Space by Heno Head, Jr (good information book)

Little Bear by Else Holmelund Minarik

Happy Birthday Moon by Frank Asch

What Lucy learned:

Mom: "Can you tell me something you learned about the moon?"

"I learned that it had no light on it. That it reflects light."

Mom: "Anything else?"

"Um, I liked doing all my schoolwork."

Lucy's favorite part:

"I liked making my Goodnight Moon book." She also reminded me that she liked learning about the sun and really liked dirt cake.

This coming week we are taking a trip to an apple orchard on Monday and then finishing up some moon activities that I'll share in my next weekly summary. There are a few fun things that we didn't get to do yet. We will then start learning about leaves and the letter "L" for the rest of the week.

Week 3 - MFW K, Sun

Here are a few highlights from the week... (These are just some extra things we did along with our My Father's World curriculum. Click on the blog roll button on the right to see other MFW blogs.)

It was actually cloudy and cold all week, so we had trouble making a sundial and our grapes never shrank into raisins. One sun activity that worked for us was to put chocolate chips in a plastic bag and put them outside to melt. Once they were melted, we squeezed the chocolate out onto a cracker for a yummy snack.

Lucy enjoyed completing the "S" page in her Cuisinaire Rods book.

We are charting the weather on a graph for a few weeks:

We learned that the sun is a big star, so we did a few star activities as well. I put star stickers on black paper and the girls used a white crayon to connect them to make shapes. We looked at our star Fundana and then went outside at night to look at the stars.

Books we read:

Sun Up, Sun Down by Gail Gibbons - great information book!

Sun Bread by Elisa Kleven

Under the Sun by Ellen Kandoian

Bear Shadow by Frank Asch

What the Moon Saw by Brian Wildsmith

There's No Place Like Space by Tish Rabe

"S" in the Christian Liberty Nature Reader K (about snakes)

VHS - All About The Sun

What Lucy learned:

"Um, I learned about the letter S. And I learned about the sun."

Mom: "What did you learn about the sun?"

"How big it is (giant!)."

Mom: "What else did you learn about the sun?"

"That its hot. And about everything in my school."

Lucy's favorite part:

"Everything. Those little blocks, but I liked everything though." (Cuisinaire rods)

Preschool Games

I recently participated in a swap of Activities In A Bag where 20 of us got together and all made 20 of one kind of preschool activity and then swapped them. It was so much fun to come home and look through all of the preschool games! Each game is stored in a gallon sized zipper top plastic bag. I've continued the idea and put several more games in zipper bags and added them to my box. I'd highly recommend doing a swap or organizing one if you can find enough people who are interested. Here are some of the games that I made on my own...

Fishing - The idea is from here, with a few changes. I used brads for the magnetic part and wrote a lower case letter on each fish. There are also two of each color so that the game can be played several ways. The child can either name the letter on the fish that they caught, name the color of the fish, or try to find a matching color pair. For the fishing pole, I bought a dowel at Hobby Lobby and Ross drilled a small hole through it for the string. For the end, we hot glued the magnets together with the string in the middle. The string is a bit long, especially for Julia, but the girls both love "fishing".

The Very Hungry Caterpillar - I saw this idea here. I printed the pictures from the link given and then laminated them. The caterpillar is a green pipe cleaner and the fruit all have holes in them so that the child can string the food onto the caterpillar as the story progresses.

Star Counting - This idea was adapted from one of my Mailbox Magazine books. Since we are studying "sun" this week and "moon" next week I thought this would be a fun game to use. I put star stickers on small cardstock squares (1-10) and then made cards with only numbers on them. The child counts the number of star stickers on a card and then finds the corresponding number card. We are also going to use the number cards to practice counting backwards to "blast-off" into space. Of course I laminated the cards because I laminate everything.

Color Matching - This came from an idea that David Hazell of My Father's World mentioned on a cd I was listening to. He suggested getting paint chip cards from a home improvement store and cutting them up to make a color matching game. The different shades of each color are actually rather hard to distinguish, which makes this a challenging game. I punched the circles with a large punch and then laminated them all as well.

Story Dice - I absolutely love these! The idea is that the child rolls a few cubes and then has to come up with a story using the pictures on the dice. I got my inspiration here, and decided to use stickers for the pictures on mine. I bought wooden cubes at Hobby Lobby and then raided my sticker stash. I kept each cube to a topic - characters (Dora, a little girl, etc), things (a blender, a vase, etc), animals, weather and places, or transportation. Once I started making these I found myself searching every store I was in to find stickers that would work. I used Mod Podge, but it has stayed tacky, so I'm going to have Ross spray them all with a clear acrylic sealer spray. Lucy is very excited to use these and said she hopes to roll Dora every time so that she can tell me all kinds of stories about Dora.

Any other fun game ideas you've come across lately? We actually haven't used some of these yet, but I'm glad to have my box full of games available to pull out whenever I need them.

Week 2 - MFW K

We are using My Father's World Kindergarten as our preschool curriculum. This was week 2. Although I am not going to post everything we did (because most of it came straight from the teacher's manual), I will post some of the highlights. I plan to include any nature activities that I came up with, ideas I found on the internet and added to the week, or things that I made up. If you are using My Father's World (or even if you aren't homeschooling) I hope that this will be a fun peek into our homeschool days and maybe you will find some ideas you'd like to use. Some weeks will have more ideas posted than others, but I'll try to keep up with this!

This week we enjoyed a nature walk. I labeled plastic gallon size bags with a piece of tape that said "God made...". Lucy and Julia both enjoyed walking around collecting things that God made - sticks, small pinecones, grass, dandelions, pine needles, and more.

On Friday we started our Sun unit and cut pieces of yellow yarn (string because it starts with "S") and glued it to a big letter "S" that I drew on paper. The girls both loved snipping the yarn but didn't want to touch the glue to stick it on to the "S". We are just getting started with the Sun unit and I have lots more fun ideas coming up for this one next week.

Along with My Father's World, we are using Handwriting Without Tears. We began this week by just playing with the wooden pieces and placing them on the alphabet mats to create letters. I have the music cd as well so we listened to "The Hokey Pokey" and "Tap Big Lines" and followed the actions with our wooden pieces. This was a fun way to incorporate music into our day.

I posted last week about my weekly summary page and what that includes. Here is Lucy's answer this week to the questions I asked her:

What Lucy learned: "About "S". And, um, about what God made. And our nature walk. Thats not something I learned, but that's something I really liked."

Lucy's favorite part: "Um, all of it. Everything, I guess. My favorite part is all of it, but I think that's all."

This week was also Lucy's first ballet class. She was a bit nervous, but ended up enjoying it!

PS I just added a My Father's World Blog Roll button on the right hand side. Click on it to see a list of other MFW homeschoolers and what year they are on.