And we're back on track ....

Day 1 Tuesday

Today we officially started back at school here at home.  The rest of the local kids started last week so we intentionally took the extra time to just relax.  It's always a little unnerving to wonder if Charlie and J, our other little 4 yr old guest, will transition smoothly back into our "school" routine.  Things went pretty good.

We started our morning over pancakes by playing with the new c-v-c  Flashcard Slide, See, and Say I got from Barnes & Noble.  These are put out by InnovativeKids.  We'll be using lots of items and books from their Now I'm Reading series this year. 

For pencil practice we started in our HWT Kindergarten lvl book, as well as writing and going over #1 as a review of numbers.

This year we will be traveling the USA for our unit/book studies.  We'll be reading books for each state from the Gale Discover America Series and lots of good picture books set in the various states.  To start the whole thing off we'll read, and make a lapbook from HSS, How To Make A Cherry Pie and See the U.S.A by M. Priceman.

Day 2 Wednesday

Things still seem to moving smoothly forward.  We've started listening to the 1st Harry Potter, something of a new fascination of Charlie's.  Charlie read the 1st book in the Bob Series, out loud to us after morning snack.  We then moved into the school room to go over the calendar and weather, and to reread How to make a cherry pie...  Today we concentrated on the different states the character traveled to and then marked the route on a little map for our lapbook.

For pencil work we traced our name, concentrating on proper pencil grip and then drew a picture of ourselves.  We also traced, drew, colored, and then counted squares on a train picture.

Now it's time to relax and play!

As Summer Comes to a Close

Summer 2010 Slide Show 

It's been a very busy summer!  I think we'll be getting back to schooling (and blogging about it) right after the long holiday weekend.  But until then,  let's take a quick look back at what we've been up to.
We visited many fun places:
     The Museum of Science in Boston
     Imagine That in Lawrence
     Franklin Park Zoo in Boston
     Audubon Society in Auburn, NH
     The See Science Museum in Manchester, NH
     The Children's Museum in Boston

We've played at the beach, many different parks, and discovered the Derry Splashpad.  We met new and old friends alike,  participated in the library summer program, and became involved in a local homeschooling support group.  Letterboxing has also been a new discovery.

Charlie has become enthralled with STAR WARS and LEGOS!  If we were not paparticipating all the fun things, previously mentioned,  he could be found building with Legos, reenacting the different Star Wars scenes, watching 1 of the 6 movies from the series, or looking at books about Star Wars he would take out from the library.

On a final note ... my major goal this past year/summer has been getting Charlie to the point where he is no longer needing to wear PullUps.  I'm happy to say, for the most part, we've reached that milestone!!!

We're back from our short break

Well we're back!  Last week we took a break from "preschool" to enjoy the 1st real hot days of the season.  We have finished up our garden unit and lapbook, now we just need to wait until we can pick yummy veggies.

We will be finishing up any loose ends ie: HWT and beginning our summer fun.  The first half of summer we will be learning about dinosaurs.  We'll keep it fun and light while we enjoy the summer sun.  Then round about mid-July we'll move from dinos to dragons for just a bit before we transition into knights.

More about those plans will come in their own posts.

Preschool in the Spring

Today was "S" day.  Since it was such a gorgeous day out we felt our preschool time would be much more enjoyable outside. Anyone who is familiar with HWT will recognize all that we were doing.

  First we used our wood pieces and made the letter "S" which we also then traced with our finger. 

Second, we chose to use the play dough set instead of the chalkboards to roll Snakes out and shape them into "S"s.

Next and finally the real work ... writing our "S" on our workbook page.

Of course there is no better way to end a lesson than making our own Sock puppet.  Our sock puppets then enjoyed some great time in the Sun while swinging on the Swings. 

Postcards from ...

We've been collecting postcards from other homeschool kiddos for about a month.  This was started as a way to introduce Charlie to the idea that the world is a bigger place than just here in NH.  Next year we'll be learning a little about the 50 states by just reading books set in various states, finding them on a map and where they are in relation to us.

This is our postcard collection so far.  Although this is mainly to learn about the USA, some postcards are from overseas.  Australia is the furthest but we also have cards from Greece and Italy!

The running list from "the states" is:  California,Washington, Maryland, Washington D.C., Texas, Georgia, Colorado, Nebraska, and even from here in New Hampshire.

Hopefully we'll find other like minds that would like to exchange post cards from the remaining states or anywhere else for that matter.  Charlie loves getting mail addressed to him! ! !

A Bittersweet Moment

I'm still trying to wrap my head around this one.  The TV show Arthur has a new character named Carl.  We only watch it periodically so we really didn't know about him.  Yesterday, Charlie was watching it and 1 of the characters was explaining his friend Carl's odd behavior in a child-friendly way.  Charlie was mesmerized.  Near the end of the episode, Charlie suddenly says to me,

 "Mom I sometimes have Asperger's like Carl and sometimes people don't know that.  Sometimes that's my worst day ever."

That was such a bittersweet moment, it nearly took my breath away.  We've never told Charlie he has Asperger's Syndrome but some how he was able to relate to Carl.  Now I'm sure he's overheard us on occasion discussing Asperger's so maybe just seeing it portrayed on television in an age-appropriate manner made it clearer to him.

As for the last part "the worst day ever," that's what Charlie says when he's really frustrated and seems to be having trouble getting his meaning across.  It's usually the precursor to a meltdown.

looking toward next school year

As we work on finishing up the school year here, it's time to start looking at choices and plans for next year.  We'll be moving on to the kindergarten level book with HWT for handwriting practice.  We'll also keep moving forward with our Funtastic Frogs for math practice.  I received this set mid-year from a friend and we really enjoy it.  Charlie has already learned what "on the hour" ie: 6:00, time looks like on a regular clock so we'll introduce more as the year goes.  Near the holiday season I'll also start introducing money into his curriculum and "practice shopping" with play money for gifts ;-).  For reading/phonics, I'm working with Phonics Pathways  , also given to me by a fellow HSer, and continuing to use the Bob Books.  Well that takes care of the basics, now what?

I asked Charlie what he wants to learn about and here are his selections ... knights & castles, space & astronauts, dinosaurs & paleontologists, pirates, and the rain forest & animal rescuers.  Do you see a pattern here?  I see a lot reasons to play-act many different roles, which, of course means lots of costumes.  Charlie LOVES playing different characters. 

Now to find lots of ideas to build units that will include a little science, geography and history, as well as plenty of good read-alouds.  I'm sure there will be tons of messy projects and lots of re-enactments to go along with everything.