Homeschooling Week 1

What a spectacular first week Bug and I have add with school.  So many activities that he was jazzed about and wanted to participate in.

I won't lie, he was NOT happy about it being the first day on the 2nd, and made it very clear he was NOT going to be a good sport about it.  But after he saw the activities I had planned he softened up and I think realized I was not joking when I said we had some fun stuff planned this year.

In the state of Washington we have 11 subjects we must cover in the time we are schooling.  

And I am trying to cover them all.  Some overlap and some came be more flexible but there is a few that need daily work.  Knowing my son and his learning style and his skills, I have decided we will focus on Math and Writing on an almost daily basis.  The other 9 subjects will be covered through out the school year for sure but not on a daily basis.  

I have picked Mammoth Math for this year.  It might not work out completely but I thought it would be a good thing to try out.  There is not lessons to do before hand.  It is all workbook based, and I think this might be a better fit for my son right now.  What I have learned with him over the past few years, he is not up for lessons on how to do a math problem and then get the work to do.  He would tell me - I already did this when we were learning it.  He is much more likely to cooperate if he is learning as we go.  So we will try this Math for this year.  So far we are doing review only.

But I have to make a shout out~ my son has finally learned how to line up numbers neatly to add them!  Columns!!!  

Such nice neat numbers!  This mommy is proud!

During school time sometimes we get visitors!

Our kitty Pepe' wanting to help bug out with his work!  And get a rub behind his ears too.

Art totally fell into place this week.  So, for history we learned about Australia and about the Aborigines who lived there.  I was able to find a book called "Bat and Crocodile" and this book is an Aboriginal Dreamscape Story.  It was illustrated with kids art work in the Aboriginal style.

Bug loves BATS and ALLIGATORS!  *I do plan on learning more about each of these animals this year*

Our Homeschool Mascot is a BATAGATOR.  LOL  A creation by Bug.

So you can only imagine how excited I was to find this book, and the fact that it was about Australian Aborigines.  But this excitement does not end.  I was surfing around on YouTube for some art projects.  This year I want us to go back to how fun ART was before school started.  When Bug was little we did art projects all the time.  There was NO RIGHT or WRONG way...he just had fun.  Over the 3 yrs with the curriculum we used with the state virtual public school we lost the fun, and freedom of art.  I want to go back to when Bug was little, and just have fun.  So, like I said, I was on YouTube looking for some simple young art to do, and I came across a channel called Home Art Studio.  She has lessons on DVD's with art projects.  And on her channel she has some free lessons.  And get this, I found an art lesson on Aboriginal ART!

So after the week of learning about Australia and Aborigines he read the book and then watched the video on the lesson and created his own Aboriginal Style ART.

I AM so proud of my son.  I will be honest, it was not as easy as I had thought it was going to be  getting to the end project.  My son tried two different times to start painting the shape of his hand.  He got angry that it did not look like how the teachers looked in the video. He got up set and ran to his bedroom and was crying.  Called himself names and said he would never be able to do it.   He has fine motor issues and pencil grasp is a huge issue for him.  He holds it way to tight and in a stressed position.  I have tried correcting that but have given up over time.  He is more inclined to do his work (write) when he is holding the pencil/pen how he can instead of worrying how he should be holding it.  He will shut down quicker if I correct him.  But look at that picture above!  That is his third attempt after me reassuring him that it was beautiful work.  And reminding him that I am not saying that just because I am his mother.  I am saying it as his teacher.  He did exactly what the assignment was.  It worked hard, and accomplished a difficult task.  And I think it turned out pretty awesome.

He was so proud of himself after wards that at Occupational Therapy this week he showed his Therapyst.  She was SHOCKED...and told him how BEAUTIFUL it was!  I think she was pretty impressed on how much he did!

Science this year we are going to cover 4 topics.

Habitats

Animal Kingdoms

Human Body

Space

We are starting with Habitats and this week we began with The Tundra.  We have some books we are using and filling in blocks of information about each Habitat.  I also have a Mobil idea planned for him to add to with each Habitat he learns about.  I was hoping to find some Bill Nye videos on YouTube.  I had, but then they closed the channel. I am in the search for away to try and make it a bit more visual and not just tons of reading.

Lastly this week we attending the HomeSchooling group P.E. day.  Fridays we will be attending this group. The 1 & 3 Friday will be P.E., 2nd Friday will be upper grades ART, and 4th Friday will be Science (Human Body).   We arrived at the community center where the P.E. activity and were surprised we were the first ones there, but that quickly changed.  Tons and Tons of kids showed up!  Bug began running around with the kids as they came into the gym area.  After a few mins they organized some games.  It brought tears to my eyes to watch my son interact respectfully and in a positive attitude with boys his age.  There were a few girls, but mostly boys!

Bug asked today when he gets to go back to P.E.!  I am happy to hear that!

Some other positve things about this week was writing.  I have found tons of ideas on Pintrest on ideas for journal writing. I want Bug to do more writing in general.  With no one to judge and critique how he is writing or what he is writing about.  I feel that he has lost out on this opportunity for free expression.  So this year I have scheduled more journal writing time.  This past week I showed him a book that gave ideas to write about, and then on Thursday I informed him that I wanted him to look up MineCraft quotes, and to copy 1 or 2 of them.  My son's eyes bugged out.  MineCRAFT!!!  My son loves Minecraft.   He was jazzed about the idea and got on the internet to look for some quotes.  He was so excited about this lesson that he took it one step further and wrote his top 5 favortie quotes about Minecraft.  He then added a bonus one!  So six quotes total.  And he did not type these quotes up, he wrote them in his journal.  Practicing his handwriting.  :)  Sneaky MOMMY!

The other thing that was a huge success was MUSIC.  I have him using a website called Easy Peasy All in One Homeschooling curriculum.  They have tons of lessons.  Simple too.  He once again was reluctant to do music, but I showed him what we were doing and he had a blast.  He got to make his own music using the sounds of nature.  

It was a great WEEK.  I have spent most of today organizing next week.  I hope it turns out half as good as this week.