I thought I’d take a little time to share with you some of the things we’re doing for school this year with each of our boys. We’re working hard around here, gearing up for a new school year. I figure I need to organize my thoughts and plans anyway…I may as well type them out here and bore you with all the details. Or excite you with the possibilities. Or a little bit of both. ;)
I’ll start with Malachi, our littlest guy who will officially begin kindergarten this year. Of all my boys, he’s the one I’ve done the least “formal schooling” with because there simply hasn’t been time. (Or I haven’t made the time.) Want to know a little secret? It doesn’t matter. He does not appear to be suffering any damage from the fact that I was rarely able to sit down and talk about colors and shapes with him. He has somehow learned many of these lessons with or without me as he’s hung out with his brothers while they were learning.
And yet, I feel that it is important for me to begin to work with Malachi one-on-one for a little bit each day now that he is showing interest in learning to read and do math. In fact, he began to show so much interest in reading early in the summer that I pulled out my very favorite book and started teaching him to read!! Three cheers for getting a head start on the school year with Malachi!! We’ve started going through Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons and Malachi is SO eager and doing SO well, that we’re already on Lesson 48! I’m so thankful that reading seems to be coming easily for him….and can I just give a big shout out for Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons?!
This is the book I’ve used to teach all four of my boys to read and I just LOVE it. It doesn’t work for everyone, but somehow it has worked for all of our children. It’s simple, the lessons take just a few minutes to work through, and they are so easy for the parent to guide the child toward reading. The child usually sees success within the first few lessons as they learn to put simple words together. Confidence grows because suddenly they have figured out how to put letter sounds together to make a word!! Oooh, I love those light bulb moments!
Once we work our way through Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons, I’ll pull out our collection of Bob Books for him to work through.
For math, I’m going to try going through the first Miquon Math book with him. I’ve loved the Miquon Math books for the early grades, simply because they teach math in a way that makes sense. It may appear to be a little bit backward compared to they way we normally see math taught…but it helps the child understand the concepts. I love it.
Beyond reading and math…I’ll be reading some great read-alouds to Malachi and doing some phonics lessons using Explode the Code books.
AND…we’re very excited because we’ll be using Learn Your Letters, Learn to Serve with Malachi (and the whole family) as we pick someone to serve each week, working our way through the alphabet. I’ll be buying Malachi a little notebook so that we can journal about who we serve and what we did. We’ll also be working through the memory verses in the kit and doing various other activities mentioned. I’m so excited to revisit this, since the last time we did something this thorough with our alphabet service was when Justus was three. Justus is ten now. Wow. :)
That about wraps up Malachi’s school year plans. Stay tuned to hear what Elias, Justus and Asa will be working on. And while I’m at it, I may as well “type out loud” as I figure out a schedule for this year. Because somehow, we will get it all done. Or not. Or whatever. ;)
Brook says
As a former Kindergarten teacher, I fully support the use of Explode the Code! Because of my background, Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons was a bit ackward for me when I attempted to use it a few years ago with our five year old foster son. The other two books look really interesting though and I’ll keep them in mind if we ever have a foster kiddo to homeschool!
Julie H says
Love reading what others are doing…not boring at all! :) We loved ETC for Kindergarten and are continuing to use them for 1st grade this year. I only have my first grader and a toddler (early Pre-K) to plan for. I am amazed at moms who plan on several children’s school years….many blessings to you!
Julie
Crystal says
I love reading homeschool stuff too! I have a 4 year old who won’t start Kindergarten for 2 more years but we’re doing alot of preK activities. I like to keep a list of ideas from others who are or have done Kindergarten. This year will be the first year I do a more structured PreK with him. We just got a few of the Kumon workbooks. Although, I’m not a huge fan of workbooks, my son is super excited about them!
Rhonda says
100 Easy Lessons was wonderful to use with my older girls! Now they have both graduated from college, so it’s been around for a while:) We also used Rod and Staff’s Workbooks for times when I needed one child to have some “busy work” while I worked with the younger children. Malachi will have an exciting Kindergarten year Laura, and the older boys will love helping him!
Carie says
I just reserved the Teach reading book at our library, can’t wait to see if this would work in our family, thanks for sharing!
Heather says
you have an award waiting for you!
http://outtatheboxintothekitchen.blogspot.com/2010/07/more-blog-awards.html
Miracle Quelle says
I’m amazed at how much they learn when you’re not looking! I’ve never used 100 Easy Lessons, but I love the Bob books. Great to get them reading right away.
Sarah says
I’m so glad to see that I’m not the only mom who’s just getting around to figuring out how this school year is going to work. Thanks Laura! That makes me happy! The main problem is, I really want to start in a couple weeks (the beginning of August – ish) because we’ve got a new addition to our family coming in October and I want to have the flexibility to take the month off to get adjusted, if we want, and still not be in school till July :-). Thanks for the encouragement!
Tamara says
I got “Teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons” from the library to try with my 5 year old. It is pretty unusual but I am giving it a good try. The only thing that is blowing my mind is the writing section at the end of each lesson. The book starts with m and s, which aren’t too terribly hard to write but then in lesson 3 it moves on to a lowercase “a” – written in that unusual type “a”, not just a circle with a line coming off like you usually see at school.
My son can’t write any letters really so he certainly can’t write this one. I was just going to have him try them a few times for the experience but it seems really discouraging esp since they do lowercase and start with the hardest letters.
I wonder if the writing component is key to the reading part.
Laura says
I actually hardly ever do the writing lesson at the end! I forgot it was there. It is good, but not necessary. Most of my boys have been able to learn to read before they could write.
Also, when teaching your kids to write their letters…use whatever letter style you want. I would NEVER teach my kids that funky a…way too difficult. Just teach him to write it how YOU want him to write it!
Tamara says
Thanks! That is kind of what I was thinking. Writing is a bit too tough for my little one right now.
The reason I was concerned was because they make a big deal
out of exactly following the program/script in order for it
to work.
I think I will skip the writing as well then…
Thanks so much for your response!