Weight: 42 lbs.
Clothing size: 5T/6
Shoe size: 11/12
Favorite shows: Mario, Fairytale Forest, Mighty Machines
Hobbies: video games, playing with friends, math, cooking, baking, making his sister mad
being a model at Auburn
My favorite words:
Multiple-cation = multiplication
woosuawy = usually
concrete minser = concrete mixer
I caved to peer pressure and did one of those chalkboard signs. And then Mika didn't want to be left out of any homeschool stuff, so she got a sign and a bookbag too. (She also broke some $50 statue thing at Hobby Lobby when we went to go get the chalkboards...ugh.)
School Stuff:
We started kindergarten on August 17 and have finished 90 days of school (as of Dec. 11). We do reading, writing, and math almost every day, even on weekends.
(Disclaimer: I realized that this section is going to sound like I'm trying to sell you Usborne. I don't work for Usborne, I just think their brand is one of the best and I buy it often. The Usborne, Kumon, and DK brands are my favorites.)
Math: We do Miquon, and he is almost done with the second book. I try to get him to use manipulatives like unifix cubes or base ten blocks, but most of the time he wants to do the work mentally. He is learning how to use a calculator. He loves doing Kumon books. We also talk about random math things, like very large numbers (million, billion, trillion, etc.). He kept asking me how many zeroes those numbers had, so I eventually just made him a book with numbers from ten to decillion so he wouldn't ask me anymore. He asks me so many math problems, being around him can feel like a twelve-hour long math quiz every day. He has been going through a Monopoly phase for a couple months where we have to play a game almost every day. It used to be my favorite game and now...not so much. But I put up with it because it is excellent addition and subtraction work for single-, double-, and triple-digit numbers.
Reading: He reads from McGuffey readers and random books from the library. I don't know what reading level he's at (I guess first grade?), whatever Dr. Seuss books and similar ones are. Paul and I read to him everyday. Sometimes kids' books, sometimes kid versions of classics. I also bought What Your Preschooler Needs to Know, What Your Kindergartner needs to know, What Your First Grader Needs to Know, and What Your Second Grader Needs to Know. The kids like it when I read to out of those books at meal times. I also noticed that reading to them while they eat decreases bad behavior.
Writing: His handwriting is getting much better. I think a stranger could read his numbers and many of his words. We are going through some workbooks for writing practice and so I can make sure I'm covering my bases with different subjects. We are doing Mastering Basic Skills Grade 1, Brain Quest Grade 1, Comprehensive Curriculum of Basic Skills Grade 1, and Curious George Adventures in Learning Grade 1. I also got him Everyday Success Grade 1 at a garage sale, but not sure if we'll do that one or not.
Science: I usually pull random experiments out of some Usborne books- Science Activities, volumes 1-3 and 365 Science Activities. I try to get Paul to do these whenever he's available because he is better at explaining things. We also do cooking and baking which is great for math and science. We also watch science DVDs. They especially love Bill Nye.
Social Studies: We read books about people and past societies. I got the Usborne Time Traveler book. We read out of that, other books around the house, and books from the library.
Art: I'm sad that he doesn't care as much about painting and stuff and Mika does. We go to art museums and look at books with artwork in them. I got him the Usborne What Shall I Draw? book and we have worked through some of it together. I also got the Usborne pack of Famous Paintings and we have been going through that together. We've also been reading from the Usborne Book of Famous Artists.
Music: He also doesn't care as much about music as Mika does. Although he does really enjoy it when I pull out Usborne's Famous Composers Reference Book and Classical Music Reference Book. It's nicely set up where you can read just enough for a small child's attention span and then scan a QR code to listen to the music it's talking about. I just bought The Story of the Orchestra by Robert Levine and we're going to go through that. I also want him to start piano this school year.
Spanish and French: I borrow a bunch of Spanish and French DVDs from the library and they watch them in the car. The really like Little Pim. I also sometimes read them books in Spanish.
P.E.: The kids at the public school in my neighborhood get P.E. once a week, so I try to get the kids to my gym one to three times a week so they can do P.E. there. They do a lot of typical elementary school things in the child care center, like dodgeball, red light green light, basketball, etc. Jackson also likes riding his bike on the trail near our house and in our neighborhood. He did gymnastics over the summer, and I think he'll do the next level two levels next semester.
Field Trips: I try to do a bunch of field trips, both by ourselves and with our PTA group. We go to botanical gardens, art museums, nature centers, science museums, children's museums, etc. He is really into learning about presidents, and he got to go to Washington D.C. with my mother-in-law.
Social Stuff: I make sure he is around other kids a lot because the first thing out of people's mouths when I told them I was homeschooling was the lack of socialization. He goes to Sunday school and the church nursery on Sundays, child care at my gym for P.E. (and he gets to play with old preschool friends and friends from MOPS), and we have MOPS twice a month. We do storytimes at the library, and we go on field trips with our PTA. We also do playdates. I would say that he's around other kids...probably five or six days a week.
Kumon books he has finished since we started in August:
Writing Words
Simple Sentences
Weight
Length
Telling Time
Counting Coins
Dollars and Cents
My First Book of Drawing
Multiplication
Amazing Mazes: Animals
Amazing Mazes: Things That Go
Volume
He also did Lollipop Logic (not a Kumon book).
He still begs me for more of those Kumon books. He likes looking at the books on the back, counting the ones he's completed, and planning which ones he will do next. He calls them by the names of the animals on the covers and not what they're about. Another disclaimer: he doesn't do all these Kumon books because he's a high-achiever, he does them because I have a rule that he has to do two Kumon pages per every Mario Kart course he wants to play. I know I wouldn't keep track of a time limit, so this is how I put a limit on the video games.
cooking with his Batman apron
Miscellaneous:
- All he wants to do is talk about Mario. He won't see Paul for a week, but the second after he greets his Daddy- Mario chat time.
- He likes to video chat with Paul and take the phone around the house, point it at random things, and ask Paul where the phone is.
- He ALWAYS has to correct me. Always. If I say, "It's 6:05," he'll say, "No, Mom. It's 6:06."
- I will not lie and say it is easy to be home with him. Everything I say has to be corrected, negotiated, or whined about. He and Mika are constantly fighting. I thought I'd want to homeschool them for a few years...NOPE! They're both going to regular school next year. I realized that staying home is rewarding but hard, and I have reached my limit. And that it is ok to feel that way about my children. Really, I don't think there is anyone, even an adult, I would want to be around 24/7 and I don't think there is anyone who would want to be around me 24/7. So they will go to school to be with their friends and I will stay home and keep my sanity. And hopefully I'll have a baby next year so that'll take up a lot of my time anyways.
Jackson was Batman and Mika was Ariel (this was at Paul's company Halloween party).
