Winter

Extra school work in the winter can be a way to cure boredom when we can not spend a lot of time outside due to the weather. We sure do miss the warmth of the summer when we can spend lots of time outside. However it does mean we get more schoolwork done. We have taken advantage of this time to also explore our local science museum and children's museum.

Science Museum

 For our kids who struggle with fine motor we work hard to make sure we include things in their school day to help build on that and help them improve their skills. We do a lot of cutting and gluing and tracing.  Below you can see our daughter working on cutting and gluing numbers in the correct order. So we get some math work done at the same time as our cutting skills.

 We love our little white boards. The kids use them to help with math work so they are not having to write out the work on their notebooks. Then they can do the work on the whiteboard and then write their answer down in their books.

 Sometimes our young learners like to do the cutting and gluing work even if they have good fine motor skills.

 We have several papers that work on prewriting skills that some of our kids will work on before starting their actual work. This helps get their hands ready to write.

 Play is very important so we take several play breaks throughout the day.

 For our kids who really struggle with cutting I will cut things into groups of two, that way they do not destroy the paper and only have to cut in one spot. This helps them work on the skill without getting frustrated because they have cut it tiny pieces.

 We like making cooking and baking a part of our homeschooling as well.

 Building with blocks isn't just fun, they are learning balance as they stack them, about sizes and how a larger one will support the smaller ones, and so many other things.

 One of our favorite things are these boards!! The kids all love them and this little guy will often sit and scribble all over it. His scribbles have gotten better and better and now we are starting to write words without tracing!!

 And draw!!

 Our big girls enjoy learning how to cook on the stove.  They take such pride in being able to make their own scrambled eggs or pancakes.

 They are so proud when their hard work starts paying off.

 Let's Color workbook has a bunch of little pages that the kids can work on coloring in a certain area. I encourage them to stay in the white area and to fill it all up so no more white shows. They are in charge of picking the right colors and then double checking their work to make sure they did their best.

 As their coloring gets better they start to notice things like coloring in different directions works better when you are coloring some things vs others. Here our daughter discovered that she could use her crayon side to side with no paper on it to color in the grass below the tiger.

 These books  by Rod and Staff  are great for kids who are struggling with fine motor. These books are targeted to preschool and our son is working well beyond that but his handwriting is still at a preschool level. He enjoys being able to work on something that is easy and he can feel successful working on it even when the handwriting part is trickier for him. Knowing the answers already gives him the confidence to tackle the harder challenge of cutting and writing.

 We use Math-U-See with our kids

It is pretty new and they seem to like it enough that they will stand there wanting to do the work and have their turn to do math.

  Read Write Draw is a favorite handwriting program of some of our kids! Our daughter loves being able to draw new things and takes pride in her art and writing.

 

Our kids love sensory bins. We try to change them out often with things like seasonal colored rice with little decorative things to go in the sensory bin. Sometimes we might do beans in a sensory bin with some farm animals and farm people, sometimes we might get scrap paper and put in scissors and let them cut away, sometimes we might get sand, or just do water play, or water beads, or slime.

 To help strengthen the proper pencil hold you can get them to hold a small piece of eraser to wipe all the dry erase papers after they are finished writing.

 These two little ones built this puzzle by themselves!! After they got everyone to look they put it away nicely.

 Baking cookies

 We try to keep presents education but fun. He loved the wood kits he got and was so proud to be building it on his own.

 These two love making crafts.

 She has a love of coloring and it has really paid off with beautiful cursive handwriting

 When the weather is not too bad we try to go out on walks and hikes.

We hope everyone had a wonderful 2019 and their 2020 is off to a great start!
My mission this year with homeschooling is to work hard on rewriting our curriculum that we can add some lessons and activities that go along with the boy's Trail Life and the girl's American Heritage Girls badge requirements would be wonderful. There are so many wonderful things that they can learn by doing the badge requirements! Another goal I love with our homeschooling is to accept that due to our kids do better with shorter school days but year round schooling.
So many more things on the horizon and looking forward to all the wonderful adventures we have planned for this year.





 What our homeschooling day looks like.

I wake up in the morning, quickly wash my hair, then start the first load of laundry. We only have one bathroom so I wake up the kids in a certain order that way no one is trying to get into the bathroom at the same time. We have a couple of kids who are working on being overnight potty trained but we still have the occasional accident. Any child who has had an accident has to bring their clothes and sheets and covers to the laundry room so I can wash them, then goes and takes a shower. 

After everyone is up and dressed we have breakfast, the kids are all able to fix their own cereal, and get their own breakfast bars and our older girls can make things like pancakes and eggs on their own. I will cook eggs or pancakes for the other kids sometimes but most of the time they have cereal or oatmeal. After breakfast we do our morning chores. 

 Our kids do best when they can hear and see something they are learning about. Most of our kids are very big visual learners. So the kids get to watch a couple of videos about something we are learning about that day. Currently they are working on learning all the states and capitals, presidents, and learning how to say a few things in French, learn some French songs, and learn about France. They find it much easier to learn those kinds of topics when they can watch something and it has music. Afterwards we can review those topics by doing arts and crafts and reading books and then talking about what we learned. After they have finished a couple of educational videos and I have cleaned up from breakfast and started the next load of laundry, the kids have a play break. After they have gotten their wiggles out we get back to work. We will practice poems, bible verses, math facts, and then do a calendar time where we talk about choosing the correct clothing for the weather, recording the weather and feeling if it was hot or cold, cool or warm, and what the weather was, rainy or sunny or cloudy. We talk about the day of the week and months of the year and any holidays that we have that month. Sometimes however if the kids are playing very nicely, they will play until lunchtime and then we will start this after our lunch break.
Then we have lunch. While they are eating I read our science and social studies and history lessons or any of the read aloud books we are currently reading.
After lunch we try to go outside if the weather permits. If not we take a play break. I feel like our kids learn better if they have had play break after lunch before getting back to their studies rather when they would eat lunch then get back to studies right away.
I use their play time to get some things done around the house. From laundry to dishes or whatever else needs doing. 
After their play break, which could mean going on bike rides, or going for a walk, going to a park, going in the backyard and jumping on the trampoline or swinging on the swings. If the weather is bad they could swing on the indoor swing, or jump on the mini tamp, or just doing puzzles or playing with their toys.
Then we get back to work. Math, Handwriting, and anything not done earlier in the day gets covered or it goes back in their cubby for them to work on the next day.

Of course in between all of that are lessons that involve really stepping in and explaining how to make something to stepping back and knowing they can do it on their own. I was so proud when our daughter followed a recipe all on her own! Or things like sharing, taking turns, being patient, and caring, and being good to one another. And running a household, teaching children how to do different tasks by doing it with them. They love being helpers and learning along side of mom and dad. Somehow during all of the times we are doing schoolwork, we get other things done, like chores get done, food gets made, laundry, dishes, and other things like that get done. Somehow it all gets done and the house moves smoothly with those things.