Homeschool 2011-2012, part 5

Here are pictures of Gabe and Selah on their first day of Home School 2010-2011!!

We survived - and ENJOYED it!

I thought today would be a good day to talk curriculum...especially since I have had a day to actually use it!

Spelling:  I am using the 1st grade lists from K12reader.com. It uses a mix of word families and Dolch Sight words...it is kind of easy for him, but I think the extra spelling practice will be good when he is writing, even though they are on the easy side.

Math: Saxon Math, first grade. I like this program because it uses manipulatives and goes all the way to the high school years - so it is vertically aligned well. It also does a good job reviewing regularly. I used Saxon when I taught public school and the students really liked it, too.

Phonics: ProgressivePhonics.com - this is a free phonics program we started last year and lack about 5 weeks before completing the Advanced program. Gabe loves reading the silly stories and they do a great job making it interesting.

Grammar: First Language Lessons by Susan Wise Bauer.

Reading: Ambleside Online. This is also a free site with a week by week curriculum for each grade level. Each book is a classic and you can find most of them for free through Google's e-books!

History: The Mystery of History - I LOVE this book!!

Science: The Usborne Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Natural World, More Mudpies to Magnets, The Human Body: a first discovery book, Everybody Has a Body, and Extraordinary Plants by Taylor. These were all recommended by The Well Trained Mind.

Art: Drawing With Children by Mona Brooke

Spanish: DK Spanish book

Music: Gabe is learning theory through both violin and piano lessons.

Whew! The thing about curriculum choice is that there is now a lot for a homeschooling parent to choose from. It is easy to second guess your choice. Just remember that the curriculum is a basis for the education - not the be all, end all. When I taught, I didn't always get to choose the curriculum I taught from, but I used it as a guide. That is what I intend to do with my choices in home schooling curriculum, too!

Our day was great and gets me excited for a fun, enjoyable year teaching my biggest blessings!

Homeschool 2011-2012, part 4

What About Selah and Miguel?

I have had a lot of people ask what Selah and Miguel do when I am homeschooling Gabriel. Selah loves to have school work to do, too. I always have an activity/worksheet for her to do. Sometimes it is a coloring page, sometime it is a letter search, sometimes it is just a blank sheet of paper for her to doodle on. Selah is learning to identify letters and make the corresponding sound for each letter. She also learns the ASL sign for each letter as she is learning it. I have found some great (FREE) resources for her to use at www.confessionsofahomeschooler.com and www.abcjesuslovesme.com Usually Selah does her "school work" and then finds something to play with on her own. If she gets bored I let her watch an episode of Super Why on PBS or play on my iPod. Really, you would be suprised at how much of the school day she can participate in. She LOVES circle time and listening to the stories Gabriel is reading as part of his reading, phonics, history and science lessons.

Miguel is the tough one! Luckily he is a good napper! He naps for a good hour and a half in the morning during Gabriel's Math time and again in the afternoon. While he is awake, he plays by himself or is held by me. I'm looking forward to the time when he can pretend school like Selah or that he and Selah can play together. Until then, we just keep plugging along, getting what we can get done while he is happily playing or sleeping!

Homeschool 2011-2012, part 3

Our Homeschooling Style or Method

Trivum Pursuit!

After researching homeschooling I found out that there are many styles or methods of home schooling that you can choose for your children. It is actually very overwhelming at first. Eventually, Byron and I decided that we will give our children a Classical Education.

Classical home schooling is a very thorough approach to education, and  concentrates on language, thinking, reading, speaking and history. I will be using The Well Trained Mind by Susan Bauer and Jessie Wise as a structure to my teaching using the Trivium. The Trivuim is a term used to describe three levels of learning, The Grammer Stage, The Logic Stage and the Rhetoric Stage. By the time the children have graduated home school they will have gone through all aspects of history, literature, and science three times at three different levels of learning. We will be using a lot of classical books and literature as our curriculum. You can read more about Classical Education here:  http://www.welltrainedmind.com/classical-education/ 

Byron and I really like the structure and depth of the Classical Curriculum. It is going to take a lot of discipline and planning, but I think it will give our children a great education and go a long way in preparing them for college.

We will also be incorporating a little bit of the Charlotte Mason Method as well. 

Homeschool 2011-2012, part 2

Our Schedule for the 2011 - 1012 School Year

One of the beauties of homeschooling is the scheduling flexibility. I have set out our schedule for the year with a week long break almost every month rather than 3 long summer months off. If Gabriel is sick or we need to take a day off of school, we can put that day back in on one of the weeks off. If Byron gets a week off of work and we decided to take vacation, I can just move our week off around to fit Byron's schedule.

So here are our tentative school breaks:

August 29 - Sept 2

October 10 - 14

November 21 - 25

December 19 - 30

February 6-10

March 19-23

April 9-13

May 28 - June 1

We will do 3 day weeks in the month of June and then completely take July off.

This will give us 187 scheduled school days. Public schools schedule 180 days.

We're looking forward to a fun year!

Homeschool 2011-2012, part 1

For those of you who don't know yet, after a lot of praying and researching, Byron and I have decided to homeschool our children! We took a long time to come to our decision and we feel like homeschooling fits our family and is the best decision for us. So, on August 1st we will officiall start our homeschooling journey! (We actually started homeschooling in January 2010, but I wasn't really calling it that since Gabriel wouldn't actually enter Kindergarten for another year.) I am so excited to be back to teaching and especially excited that I get the priveledge of teaching my own children!!!

I have had so many people wonder what homeschooling looks like for us, how we are going to do it, and what we will be using that I have decided to write a series of posts on our homeschool this week. Today I would like to focus on our daily schedule. I have a pretty intense schedule lined out for Gabriel - but I know he is up for it. The good thing about homeschooling is that if this schedule isn't working, I can always change it. So with that being said, here is our intended daily schedule for the year!

7:00 – 8:00          Get up, get breakfast, get dressed

8:00 – 8:30         Music practice (violin or piano)

8:30 – 9:00         Collect materials and Circle Time

9:00 – 9:30         Handwriting/Journal/Spelling

9:30 – 10:30         Saxon Math

10:30 – 11:00         Break

11:00 – 11:30          Grammar and Phonics

11:30 – 12:00         Reading

12:00 – 12:30        Lunch

12:30 – 12:45        Break

12:45 – 1:15           History (MWF) Science (TTh)

1:15  – 1:35            Read-Aloud

1:35 – 2:15            Screen time

2:15 – 2:45           Free Reading

2:45 – 3:45          Art on Monday

                           Spanish on Tuesday and Wednesday

       School is over at 2:45 on Thursday and Friday

Pretty full day, huh! If I don't answer my phone between 8:00 and 2:45, you now know what I am doing! (Just a warning - I probably WON'T answer my phone during school time - just leave a voice mail - I promise I'll call back.)

My next post will describe a few of these things a little more - which curriculum we are using for each subject - and what "Circle Time" is exactly. I'll also post our yearly schedule (I am very excited about that, too), what Selah and Miguel do during school time and the style of homeschool we are going to be doing (bet you didn't know there were different styles!). Stay tuned!

Meet our Fish!

Get ready for a long involved story of our new pets....

Two weeks ago Byron and I decided that it might be fun for the kids to go to PetsMart. We have been tossing around the idea of getting some fish for awhile and Gabe has really been wanting a pet (really he wanted a lizard - but any pet would do). So we ended up getting an aquarium and three glo-fish. Gabe and Selah were soooo excited! By the time we got home that evening we had just enough time to set up the aquarium and then put the kids to bed.

Well, even though we followed all of the directions on conditioning the water and getting the fish used to the temperature, the ammonia level in our water must have been toxic to those poor fish. They didn't even make it 30 minutes in the new aquarium. We spent the rest of the week taking water samples into PetsMart trying to get the levels right before bringing anymore fish home.

Finally our levels seemed good and we brought home two new fish - although we decided to get goldfish this time.

Introducing Dorsey (the one with the orange spot) and Rachel:

Funny story - On the way home from the pet store Gabriel said, "My fish must be a girl. It was the prettiest fish in the aquarium. I think I will name it Rachel - but without the 'Aunt'."! My sister was very flattered!!



I was so proud of how patient Gabe and Selah were about waiting until the water was just right for the fish. They have been helping feed and take care of them and have loved their new pets!

Cow Appreciation Day 2011

Last year a sweet friend of mine introduced us to Chick-fil-A's annual Cow Appreciation Day. We here at the Serna House LOVE Chick-fil-A. It is not really on Gabe's Gluten-Free diet, but every once in a while we let him splurge on their chicken nuggets. The thing about Gabe's "allergy" is that it is not really an allergy - it is a sensitivity and though we have seen major improvement in his asthma and eczema since starting the diet, an occasional break in his diet doesn't seem to bother him. We have read that there are different levels of sensitivity in people that are gluten sensitive and we are lucky that his sensitivity isn't dramatic. So this year we again dressed up as cows to celebrate Cow Appreciation Day!

Aren't my calves cute!!!

Our herd:

If you haven't heard of Cow Appreciation Day, here's the details. It is the first Friday in July every year and is a day to celebrate Chick-fil-A's customers. If you go to a participating restaurant dressed as a cow you get your ENTIRE order for FREE!!! Yes- very worth the slight humiliation you may feel dressing as a cow! We enjoy getting our costumes together every year and just being silly! Such fun!!