Progress report and review: RightStart Math

I am so pleased with RightStart Math. We are using the 2nd ed. of level B and are on lesson #63/140.

I do get why some moms are a little intimidated by the teacher-intensive aspect of it. You are doing a lesson one-on-one with the child, and they may have a worksheet here and there to do independently but for the most part it involves the teacher's direct attention.

I get that some would prefer math to be more independent. Hand the child a worktext or DVD course, let them do the work and then check/review with them later.

For some situations, that model makes plenty of sense. For me and my purposes right now, I absolutely want math to be one-on-one. More intense, yes. More work on my part, well sure. As we get on down the road and I'm adding more independent work for my eldest, I think I'd rather have other subject areas be more independent, vs. make changes to what we're doing with math (as I see it from this point). I trust RightStart and I'm going to make it work.

If you're juggling multiple levels of RightStart at once, spread across a few children, this is a helpful post on ideas on how to get it done.

A typical RightStart day starts with a "warmup" which is a very quick review and verbal mental math to get the child in math mode. It also helps review concepts and see if there are areas that need more work. It's quick. My son sometimes complains: "I know this already!" "I know. It's just a few problems. Do them with a good attitude so we can move on to what's new for today."

The warmups are so helpful, as they are fairly quick and painless reviews on topics. I do not recommend skipping them in level B. Maybe level A, if it is so very clear that the child knows it forwards and backwards.

The lesson begins, and we might use the abacus, square plastic tiles, a geoboard, whatever. The RightStart manipulatives kit has a wide variety of items, and all that we've used so far have been well-made and effective.

There might be a worksheet, and sometimes I'm instructed to let my child do it independently. Sometimes I'm instructed with various prompts as he does it. The worksheets are concise. You aren't doing pages of the same thing.

Often, the TM will include a game to use as additional learning and practice. RightStart says 15 minutes of playing a math game is roughly equivilent to doing a worksheet. Except, they aren't doing a worksheet, they are doing a game! YAY!

I find it easy to gloss past the games and not do them, and that is a practice I need to remedy. The games do provide practice in important areas. It is a part of the program and it isn't considered optional. I think the main hangup, is sometimes it takes us a little bit to figure out the rules of the game. It can take awhile to play, and sometimes the setup (usually a card game) is suddenly very enticing to my 2nado.

Some RightStart families handle this by doing regular RS lessons 4 days a week, and doing all the suggested games on the 5th. Or, having dad play the games with the kids. OR, siblings playing games with each other. OR, popping on a video/giving the 2nado a usually off-limits toy and playing the game out of her reach.

We had to slow waaay down a few lessons back, when we were doing place value to the thousands. RightStart did a great job of making the child understand what was going on with the base 10 system. I had no problem slowing it down, because I think it helped my child ruminate on what was going on. By the end of that cluster of lessons, he totally got it and was adding 4-digit numbers with ease. Hoo-ah!

Now, we're back to one lesson per day. I've noticed that these lessons are quick and seem simple to him, which is a nice mental break.

He really enjoys this program and I am so thrilled.

We will continue onward at his pace, whether that's one lesson per day, or one per week, doing just a portion at a time. And yes, I need to find a way to make sure the games happen more or less as scheduled.

1st grade quarter-end progress report: Handwriting

I thought I'd break down how various subjects are going around here, as we're roughly a little more than a quarter of the way done with 1st grade. I'll start with handwriting.

My son completed Handwriting Without Tears K a short while back, and we've moved on to copy work.

He just finished the last of the copy work selections from Simply Charlotte Mason's Delightful Handwriting. I knew it wouldn't take long, but I'm glad I purchased the pdf anyway, because I will likely use it with my girls.

I liked the poem, fable and bible verse within. I asked him to do a page per day in his best effort. At this font size, it's 10-15 words at most. I like that it's effortlessly adding punctuation, capitalization, spacing, and spelling. Also, copying real, quality sentences is so much better than meaningless word lists.

SCM offers a free mega copy work printable when you sign up for one of their email lists. I have that, and I might use that for more copy work while I figure out where to go from here.

Right now, I think he needs the copying model directly on the page so he can better gauge spacing and size. Eventually though, I hope to have him copying from some other source into a notebook of some kind.

Eventually, we'll add on cursive.

For his handwriting, I typically have been handing him his page for the day while I'm gathering our math or reading materials and looking through those to know the lesson of the day.

September update and time for some tweakin'

Well, we've logged 32 days of 1st grade -- time for some updates! I started our count on July 1 to capture any field trips, test-the-waters-on-the-new-curriculum days, and some unschooling days where plenty of learning happened. We started with our more regular routine in early August.

My purpose was to bank some days early on because we are taking most of December off. Add in some sick days and the sort, and here we are. By the way, we are on cold #2 since July 1. Pfft! Not that bad. Just annoying.

I am using OneNote to organize my lesson plans and keep records. I LOVE IT. Sort of similar in some ways to Evernote, but OneNote seems better to me for creating notes. Evernote, I prefer for clipping items from the web. I ought to write more about OneNote in the near future.

For now, the subjects we're doing and how they're going:

Math: RightStart B 2nd. ed.: Today, we completed lesson #26 "adding 10 to a number." We're switching gears from a few lessons prior, where we worked with quadrilaterals, right triangles and parallel and perpendicular. I love the built-in review with the warm-up activities, the fairly infrequent worksheets (that actually are beneficial; not busywork!), the card games to drill and practice, and the varying nature of our days. I like changing it up vs. sticking with the same thing day in and day out. I feel that level B is certainly more meaty than level A (makes sense) and I think this is giving J a solid foundation. It is going really well!

A few weeks ago, J thought it would be fun to start with 1+2 = 2, then go 2+2 = 4, then 4+4=8 and so on. He got up to 512 (in his head!!) and then I suggested we move to the white board to keep track of it. I showed him how I was taught to carry the 1 when adding from the ones moving left, and he understood -- but whoops. That is not the RightStart way. They want to make sure the student understands what is actually happening and WHY we are doing that. Their approach is different and we haven't yet reached that lesson.

Phonics: All About Reading level 3: Midway through lesson 17. Just keepin' on our normal here. Not using the tiles, not using the worksheets, heh! They just don't seem necessary for this particular child, but I may use them for the girls later on. I *do* use the workbook's fluency pages, but we don't remove them from the book. I am fairly confident he will complete this level at some point during this school year, and I am unsure if I will purchase the final level, or if I will use my Phonics Pathways book to touch on the final phonograms, and have him just read aloud to me as fluency practice. Will decide later.

Recently, I gave him an option to read aloud from a story book to me or do a reading lesson. He read The Tale of Peter Rabbit to me on one occasion, and a Billy and Blaze book on another. I thought he would really enjoy the Billy and Blaze series. I think he sort of does, but didn't have interest really to read more. Shrug.

Read-alouds: Pulling from our nature study and history selections, library books and also some misc. lit. We are enjoying A Children's Book of Virtues and one crowd-pleaser within it was "St. George and the Dragon," a story about a brave princess AND a brave knight.

I am not satisfied with my own understanding and appreciation of Shakespeare, so I want to work on that for myself and my children. We read an illustrated children's book retelling A Midsummer Night's Dream, and the kids loved it. I know there are different approaches to Shakespeare, but personally I like the thought of getting familiar with the characters and stories before diving in to his original works. I also grabbed a K

Handwriting: J finished his Handwriting Without Tears K book and was thrilled to be done with that one. Me, too. The font isn't my favorite. We aren't continuing with their 1st grade level. Instead, I purchased Simply Charlotte Mason's ebook, Delightful Handwriting. We jumped ahead in that book to their first copywork selections -- "The Rain" by Robert Louis Stevenson; next is a very short fable; last is a Proverb. There's only around a dozen pages of this (we do one page per time in his very best handwriting, erasing mistakes). SCM offers some free copywork pages too, and I will likely put them to use. Whoa, 360 free pages!

Nature study: I want to strongly recommend the book "Outdoor Secrets" by Margaret P. Boyle. Oh, what a gem. We've only read the first four stories, and have enjoyed them so much! Fictional stories about say, a century plant, but plenty of factual info woven in. Or in "The Uninvited Guest," we learn more about the earthworm. I bought the ebook from Simply Charlotte Mason, but it looks to be available in the public domain here. I also have their companion guide -- simple activities, poetry and such to go along with the stories as we choose. When we were discussing earthworms, we also read about them in A Handbook of Nature, and went out in our yard to find some (Vivie helped us with that task; she knew right where to go. Atta girl!).

Ancient history: Hmm. This one is being modified somewhat. I'm using SCM's Genesis-Deut. & Ancient Egypt guide and we are about 24 lessons in. I *thought* I would find the guide very open-and-go, but something about it just was a huge stall point for me. I ended up creating a simple table showing which resources would be needed for which lessons and that has helped me a lot.

The format right now is 3 days of bible reading, 1 day of geography (focus on Africa), 1 day from a history spine/library book/stuff they left behind pictures.

Last week, I started adding in the devotional book Long Story Short and jumped to where we are with the SCM guide (Abraham & Isaac at the moment). Too soon to tell with that, but I like it so far, anyway.

The spine they are using is interesting so far, but we are only 2 chapters in. I like the "stuff they left behind" resource for a visual and extra info. Next term, we will read Boy of the Pyramids and I am looking forward to that, as the reviews seem promising.

Map work is going well -- J can identify something like 10 countries now on a blank map.

Final verdict on the history resource is out for now.

American history: I wanted to start our study of American history, since our study of the ancients is really really light on age-appropriate literature. Books on ancient Egypt and the pyramids and such abound, but lit? Not so much. That's part of why I'm excited about Boy of the Pyramids.

Anyway, I think starting a 2nd stream of history should be doable right now. If not, I can make adjustments. I've selected TruthQuest History: American history for Young Students vol. 1 (exploration through 1800). The guide will help us work our way through the time period, using good books. Read + discuss. Enjoy.

We are only just getting started. Haven't even finished our first book, Leif the Lucky by D'Aulaire yet, but so far so good. At this time, I don't think I will reach for a spine. Right now, J isn't super interested in history, so I want to spark his interest in the people and stories by using living books.

Viv was randomly browsing Google Maps to see what she could see, and I was stunned when she zoomed in on Greenland, and more specifically a statue of Leif in the town of Qassiarsuk. Not sure the odds of that, but oh how I love Google Maps. I don't think I'll be getting to Qassiarsuk anytime soon.

Spanish: Nada. Lo siento.

Fine arts: We're enjoying picture study. I'm using a cobbled-together collection of art cards from Memoria Press. I was hoping artists would have more than 2-3 works, but so far that's the most I'm noticing. Oh well, brief intro to various works from various artists. We can linger with an artist a la Charlotte Mason more properly later, I guess.

We enjoyed two works from Henri Matisse (well...I should say we looked at them. J liked his goldfish painting, but the Red Room, he was like..."why did he make the tablecloth look exactly like the wall? I would have done it differently. Also, why is that chair pointing away from the table? It is supposed to be pushed in.") Not impressed, Henri.

I'm adding on library books about the artist for extra works to look at, plus some bio. Fun. Easy.

The orchestra book is helpful and serving my purposes well. The CD-ROM component is useful.

We've finished 3 lessons of the Art Class drawing DVDs and so far, so good. I'm a leeetle annoyed at the instructor talking to the audience all "hi, boys and girls! welcome back to the art class club" or whatever she is calling it. Just get to it! Maybe some kids go for it, idk. Whatever, it is mostly serious and J is enjoying it.

Incidentally, I came across a "I can't pass this up" deal on Home Art Studio DVDs. Um. It might have been a mistake. I previewed the first lesson of the K level, and the project was not appealing, and the "you can do this like a real artist!" sort of talk was very...no. Not our thing. J did not want to do the project and Vivie sorta did, but we didn't end up doing it. I'm going to browse through the pdf file that came with the DVD and maybe preview some more on my own. We might pick and choose which projects to do instead of doing them all. J looked at the pdf with me and thinks the projects look babyish. Uh-oh. Might need to do just a select few then and see what the next level has in store. I'm hopeful the higher levels look less babyish to him.

Audio books:

I deviate some from Charlotte Mason (I would think...) in that I allow plenty of audio books and maybe even some audio twaddle on occasion. Heh.

I allow audio books as they are laying in bed and also in the car. I offer audio books during the day just while playing, but so far, no takers. I've been playing an audio book while I'm cleaning up the kitchen, and if I have any listeners join me, ok. I've tried some selections from Edith Nesbit's Stories from Shakespeare and Fifty Famous Stories Retold by James Baldwin. I'm trying to train my ear to listen to stories instead of just being able to read with my eyeballs. I can do non-fiction on audio, but stories are harder for me. I find that sometimes, I like to slow down and savor a well-written passage or read it again and that is harder on audio.

Recently, J and V have enjoyed:

• The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (get the free book on Kindle and then the Audible is only a few bucks)
• The Quite Remarkable Adventures of the Owl and the Pussycat (from the Monty Python guy, lolz) library
• Pippi Longstocking, library
• Amber Brown is Not a Crayon, library
• Jim Weiss Just So Stories, free with Freegal while our library had it

Mother culture:

I finished Watership Down by Richard Adams for my own enjoyment. Loved it! Would like to read it again someday, maybe to my older kids, or invite them to read it to themselves and then discuss.

I read "Desperate: Hope for the Mom who Needs to Breathe" by Sarah Mae and Sally Clarkson. Some encouragement within. I grabbed it from the library and the font was a little faint which made it harder to read. Would recommend a library copy vs. buying.

Listened to some podcasts from Read-Aloud Revival and Power of Moms. I didn't care for the RAR episode featuring SWB. Something about it just rubbed me wrong but then again, I'm not a SWB fangirl.

Watched some documentaries on ancient Egypt, some ancient math. Oh, and Gilmore Girls. Hah. I'm mid-season 7 now. Almost done with Stars Hollow :(

What could be going better:

Hmm. Too much screen time for all, myself included. Computer, movies/Netflix, tablets. Some of the use could be described as educational, but yah. Way too much screen time.

We don't have a consistent start time for our day, and that probably in theory should be more predictable.

While my organization and day-to-day planning is going a little better, it isn't quite as smooth as I would like. I think I'm making good progress though.

I am putting a lot of focus on my 1st grader right now for school work, and not doing one-on-one time with my toddler like I would prefer. My 4-year-old is getting some one-on-one "school" work with our All About Reading pre-reading level. I am reading aloud to all of them, and age-appropriate books to each kid when I need to pull out the board books or younger-ear books. But yeah. I have three kids. I need to step it up.

Ok how many words am I at? A LOT. BYE! <3

Some Christmas school

Seems like a lot of homeschoolers choose to take it easy between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Especially this year, I'm seeing the perks of taking a break and switching it up.

Are they still learning? Yes, ma'am!

Some things we've done so far:

• Reading lots of Christmas books. I added a few more to our collection.
• Making ornaments. Some are for us, others are for gifts. Some were from craft kits, and others were made with supplies we had. This is low-key but fun. Fine motor skills! 
• Made gingerbread houses (a kit, thankyouverymuch)
• Learning and singing Christmas songs
• Making cards
• Driving around and enjoying lights
• Children's Museum Jolly Days
• Baking
• Watching Christmas movies
• Doing our advent calendar
• Preparing for our church Christmas program (I will have a shepherd and an angel and they will be singing! CAN'T WAIT SO CUTE)
• Bought gifts for impoverished children overseas

etc.

Unfortunately, we have been sick on and off for awhile and so we haven't been able to do as many things as I'd like. We missed a field trip at Garfield Park that would have been fun. I'd like to go to Christmas at the Zoo, but we'll just have to see. Also would like to go to the Indiana State museum for their Christmas things and get a membership.

But overall? This is a fun time of year. Next week is birthday week. I will have a 4yo and a 6yo. My word. Time is speeding up.

J is reading well, and reads to himself daily. I read aloud daily. He is into making comic books lately, so there's lots of writing and drawing going on. Oh, and I grabbed some "model magic" and also some air-dry clay and they've been creating stuff.

I am glad we can be together and savor this time of year! 

Once January hits, I think we'll try to get back to the 3Rs more formally, especially math. kbye

Highlights from September

The end of September already? We had a good month. Here are some highlights and a progress report:

Field trips/classes:

• An orchard for an apple tour
• A physical fitness/martial arts class (just one session)
• Trip to the zoo
• Fire station tour

Other outings to the library and parks, and some visits with grandparents

Family trip:

• Went on a quick getaway to French Lick, Ind., and also Holiday World in Santa Claus, Ind. Visited Spring Mill State Park. Very nice park! It has a pioneer village, with buildings from nearly 200 years ago, and some history interpreters on site. Kind of like Conner Prairie. Worth a visit. Also, Holiday World was basically empty when we went. So fun.

Academically, Johnny is moving right along with All About Reading. He went from lesson #33 at the beginning of September, to part of #47 today (level 1 goes to 49 lessons), and so I expect he will finish this level later in the week. We will start up with level 2 immediately after.

He is becoming more confident with reading on his own, and I'm grabbing a variety of materials for him to read from the library. Besides some of the typical Dr. Seuss books he enjoys, I selected a few joke books and comic books for him to try. 

He's reading through a huge collection of Calvin and Hobbes and enjoying it. 

For our road trip, I borrowed a Magic Tree House audio book. It had 5 books in the collection. Ahead of our trip, I read the first story in the series to familiarize ourselves with the characters and gist of the series. Quick premise: Two kids discover a magic tree house which contains books. They can travel to the location in the book and learn more about that moment in history. We've heard about the Titanic sinking, something out in the West, and something to do with Australia, I think? I haven't been paying terribly close attention.

It's an ok series. Formulaic, as series like these tend to be. Enough info to get an idea of what might have happened. I don't think I'll get more audio books from this one unless the kids request it. I do think I'll suggest Johnny reads some on his own, when he gets more confident with chapter books. He did read some of one title on his own, it just took awhile. 

With My Father's World, we did the units on octopus (ocean life), insects and goats (farm animals). I bought an ant farm and it has been SO COOL watching the ants at work. 

Math was light this month. Lessons 18-24 in RightStart. Uh. Yeah. Light. I had better get back to it in October.

But, Johnny worked on some math things in his Rod & Staff workbooks. Really simple things, like handwriting practice for numbers, writing the quantities of items in a picture box, etc. 

I've had him do more handwriting things and practice with scissors. 

In his free time that I still consider perfectly educational, this month he's made marble runs, constructed various things with Lego, Lincoln Logs and wood blocks; read (and been read to) a stack of books; made plenty of pictures and little books.

His latest thing is to use a pen to draw some sort of scene, make a photocopy of it and invite his sister to color it with him. Haha!

There have been other little things that I recorded in my log, but overall it was a nice, lightish month. I have no complaints, as we are achieving the goals I set out for him here. Fun, a focus on reading, and a good number of field trips and time outside while the weather is nice.

Coming up for October:

We have several fun field trips on the calendar! Also looking to go to a show at Beef and Boards dinner theatre. We've never done a live performance and I'm hoping it goes well with the baby. Speaking of the baby, she turned 1! Oh, my heart.

More of the same -- moving forward with reading, lots of books together and independently, etc.

More handwriting practice, and I'd like to get back with RightStart and do more with it this month.

Adding All About Spelling. Probably will go slowly here, but we'll see how it goes.

Our curriculum for this semester

I detailed a smattering of what we might be using for preschool this school year, back in May 2012. Seven months later, I'll give an update on how things are going.

I stated: "I don't want this year to be academic. At all. I want it to be fun, no pressure, and just introducing some prek skills. I want to read great books with my kids, do simple (keyword SIMPLE!!) crafts with them, and explore the wonderful world around us."

So far, so good! I haven't felt stressed by anything, and we've just gone with the flow. Because seriously. My son is 3 (for another 2 weeks, anyway).

I went on a shopping spree and bought some materials. Too many things, honestly. Most of these items we keep in our "school closet" so they stay organized and so pieces don't get scattered about the house.

We started these activities somewhere around August.

We don't have a schedule (though I tried to make a loose plan, and that lasted for less than a day). We just pull things out whenever there seems to be an interest.

I bought the My Father's World preschool package with the intention of doing the activity cards, but we haven't used those. (Though I would like to). We've just been playing with the materials on an open-ended basis. There are a lot of ways you can use these items.

I also bought a few things from the Timberdoodle catalog. Some items were fun; others were meh.

The Hape Zoo animal blocks puzzle is an interesting concept, and it's a challenge for Johnny but he is gaining on it. It's expanding his brain, that's for sure.

I had higher hopes for the Night & Day puzzle. Johnny can do it, but it doesn't hold his interest for long. Vivie likes to slide the pieces on, but she doesn't have any understanding of following the picture in the guide book.

Kumon: We're big fans of the mazes book, and their First Steps series (we have the cut paper; sticker & paste; color; and fold books). Because we don't pull them out often, Johnny still hasn't completed any of the books.

I'm preferring to take a slow approach with these, to let his fine motor skills develop slowly and naturally with the help of these books, and other projects he does on his own.

I plan to buy more Kumon books for his next level once he completes these. He can probably move out of the First Steps series, but I'm glad we started with that rather than jumping into their older set.

I can see a big improvement with those skills, and I think the workbooks have helped a lot.

Beyond the above activities (which again, don't happen daily or even weekly), we are reading lots of books together. Some are from our own growing collection, and others are from the library. We aren't doing any activities with them; we're just reading and enjoying them and talking about them if there's an interest.

I own the guide for Before Five in a Row and now Peak With Books, so perhaps I'll incorporate some of those books and activities at some point.

Overall, I am satisfied with how this fall semester went. Low-key, no boxes to check or schedules to follow.

I am still sorting out what I'd like to consider for this spring semester (maybe being more deliberate about using our materials, or following some of those literature ideas). And I'm still thinking about what to do for this fall. I will still consider Johnny to be a preschooler, with the fall 2013 being his last year before kindergarten.