Term One: Week Two ~ Notebooking

Week two and the boys and I are beginning to find our groove. I didn't take a LOT of photographs this week, but we did a good amount of work. 

 I promised Munchkin that I would do my planning over the weekend and get a BUNCH of hands-on maths assignments ready to go for him.  I followed through with my promise and he was a very happy boy. The above photos show him measuring the area of a tea towel. We improvise in our homeschool, so though I can't remember what the book suggested we use for a measuring device, I picked some small origami paper the boys have. It worked perfectly for the larger items he needed to measure.

Another maths page required pattern blocks to build models to represent objects in the book. An OLD toy from my childhood was perfect for this, and once he finished the math page, he carried on with his own self-directed math learning by working through some of the pattern pages that come with the toy. 

When I'm not teaching the boys I am constantly doing research about homeschooling. A new(ish) teaching technique I've been reading about it notebooking and I've been wanting to give it a try for awhile now.  The older boys gave these country notebooking pages a try, and while it isn't exactly perfect, it is a good start. 

The notebooking page above is Monkey's.

One of Monkey's geography topics for the next two years is to learn about Australia's closest neighbours, so I've been borrowing good quality non-fiction books from the library about the various countries, we've been reading aloud, and then they will fill out a notebooking page.

This week we studied Indonesia.

The notebooking page above is Monster's. 

Independent reading for the older boys... The book on the left was Monster's selection and the book on the right was Monkey's. 

We began a mini-unit on the country of Indonesia. I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of these books, and thrilled to learn some new facts that I didn't previously know. 

 We finished up this series of books on the water cycle, and I began brainstorming what to follow on with... the younger boys only need to know the basics of the water cycle, but Monster's geography and science go MUCH more in depth now that he is officially in high school, so there are some exciting topics in our future!!

More independent reading for Monster... this was a Christmas gift from our pastors. 

 Monster and I are learning about Ancient China for his first depth study in history this year. Again, I'm surprised at the fantastic books our library has to offer, and we are enjoying learning about this ancient civilization. Personally, I've already learned WAY more than the tiny chunk I learned when I was in high school, and we still have LOTS more studying to do.

 One more book each for our Indonesia study and our water cycle series... These were read aloud to the boys during their lunch time.

 Bedtime picture book choices for Munchkin... read to him by daddy.

 Our read aloud selections for the week... I'm LOVING reading Mrs Piggle-Wiggle to the boys. She was a favourite of mine when I was growing up! The boys LOVE the "illnesses" she cures for the children, and I'm finding the blatant 1950's references hilarious as well...since I was clueless to them as a child!! ;-) 

We are also nearly finished with the ENTIRE Series of Unfortunate Events! We have LOVED reading this series and the boys highly recommend it... though some people may find the humour a bit dark!!

Anything Star Wars is a hit with ALL three boys! This will be in our house until someone puts it on reserve, or it has been renewed online the maximum number of times (3).

How I Plan

I am finding more and more (especially now that I have three students all at different grade levels) that people are asking me HOW I do my planning. So I thought I would do a quick blog post to give you some basic ideas. I'm happy to answer further questions from here.

** Side note**

I've uploaded these photos full size so you should be able to click on the images for a closer look. I'm not entirely sure what this will do to those of you who receive an email of my posts, so if I clog your email up I apologize.

 A new net friend of mine made up these wonderful google documents so I have a quick overview of what the boys and I will be studying for the next two years.  I haven't fully decided what topics Monkey and Munchkin will study for PDHPE and Creative Arts which is why these areas are blank. The first column is Monster, the second is Monkey, the third is Munchkin.

Once I've browsed our overview, I go to our library bookshelves to choose what topic we'll be reading about for the week. 

The top shelf holds our library DVDs, our chapter read alouds, and the Beast Quest books and Star Wars books the boys are reading independently. 

The second bookshelf houses our science, history and geography books. 

Finally the bottom shelf holds Munchkin's picture books and the large collection of Star Wars books they seem to need to have ALL the time!! 

Then I sit down and make out calendar pages for each boy...

This is Monster's schedule... 

This is Monkey's schedule... 

And this is Munchkin's.

As they complete work I tick it off... if we do something extra I write it in and if we don't complete something I cross it off.  For Science, HSIE, Tech, Latin, PDHPE, Creative Arts and Social I write in what we read or do in relation to what unit study we are working on.

Term One: Week One ~ Back to the Books

The boys and I were chomping at the bit to start the new school year. We started on Monday, despite our public school friends not starting until Tuesday and/or Wednesday, and jumped right in to the deep end.

Monday morning, 8am, and the Munchkin was already working on his maths for the day. 

 Meanwhile, Monster worked on a science etching kit that he got from a friend for Christmas.

I gave Monkey his Term 1 diagnostic review as a pre-test on the first day of school. He wasn't too happy about it, but I simply told him it was to see what he already knows, and what concepts we need to learn or continue to work on.  He did quite well, so the term should be easy for him as far as math is concerned. 

Munchkin LOVES Mathseeds, which is a second part to our Reading Eggs subscription. 

He works independently at his own pace, and has already progressed to the last map and is easily and accurately adding two digit numbers. 

Their writing assignments for this week (and probably next week as well) are thank you notes to their friends and family who gifted them with wonderful presents for Christmas. 

Monkey wrote a story during his Reading Eggs time. 

More maths for Munchkin... I'm pretty sure he would work on maths all day long if I allowed him to. 

The weather finally cooled off, so curling up in bed for some afternoon silent reading was actually a pleasant experience. 

Monster enjoying his Reading Eggs time... 

 Munchkin enjoyed this hands-on water measuring page in his maths book.

For Grammar this year the older boys are working through Junior Analytical Grammar. I am working through it with them, and at the end of the book we'll all be able to diagram sentences. This was our first assignment... identifying all the common nouns in the sentences... and we all did REALLY well. 

More Mathseeds for Munchkin.

He got creative and made his own number line to help him with some of the problems. 

Friday mid-morning we went to homeschool group. We got to visit a BRAND new park/playground and we LOVED it! This structure was the highlight of the park for the boys. We were there for about 2.5 hours and they spent almost the entire time climbing and sliding. Even the biggest boys in our homeschool group (who are 16 and 17) made numerous trips through this structure. 

We started a science (with geography crossovers as well) unit of the water cycle. As we progress it will lead into other topics such as layers of the atmosphere, weather, and natural disasters. I'm having the boys do a bit of notebooking this year, so I found this easy worksheet for them to fill out. 

Monkey's independent reading... 

 Picture book choices for Munchkin...

 Science read alouds for all three boys...

 Art read alouds for all three boys... they particularly liked the Davinci book.

Independent reading for Monster... 

Some more water cycle books... The Big Earth Book is going to be a staple book for much of the term/year. It has sections on earth, air, water and fire, so I'll be using it for several different unit studies I have planned!

This has been an extremely successful first week of the term and I'm looking forward to all the wonderful topics we have to learn about together.