Peterson Academy--Day 1!
Welcome to a glimpse of our first year homeschooling with a kindergartner and a preschooler!
So for those of you who don't know me or my story, I'll give you a quick run down!
Hello! I am Laura and these are my two sweet little girls, Ellie and Layla. Ellie was supposed to go to kindergarten this year and we were all excited! She was so looking forward to it and has been ready for so long. Then Covid19 hit and obviously changed everything. After much consideration and debate, we decided that I would homeschool Ellie this year. I am an elementary school teacher, but have been staying home with my girls for the past 5 years. Wow! Has it been five years already!? Considering my teaching background I figured I could incorporate my skills into our homeschool.
Does this mean less time for me time? Yes.
Does this mean more work for me? Absolutely.
Does this mean I have to rearrange my time and days differently? Yes.
Does this mean my days will be busier? For sure!
Does this mean I get to see my kids grow academically before my eyes? YES!
IT IS SO WORTH IT!
My goal on here is to update you all a few times a week on how our days are going in our first year of homeschooling. I want to show you the ups and the downs, the successes and the struggles, and lots of good activities and lessons.
So let's see how our first day went!
Day One of Homeschooling
We started our day off by taking our first day school pictures. I was so looking forward to doing this with Ellie as we sent her off to kindergarten and I refused to let the change in plans spoil that for me! I created some signs in the app Procreate. Printed them and put them in Dollar Tree frames. I loved how they turned out.
I had been debating on how I wanted our days to go. How do I schedule our days? How do I set up a routine? I didn't want it to be rigid and binding, but I also didn't want it to be too loose where we didn't accomplish all our tasks. While I am going to take the week to feel it out, I think we'll be going with a daily checklist. This way we can make sure we get all our tasks done, but also be super flexible. I can let Ellie kind of take the lead as to when we do our lessons. At the kindergarten age moods and motivation can be touchy so the checklist allows flexibility. Her and I can see how many tasks we have to complete and we can space them out.
I wrote our subjects on a piece of cardstock and slipped it in a page protector so we can use a dry erase marker to check off our tasks. At the end of the day we erase it and will start over!
I LOVE using page protector for teaching. I used them all the time in my classroom. It is a cheap alternative to laminating!
This pack of 50 sheet protectors is only $4.99 on Amazon! Here is my affiliate link.
Math--Ten Frames
For math today we warmed up by working on writing numbers the correct way. I simply modeled how to write the numbers and Ellie wrote them on her whiteboard.
Our main lesson today was working with numbers on ten frames to work on her number sense. We talked about what the ten frame looks like.
How many boxes altogether?
How many boxes in each row?
If one row is filled how many is that?
I made a ten frame mat by drawing the ten frame on a piece of cardstock (love cardstock for its sturdines). Then, again, I placed it in a sheet protector. We used dominos to choose numbers to use. She chose a domino and then chose one side of the domino to get her number. She then placed manipulatives on the mat to show the number. She also drew the numbers on the mat with a dry erase marker. Then she recored her mat in her math journal. Lastly, she showed me what she learned by completing a small worksheet. We also glued that in her math journal. I really love gluing work in a notebook for three main reasons. One, loose papers aren't all over the house and second, it's fun to flip through the notebook to see all that she has done. Lastly, it's a great way to review what she has done and is a good reference.
We also played a ten frame game! Ellie LOVED it!
I got it from the following website.
Phonics- Rhyming
After a break we came back and worked on phonemic awareness, which was a rhyming activity. We started by discussing what rhyming is (two words that have the same sound). A misconception that I noticed was that Ellie thought that two words rhymed if they started with the same sound (like cake and cookie rather than cake and bake). After our short discussion, we listened to "Down by the bay" song and stopped at the rhyming words to identify them.
Next, we completed a rhyming matching card activity. I found this on the following site.
I laminated these cards, and lots of other little cutouts, with these amazing laminating pockets. I just place the cards inside, place a piece of cloth or fabric on top, and use my iron! These are great for making cards because they end up being super thick and sturdy.
(Amazon affiliate link)
Writing- Labeling
After another break, and lunch, we moved on to writing. We started by working on writing a few uppercase and lowercase letters on a whiteboard. Then we worked on labeling a pictures. We discussed what labels are for and how to read a picture with labels. Labels help tell us the parts of a picture and what they are. Ellie competed a cut and past labeling activity and then we wrote a sentence about the picture. This allowed for a very brief discussion on sentence structure and what a sentence is. A sentence is a complete thought and has a capital letter at the begging and the rest are lowercase (didn't discuss times when there's a capital in the middle of sentence) and ends with a period (again, just discussed period to keep it simple at first).
Get your copy here:
Reading
Our last lesson of the day was a read aloud from a curriculum I purchased (Blossom & Root). Before reading we took a few seconds to talk about concepts of print (parts of the book, how to hold the book, how to read the pages-left to right, etc.) We read a story from Aesop's fables and then completed the corresponding worksheet (writing Aa and listing other words that started with "A"). Then, of course, Ellie had to check out the rest of the book.
My younger daughter, Layla, completed a few informal activities such as, number work in a workbook, drawing, and sorting toys by color.
Conclusion
Overall, it was a successful and productive first day of homeschool for all of us. Short bursts of work worked well for us and the checklist helped us complete all our tasks for the day. I'm curious to see if this will continue to work for us!
Thank you for checking out our day! I hope it was useful and inspirational! I will continue to share our days and activities that we have done, as well as resources that I create and find.
Until next time!!!!!
Check out my blog post about setting up our homeschool room!
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