Ryan's Reading Lessons

I  have taught all three of my older boys to read so far, well Ryan is still leaning but he is doing fantastic. People always ask me "how?" or "what program" etc I honestly have never used "a program" Teaching Ethan was an accident. He was in public school up through 1st grade but he learned to read full in kindergarten from what we did at home. I just read with them. Did letter and sound games. I read simple reader books, and I did do site word flash cards with two of them. But I do not do that any more. I guess my method is a combination of exposer and phonics. I do not introduce a phonics "rule" though a program and then teach words in that fallow that rule. I just read books and discuss the rule as it comes up. Starting with sounds letters make and then working my way through letter blends etc. Some might think this is confusing or how a child could keep up, but I have been blown away how well they learn and my guess is because they are learning though reading works in contacts of stories and book instead of just "memorizing rules" and then trying to use those rules to read. I hated reading as a child, and hated the rules, they did not make sense to me, and there were always words that did not fallow them, so I do not stress my kids learning them, but I dooo teach them, just though reading as they come up. 

 I did buy this program Delightful Reading through Simply Charlotte mason, and I enjoy it. I used it with Aaron some but he took off and did not finish it. I am using it more with Ryan, but I adapt it to make it work for us, but I really like it so far. We build a work, sound out the work and write it in his book. Here he is learning about Magic "E" words. (see I do teach the rules) and we build worlds with this rule, and then we will read books later and try to find words that fallow this rule. I guess you could say I do "use this program" but I do not fallow it to exact but I do use it. I also have the books a Parents guide to teaching reading, but I do not do that until after my kids are already reading fully on there own. I do go back and teach them the rules so they can be better able to figure out new words on there own. But I do it later when they are fully reading (age 6-7ish) so they are not feeling frustrated, but almost like tools to decoding - I hope that make sense.

 I have a bunch of work books and games, file folder games, work wheels etc. I think I have posted links some where here. I also use the Now I'm reading books. They like those, along with lots of other fun reading books that I read with them. I take turns reading they read a word or two then I read, then as they learn more, they read more. I will also have them repeat me sometimes too, a good skill.

 I am kinds of all over the place and go with the flow depending on the child. But it seems to work. I think the KEY is making it fun, going at their own pace and eliminating stress and pressure. I know after my fist two kids read so fast, for a while Ryan was really resistant, and I though - man this kid will never learn to read. But I just changed things up, prayed for him, and stepped back and did not pressure him and how he loves reading lessons. He also took a big jump into it when he turned 6 and really has a desire to want to read like his brothers. That really helped him wanting to do it because he sees he benefits not just because I am saying he needs to learn. Love the self motivation!

 Word wheel activity, and also a dot paint activity, I wrote some words (just letters for Dallin) and said them, and they put a dot on them when they found them. Just review words out of sentence context is a good skill too.

Love my sweet fast growing boys!

K and Pre K activities!

My favorite kind of activities for younger kids are things I can do and make with them, and engage and really enjoy them with, BUT then they will keep enjoying it for a while, while I get things done with the older two boys. And these two activities fit that mold. 

 Kool-Aid Play-dough- there are a million recipes on Pinterest I used what ever one I had the stuff for. My kids love this, it is soft and smells really yummy and had bright colors. If you kids would eat it then I guess it would not be so good- but my kids really enjoyed it.

 Then they will play and play with it for a while :) we also use it for school activities too, you can stamp numbers, letters, spelling words, math problems into play dough we use it a lot, then it gets dried up, and we go with out for a while until we make another batch. (12/2013)

I do not remember where I got this idea, I think Pinterest too. We had been learning about chemical reactions in our Real Science for kids program, so this was lots of fun. Just take a pan of baking soda. Then I got a bunch of containers fill them with vinegar and food coloring. I put a dropper in each color and let them at it. The loved the explosions that happened. Dallin would get all excited and say look! a Chemical reaction! Ha ha When they ran out of vinegar I gave them more until it was full of to much vinegar and would not react any more. 

 They loved it! Kept them intertwined for a while with the droppers it lasted a while. Great motor skill working with the droppers. I also told them if they poured it in, the activity would be over quick and they could not to it any more so they did not want that and were good about not pouring the colors in.

 They also had fun blending the colors in the explosions. (3/2014)

Art lessons

For Art this year we have been working on ARTisitc Pursuits. We do not do it all the time and if I have another book to go along with it I will add that. For example in that program they often will show work from a famous artist and if I had more info on that Artist we will add that. 

they are working with Oil pastels here fall of 2013

Here we read the book Sky Color, and also another book that showed good examples of the art of blending colors and using bright colors when painting. We are not in a rush to do this program, we do it once a week or so. I have enjoyed it, and we will continue with is next year as it fits in. 

 here they are using water color crayons - spring of 2014

Preschool Indoor Activities

I really struggle with balancing by younger boys and my older boys. I WANT to spend time with them all but that is not always easy to do, and near impossible for me at times. So I strive for balance. Some things I plan I do with them, and some they do while I am working with the older two. These are a few ideas I got from pinterest. 

 They LOVE these. I made shapes for them out of making take as a Target but it did not work out so well, they just like shooting them. They play with these often LINK HERE 

 PomPom Soccer LINK
Ryan said this was way to easy, Dallin liked it better it was more challenging for him. The also Loved building the fans to watch the game from Legos (more pictures bellow)

 I kind of was on a making tape kick trying different active type things inside since it had been cold at the time. This was a fun Balancing activity- did not last long but the liked it.

 More pics of the Pompom soccer this was on the floor for a few days, the really enjoyed it.

Math Activities K-4th grade

I try to do math in a "fun Activity" way once a week just to make things more fun. Here are some things we have done. 

Copy work- I know we hear about copy work being good for spelling in the CM world but it is really good for math too. We have this book that you spin the wheel and it shows the answers to the multiplication tables. Ethan was doing copy work with this book. (fall 2013) 

I made 4 boxed on piece of paper then I wrote a problem on it, and he used his blocks to build it out, and did dot paints to write the answer. Just a fun way to practice this addition problems. (12/2013)

This is another fun game that we like to do. I found this board on Pinterest - it is a plain board and I printed it off, colored it and laminated it. Then I can write what ever problems on it I want. We roll a dice, answer the problem. If you get it right, you get to roll again to see how many Lego's you get to "build a tower" or you can just play where you get "that many that you rolled" 

 We used Lego figures for our games pieced. All the boys love this game. you can do addition, subtraction or multiplication etc. Here is where I got the game board Game Board HERE!

 This was in March 2014

White board + Nerf gun = fun math facts practice. You can do this many ways but we did it where he would shoot two numbers then a -/+ dice to decided if he has to add them or subtract them. He just played until he was done, but he got lots of practice in, and really liked it. (fall 2013) 

Play dough always makes math more fun! 

 Ryan likes to take his math sheet and just do the problems in play bough I feel like this slows him down to really understand and memorize the problems not just rush to get the sheet done.

Non- Fiction Study Day -

I love the Drawing into the Heart of Reading program. We do this off and on too. This time we learned about non-fiction and for our kick off day we talked about what it covered in the teacher book, and for the activity they looked through out set one One Small Square books, they each got some note cards

 on the cards they wrote a question, and then fallowed it up with, is this true or false? I helped the younger ones with the writing. Then they each took turns drawing cards and then making a guess. They used the books to look up the answer and read the facts. It was a lot of fun.

Fire Station Field Trip 2013

We did this field trip last year and they loved it so much we did it again- plus the younger boys enjoyed it more this time. 

 They had a cool video for the kids to watch- really awesome, then they toured the station, and got to sit on the trucks. It was really fun, and we had a HUGE turn out! To many for me to even get a group picture.

 Ryan was upset in the top pic but he was really happy in the bottom one. My camera was not working so a firend took the bottom one :)

Nothing but Silliness!

For our Drawing into the Heart of Reading each time we start a new genera we have a "kick off day" to introduce that genera of reading. This time the book were Humor books! so we did nothing but silliness! They dressed funny and did funny faces! 

We played some funny card, games, and did spoons.

We also played a game where they acted out silly noises that animals make and they had to guess what they were being.

We made silly sandwich men :)

We had a lot of fun with this, The books that they read for this section were. Frindle, tooter peperday, and Mr McBroom one Acre Farm . Along with enjoying these fun books we learned about cause and effect, and other things. I am really enjoying this program. There are many books that we read just to enjoy them, but I also think it is "fun" to break stories down and think about the different elements as well.

Field Day in the Fall

My Friend Amy did a wonderful Job putting together a field day for the home school group in our area. There were a few different events, and the kids had a lot of fun. And even though it was October we were all melting- gotta love the south! 

Here is the first event, Ryan running with a ping pong pall on a spoon. 

Wheel barrow races.

Potato sack races

This one was a fave, they had to run with a cup over there head, full of water and it had holes in it, so it dripped on you- nice to cool off a little. Then dump the rest into the bin on the other end.

The last event was a tug of war. I love my boys faces in this pic!

I was running back and forth from setting up the stations, and trying to take pictures, so I did not get many but at least I got a few! The kids had a wonderful time! I am soooo Grateful they have so many kids in this town that home school too!