2nd Grade

The weekend has ended and we are moving into a very busy and important week.  I was planning to post some pictures of our homeschool set up this past weekend but my camera was not cooperating neither was the sun here in the midwest.  When the lighting was right, the camera wasn't and vice versa.  I will try again this week and show you how I miraculously created a homeschool in our quaint ranch style abode.  Let's just say created is the operative word.  Nonetheless, I am loving our little set up.

While things were not going well in the camera/lighting scenario, I did manage to find a plethora of websites, blogs, and websites solely dedicated to second grade.  These fabulous bloggers/teachers/moms have so many fabulous ideas and I am in awe.

I spent the better part of the last two days revamping my current lesson plans for the week to include some of the great ideas I found on their sites and I am so excited for the rest of this school (homeschool) year.

Never in a million years did I think I would be a homeschooling mom.  There is this stigma (sadly) attached to who homeschoolers are and what their lifestyles are like.  I have to admit I bought into those stereotypes.  Boy, was I wrong!!!

While blog hopping, I came across an enormous array of people whom homeschool using different curriculum and different styles and all have incredibly different reasons for homeschooling or unschooling or utilizing Montessori style of learning.  I am humbled by these incredible people whom chose to teach in whatever setting they chose.  I truly believe an education is a beautiful gift whether or not you choose to have a formal education or a natural organic style of educating your child.  Regardless of how you do it, just the act of spending time with a child or children expanding their minds and their knowledge is honorable.

Having said that, I want to share with you a list of websites full of information, resources, philosophies, and styles that I hope you will take the time to learn about and incorporate something into your day or at the very least learn something new about another dedicated parent/educator/teacher/mom/dad.

www.learninggamesforkids.com  - keyboarding/typing lessons for children

www.bilingualteacherclubhouse.blogspot.com - dual language learning Spanish/English or French/English

www.simply2ndresources.blogspot.com

www.secondgradesilliness.blogspot.com

www.thesecondgradesuperkids.blogspot.com

www.homeschoolheartandmind.blogspot.com

www.mommymaestra.com

www.williams2ndgradepigpen.blogspot.com

Election Lesson Plans

The first week of homeschool has been absolutely EXCELLENT. I have loved every moment of it!  I have been scouring the blogosphere and www.pinterest.com and my local library resources to build my lesson plan for next week.  There is such a wealth of information!  I am so thankful for all of the wonderful educators in the world.

In my quest, I have accumulated a plethora of URL's to help me on my homeschooling mom journey.  I know that I am not the only one looking for resources--so, I thought I'd share a few links to help you build your lesson plans and I'd like to give you a peek at what I am putting together for this election day.

Enjoy!

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/The-Government-Fairy-and-the-2012-Presidential-Election

http://fun-in-first.blogspot.com/2012/10/treats-for-our-sweets.html

http://www.teachertothecore.blogspot.com/

http://nomonkeybusinessmichelle.blogspot.com/2012/10/election-day-freebie.html

Come back tomorrow to take a peek at our classroom photos!

Teaching the 50 States

Today, I introduced a learning the 50 states lesson to "R".  I found some fun ideas on Pinterest (THANK YOU!).  In an effort to not overwhelm him with so much at once, I decided to include interactive lessons into his social studies work.

I printed a U.S. map from www.mrprintables.com

I put a blank copy similar to this one inside of a dollar store picture frame with glass covering the picture and had my son begin to identify states and use dry erase markers to write the state names on them. Dry erase markers are perfect for this activity because it saves paper and ink and it allows him to practice multiple times with one print out.

We, also, found some great sites with songs to help learn the names of all 50 states. This is the "50 States Song" via youtube http://pinterest.com/pin/171910910747468928/

I am going to create state shaped flash cards to help with state recognition this weekend.  I'll post pictures next week.  I am, also, going to hunt down a United States puzzle map this weekend and use that as another learning tool.

We will, also, begin learning about the individual states and capitals.  I don't want to do too much at once. I think we will play it by ear and let him decide when he is ready to move forward.  For now, learning with these interactive tools keeps him engaged and gets him learning.

How do you teach about the 50 states?  What methods have you tried?  What has worked for your student/s and what has not worked?

Cursive...Yea or Nay?

We have successfully made it through our 3rd official day of homeschooling. We, yes WE, are learning so much.

My son, R, is studying the weather for science and loving it. I am a huge proponent of the public library and rented a dvd series from them regarding explaining weather for children. LOVE IT!

R is also learning Spanish via www.123teachme.com He really enjoys these lessons.
We have, of course, covered math and language arts and social studies too.

While researching lessons for next week, I found printouts for teaching cursive. Frankly, I was elated! I love good old fashioned written words once in a while. I realize some schools no longer teach cursive. Why is that? What are your thoughts?

I love the written word. Yes, we live in a digital age but I fondly remember a sense of pride and accomplishment when I first learned to write in cursive. I want that for my son. Perhaps it will rarely be used in his lifetime but nothing can take away that knowledge from him. It will be one more skill he will have. I will teach it. Will you?

Welcome!

Welcome to what I hope will be a long pleasant journey!

About Me:
I am Deb. I am a mom to 4 children. My husband and I have chosen to homeschool our youngest son.  I have nothing against "regular" schools. I grew up and was educated in a parochial school system. My husband was educated in schools on Air Force bases while my father-in-law served all over the world.  Our 5 combined older children all attended public or parochial schools and succeeded. Four of the older 5 are now college students. One child is a junior in a public high school.

I love teachers and feel that they are grossly underpaid for what they do in any given day.  I have fond memories of wonderful teachers throughout my lifetime.

We have chosen to homeschool our youngest son, a 7 year old 2nd grader, because, unfortunately, our unincorporated area that we live in has failing schools.  Administrators and educators have been entirely replaced twice within the last year. The school system is on probation.  That, of course, is a MAJOR red flag for myself and my husband.

After much discussion and research, I have chosen to educate my little boy at home.  We are at the end of day one today.  Yippee!!!  Follow my daily journey of educating my 2nd grader in the comforts of our own home.

Getting Started:
In an effort to try to keep things as similar as possible to an in-school day, I came up with and edited and re-edited a daily schedule.  Like all things in life, we had to immediately revamp the schedule for today due to what I'll call a "teenage son crisis".

Over the last couple of weeks, I created a daily lesson plan to cover the first week of homeschool. Thank goodness for bloggers and Pinterest!  There are a gazillion different ideas and posts from wonderful educators to get you going.  I have learned so much!

Despite a few minor glitches, we were able to complete everything on today's lesson plan and had a fabulous time today.  I created a block schedule for my son.  I was feeling way too overwhelmed about trying to fit every subject into one day and still maintain a household and take care of daily "mom taxi" trips.

Block scheduling is the system my older children followed in their school system.  For my own purposes, I wanted to cover core subjects in depth with a heavy emphasis on reading and writing.  Core subjects are Math, Science, Social Studies, and Language Arts.

I decided to tackle two core subjects a day for an hour and a half per subject.  Math and Science together on the same day made sense to me so I bundled them together on the same day.  Language Arts and Social Studies will be done on the opposite days.  That's a total of 3 hours a day of core subjects.

I made sure to allow breaks in our day and to include areas for Handwriting, Typing/Keyboarding, Reading, Spanish, and Writing.  What my son calls "specials" are also included on a one day a week basis. He chose Art, Music, Computer, Library, and P.E to be his specials.

We begin our day at 8 am and including breaks we are done at 4 p.m  That seems like a very long day but when you see what my "mom taxi" schedule looks like you will understand why my day goes so late.  He has 5 hours of actual homeschool hours in his day.

Here is what our schedule looks like:

8:00 - 8:10   Calendar Time

8:10 - 9:15   Core Subjects (Mon., Wed., Friday Math & Science---Tues., & Thurs. Language Arts and Social Studies one week....the following week we will switch and do Language Arts and Social Studies on Mon, Wed, and Friday and will do Math & Science on Tues and Thursday)

9:15 - 11:00   Break for Mom Taxi Time and Lunch

11:00 - 12:55 Core Subjects (continued to equal a total of 3 hours per day)

12:55 - 1:10  Break

1:10 - 1:30    Reading

1:30 - 2:00   Spanish

2:00 - 3:00    Break for Mom Taxi (again!)

3:00 - 3:45    Handwriting and Spelling (15 minutes); Typing (15 minutes); Journal Writing (15 minutes)

3:45 - 4:00   Reading


This schedule does change a little bit on Fridays to include core tests during the first Core Subject block and in the second Core Subject block we will focus on handwriting, spelling, and journaling.  The 3:00 - 3:45 time slot on Fridays is where we will do "specials".

Day one and feeling no regrets about my choice.  Having the opportunity to be home with my son and to watch him learn and grasp a concept is worth the effort. So excited about Day Two!