Going with the flow...

This year started off so exciting.  I LOVE new things, and this year we added our CC notebook.  Remember that?  Yeah!  It was great!  We loved the pages!  Love the pages.  However about week 9 we realized we were just leaving the notebook sitting on the shelf and grabbing pages here and there.  then of course you know what happens to stray pages.  We work on a bit of a different schedule than originally planned so the organization of the notebook didn't work anymore.

It became tedious to figure out where all the pages were, since our schedule now goes by subject. Each day we do one review game in the morning (review last 6 weeks +current week). But we have a schedule of subjects.
Monday-Timeline, Math, History
Tuesday-community day
Wed-Geo
Thurs-English, Latin
Friday-Science

(on Geo day we do map tracing for review instead of a game)

Then we do those pages on those days. Sometimes we don't get to it but then we go back to it and do it as a review. So you see why it was tedious all as one binder.

So in spirit of "going with the flow", we took apart the binder and sorted them by subject. Now we have 8 comb bound workbooks and use each one on the day we work from. It works SO much better for our family.

Some days, (Mondays especially) we don't get to all of their notebooks.  So those pages end up being left for review on days like Friday when there is extra time for work :)

Games for Review-A Few, Tried and True

So if you're like me you don't really care for competition.  I don't like it at home, I don't really go for it in the classroom.  Especially at the ages I tutor-4-7 year olds.  We have a few competitive children in our class, and a few who hate it.  So I have found a really good balance, and figured I would share them all.  I will let you know, that a good portion of these games are not my own and I most likely won't remember where they came from.

Some class favorites:

These games are great for the whole classroom to get involved and have very little competition:

Dice!  We have this awesome set of dice that the kids LOVE.  You can download them HERE.  Our kids adore them.  We haven't used the subject or week dice, I just pick a random card and the kids roll for an action.  This one was "Say it from underneath the table."

Snowballs.  This was recommended from someone who learned it from someone who learned it from someone, but it is a FANTASTIC idea.  A student answers a review question, if they get it correct-they get a piece of paper to crumble up for a snowball.  This is great, but for our "non competitors" we modified the game a bit.  We have "parents vs. kids".  If the kids say it without any help (they all try together and as long as it's said it counts) they get a piece of paper (we will usually go around in a circle or pick the best participant at the time to crumble but they have a "kids pile").  If they need a lot of help, the parents get one.  At the end it's kids against adults.  We always lose.  :)

Darts.  This is my boys' favorite.  I just drew a really quick dart board with 1,2,3 as the point values and laminated it.  I was told that some have each person have a score-and if they answer correctly they get to shoot, however we have modified it quite a bit.  We have a class score.  All the kids line up and we pick a card.  All the kids answer it, and if they do well (participating) then the person at the front gets to shoot a nerf gun.  At the end we circle our final score at the top of our board and try to beat the score next week.  If they beat it, they all get a sticker!

Choco maps.  Each kid should have their own map.  place a chocolate chip(I've used M&Ms or you could use gold fish but we have GF kids in our class) ask them to place their choco on a specific feature-if they find the feature(have parents go around and check this) then they may eat it-if not show them where it is, let them find it, then eat it.  When we play this we do half of the time in this method, then half of the time doing it the opposite.  I will show them a place on the map and have them put the choco on it.  Then I will ask for the name with raised hands.  After I call on someone I ask all to repeat loudly.  Then they can eat it.

Marble Run:  This is super fun, I stole it from Melody Stroud so read her post on it.  It is a good first week game.  The kids love it and it's not competitive at all.

Treasure Hunt:  We haven't done this one in class yet, but we've done it at home.  Hide some of the cards around the room in envelopes.  Let them answer questions then give them a gold coin.  You could make this game competitive or not.  If you wanted a competitive version, just give out coins if they answer correctly and of course the person who has the most coins is the winner.  We used treasure boxes here but totally not necessary.  And gold coins from the dollar store.

Rockets: I guess this game is "competitive" but not in the way that frustrates children who don't always remember the memory work.  So we have these game boards and a dice for each child.  When we ask a question, everyone answers, and everyone rolls.  You color in the space you roll, if you roll a space you colored already, you don't color anything.  First to color all is the "winner".

Domino Parking:  We use the parking lot game board from THIS BLOG.  The kids are broken up into 2 teams and each team gets a gameboard.  We all answer a question together, and then one team picks a domino.  They place it on the space it belongs.  Each team takes a turn after we all say memory work.  The team who fills their parking spots first wins.

Kaboom:  This game is so fun.  We use these cards, and these blocks.  We read some memory work, and everyone answers the question.  Someone draws a card, and either places a block on the pile or a kaboom tells them to knock the pile over.  You play until the kids are bored or you run out of memory work or time :)

Cake(Memory work) Walk:  We haven't actually tried this in our class yet, but my son's preschool teacher used this in her class to do review.  She used foam flowers, and wrote numbers on one side and a review question on the other.  Placed them taped down on the ground in a big circle.  She played music and had the kids walk around the board until the music stopped.  Then she picked a number out of a jar.  Then that number picked up their flower and answered the question.  I cant wait to try it, it was so fun in his class, I know mine will love it.

Notebooking!

I am a big fan of notebooking.  We haven't done a whole lot yet since my children are still young, but what we have done we LOVE.  There is something so magical about looking back on the year and having a whole done up notebook to show for it!  Right now for my kindergartener we didn't think she was ready for our CC notebook so for her, we are doing the sight word interactive notebook which she is in love with. here it is at the TPT store  If you want to try before you buy here is her freebie.

Now for my oldest, she wasn't quite ready for a real notebook, since her sentence structure isn't the greatest- so I designed a transition notebook.  Next year or maybe the year after she might be ready for a researching notebook, but as for now she is using our CC notebook, which I am so excited to use!!

 

I have everything in there from Timeline to Fine arts, if you are part of the Classical Conversations community (or even not in a community and doing it at home) this is a great resource.  Even if you only use a few pages from it, it's going to make learning memory work REALLY fun.  So let me run you through the notebook real quick.

For every week you will have a page for each subject.  We divided them by weeks in a 2 inch binder.  I have a smaller "weekly binder" so that she isn't overwhelmed by the CC notebook.  I will put each weeks work into the weekly binder and then I will switch it out at the end of the week (put the week she's done with back into the CC notebook and the work she needs to do into the weekly binder).

So in each week you have the following subjects:

• Prayers (record the things you prayed for in CC)
• Presentations (write your presentation-would be a super handy tool the day before community!)
• Timeline - every week has a cut and paste timeline sheet, the first 8 weeks are in black and white but on the connected website you can look for the first 8 weeks in color and replace the black and white ones.  Also not included in the notebooking pages but also on CC connected are for those little researchers and writers the notebooking page for timeline.
• A history work page where it is drawing and writing out the sentence.  In the back of each file is also a notebook page for the older ones with more lines and a tiny box to draw on.  I also have a few other history sentence review pages on the connected that would be great replacements or additions.
• Math page- there are older children math pages in the back of some files too.
• Latin-usually either a copy work or mini book or activity page
• Science experiment page and a science memory work page
• Geography cut and paste and a geography color/map
• English page
• and my favorite FINE ARTS!  there is a fine arts page in every week pertaining to either great artists, what your child will learn in drawing, or tin whistle, and composers.

And all of those pages you can find weekly on my username SHERIELLIS at CC connected (there is a subscription fee, $6 a month if you are a member of community or $60 if you are not.)

SHERI ELLIS AT CC CONNECTED

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Tri-fold board

This is the board I made for use in CC...  You can get the instructions HERE

OiLS

So in classical conversations, one of our art lessons is on OiLS.  Not the oil pastel kind, the drawing component kind!  This was awesome to me when I first learned about this.  You really can break down everything you draw to those 5 components.  Here is a quick cheat sheet to learning them:
click HERE to download them.

I had a cute fun little practice lesson with my kids before CC starts and it was so much fun!  I can't wait to teach a whole class of these little guys and watch them draw!

So for the first part of our 30 min segment we introduced the sheet above, the OiLS and let them practice them for about 3 minutes.  Then I did some board drawings, instructing them to follow along.  Here they are:

 

The cute little mouse I learned on a facebook page : ART FOR KIDS, The Alligator I got from an ED Emberly book.

The kids had fun Here are theirs, I really wish I would have had them use black marker, it would have looked so much better.  So in our actual class that's what we will do:

 

Then we did a final project as I instructed them in a clown fish:

 

DIY Scientific Method Visual

Most children of ages 3-6 are very visual.  Having something for them to look at as you teach I have found to be extremely helpful.  I threw this cute little visual together in about 10 minutes.  You can get the little cards HERE

 

So here's what you will need:

About a yard and a half of a thick ribbon

6 peices of a thinner ribbon about 4in long each

6 binder clips

1 binder ring

glue gun

Here's how:

I first "hemmed" my ribbon by folding the ends back and gluing them.  I then slid my binder ring onto the long ribbon and folded down onto the back, then glued that down.  Then I wrapped each thin ribbon around my long ribbon.  I glued the small ribbons to the back of the long ribbon first then wrapped it around and glued it back on itself.  I trimmed the excess short ribbons off, then I clipped my binder clips onto the small ribbons and clipped the cards on.  The small ribbons were glued about 14cm apart from each other.  Then I glued my "title" to the top below the binder.  

There yah go! DIY scientific method visual!

The Kids and That Room.

Just wanted to throw a quick post out there for anyone wondering about curriculum choices, or the kids, the school room :)

OUR KIDS

We have 4.  Summer our oldest is 6, she's in 2nd grade this year and our firecracker.  We are usually dealing with impulsiveness due to ADHD.  She also has a severe tree nut allergy.  Acaydia is 4 and is in K.  She's the sweet quiet one, does what she's told, schools quickly, and everyone loves her.  Malachi is our fun loving boy. Sometimes he's bright, sometimes not so much-but always thoughtful and always sweet.  He's 3 and while he will be attending our CC class on tuesday mornings, and engaging in *some* of our home activities, he will be enrolled in an early pre-k class in afternoons.  Then we have Kaemon.  He's a challenge too, He's only 18 months but he has a temper.  Sweet most of the time, until he wants something and you don't have it or won't give it.  They all have great strengths, and all have weaknesses we work on.  We love them all the same though and wouldn't give any of them up for a second.

OUR ROOM

 

OUR CURRICULUM

This is the first year where I feel confident in our choices of curriculum.  In previous years (ask me about MFW) we tried out different things and not a whole lot seemed to fit.  I've been pretty solid on our Christ Centered Phonics since shortly after we started (tried Abeka phonics but it wasnt a good fit either).  One thing I did realize is that a "boxed" curriculum was NOT for us.  They just were too much, too overwhelming.  This year I am happy with our choices.  We are a week into it and we all seem to be gelling well.  There was no "adjusting" it just all worked.

Summer-2nd grade:

 -Saxon 2
-Christ Centered Phonics C:2 toward the end
-Apologia Astronomy - we are doing C3 in CC and it's anatomy but she was really wanting to do astronomy so that's what we went with.
-Story of the World Ancient Empires - again this doesn't line up with our CC material, but we really wanted to start at the beginning.
-Song School Latin - we don't have a lot of extra time so this will be a once a week/every other week thing most likely.  It's fun and it's good copywork ;)

Acaydia-K:

-Abeka Math K
-Christ Centered Phonics B:1
-She will also be doing Apologia and SOTW with her sister :)
-Interactive Sight Word Notebook.  We used something similar to this with summer and it's so much fun, we found this and she is LOVING it.

 

Get it here