Adventures In Homeschooling

[homeschooled-littles]

Report Card Arrived

Tuesday November 12, 2019

I got K’s report card from the school last week. I really don’t care what’s on it, but it’s nice to see what her teachers wrote for comments. Our school district uses a really weird grading system. At least it’s weird for me and I would prefer the grade average that they used to do when I was in school. The tiers are:

Not Meeting: Does not yet demonstrate the required understanding and application of concepts and skills.

Developing: Limited understanding and application of concepts and skills.

Achieving: Basic understanding and application of concepts and skills.

Proficient: Good understanding and application of concepts and skills.

I mainly wanted to see how she was doing in Art, Music, Gym and Health. At this time I really didn’t care what her achievement level for Social and Science were.

Art she got a Proficient level! I was actuallya bit surprised at this one. I was expecting the achieving level since she normally has difficulty drawing pictures at home. I feel bad that K can’t continue going to school for Art this year as she really enjoyed it. This was a time where she could draw, colour and let her creative side out. Now that she’s out of school she’s been drawing almost everyday in her drawing book she used in class. It was sent home with her belongings when I withdrew her.

Health she got an Achieving level. I was expecting either a Developing or a Not Meeting one for this subject. Overall I’m happy she was at least doing well in health despite her reading abilities. She was learning some important things in health and seemed to enjoy some of the topics as she told me about them.

Music she recieved an Achieving level. I’m thrilled by this achievement! We have done very little work on anything musical so everything being taught to her in the classroom was completly new. Seeing how she was doing good makes me happy. If I could have had her stay in for Music as well I would have.

Gym she got Proficient! This is not a surprise since she loves to runa round and play. We heard lots of stories about dodgeball after school. I know she misses this time with her friends to play and have fun as a class. Gym would have been the other class I would have kept her in school for if I could.

Unfortunately, I was unable to keep her in those classes as the day’s schedule was super wonky. Gym is the last class of the day, while Music and Art alternate days through the week just before lunch. It jsut wouldn’t work. So we decided a clean break was best for her.

Science she was given a Not Meeting. Had she gotten the chance to do her quiz before marks had to be in she could have gotten a Developing mark. Sadly, that didn’t happen as she was sick quite a few days and the day she did study extra hard all day for her quiz, her teacher wasn’t even in the classroom. I love how in the comments her teacher wrote, “At school we will work to tailer her program fo better suit her learning needs.” Nothing of this sort was discussed with me. Had it been discussed I may have altered my decision. But then again, I don’t really trust or care for the Science teacher.

Social K didn’t even get a mark! My main problem with this social program is K is in grade 3, yet she’s learning the grade 4 stuff because it’s a 3/4 split class. I know Social is not a stacking subject, but to throw her into a higher level of curriculum because of a split class and to expect her to be able to keep up does not sit well with me. I am not at all questioning my decision to remove her from this subject. I have a workbook at home that covers the grades 1 - 3 social curriculum so we’re all set.

I’m hoping in the future we’ll be able to relocate and it will be easier to do a blended program with K or the school will be a lot better and more willing to help her. But our education system is so flawed right now with all the cuts.

[homeschooled-littles]

August 28, 2019

Spelling Practice Activity!

I got the idea for this from Pinterest. It was for teaching sight words, but I adapted it to use it for spelling. K does not like doing the traditional spelling tests and gets nervous with them. So we weren’t able to practice many of her grade 1 spelling words.  using all the spelling words from her workbook I created flashcards using index cards. I printed corresponding pictures off and glued them on each card. I put lines under the picture to indicate how many letters each word is to help decode the sounds she’s hearing. Each pocket holds 10 cards. The cards from each pocket that are spelt correctly in her notebook, get moved to the done pocket. The incorrectly spelt ones stay in the pocket. At the end of the week, the cards that were answered incorrectly get put together in the pockets starting at pocket 1. Then the remaining pockets are filled with additional cards so that each pocket holds 10 cards for the week. The done pocket is emptied and put in a separate elastic band in my baggy with the flashcards.

Since doing this, K has been spelling words with ease. It was worth all the work! I still have more cards to create for the grade 1 set and then the grade 2 and 3 sets have to be created.

Pinterest Idea Link: https://pin.it/mkhxi54rtq5qb2

[homeschooled-littles]

Tuesday November 12, 2019

I just finished putting together all the flashcards for the grade 1 spelling words! K has been doing really good with her spelling. We’re not as far along in it as I’d like, but she’s making progress. Lately she’s been doing 10 - 20 flashcards before bed and doing really well with them. I’m so proud of her!

This was such a good idea and I highly recommend it!

[homeschooled-littles]

November is Here!

Tuesday November 5, 2019

Novemeber has finally arrived! I have big plans for this month and big goals for us. I’m hoping we can accomplish a fair bit and for the first time complete our monthly reading challenges. I’m looking forward to spending a lo of quality time with K working on her reading and her school work. She truly loves me teaching her and that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy. This month I want to hopefully get through a majority of the grade 2 math. My goal is to have it finished by the end of December so we can focus on the grade 3 math for the remainder of the year and we won’t be behind once next year comes along. This month I do need to evaluate her reading level and see where she’s at so I know where we need to go in terms of leveled readers.

[homeschooled-littles]

Changes to our Schedule

Monday November 4, 2019

Our previous schedule was to follow sort of a school based schedule and do multiple subjects each day. Instead, we’re going to be focusing on one subject per day. I’m hoping that by doing this we can get more work done in a day and progress through everything faster. I’m also hoping that by spending an entire day on reading, using a variety of different tools, K will start to improve on her reading. Her success is the most important thing!

[homeschooled-littles]

Sunday November 3, 2019

I purchased these grade 1 workbooks to help my struggling reader. I’m hoping these books will help her build her skills. I’m starting with the grade 1 level even though she’s in grade 3. I feel that these books alone with the Reading Intervention Binder I purchased will be very helpful to her. When we’re finished these ones and if they’ve helped I’ll order the grade 2 ones and then the grade 3′s after that. K was actually wanting to start the green workbook tonight but it was passed bedtime and I was busy so she has to wait until morning.

[homeschooled-littles]

Saturday November 2, 2019

Our new Language Arts workbooks for Grade 3 have arrived! We haven’t finished the grade 2 versions of these so it will probably be a while before we get to them. Either way, I’m going to start the planning so I don’t have to do it later on.

All workbooks were purchased on Amazon.ca

[homeschooled-littles]

Saturday November 2, 2019

Our new Grade 3 Math books have arrived! I have to start planning out our lessons for each unit so everything is all organized when we’re ready to begin.

Both workbooks were purchased from Amazon.ca

[homeschooled-littles]

October has been Stressful!

Monday October 28, 2019

This month has been filled with it’s struggles. K has not been doing well in Public School since the beginning of the year. I was expecting some difficulties, but I was expecting her to do better than she has been.

I met with her Home Ed Principal and we discussed possibly having K go to school for her Language Arts as well so she could get the extra reading help she needs.

I brought this suggesstion to her school Principal and everything just snowballed from there. The Principal requested to meet with me on Wednesday October 23rd after school. I agreed to the meeting and went to it all prepared with what I was going to say. That all got thrown out the window when I was ambushed by 2 of K’s teachers, the teacher who would be her LA teacher and the Principal. I was only expecting to meet with the LA teacher and the Principal. Being ambushed like that was not pleasant. To top it off they made me feel very small in that room like I had no voice. It was very difficult and one of those times I wish I would have dragged my husband with me. I didn’t bring him because I was prepared and I knew bringing him would ruffle some feathers. He’s not as polite as I am and he’s more abrasive.

I had no need to speak with K’s social and science teachers who were at the meeting. Her science teacher I really dislike as she was K’s KG teacher and K was just left to fall through the cracks rather than being taught properly.

During the meeting they made it seem like homeschooling K was a huge mistake and that I have just wasted the last two years of her education. I know this is not the case, so that was hurtful. They brought up how K is lacking “school skills” like filling in the blank. That is a load of crap because she’s able to do that at home with me no problem. The only area where she lacks “school skills” is for quizzes and tests because we don’t do those in homeschool.

Because learning to read, write and do math are the most important life skills taught in school, another option was presented to me. They asked how Kiele is doing in math and I was honest. I told them that we are behind but working hard to catch up and start on the grade 3 math. I’m confident we can get the grade 3 math done by Christmas or shortly after. She’s is not struggling with it at all and we are able to fly right through the pages. Because she’s behind, that told them she is struggling and it was suggested I put her in school there for LA and Math where she could get the necessary help she needs.

By putting K into school for grade 3 math when we are doing the grade 2 stuff would be like throwing her to the wolves and I absolutely cannot do that to her and I was horrified that they would even suggest doing that to cause her additional struggles and frustrations at school.

All I wanted was to know how the LA teacher would help her improve her reading and I did not get that. I got bombarded with everything I’m doing wrong from their point of view. This was not a fair situation!

Her LA teacher would have done the at-home reading program with K where I would still be working with her on her reading at home. She would not get any one-on-one attention in the classroom, which is what she needs. Her teacher said she’d send over supplemental work from that days’ lessons for us to do for the next day. She would do the same for math.

How is that different than me teaching her at home and doing it all myself anyways? It’s not! I’m still doing all the work. The only Kiele would be getting would have been the classroom exposure. That is far less important to me than her succeeding in her reading and writing.

I was so upset in the meeting and from everything they were staying I started to tear up. I tried really really hard not to let them see me emotional but I just couldn’t hide it. Their comments were hurtful and I care way too much about my daughter to have feelings like stone.

After coming home, my husband and I talked all night until bedtime. We came to the decision that enough is enough and we would withdraw K from school and continue with homeschool full-time. They wanted an answer two days after our meeting. But after talking to K’s Home Ed Principal, he advised we take the weekend to think things over and discuss everything. That’s what I did and last night I sent the email to her school stating my decision. I got a very basic reply that they respect my decision and are disappointed to see K leave the school. I don’t care how disappointed they are, I’m disappointed in the lack of support and how they have to have the parents do the support instead of the teachers. I have no problem if my child was in school full-time and was struggling with something, like say patterns in math, and needed some extra practice at home. But to expect us parents to do all the support instead of having support in the classroom is not fair to us.

Tomorrow morning I’m picking up K’s things from the office and I hope they have everything there or I’m going ot be hounding them relentlessly until I get everything. At the beginning of the year I sent along 2 boxes of kleenex, they can keep those for all I care, but all her work and supplies that I bought through their program I want.

I’m hoping the adults in the school can remain professional as I still have A in KG. I don’t need A to get any fallback because the teachers dislike me over my decision. I don’t need her to have a hard time in school because I had to do what’s best for K. I know this year A is in good hands, but next year is a different story as she will have the teacher I really dislike. If that’s the case I will take A out of this school and I will send her to the school in the next town over even if that means dishing out extra money for bussing costs. If it means she will get a better, unbiased education, it will be worth it.

I love my children and all I want is what is best for them. They mean the world to me!

[homeschooled-littles]

Reading Intervention Binder for Beginning Readers No Prep ELA

This is a no-prep reading intervention binder that explicitly teaches and reinforces letter identification, letter sounds, phonemic awareness, handwriting, CVC words, blends, digraphs, nonsense words, phoneme segmentation, sentence fluency, and more! When and where should I use this binder?The No-Pr...

I purchased this to hopefully help K with her reading. If it helps I plan on purchasing the second edition of this binder. My middle child is in KG at school this year and this binder will also be helpful with her as well. I’m looking forward to using it!

[homeschooled-littles]

Major Hiccups!

October 14, 2019

Over the last week, I’ve been rather discouraged with my decision to send K back to school. She’s not doing as well as I expected and her teachers don’t really seem to be helping her much. No efforts have been made as far as I know to help her thrive in school.

On the 9th, we had Parent-Teacher Interviews. Now I wasn’t completely surprised by what I was being told. What bothered me was I had previously asked her one teacher if she was struggling and got no real response. The response I did get was very vague. Her Science teacher was a bit more helpful. But this is also a teacher I really don’t care for. She was K’s KG teacher and now she’s her Grade 3 Science teacher.

K’s main issue right now is her below-grade-level reading abilities. This is something I’ve been working on as much as possible with K but we’re just not getting there. We got K’s eyes examined and she now has a stronger pair of reading glasses. We’re hoping her glasses will make a difference.

I know we’re still at the start of the year and things could change as the year goes on, but I can’t help but wonder if I made the right choice for her. I emailed her Home Ed Principal and laid everything out. We have a meeting set up for Friday to discuss everything. This is a meeting my husband is coming in as well. He’s very involved with our children and their education. I’ve just been primarily handling everything with the schools.

So we’ll see what her Home Ed Principal has to say and see how we can all support K.

[homeschooled-littles]

Grade 1 Math is FINISHED!

September 12, 2019

We have reached a pretty significant milestone in our homeschool journey. After working on it for so long, we have finally finished the Jump Math 1.2 workbook! The main reason it took so long was we were working out of the 4 workbooks and they weren’t really necessary for us to work through. Starting next week we will begin the Jump Math 2.1 workbook. Instead of working out of all four books we’re only going to do the Jump Math for grade 2. Afterwards, we still have grade 3 math books to do before the end of the year.

[homeschooled-littles]

August 29, 2019

Reading Fluency!

Here is our reading fluency folder. Right now we are working on sight words cards. Next, we’ll do Phonics flashcards and Word Family flashcards. This follows the same process as I used for the spelling folder. The one difference is there are only 5 cards per pocket. These cards are quite thick and 10 cards is a bit much for each pocket. Still, there will be enough work in each pocket for about 10 minutes. We haven’t really started with this one and will probably start on it next week.

Pinterest Idea Link: https://pin.it/mkhxi54rtq5qb2

[homeschooled-littles]

August 28, 2019

Spelling Practice Activity!

I got the idea for this from Pinterest. It was for teaching sight words, but I adapted it to use it for spelling. K does not like doing the traditional spelling tests and gets nervous with them. So we weren’t able to practice many of her grade 1 spelling words.  using all the spelling words from her workbook I created flashcards using index cards. I printed corresponding pictures off and glued them on each card. I put lines under the picture to indicate how many letters each word is to help decode the sounds she’s hearing. Each pocket holds 10 cards. The cards from each pocket that are spelt correctly in her notebook, get moved to the done pocket. The incorrectly spelt ones stay in the pocket. At the end of the week, the cards that were answered incorrectly get put together in the pockets starting at pocket 1. Then the remaining pockets are filled with additional cards so that each pocket holds 10 cards for the week. The done pocket is emptied and put in a separate elastic band in my baggy with the flashcards.

Since doing this, K has been spelling words with ease. It was worth all the work! I still have more cards to create for the grade 1 set and then the grade 2 and 3 sets have to be created.

Pinterest Idea Link: https://pin.it/mkhxi54rtq5qb2

[homeschooled-littles]

August 27, 2019

We went shopping for school supplies last week. I bought a planner for the year that has just calendar pages and day planner pages. I still have a majority of my teacher planner from last year so I just needed the calendar pages to keep everything straight so I know who is where and when. This year is going to be crazy with K going into her blended program and A starting Kindergarten. This planner should help me keep things organized and keep me from losing my marbles.

I was going to create my own planner through free printable planners from online, but this was just easier and I like the look of it.

[homeschooled-littles]

August 26, 2019

I saw this idea on Pinterest a while ago and decided to make my own off the idea. The one from Pinterest was much larger and more spaces for stuff. I stuck with 20 so I could fit my little post-its onto it and it would still be a letter-sized piece of paper. I laminated it so it will last for the year. I’m hoping this will keep us productive and on track for the school year.

I’ve been doing some summer school off and on with K and this is what we have left to work on so far this week. I’m hoping we can get these stickies done today. But it seems we’re a bit tired after going for a walk around town.

Pinterest Idea Link: https://pin.it/5m2dxiw3k546rf

[homeschooled-littles]

July 3rd, 2019

My flower plant FINALLY rebloomed! It was looking dreadful for the longest time but it’s bloomed once again! This is the best bloom on the plant at the moment. Had to share how pretty it looks. This is one of the plants we got on our trip to the greenhouse in May.

[homeschooled-littles]

June 2019

A is starting Kindergarten in September and to help get her ready I’ve started doing writing practice sheets with her. Once she gets through these a couple times she can go on to work in her Writing workbook I got for her.

These are made with free printables that have been laminated. So there’s one traceable on each side of the laminate. A dry erase marker is used to write on them and they can be wiped off for easy reuse. I made these for K to help with her writing before going into grade 1 and they were a huge help.

A is only 5 and hasn’t done much writing practice so I’m very proud of her progress on these traceable pages. I need to get one made up where she can practice writing her name. That’s a big thing that they start learning in the second week of Kindergarten. Whatever I can do to give her a head start and make things easier on her, I will.