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Life is too short to eat bad food! Sharing great recipes, farm life, stories and photography from our Northern California dairy farm.

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July 23, 2010

Summer Home School

Bryce is 5 years old (will be 6 in October) and he just completed his Kindergarten year at the one room school house he attends. I really feel we have the best of both worlds with this school.  It's a one room school, as I said, there are 15 students total (grades K-6th) with a full time teacher and a full time aid.  It's in it's own school district and has been in existence since the 1800's.  Dominic attended this school as did his two sisters.

Last year Bryce had two other Kindergartners in his class.  His teacher, Mrs. Wester teaches K - 2nd grade in a small room off the main room.  Mrs. Doyle, the teacher/Principal teaches 3rd - 6th grades in the main school house room as well as overseeing the little guys too.  Each student benefits from one on one time at an individual level with the teachers. 

So with this being Bryce's first summer break from school, I didn't want him to lose any of his reading, writing and math skills that he's learned through the year over the long summer. So I thought if we did 30 minutes of 'Home School' each weekday morning, it would keep him in tune and ready to begin 1st grade when September comes.


Bryce totally got into this idea.  He was SO excited that we were going to play 'Home School' each and every morning.  The entire first week, he woke up at 7 a.m. and was ready to begin 'Home School'.
I told him 'Home School' begins at 9 a.m. after breakfast and coffee.

I don't know if he was more excited about me being his 'teacher' or just the idea of playing school in general.  He insisted that we play until lunch time every day.  And we did, with recess , a school bell and all.
We begin with reading then math, flash cards, spelling test, art and what ever else we find interesting on a particular day.

I found a few grade level books at Target for him.


Paige wanted in on 'Home School' as well.


I try and mix it up as much as I can with the different subjects.  So far it's going well.  The great thing I found about homeschooling is you can work it around your own schedule.  Like the two weeks of swim lessons that we signed up for, conflicted with the homeschooling time, but we just moved it to the afternoon instead.  I do prefer the morning time though, I think there's better concentration at that time.

There are also a couple of good websites to go to, one of them being http://www.starfall.com/ (Bryce was on Star Fall throughout his Kindergarten year and now Paige is into it)
and another, Enchanted Learning  there are also a few others that are tied to his school such as Study Island and Accelerated Reading.  And I've found numerous websites readily available on the world wide web by googling 'homeschooling'.

If you have a great home school website you know of, please let me know!  I'd love to begin a file:)

Happy Friday!
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3 comments:

Maru Whitmore said...

That's fantastic! It's a very good idea, I also recommend for math the Saxon method. My girls are older but since I am a teacher I never escape the teaching activities. Even on the school year whenever they come home with "no homework" those wonderful exercise books are ready for them to keep their skills up. We start school mid August so it will be here soon. Reading, Math Music and Art have been the focus of our summer activities. With "free time every day. Then tennis in the evening or another physical activity to get them ready for bed. The weather has not cooperated much for swimming but that's always on our list. I'm so impressed that your son was up so early for his lessons!! A wonderful routine for "the son of a Dairyman" Yay Bryce!!

Brittney said...

Hello! I am follower from Portland. I am elementary special education teacher and love, love this website: http://www.tumblebooks.com/library/asp/home_tumblebooks.asp

The books can read to your kids, with pictures, and their can be fun activities and assessments. I love this website and I show a book every afternoon, while kids are coming in from recess and having snack. enjoy and feel free to contact me anytime.

Pat Tillett said...

That is so good that you can do this at home. You must be sooooo busy though!