Different Kinds of Maths.

Maths is taking different shapes and sizes, literally, after looking for how I can involve Little Miss August in more school, and do some slightly different work with Little H#3 at the same time to involve them together.

A while ago I downloaded a great number of Scholastic e-books, as they had a dollar sale. One of them was a shapes fun booklet. I thought a little geometry wouldn't do us any harm, and this was perfect for tracing practice for Little Miss August as well as easy but still useful work for Little H#3. 

She really likes tracing and colouring at the moment and I am really pleased with the new dimension this is giving our mornings.

 Finished shapes coloured in and traced, ready for cutting and sticking.

Big brother Little H#1 helping with the cutting and sticking. Helping sometimes takes patience (!) so this was good practice in co-operation too for everyone!

Little H#3 making his shapes bear with little assistance and patiently waiting while we shared one tube of glue around the family. Note to self: we must buy more now that even that one has run out. I think we do a lot of craft. :) That, in itself, amazes me!

This is the usual maths scene. Math-u-See. We use the little DVD player now for those who want to watch their lessons. Was lovely having everyone gather around the PC to watch everyone else's lesson but it just takes too long to get through the work. While the boys were working, Little Misses were using play dough on the toddler table next to the big table. It was their first time with the home made play dough so we got a lot of mileage out of it. Still in use although the novelty's worn off a bit. Have re-invented said play dough to include a maths activity for Littles some time this week.

And now for the unschooling variety. This is child-led Park Maths.

Mr L and his mum came to the park with us for a play date. He was obviously much heavier than Little Miss August. The children decided that this was  a problem that needed fixing.

Nope.Mr L < Little Miss August + Little H#3

 Mr L + Little Miss June > Little Miss August + Little H#2... only just. Keep trying!

Aha!!!! Mr L does in fact = Little H#2 + Little Miss June. 

Socialisation + Children = Happy mums chatting while kids do their own kind of school. 

No two children were exactly the same age.

It didn't seem to matter...

What day is it again?

Shock realisation of the week was that Little H#3 doesn't know the days of the week in sequence. :o  I can share my homeschooling lows as well as the highs! He's doing well in maths (but the curriculum we use doesn't embrace days of the week until later, I know that from skipping the relevant lessons with the older 2, and being shocked that it was included in the curriculum at that point... ha ha). He's learning to read with a mix of methods. Somehow I have failed to notice that he doesn't have a concept of the week in his head yet.

After the initial shock and horror of that discovery, homeschool brain thinks there must be something that I can do about this immediately. I remembered from the vague distant past that in our primary school classroom, the black board always said "Today is..." and I THINK we had to copy it down on our work.

I printed out the words in an outline primary font (Edward Primary) which is the most similar to handwriting. I gave the sheets out and all the boys coloured them in for me. We laminated them and now have a changeable display on the wall just above the table where they work / play and where we eat all our meals. Little H#3 and Little Miss August can change the day together each morning.

Finished calendar.  Looks like we made it on Wednesday. :)

Not only that, I had found and passed over initially, some name of the day coat hanger labels for organising a pre-schooler's wardrobe. I am SICK of the stress getting the girls ready each day. It's a combination of the wardrobes not yet being organised well enough to keep the clothes easily sorted... and having a super fussy 3YO when it comes to what she is wearing. Not how it looks, but how it feels. She is the classic Spirited Child in that sense. Little H#3 was like this at the same age, and has gradually grown out of it. Now at 6 I don't have to have any dramas over his wardrobe, except he still finds the transition of season hard - getting used to wearing jeans after shorts all summer, etc. I have learned to just go with this, and Little H#3 is living proof that 'this too will pass' and it's not worth me stressing over it. I just have to find a way to get through the season.

So all of a sudden, choosing the clothes all in one go, labelling the coat hangers for each day of the week... started to look pretty attractive. Plus... we get days of the week practice!!!!!

The beautiful printables are on Etsy... and you have to pay for them. The crafty homeschool mum sees the education in the making of the labels, is too poor to buy the beautiful ones, and loves any excuse to laminate. :)

(The beautiful printables are here: http://www.afewofmyfavorites.com/2009/08/days-of-week.html )

So... here are our labels. Again of course everyone was enlisted to "make" and we were all very happy with the results.

 Everyone colouring in the labels that I made in Word using word art (for the outline words) and shape art (for the hanger shape).

 In use after 20 mins of sorting through the wardrobe so that I could ready make 8 outfits.

Why 8?

 I realised (because we happened to have a party to go to yesterday) that we needed a 'Party' label. I can't dress her in party clothes till we are ready to go to the party, and it made sense to make another label.

Of course I wouldn't have had the extra label if I'd bought the beautiful Etsy ones...

So far so good. Getting dressed on Saturday morning was a breeze. She chose the day of the week, discovered the clothes and 2 mins later was dressed. Wow.

Ta da!!!!

We went downstairs and straight away she picked the correct name of the day for the calendar.

Happy with the morning's activities. 

Mummy was a little ecstatic that the getting dressed idea has worked. I spent the same amount of time weeding out summer clothes and sorting out the outfits for the week... that it normally takes me to get the girls dressed.

The delightful challenge of Littles...

Whilst I have a backlog (already) of good lessons I want to detail before we lose them, I need to start somewhere with other things that I want to share.

Quite often friends who homeschool will ask what we do with younger sibs while the older ones do their work. Other friends whose children aren't homeschooled but not yet at school, ask homeschooling mums for ideas for activities for their 2-4 year olds.

Up until now with our current crop of Little Hs, it's been pretty easy going once the 'climbing all over the table and tipping the pencils out' phase lost its grip on our daily routine. That stage i am satisfied is purely developmental, and as with all things "this too shall pass". For now, it just about has, as long as Little Miss June is happy playing, and Little Miss August isn't having a Dairy Day.

I will categorise these posts so that I can share ideas as I add new ones, and go through photos for old ones. :) The old ones are currently a little "old" though so i am going to have to spend some time researching and making up new busy bags or activity packs to keep together and use in rotation. Little Miss August is often saying that she has nothing to do... she's in that intermediate place between toddler and school... I guess they call it Pre-school!!!!

Today's efforts. I have to include the "making pics" because I have involved all of the kids successfully recently in a few craft / school projects aimed at the Littles. So much better than doing it myself and a good family activity in itself for a weekend morning (or any other time!).

So first - I came across this idea today and we promptly made it.

http://allourdays.com/2012/10/legoduplo-building-inspiration-busy-bag-activity-bag.html

Duplo Building Inspiration Busy Bag.

I printed out the cards from the suggested kit, and we got our massive supply of duplo bricks out onto the table for sorting. The children had to make as many of the pictures as they could, to determine whether we actually had the parts used in the photos. Some worked, some needed alteration. Hey that's fine, because of course doing your own thing is often better (though not quicker!). We put on one side the models needing new photo cards, and the boys made a few extra models for our own cards.

 Making the suggested cards.

 Our finished models. We found that we didn't have all of the pieces for the set cards and made some of our own. The boys took the photos with my SLR and they made creative backgrounds for the models with coloured paper. We quickly preferred our own photos and re-did the others as well.

The finished Busy Bag! I made our own label, laminated the cards, and used a ring to bind the cards together for the kit.

I found an old drawstring conference bag which is the perfect size and easy to open and close to keep in all the blocks. I have a feeling that as well as using this during school time for Littles, it will also become a kit that we can take to places where we will want something to do for the children - after church over coffee or anywhere else we need the children to have an activity when we need to take our own toys.

Everyone's pleased with the final result and I am so grateful the children were on board and keen to help - and make it their own. That in itself is a great kind of school for me. Even on a Sunday morning. :)






Next, I followed a link from the Busy Bag page to other ideas for busy bags or activities for younger ones. I found some great printables for play dough mats... I confess I have never thought of making these and I am a total play dough novice. On the few occasions I have made it, they have been hit and miss... but I finally appear to have a good recipe. I made green play dough a few weeks ago and it is still going strong (and also very green on account of slipping with the bottle as I added the dye to the water!). I plan to share the pictures of how that has been used during school time too.

Among the pictures to use for play dough maths for Littles, I found an apple tree counting set. You are supposed to use red play dough but seeing as apples can be green as well - very little effort is required from me to get this one up and running, save printing and laminating the mats.

Here is the finished kit:

The link is here: http://www.prekinders.com/2008/02/ten-red-apples-counting-mats/

Being the perfectionist I am, I am not happy unless it has a nice shiny label of its own (so I made one) and I need to put it in a better bag or container. But for now, I need to be satisfied with the fact that I made 2 busy activities today, and they can both accommodate 2 or 3 children, depending on who is doing what at the time.

When I have chance to make more play dough I will make some red for the apples. Also I downloaded the printables for rabbits to eat set numbers of carrots... again  for the future when I am desperate to make orange play dough.

I also have an even better idea for a project for myself to allow the children to choose an activity from the ones I have available, and so that I don't forget what I have available as ideas. Coloured lollipop sticks with printed labels for different activities. I'll make myself a list of the ideas available, and that will be a craft activity for another date in the future - of course with my Helpers.

Long overdue catch up.

H Corner has moved again. :) This is my main reason for not having blogged properly (or at all) since last time. School has been happening, it just hasn't been recorded in a way that is easy for me to trace back right now. Which is a shame because the reason for the blog is so that I can keep a good record for the children of what we have done, show friends and other inquirers what we do and a bit about how we do it... hopefully encourage someone along the way, etc, as well as re-encourage myself when I go back to read through.

We are in a new season. Matthew is studying for pastoral ministry, we are on college campus living in community (wa hey!! Community-  gotta love it, in many ways it is just so much better than a little, forgotten about Corner somewhere!), and School is ever-changing.

For the good. Changing for the good, definitely.

I think I have to consider that I have 3 1/2 children "in school". Little Miss August is now about 3 3/4... and most definitely Learning. Not old enough for Kindergarten / pre-school but I am glad I don't restrict (or insist) based on age... and she's learning to read and a whole heap of other things. Little Miss June is now nearly 2, and she I suppose is the hardest for me to set up with things so that I can do work with the boys. But the boys are working more independently, although Little H#3 isn't reading yet, he is doing a great job at learning to read and write but not yet independently. I am really pleased with his progress but it is still very hands on for me which means I still have those inevitable time struggles.

So... how am I handling a toddler and a pre-schooler? Well I am a whole lot more organised with everything than I used to be. For a long period of time we have freewheeled with most subjects in an unschooling / natural learning kind of manner. Which has been great but it is time for change.

Finally the house is getting some kind of organised, and the kitchen / dining area is lovely and big. We have room for the table to extend fully and a friend the other day gave me a cute little (and very old) toddler table and chair, which is great for the girls to sit at with an activity.

I am trying something new on a personal level. A new kind of planning. Having a whole heap of stuff printed out and planned for the children in advance, rather than in my head. Lots of tuts I am sure for those who think this is what I should be doing anyway! But I can hold a lot in my head and the only difference in some ways is a seamless transition between activities! Also I am finding (maybe a little to my dismay) that the children respond really well to... Lists. So Lists it is. If  I don't have a list, they show reluctance, refusals sometimes, and I lose motivation. If I put a List up - they drive me. They motivate me and keep me on the straight and narrow. We get through everything really quickly and my Chief Complainer becomes Team Leader. :)

So we have a Morning Jobs list, I have tried a List of School (column each for each child) and the feeling of having that ready to go for the next day, was amazing for me and it blessed them too. They were excited about it. So while I am not a Scheduling Mama I am trying to find a way of using this tool to help us all without getting too prescriptive, or stifling their (or my) creativity.

We can go to Chapel every morning if we want to. It is at 10.20am-ish. I have discovered I can get a lot of school done before then, this way. The children really want to go, they enjoy it, but I haven't been brave enough to try for every day though the children are up for it.

There's going to be another Little H in September, so this is the pregnancy year. Little H#6!! Normally I find the pregnancy year way worse in homeschooling terms than the baby year. So far so good. It's great, and we are doing well. Just loving homeschool and being encouraged constantly. I am excited to have a backlog of lessons and activities I want to blog about.