Letter Ll: Music

We study each letter for two weeks.

Here is the music we had for the
Letter Ll

The first song we did was a favorite classic of mine. I LOVE it because it teaches how to spell the word LOVE while introducing my kiddos to Jazz & Blues :) Of course I'm talking about Nat King Cole's L-O-V-E song!!

My Little Shortcake LOVED dancing to Nat King Cole!!





Part of our Bible time is also music time. I just love Steve Green's music! It is such a great way to have little one's learn bible verses!

This week we are learning Deuteronomy 6:5a NIV. "Love the LORD your God with all your heart." Steve Green's song "You Shall Love the Lord" is set to Matthew 22:37 but it was still a perfect match!!


During our first L week, we learned that Ll is for ladybug. I found this really cute video/song from Little Fingers that Play: Little Ladybug. This ladybug loses her spots and collects them counting from 1-10. This went perfect with learning ten this week! If I had ambition, I could totally see this with a felt ladybug with black felt spots to do as we sang this song!




During our second L week, we focused on Ll is for leaf. I found this song from Great Worship Songs for Kids 4 called "Autumn's A Song".

It talks about the seasons and how God has blessed us with Harvest time. The Autumn colors remind us that God is the giver of beautiful things. "Autumn's a song creation sings".







Since we are talking about Ll is a ladybug and the colors of fall, we are talking about the color red for these 2 weeks.

When I taught First Grade, I loved using Frog Street's Colors books and songs! We sang "I Can Spell Red". It talks about how firetrucks and stop signs are red!



I Can Spell Red
(tune of Are You Sleeping)

R-E-D red, R-E-D red,
I can spell red.
I can spell red.
Firetrucks are red.
Stop signs are red too.
R-E-D, R-E-D


(I wish they had this in MP3 format though so I could have them right on my MP3 player!)

Hope you find this to be helpful while teaching your little ones! Feel free to leave a link or comment if you have other suggestions for other readers.

Now I Know My ABC's

Getting started with letters is a little more tricky. There is no time like "potty time" to get started. When you are making those billion 5-10 minute trips to the potty, it's a perfect time to have some learning time.

As soon as my daughter was introduced to the potty I put an ABC strip up on the wall. Any time we sat down I would quiz her. We started with the letters in her name. We also pointed to the letters while we sang the ABC songs.

There are several alphabet songs you can choose from. We kept it interesting and used all of them.
     Alphabet song---traditional
     Super Why's ABC song
     Jesus ABCs
     Christian ABCs
     Elmo's ABCs
     Elmo's ABC rap

As soon as she learned the 5 letters of her name, we started adding more letters until she knew all 26. About every 1-3 days we added a new letter.

Driving is a perfect time to get your little one practicing their letters. The McDonald's arches, letters on highway signs, and of course you can't miss the car brand letters: H for Honda, F for Ford and V for Volkswagen!


Searching cereal boxes and magazines are great ways to practice letters. We love the Zoobies and Zootles magazines from Zoobooks. We learn about animals and have fun with letters too!

We love our alphabet cookie cutters too. We use them with cookies and play dough. I believe I found my set at Goodwill for $1.

My daughter also loves Starfall. It's a website full of ABC learning. Not only is she getting experience with letters and beginning sounds, but she is also getting computer learning in too!



One of my other favorites are the LeapFrog Alphabet movies. They are cute, fun and educational!!! I LOVE the farm one!!

 


Some great toys from LeapFrog that encourage independent practice:


 You can find other ideas on my Pinterest board: Now I know my ABCs.

     

Starting with Phonics

My daughter is 4 now so we are starting to home school a little more intentionally. The nice thing is that she knows all of her alphabet and sounds, so there is less pressure for us to move through a curriculum...which is really nice since I am nearly 7 mos. pregnant with number 3.

Here is where we were last year:
Our Starting Point

When I taught Kindergarten and First Grade, our school used a curriculum called Saxon Phonics. Many of you may have heard of Saxon Math curriculum which is known for its repetition. I had experience with the First Grade Saxon Math and I was not a real fan. It seemed that many of the kids did not think critically going through the curriculum which is so important for Mathematics. However, I LOVE the Saxon Phonics program.

When I was growing up I learned to read with the whole word method, so phonics was never a part of my "tool box". Luckily I was good at memorizing, but I hated to read and I always struggled with new words. I had no idea how to sound them out. When I started teaching this curriculum I really learned a lot.  I like how simple this curriculum is for the teacher too :)

Here is the Saxon Phonics & Spelling classroom package

I LOVE their readers, decoding, and progression through material. My kindergartners would start reading by week 3 of the curriculum!!!! All of my students were so successful with this curriculum. The only down side for me are their worksheets. I'm not a big worksheet fan anyways, especially since we can just do some board work while homeschooling. I will be using a pre-cursive handwriting system with her and adding some creative writing as we get further along.

I purchased the Homeschooling version K-2 off of eBay as I found deals and I have to say I wasn't as impressed. It needs a little updating. I think my versions might just be older. So...I've searched Amazon and eBay for their classroom readers and some of their flash cards to use with my homeschooling curriculum.

Decodable reader

This is a first grade decodable reader from  the teacher/school version of Saxon. These are available for each grade. They are great because the go along with what you are learning each week including any sight words and letter/ digraph/ dipthong/combination. I also love that it includes all the things they have learned up until that point too. It really gives kids confidence when they know they can pick up the book and tackle it. These black and white copies are great for allowing them to highlight sight words or find letters in the story too! LOVE LOVE LOVE THESE!


Here is another homeschooling Mom's review of Saxon.

This is the homeschooling version of Saxon Phonics K.

We just moved into our new house, so I am hoping to have our homeschooling area set up by this weekend, but I may be pushing it :)

We will be starting with the letter Ll (when we are settled) and focusing on each letter for 2 weeks. You may be wondering why we are starting with the letter Ll. I know many may think, wouldn't you just start with A and work through Z? Saxon Phonics starts with Ll, Oo and Gg. Ll and Oo are a great place to start because they make up the basic parts of all the letters with the straight line and the circle. Also, it is great because the first word you read is "log". Then, when you add Hh, you have "log" and "hog".

We are spending 2 weeks on each letter because I want to have time to be able to plan and have lots of fun with letter activities. As I find letter activities, I will be updating my Pinterest board "Now I Know My ABC's" so feel free to look around. I will also post some of my favorites for each letter!!

So...here's to getting started with a true homeschooling year!

"Count" Me In

Maybe you are starting this journey of teaching your little ones and you have so many questions! If so, this is a simple post to give you some direction.

Where do I start?
What should my expectations be?
What if my child isn't interested in learning?

Teaching is a part of every day life. While planned teaching is very needed, the early years are really about teaching your child about all the things that are a part of their world. As soon as your child enters this world you begin pushing that first word, don't you? I take advantage of those baby cuddle moments and repeat "Ma-ma" or tell them about how much Jesus loves them.

My little guy is about turn a year old and the next phase for us has started. Once you have moved passed teaching them about the binky, the bottle and crawling, the next phase is right around the corner.

When you start introducing those finger foods and those little hands start learning how to get that little Cheerio to their mouth, it's a perfect time to get started with counting. Count out the finger food pieces in front of them. Don't count all the way to like 20 or anything. Stay around 5 and then just start over again. As your little one gets bigger, continue counting higher as they memorize the numbers.


Besides starting in the high chair keeps them in one place so they can actually focus on learning.

Using a "manipulative" (things that they can touch and feel like the Cheerio) will help them to develop the understanding that they aren't just saying these random words out loud. They will soon discover that "one" corresponds to the item you are counting.

Expectations are hard at this age. All babies, toddlers and preschoolers develop at different ages. Don't be afraid or hesitate to teach them something that "is not at their age level". Let your child discover things and if they don't "get it", don't worry about it. They will. Just keep exposing them to things that they are interested in and the things come up in "their world".

Betty may be a little ballerina. Teach her to count out dance steps. Expose her to all kinds of music. Start with colors on her tu-tu. Talk about the triangle on her ballerina pillowcase.

Junior might be into cars. Teach him to count his cars as he puts them into lines. Start with the letters C, A, and R. Show him the circles on the wheels. Start with the color of his favorite car.

Maybe you are going to the 4-H fair in July. Learn the animals and their sounds before you go. In our family this would include ASL signs that we can sign as we walk around the animal pens.

"monkey" in ASL

Betty may surprise you and just keep counting all the way to 15 by age 2. Junior may be lucky to count to 5. That's ok. Just go with where they are at and keep working. Most likely, Junior is progressing in another area and counting is just something he is not interested in.

The key is exposure, exposure, exposure. Expose them to all kinds of things in their world and watch them grow!!

my little ones dance and music time

The Big Schooling Debate

As I have started my homeschooling planning, I have found that there are actually a lot of different styles of homeschooling. Here is a website with more information and details of each kind. There are many different styles to fit the needs of all kinds of families. I'd like to give a few opinions about what I have researched.

Unit Studies is honestly a great way to go about schooling. When you keep a theme chances are that students will retain more. I personally love how spelling, science, math, reading and sometimes history and bible all come together in a unit study. The only downside is sometimes making sure you find a way to relate everything your child really needs to learn. A popular curriculum called Our Father's World is a unit studies program. I have a friend who has started with this curriculum and loves it. I would love to look at it more in detail myself.

Classical Education reminds me of a one-room school house. The approach focuses on memorization and learning a broad amount of facts in each subject area so that later in education you have higher level thinking to apply all of it to. I think that memorization can be a good exercise for a young mind. A child can learn many things when they are extremely young just by focusing on memorization. The great thing about memorization is that the information is always with you. However, many children are not auditory learners so this becomes dull, boring and eventually they stop thinking about what they are repeating all for the sake of repeating it. I think it is also important to master things sometimes even at a young age.

Montessori Homeschooling is based on allowing children to learn at the pace they want. I know that this can work really well for children on the autism spectrum. Allowing a very intelligent kid to learn at the level they desire can be very beneficial. I love that Montessori schooling promotes hands-on activities too. However, I don't agree that children should just be left to their own learning standards. I think allowing a child to learn teacher or parent directed learning is so important. How would they survive higher learning? I think there is a balance.

Unschooling or Self-Directed Learning is very similar to Montessori type teaching. Basically you allow the students to only learn about what they want to learn about. If your child is interested in butterflies, then you would find all kinds of real books (not textbooks), TV shows, movies, hands-on experiences, art, science experiments, field trips, etc. that explore butterflies. You would not sit down to do a worksheet or read in a textbook. A child would not be forced to explore the resources that they were given. A child is basically in command of their own learning schedule and objectives. While I love the idea of encouraging learning in things they are interested in, I think this is also lacking in parent or teacher directed learning. This sounds to me like an outflow of child focused parenting. Your child might not want to learn to keep a check book, but as a teacher or parent they will need to learn things that will prepare them for life. Again, I think there needs to be a balance. There is nothing wrong with using a textbook or worksheet to help teach something.

Standard Curriculum driven Schooling at Home looks like the traditional public school only at home. Basically you buy all of the curriculum for each subject area and then teach it to your child just as a school teacher would. Being a teacher, it probably won't surprise you that I do agree with having standards or benchmarks for your child's education. I will probably need to post a whole new post about this topic, but for now, I just want to emphasize that you need objectives/goals to make sure you cover the material that you would like to cover. Obviously it would not be acceptable for a child to be in 10th grade without learning basic addition. How would they ever learn to solve a simple geometric equation in 10th grade if they never learned basic math skills? The wonderful thing about being at home is that you can go outside of or even delay standards until your child is ready. Buying curriculum as a homeschooling parent is the easiest way to go. You get the curriculum and you follow it as you go. The huge downfall to most curriculum is that it is not often hands-on or outside of the "classroom". Another worksheet? More flashcards? YUCK! How boring! A teacher often relies on these things as a way to measure 20-30 students at one time so they can keep record of the progress each child is having in their class. It is the way they evaluate. However, you have the awesome one-on-one time with your child so evaluating your child is pretty obvious. Only use worksheets that aid you in your teaching, don't use them as an instrument to keep them busy.

So what kind am I using? Well...pieces of all of them. First of all, I am going to go through standards and make objectives for each year, each month, and each week. These objectives will guide me. I will use some curriculum...especially for reading, but I will also take a hands-on approach and use thematic units to create a creative learning environment. Curriculum will never direct my teaching path, it will simply be my tool to use in conjunction with my objectives. I will also try to overlap some of my objectives for each kid so we can learn as a family. I will write more on how this looks as I continue my homeschooling journey.