We have yet to “officially” start home school, however we do still put aside an hour a day for learning time. In the state of Arizona you can’t register your child intent of homeschooling till the age of six and you don’t have to register your child to start homeschooling till the age of eight as long as you put in an intent to home school through the state and just confirm you do not wish to start official schooling activities till the child is eight.
We will be moving into the family housing at the ASU polytechnics campus in end of October/beginning of November? We are still unsure what housing we will be getting but the smallest of the bunch will be a 3 bed/2 bath plus den. The den will be used for their home school classroom and we are already stocking up on supplies. We have decided on a Montessori curriculum which is something that we will just do on our own with no official school books. Montessori is all hands on and they spend little no time with book work.
As we go through our school year I will be blogging their progress and uploading videos on all the activities we do. Before we start I will have the kids re-tested to see about what level they are at. It’s been about 5 to 6 months (age 4 ½) since they were official tested by a professional. At that point the tested into a begging 1st grade level and were reading at a beginner’s level (level 1). They knew how to add and subtract double digits on paper and how to add and subtract single digits by memory. They could right their name and copy full sentences. At this point I know they need to be re-tested because they are now reading at an advanced beginners (level 2), they can now add and subtract up to 4 digit numbers, they can do multiplication with numbers up to 10, they can do simple algebra (ex. 3 +__= 13 and 20 -__ = 15). they can also right full sentences by listening instead of copying.
Right now we’re starting to work with time and money so they are really excited about that. We picked up a teaching clock and are using a daily schedule that has a little picture of a clock next to each activity where you can draw in the hands yourself, this way they will have to figure out what time their next activity will be on their own. We also purchased a paper money and coin set to start helping with their money skills.
Like I was saying we do an hour of official learning time. Really it’s more studying then anything with practice writing and reading etc. But I’m really not a big fan of just sitting down structured learning. I rather get more hands on. So in reality we do school all day long. We always try to find ways of teaching while at the park, or the grocery store. For instance today while leaving the store jazzy noticed pigeons that were in the parking lot eating something off the ground. She pointed them out and just then 2 flew away. So I asked her how many was left. She answered 4, just then 4 more flew down, so I asked her “if there are 6 pigeons and 2 flew away and then 4 came back how many would you have” she answered 8. We are constantly doing real life riddles and word problems all day long. Our real life learning practice tends to hold up lines at the super market while we let the kids count out the change to the cashier and we definitely cause some road blocks in the isles while the kids are comparing prices lol but its 100% worth it!!
The kids are so excited to start school at the new house and we are excited for them!!!we will definitely keep you up to date with all our progress =)
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