5th Grade Calvert has arrived

 Eagle's school year starts in January.  This is because I made him repeat the third grade...when he was in third grade.  With only two months to go to complete his third grade year, I just didn't feel he had learned or retained enough to progress at that time.  The beauty of homeschooling is, he has repeated a year...but so far, has never failed a grade.  I still do not regret my decision, as I feel it was by far one of the best homeschooling decisions I have ever made.  He has come so far since switching to Calvert!  We have worked very hard to try and recover from the half of the year we fell behind when repeating that third grade year and we've advanced a few months.  He has a complete 12 months to complete his curriculum but we do hope to finish "early" to get him more "caught up" to his peers.  

Nothing is more exciting than starting a new year and today Eagle's boxes arrived!  

We are seasoned Calvert users so unpacking and getting things organized is a very quick process for us!  Here's what was in his box.

Everybody has their own shelf to keep all of their curriculum.  This is our shelf.

This is Eagle's shelf

Basically, all of the worksheets and manuals are stored in a crate.  All of his textbooks and workbooks are to the right on the shelf.  All of his novels and other materials are kept up out of reach because of the little ones.

The older kids are able to do a lot of things independently so we are moving back to the workbox system.  Eagle will use his system independently and Macaw will be training for the second semester of this year so that next year she will be able to work more independently as well. This system always worked well for Eagle, but we have not always had the space to do it so we haven't used this system for a while. We got a nice rolling cart for Eagle's workstation.  All of his assignments will be loaded into his boxes.  Each box will contain the things he needs to complete each assignment.  Any work that needs to be completed with me will be marked with a * and he will know that is a teacher led assignment.  He will complete his independent work (I answer questions and help as needed when I am available).  Teacher led lessons will be taught at our scheduled times.  At the end of the day I will grade his work and fill his boxes for the next day.  Any work that needs to be corrected will be worked on the next day.  He is responsible for filing away any graded work and keeping his notebook neat and orderly.  

Here are his workboxes

I immediately set up his boxes and he quickly got to work! Here is his first day of boxes...

Math

Close up of Math box

Close up of Grammar Box

Close up of Spelling Box

 Close up of Science Box

 Close up of History Box

Close up of Reading Box

Close up of Art History Box

Hope this helps those who are always asking how we set things up.  Hopefully soon I can give a more detailed look at how our classroom is set up now since we have moved.  

Macaw alters her own curriculum!

The power of a 5 year old! 

There is nothing more amazing than watching my children learn...except watching them come up with their own way to learn!

Yesterday, Macaw and I were working on Language Arts.  Our lesson was interrupted and I returned to find this on her desk!

I see my foot.

She is working on high frequency words with word and pictures as part of her Calvert curriculum.

As you can see in the picture...there is an entire stack of "picture cards".  She set up her sentence using a piece to her new pedicure set she got the other day.

This routine continued as she changed her sentence simply by adding a new object.

I see my cup.

We went on to read..."I see my nail clippers", "I see my pencil", "I see my nail file"....

This small alteration made this lesson so much fun for Macaw!

It's wonderful to see her make changes to her own curriculum.  That's what homeschooling is all about...tailoring the curriculum to meet the needs of an individual child and there's nothing better than seeing them tailor it themselves!

Great Job Macaw...now on to today's lesson!

Jack and Jill

We are loving the Calvert Curriculum that we are using with Macaw!!

Today's rhyme is "Jack and Jill"...

I am always adding extra activities in where ever I can and with every story or rhyme, I try to find at least one craft.  I can not believe that I have not discovered http://www.makinglearningfun.com/ sooner!  This is a wonderful free site for my little ones...and to think I was going to pay for Enchanted Learning!  Ahh...anyways, Macaw has been working on different enrichment activities this morning. 

Here she is trying to recite her new rhyme with her finger puppets that she made.  Hey, not too bad considering we had only read the rhyme a few times before she felt ready to try to recite it!

She also made sequence cards

She's taking a break for now...but when she returns, she will be making a pail before trying to recite her new rhyme!

ThursDay-in-the-life

Uggh!!

Again, my morning started much later than it was suppossed to...but, storms last night sent five visitors to my room.  Hours went by and finally, I was able to get to sleep, but not long after...my alarm was making a very poor attempt to get me up.

I finally made my way downstairs at around 7am.  My coffee just isn't the same when I'm out of creamer and I didn't have the heart to wake up Falcon, as I knew he didn't get any sleep either.  So, needless to say...my morning wasn't off to a great start.

The kids started waking up on their own as early as 7:30...the muffins were just coming out of the oven.  You'd think our school day would have gotten off to an earlier start, but for some reason things were just very chaotic this morning.  Hawk was not very happy when he came down to find out that he was not going fishing, but at least his school work was done for the day. 

Macaw received all of her Calvert Curriculum/Supplies at around 11:30am. 

We unpacked and went through all of her stuff and got her things organized.

 

She was so eager to get started, so we dove right in.  To my surprise, she was not very willing to allow the smaller ones in on her lesson.  She has always worked extremely well with the kids, but after all...she understood that she is starting Kindergarten.  She knows that this year is the "real deal" and that all these wonderful things came to HER, so I couldn't blame her for wanting the attention all to herself.  It was a rough afternoon trying to get her lessons done, but she was able to enjoy most of her day and at times, she did allow her younger siblings to sit at the table with her. 

Duckling eager to sit in on a lesson

Duckling working on her letter "A" worksheet

Emu showing off his worksheet and Macaw hard at work on her workbook

We made puppets of Goldilocks and The Three Bears after we read the story

Tomorrow, I will wake her up early and try and get most of her things done before Emu and Duckling wake up.  I wonder if other veteran homeschoolers have to do as much "tinkering" with their schedules as I do!

Cardinal worked almost completely independent today.  I love her attitude and her drive...she is so eager to learn!  She is very much enjoying her Life Science.  It was thrilling to see her excited to learn something new and the "oh" factor that comes with figuring out how and why certain things happen.  She read about plants and how they form a wax like substance to protect themselves when they get cut or injured.  She rushed right out to the field to find a dandelion to experiment with.  I love that she is in an environment where she has the ability to learn hands on...where she can get right up from her desk and set foot outdoors to actually "see" what she is reading about and to be able to watch things happen, instead of just reading about them.

By the time I was finished teaching Macaw her lessons, I had a terrible migraine headache.  I was unable to work with Eagle, so he had an "off" day.

The alarm is set to go off at 6am tomorrow.  The goal is to have Macaw up by 7:00.  I went to the store and got creamer and the kids were all in bed at a decent hour tonight, so there should be no excuses in the morning!  Tomorrow shall be a better day!  

Hop on over to the Not Back to School Blog Hop and see how other homeschoolers spent their Thursday!
We'll see you tomorrow!