Educating Puggle 2009

December 28, 2009 at 2:42 pm · Filed under Art, Domestic Life, Family, French, History/Geography, Home Education, Language, Latin, Maths, Music, Organisation, Progress, Puggle, Reading, Reflection, Singing

Technically, this would have been his Kindergarten year.

Although I lost it in terms of blogging what we did, we did keep doing a lot. (The things I talk about below probably aren’t everything I could mention… they’re just the things that were a standout one way or another.)

Things that worked
Story of the World
Puggle loved this! I had heard good things about the audio version, so we got it in addition to the text, and I’m very glad we did! At random other times of the week Puggle has asked to listen to it, and grabbed the book and followed along (more and more accurately as his reading has improved:-) ) We haven’t done all the associated activities. This is our first time through, and he’s quite young yet (certainly not writing in any reliable way), so I’ve mostly just set him some colouring in. But he talks about what he’s heard, and he goes searching for food (like the nomads) or brings up new facts when related things are being discussed (and I really haven’t done a great job about noting those occasions—I can’t think of any now:-( )
Right Start Maths
This hasn’t precisely ‘filled his day with joy’, but he has worked happily with it, and has learnt a lot. It does work for him, but I am still developing strategies (and working on the timing) to allow me to work with him without the other two needing me:-) Bilby is better when she has her own tally sticks and abacus, but Cygnet is starting to require attention at this sort of time. Bilby likes to sing along with the songs as well:-)
Song School Latin
This has been a blast:-) Both Puggle and Bilby sing the songs, and Puggle has enjoyed working through the book. I really like the songs (well, with one exception:-) The Silly Sally one sets me on edge, but that’s not bad:-) ), and I love the range of sounds they’ve used:-) The activities have been nicely pitched (we’ve done a fair bit orally, especially at the start of the year, and used lines to join things rather than writing words out… but it’s worked well). He has been able to be somewhat independent with this. First day of a new chapter I’ve worked with him, but the rest of the week he’s managed on his own.
BlackBelt Recorder
I had not planned on getting anything for recorder. I can play a bit, and we have a couple of beginning recorder books. But we weren’t actually settling down to do it. A friend mentioned this, and I noticed it when I was at Wooldridges, and it’s only $10 (for the student book), so I picked it up. It has been great! I think a big part is the accompanying CD. I have the current tracks in our daily playlist, which means he hears them, and because they have ‘big’ instrumentation, it was actually still fun even when he was only playing 2 notes:-) Now that he’s playing actual songs (nursery rhymes), it’s a blast:-)
Workboxes
This is one of those posts I have meant to do for about the last 6 months, and haven’t got to. I would still like to put it in, with all the links I collected when reading about it, but I doubt I’ll finish the post I’d intended.
Earlier this year (about May), I came across some references to Workboxes, a daily organisation system that swept portions of the homeschooling community by storm. I read a number of blogs on the topic, and thought it looked quite workable, then read a friend’s copy of the book and decided to go for it. Unusually for me, i didn’t leap in all guns blazing, instead I used stuff we had, and printed off copies of other people’s ’setting up’ sheets. I waited until the start of the next block, rather than beginning in the middle of one. And we gave it a go.
And it worked for me. So then, for the next block, I invested the effort to set it up ‘properly’, to make things look ‘right’.
Essentially, you have a given number of receptacles for each child (Puggle has 10, because we had inherited 2 sets of 5 drawers, and they seem to be of a suitable size, Bilby has 5, and i structure hers rather differently). In each draw, you put all the things that are required for one activity. Pretty much, Puggle starts every day with the same four boxes. Copywork (activity card, a pencil, timer, copywork sheets), Latin (activity card, pencil, Song School Latin book, any extras required for the day’s activity), Maths (activity card, pencil, workbook [sometimes], abacus, blocks/cards/tallysticks), Recorder (activty card, his recorder, my recorder, Black Belt Recorder book, pencil and sheet if there’s an activity I’d like him to do). The rest of the boxes are filled with other tasks for the day. This usually includes some independent reading, some read alouds (often beeswax to accompany them), it often includes a meal to cook, art or craft to do. Each day of the week has a focus for the afternoon, so those activities are in here.
I think it works so well for us, because it forces me to get all the little bits organised ahead of time (think about what food he might be able to cook for example, and then print out the recipe), and think about which of those activities need to be done at particular times, and which he might be able to do independently. All that means that he can get on with stuff himself.
Doing it strictly, the child is supposed to work through in order, and complete everything. I haven’t been particularly fussy about that this year, although in 2010 I expect that will probably change.
As I said, I haven’t done Bilby’s the same. I no longer number hers at all (mostly because Cygnet kept stealing the numbers, and Bilby ran off with the velcro that stuck them!) and I pretty much load them for the week. I’m not so happy with how hers worked, but when I stopped putting anything in them, she complained:-)
Activity Cards
The one thing I did take the time to do when trialling Workboxes initially, was to make up activity cards. I printed a pile of titles and images (clipart type) onto coloured paper (4 to a page), cut them out and laminated them. This means that I can write the relevant activity on them, and then wipe it out and write a new one. This has been really useful with the work boxes, but I would anticipate being able to use them just with books as well (like bookmarks).
French
Another post that hasn’t happened:-(
For a couple of years, another friend and I have talked about finding a native speaker to play with all our kids, in French. This year, she finally found someone! Unfortunately, scheduling difficulties meant that we gave up after two meetings. But when we decided to stop, we also decided that we would still get together (at a more suitable time, thus enforcing weekly French use). We pick a topic together, and brainstorm a list of related words (we started with Food, we’re currently doing a combination of (farm) Animals and Christmas, and we’ll go on to Wild Animals shortly after we return). We’re then taking it in turns to lead… we all sing to start, we do a bit of ‘conversation’ (asking everyone in the circle their name and how they are… the babies don’t generally answer:-) ), introduce the new words, move to the table for an activity, sing a song to end. We try to speak as much French as we can while doing the activity. We’re finding our school based vocabulary is not quite sufficient! We’re having to look up ‘glue’ and ’sticky tape’ and ‘popsticks’:-)
We’ve been really amazed at the way the kids have not only picked up the words and can answer them when asked, but at the way they are choosing to use the words in their everyday lives—any fruit we have introduced is now pretty much only referred to by it’s French name (in our home). One of the reasons we think this has worked so well is because the kids of the two families enjoy playing with the words with each other:-)
We’ve only been doing this about six weeks (I think?), so we’re definitely still in the establishing phase, but so far, it’s an absolute delight:-) Part of that is the fact that we’re getting in a playdate (the kids play when we arrive while we get organised, we do French, then they play more) with friends… but part of it is how the kids are responding—and the joy of doing something we’ve been meaning to do for ages:-)
As a support to this, we acquired a copy of Little Pim. It’s designed as a language immersion tool. The little films are short, about 5 minutes, and there’s 7 in each set (well, I have to confirm that… we’re on the second, but the total thing seems to say it’s 30 minutes long… something in that maths doesn’t quite work). Each little film introduces a few words on each topic. The first is Food:-) They’re designed for 2-5 year olds. Bilby is bang in the target group. She loves them—and uses the words (there’s some overlap with the words we had been doing, but there are some which have only been introduced via Little Pim, and she’s using those regularly:-) ). Cygnet doesn’t do anything with the words, but he loves to watch. I am looking forward to hearing him starting to speak and seeing which of the words he starts using:-) Puggle still enjoys it, but where the others will watch it as often as I show it (and would like it more, as far as Bilby is concerned), he likes to watch it, but really he’s not so interested in repeated viewings (although, he has yet to complain about it being on!) He was the first to start using the words from the DVD.
One thing I’ve found really interesting is the way the kids control the language use at home. Most of the time, they don’t mind particularly what language we use (I try at times to use French through the week—when I feel I have the vocabulary:-) ). I’ve been surprised though, by the times that they (Bilby in particular) will call “Maman” instead of “Mama”. If I don’t pay attention and answer with “Yes”, she gets rather put out, and reminds me that she spoke in French. The same happens in the reverse (where I answer “Mama” with “Oui”), but less often:-) They will talk to each other and choose to use the French pronunciation of their names to signify that they are speaking French (their vocabulary is still fairly limited). And Puggle in particular has started playing with his animals in ‘French’. He moves them around and has them talk in nonsense syllables, but they are not ‘English’:-) (We have been reading picture books in French all year, so they do have a sense of the sound of the language, and they are reasonably accurate at identifying when non-English speakers are using French—although, they tend to default to non-English=French when in doubt).
All of this to say that French is finally happening in our house:-) And it’s fun, and the kids are using it in real ways:-)
Copywork
I’m taking this very slowly. Puggle’s fine motor control is what you’d expect of a 5 1/2 year old boy, and as such, I’m not anticipating rushing into lots of independent writing. We’re still working our way through the phonemes (it’s doing double duty at the moment, being the way we’re teaching sounds), and he’s tracing.
I made the decision (after some more reading, and talking with Puggle) to switch to cursive rather than print. I’m not going to bother with print, on the assumption that he will pick up printing as he goes, and if we’re going to invest the effort into learning to write, it might as well be cursive. One phoneme, a couple of times a day (two times generally, unless he makes a big error) seems to be working nicely. Because we started with print, that does tend to be how he writes when he’s working independently, but we’ve only been doing cursive for the last couple of months, and we’re still working through the basic letters.
Cooking
He’s been doing a lot of cooking this year:-) Most weeks (when we’re workboxing) he’ll cook dinner at least once, and he’ll usually help with another dinner as well. He’s also well and truly able to get breakfast and lunch for himself and Bilby (except for cutting the bread… he can do that, but the slices aren’t very uniform—and the remaining loaf is also somewhat hacked… so I prefer to do it until he’s larger). He is developing a recipe book, which contains meals he can cook independently. I still tend to chop the onions (hard and spherical makes me a bit nervous), but he’s moved this year to being able to light the (gas) stove, and cook on it. He has put things in the oven, but not lit it (it can be idiosyncratic) or taken anything out (they tend to be too heavy for him to manage with the added challenge of heat). His chopping is becoming more uniform, and his stamina to complete recipes is improving. The workboxes has been the reason I’ve been happy to have him do this. Because I set it up the night before, he can begin sufficiently in advance of the time we need to eat—he tends to need to start about two hours beforehand!
This will require a little tweaking in the new year. Since we moved French, it’s now on the day on which he tended to cook, and so he hasn’t done so much in that time. But that’s just logistics on my part:-)
Reading
He’s moved from strength to strength:-) Although he had reached ‘reading’, last year, he still required a reasonable amount of support, and on his own, he tended to look at books rather than read them.
Over this year, he has reached the point where he can’t help but read:-) We have a pile (30 or 40?) of early readers (about a dozen pages, with 4 lines per page, and lots of pictures) which will occupy him for some hours. He’s now able to read chapter books on his own, although, he tends to still see them as a bit too big to attack. Somewhere along the way I realised that he is able to read in his head. I asked him about it, where he’d learnt it, and he told me he’d watched Dada reading:-) It does mean I have to actually get him to read to me occasionally, to check he’s reading correctly (he still does the ‘guess based on the first letter of the word’ thing at times). But he is at a stage where he can read independently, and generally understand what he’s reading—and that’s a great thing:-) I didn’t assign him any reading this year, aside from as reading practice, but next year, I expect to be able to give him something to read, that we can then follow up. We’ve continued to read aloud to him though, and I expect this to continue. (I’ve also really enjoyed watching him read aloud to both Bilby and Cygnet:-) )
Swimming
Sadly, Puggle got too old for his previous swimming school, so we had to move. We’re now at StateSwim. While I wouldn’t say we love it (it’s certainly not as much fun, and not as personal as his original), he does enjoy it, and is progressing nicely. He started at the end of term one in Torpedoes, and is now a Dolphin. We do expect a longish stay in Dolphin, because the purpose of this level is to develop freestyle breathing. He is relishing this challenge, however!

Things that didn’t work
Blogging plans
When I managed to get my plans typed up (in Wordpress) by the end of Break Week, I was able to blog them. What I found though, was that if I managed to type them up in the running sheet for the week, and get the workbox planner sorted, I tended not to get to blogging. In actual fact, I could largely copy and paste, but I do like to include links to the texts, and that’s the bit that tends to take the time.
Probably a start would be to improve the layout of the information I include. If I can just copy and paste, rather than switching the order of things between my planning documents and on the blog, that would help, then I could just have the links (which don’t change all the time) in one place and add them in. We’ll have to see how that goes. I’d like to keep blogging my plans… but it’s probably not one of my top priorities, because I do have that information elsewhere.
Blogging progress
This on the other hand, is something I do want to do. It fell by the wayside about the same time as blogging plans, but mostly I think, because I hadn’t mentally switched to ‘it doesn’t matter about the plans’, so it became one more thing in a large pile, rather than a separate thing that needed blogging. I don’t require myself to be very detailed, but I really do want to make a few notes each week about what we did, what we didn’t get to, and what developments occurred. I think I can probably manage that (I did in 2008!), but I need to slot it into my week properly.
Mat Time
The arrival of workboxes pretty much signalled the end of Mat Time as a regular thing. My idea of Mat Time was that it was things that were common to both Puggle and Bilby, with just a bit extra for each of them. Most of Puggle’s extra things ended up happening in his boxes and in the early part of Quiet Time. But the common things, and Bilby’s extra’s rather stopped. This is mostly about setting the rhythm for the day… and it obviously needs some work. I’m not quite sure how I’m going to fix this yet… but it’s a fairly high priority.
Singing
This disappeared a bit with the end of Mat Time. And a couple of the folksongs that I didn’t know. I need to find another solution for the French nursery rhymes… they’ve been a bit hit and miss. Hopefully though, that will sort out as we go through in French.
Composer Study
My failure to source the tracks and add them to the daily playlist is to blame for this… I think it’s been the same problem as I’ve had before. I guess the answer is to make sure I source the pieces earlier in the year.
Nature Walks
We’ve done better at Nature Study, as Puggle likes to be outside and look around him, but Nature Walks continue to elude us. As seems to be a common theme with the things that haven’t worked, it’s all due to my scheduling—or lack thereof.
Art
With the exception of Watercolours (which have been a revelation! We use the dry pans, and Puggle can do all the set up required for he and Bilby, basically getting water, and the clean up. That means they can paint whenever they want to, pretty much!) art has been a bit hit and miss. I keep intending them to do activities from the Art Ideas book, but haven’t yet managed to arrange things in a workable fashion. I did get a large tray from IKEA just before the end of the year, and I’m hoping to set work out on it. Art is probably a good candidate for that.
Memorisation/Recitation
This hasn’t worked in any formal sense. I stopped putting the poems on the TV cabinet, and we stopped repeating them at different times. Earlier in the year, when Puggle was listening to the iPod during Quiet Time, and I had managed to find some of his pieces on Librivox, he was actually doing pretty well. I think this is should be solvable… It’s merely habits I have to reacquire—and I can now add a copy of the poem in one of his boxes. I do need to begin working with him on the Recitation aspect… he will happily let fly with something he’s memorised, but rarely at a pace (or volume!) that allows others to enjoy it!

Generally a good year—and the advantage of writing it all out like this, I can see the common themes:-)

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Christmas 2009

December 25, 2009 at 11:06 pm · Filed under Advent, Baking, Bilby, Christmas, Craft, Cygnet, Domestic Life, Family, Food, Organisation, Puggle, Reflection, Season, Sewing, Woodwork

A couple of years ago, the Advent season was when I started blogging daily (or nearly so). I maintained it until probably May-ish last year, and then a few times a week for about another 12 months. This year? I think I managed a couple of Food Posts through Advent, and that’s about it.

Mind you, this Advent has been lacking in a lot of my usual preparations! I have Ice Cream Plum Pudding in the house, because that’s essentially what I was doing for our family Christmas dinner. I have Gingerbread Dough in the freezer, because I made a double quantity when we made gingerbread houses at Halloween. I have the makings of Fruit Mince Pies (pre-rolled pastry in the freezer and a bottle of mince). We’ve read a pile of Christmas books. We made an Advent Chain. But that’s about as far as any similarity to previous Christmasses goes.

Before I get too disappointed though, I should point out that we have made quite a few presents this year! There should (I hope!) be several individual posts, once I download photos, but Puggle and I have been woodworking, and Bilby and I have sewn. Puggle made a small wooden boat for Cygnet, and a set of stilts for Bilby (as well as a pair of stilts for his Secret Santa, and he helped to sew an apron for Cygnet’s Secret Santa). Bilby made a woodworking apron for Puggle, five balloon juggling balls and a grab bag for her Secret Santa, and some Chocolate Coated Almonds for her grandparents. Me? I have finally finished the Pink Tower and (almost! still have to put the finish on) the Brown Stair. I’ve made (with some help from Puggle) several sets of Tree Blocks for some of the smaller children of our acquaintance. I have made three Bench Hooks (two to suit western saws, and one for japanese saws). And I’ve made a wooden forest (barring the dye-ing and finishing) (like blocks, but shaped like trees, rather than trees made from tree branches). I’ve sewn bags for the tree blocks (I still have one more to go, and a similar bag for the wooden forest), and three apron/chef’s hat sets… with accompanying bag. I’ve also been painting the IKEA abacus we got for Cygnet, to match the colours of the Right Start one:-) We did also make jam as part of our Christmas preparation.

I’m still anticipating doing our usual family calendar, and I’m hoping we’ll get to the cards—but obviously that won’t be happening by Christmas time!

So, a bit of a hit and miss. I keep reminding myself though, we can’t do everything! And we have been doing a lot of French during this time:-) Reminding me of more posts I have been meaning to write!

Hope your Christmasses were all lovely, and that the rest of your Festive Season is safe and joyous!

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Planning for 2009

January 11, 2009 at 4:02 pm · Filed under Art, Bilby, Books, Domestic Life, Family, For Adults, For Children, For the Future, French, History/Geography, Home Education, Language, Latin, Maths, Montessori, Music, Narration, Nature Study, Organisation, Plans, Puggle, Reading, Reflection, Science, Singing, Writing

General stuff:-)
This probably seems like a fairly full on year, for what is essentially Puggle’s pre-school year (most of this is for Puggle, although I do have some plans for Bilby included). My plan though, is that we’ll start with this, and it will take as long as it takes. We’ll stick with the three term year, each being made up of three blocks of 4 weeks on, one week break (plus the Christmas block/term).

Language (Including Memorisation and Copywork)
For Puggle, I’m planning a second run through The Writing Road to Reading, actually beginning to focus on writing the letters. I’ll combine this with the sandpaper letter/phonograms, but he seems fairly interested in writing at the moment. This (and his name) will probably be all the copywork we do for the year. I anticipate using a timer (for somewhere in the order of three to five minutes), because he’s very keen on quantity—and in copywork time I’ll be more interested in quality:-) I’m hoping the second run will sort out the phonemes he hasn’t really grasped. We still have the Fitzroy readers, and I anticipate them being used fairly regularly:-)
We’ll be reading Complete Nonsense Poems by Edward Lear, and this year, I’ll be trying to encourage Puggle more in the direction of memorisation. We’ll be focussing on the same piece for a fortnight, which may help:-)
We’ll continue with the Latin nursery rhymes, but this year we are going to begin Song School Latin. It includes a number of songs, and some day-to-day phrases, so I’m not going to worry so much about using my own:-) We will attempt to continue with the French comptines, and I suspect that Puggle will listen in with Bilby’s French:-)
Over the year, we’ll be reading from The Gods and Goddesses of Olympus by Aliki, The Orchard Book of Roman Myths by Geraldine McCaughrean and Egyptian Myths by Jacqueline Morley.
Bilby isn’t at quite the same stage as Puggle was two years ago (she’s effectively 6 months younger), so I don’t think she’s ready for everything I did with him:-) We’ll still do the Nursery Rhymes, and read the poems from A Child’s Garden of Verses.
She’ll join us in the Latin and French nursery rhymes, but this year, we’re going to try reading a number of (generally familiar) picturebooks in French:-) La Chenille Qui Fait Des Trous, Devine Combien Je t’Aime and Ours Brun, Dis-Moi for starters:-)

Maths
We’ve finally made the decision to go with RightStart. It’s a very hands on programme, which should appeal to Puggle (basically I think the manipulatives approach is a good idea for the early stages of maths).

English Studies (including Narration)
We’ll continue the Aesop’s Fables for Children with Puggle, and later in the year we’ll begin Fifty Famous Stories Retold. These will be where we begin paying attention to Narration. I might actually try some with him this year:-) We’ll also be reading The House At Pooh Corner, The Muddle-headed Wombat and The Loaded Dog, along with the Orange, Green and Brown Fairy Books. I plan to try Bilby out with Beatrix Potter The Complete Tales and the Blue, Red and Yellow Fairy Books, but these are where I think we’ll probably skip bits.
Obviously, we’ll be including other read-alouds as they occur to us, but they will include The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Pinocchio, Doctor Doolittle, The Favorite Uncle Remus and The Wind in the Willows.

Health and Phys. Ed
We’re continuing with Waterbabies (swimming) this year:-) Or at least we’ll continue with Puggle for now. His class will probably collapse soon (they only take them until they are five), so then we’ll be looking at other swimming classes.

History and Geography
I’m looking forward to this a lot:-) We’re going to begin The Story of the World: Ancient Times. I’ve ordered the Activity Book as well, so we should be doing lots of stuff—I keep hearing good things about it:-)
We’ll also be reading Geography from A to Z: A Picture Glossary . I figure we’ll do a page or so each week, and I’ll print some colouring in pages for each word.

Science
Unless Puggle has particular things that he wants to immerse himself in, I think we’ll be doing most of our science through the garden:-) I do hope to do Nature Walks more regularly (well, once the weather settles down a little), and I think this would be a good year to start recording the weather, but otherwise we’ll try and do a lot of planting and feeding and watering and seeing what happens. I’ve ordered The Tiny Seed and Une Si Petite Graine (one of the French picturebooks for Bilby:-) ) and I thought they should tie in nicely:-) I might pull out some of the How Things Work and Backyard/Kitchen Science books though, and leave them lying about, in case something appeals:-) (Edited to add: I’m also hoping that Keeping a Nature Journal will help inspire our nature observations!)

Art and Music
I’m going to try and be more regular about having family music nights:-) This year we’ll begin recorder (Bilby as well—because I don’t like my chances of doing it with Puggle and leaving her out:-) ). Our composers this year are Johann Sebastian Bach, Franz Liszt and Gustav Mahler/Anton Bruckner. And of course, we’ll sing:-)

I think I’ll probably repeat my art plans from last year… we didn’t really do much of them, mostly because I ended up putting the stuff away:-( I’m working on keeping art materials in a more accessible way. Our artists this year are Sandro Botticelli, Caspar David Fredrich and Vincent Van Gogh.

Technology and Enterprise
Cooking. By the end of the year, I’d like Puggle to feel confident about preparing one dinner:-) When he’s (quite) a bit more independent in his reading, I thought I might start letting him choose recipes to try:-)

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Resolution Progress

December 31, 2008 at 11:53 pm · Filed under Domestic Life, Family, Progress, Reflection, Season, Self-Education

Last year I made a number of resolutions. Although I did start quite well on the piano playing, reading the list back, I had forgotten most of them. But I guess I did get a bit distracted from other things this year by Cygnet:-) Still… not my best effort.

Hmm… on reflection though, we did have a few music nights… and they were a lot of fun—even if they were rather disjointed… and I have definitely taken a lot more photos this year (more than around 1200—1000 of them in the last month!) I would still like to do more of the watercolour thing, but I suspect that will be helped by my recent setting up of the ‘art zone’ outside (Puggle can be independent about getting started, and I can simply go along with it:-) ) Actually, I made more presents that I’d remembered, as well… cloaks, and clothes, and the puppet theatre… plus a few this Christmas. Better than I thought.

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Progress 2008

January 7, 2008 at 3:50 pm · Filed under Domestic Life, Family, Home Education, Organisation, Progress, Puggle, Reflection

2008 was a pretty good year. Things slid a bit in the last block… but overall, it was fairly effective. We continued in the same manner as 2007 for the most part. Pretty much all our ‘formal’ efforts occurred in about 20 minutes each morning (well, about four mornings a week).

Art prints
This year, I went to Officeworks to get the pictures printed out. Having colour pictures on the front of the TV cabinet was a definite improvement. We didn’t do as much talking about them as I’d hoped (I need to find out a bit more about the artist/medium/subject, I think), but Puggle has definitely been commenting on them:-) Even Bilby is noticing when the picture on the screen saver is the same as the one on the cabinet.

TV cabinet
This has continued to be a success. It’s sometimes looked a bit cluttered, but it makes it really easy to do things whenever we’re on the couch. Bilby is less resistant to having books read when she’s feeding, but even so, it’s nice to not need anything in my hands.

Mat time
We manage this about 3 or 4 days a week. It’s still fairly short (and has actually migrated to the couch). Puggle reminds me if we seem to be missing it:-)

Baskets
This year, I found a box to put Puggle’s books in. It worked well—except that it is really a bit too heavy for him to carry around:-( It does mean though, that they are in one place (like last year) and because they’re not on a shelf, they’re easier for him to get out and put away. In the end, for convenience, I got a plastic tub… but it did get knocked off the shelf and was rather the worse for wear as a result.

Blogging
It may not have been particularly thrilling to read, but this was a real help. I have a plan for the year, but the act of blogging each block reminded me of what needed doing, and recording each week’s efforts has allowed me to see where the gaps are (it’s a hammock )

Sandpaper Phonemes
I had a number of plans for working on reading with Puggle. Mostly it didn’t happen as I’d planned. I had thought that these would be used in conjunction with the sand tray, but that didn’t really connect with him. Instead, I introduced a new phoneme every couple of days, had him trace it, and then it went on the TV cabinet. Each week I’d clear the previous week’s work to a small basket. He often got this down, and worked his way through the phonemes, tracing them and saying them.

Fitzroy Readers
A friend had used these, and recommended them. I’d looked at their website, but was loath to shell out for them (I wasn’t sure how long he’d have a use for any of them). Then I checked out our local library, and they’re all there! Puggle has worked his way through the first set, and is about half way through the second. He’s taken a little break from them just recently… aside from arranging to get them in the first place, I have not had anything to do with their use… he’s driven it completely. Between the phoneme cards and the readers, I now describe him as a reader—although he’s not yet independent at it (it’s still such an effort, truly physical!) We’ll work through the phonemes another time, and I think that (because there’s still a number he doesn’t truly know), combined with more practice will probably see him fully reading by the end of next year.

Dawn’s file folder system
In the second half of the year, I realised I needed a bit of help! Having things on the TV cabinet is great, but it can be a pain to print them all out on Sunday evening… and if I printed them any earlier, they tended to disappear. I’d read Dawn’s post when it first appeared, and had kept seeing it as other people based their systems on it. I figured it might work for me:-) So far it’s been a real help! It’s meant that I tended to print one set of things at a time and file them in the appropriate weeks, which has made Sunday evening far more restful:-) I still need to think some more about layout (as in, where I keep the box, and where I have the current week’s folder), I’m not getting the best use of the folder as a receptacle for work (although it does mean that I now have somewhere to put their drawings and other work), because it’s not as accessible as I’d like… but it’s definitely a system to continue with.

iCal/iTunes
I read a post at Wildflowers and Marbles explaining how she uses iCal to organise her days. I followed her step-by-step instructions, and wow! (Paddington does say he’s never seen such a busy calendar… but I use it for everything—it basically functions as my Control Journal!)
I mentioned here about linking iTunes with iCal. This has proven really beneficial! I’ve finally been getting around to putting on the music for the week!

Tag Tasks
Mostly I’m counting this as a success:-) I still have a post to come explaining it in detail:-) Basically though, it’s a collection of tags, to help Puggle work through his daily jobs independently.

Day-to-day cooking
This was less of a planned thing than it might have been, because I got distracted by being pregnant. But because I was pregnant, Puggle participated on a number of occasions—and I did end up teaching him how to use the real knives (I think it was around the time I came across this TED talk, so I was primed to do some ‘dangerous’ stuff:-) ) He’s reasonably capable at peeling, and can cut fairly well. His stamina/stickability is probably the thing that needs the most work:-) But I do think he’s well on track to begin regularly cooking a meal each week in a year or so:-)

Aesop’s Fables for Children
I chose to get this particula collection (well, ours doesn’t have the CD… it wasn’t available when we got our copy) because I had come across a number of recommendations—and I have to agree! The stories are a great length and the illustrations are lovely. All but a handful of stories have a picture (which given the length of the stories is fabulous), and there are so many of them! (We certainly don’t need the CD, but I suspect that if we had it, Puggle would enjoy listening to it:-) ) The language really suits Puggle. There are certainly a number of unfamiliar words, but not too many, and the rest is simple enough for him to follow.
I’m not entirely certain that he’s really understanding the moral, but I don’t think this is the only time he’ll read the stories:-) There are so many though, that we’ll be continuing with this for a while next year.

Reading aloud with Dada
Dada has been doing a lot of the chapter book reading this year (well, this is the year Puggle has really gotten into chapter books… the Milly-Molly-Mandy stories are more like a series of small books). While it does mean that I often miss some of the stories, the two of them seem to be having a lovely time sharing their reading:-)

Latin nursery rhymes
These have continued to be a hit:-) We’ve now (I think?!) finished all the ones I have, so I plan to just start again with them:-) I think the only improvement I could make would be to record us singing them and include that in our ’school’ iTunes playlist.

Planner
I did a better job of referring to the printed out planner this year. I kept it in Puggle’s box, so I had an accessible home for it.

Of course, not everything went wonderfully.

We only ended up going on a couple of nature walks, which meant we didn’t really do any science.
A couple of months in, I shifted stuff off the sewing cabinet so I could sew—and it took me months to move it back. This meant that the art stuff wasn’t really accessible, so Puggle didn’t really do as much as I’d hoped. I’ve come up with another way of setting things up though (in the last couple of weeks), so hopefully that will be better next year.
I really struggled to get on with making my Montessori materials, and as a result, we didn’t do the maths I’d thought we would. We did talk about numbers though, and Puggle got very excited by the Richard Scarry’s Best Counting Book Ever, so he’s begun some addition.
The french comptines suffered in the same way that some of the folksongs do. If I don’t know the tune, I don’t sing them often, and we don’t learn them.
Although I now have somewhere to put work that Puggle does, I haven’t yet managed to do anything with it. I use the blog to remember what we’ve done, but I’d still like to include regular samples in a portfolio style of thing—I’m hoping that will be easier if I am more consistent about collecting work samples.

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Progress 2007

January 5, 2008 at 7:57 pm · Filed under Bilby, Domestic Life, Family, For the Future, Home Education, Organisation, Progress, Puggle, Reflection, This Week

I certainly learnt a lot over the last year… I started with good intentions, but in the early part of the year, they rarely moved beyond that. But that was what last year (and this year as well!) was all about. Learning what sort of structures and plans I needed to make things work.
So, what did work?
The blog as a planning/recording tool.
It does make for not necessarily such interesting reading for ‘the world at large’, but I found it a manageable discipline, and very helpful. I found I could generally manage the weekly ‘Progress’ notes (dated on the Saturday, but written at some point over the weekend)—I think there are about half a dozen in the first half of the year that I later filled in very briefly much after the fact, so that there was some sort of record. I found the weekly ‘Plans’ much better to do at the start of each Block, and just post-date them. It made for a lengthy session over one weekend a block, but that meant for the remainder I could work on other preparations.
I like that I can select the ‘This Week’ category, and see what we’ve done for the year. It’s helpful as a reminder now that we’re heading into 2008, and I think it will also be handy when I come to begin with Bilby, in terms of planning our reading.
Mat Time
Although this fell to bits in the Christmas Block (along with pretty much all my non-Advent plans), it was working really well for quite a time. As long as I made the move early enough, and we kept it brief (no more than 20 minutes) and focussed (with plenty of singing… and actually checked that the stories are not too long!) we got quite a bit done. He was even choosing to do some of our letter work in this time, where as I had mostly planned it for the songs/poems/readings. I would have liked to have included picture study and composer study, but logistically, I didn’t get that sorted this year. A separate box/basket with all the books we’re currently using would help me be a bit more organised (they’re on the one shelf, but Puggle ends up carrying them one at a time because they slip if he tries to carry more… he could manage a basket much more easily).
TV School
This was brilliant! Having the words readily accessible made nursing work more easily, and was part of the ‘inspiration’ for Mat Time. We certainly recited the poems much more regularly because they were highly visible—rather than just being in a book. It also helped keep Paddington in the loop of what we were doing, and was a great ‘conversation starter’ (I can see that being helpful down the track with grandparents). I didn’t ever get to printing out copies of our picture for study, but I think that would be a good addition (would help me add that in to Mat Time).
Sewing Cabinet
I haven’t talked about this at all, because I only started using it in this last Block, when I was too busy to blog:-) My sewing cabinet (with machine, overlocker, and space) is in our dining room. Normally it’s a bit of a ‘hot spot’, but when I had all these Christmas crafting activities on the go, I cleared it off and put them out on there. For the most part, it’s out of Bilby’s reach (very important!), within Puggle’s reach, and allows for things to be spread out. It’s also really close to the dining table, where Puggle tends to work now because Bilby can’t reach (unlike his ‘desk’ a table in the corner of the lounge room). If need be, I can plug things in there (like the laminator, for the tree decorations), and Puggle can use it there. I intend to make more consistent use of it in 2008, for craft stuff, but also for some of the other materials we’ll be using.
Alphabet stuff
Not quite as I’d planned (really, not at all!) But by the end of the year he recognises all the letters (I suspect he would have, even if I hadn’t done anything specific), can find most of them on a keyboard (aside from ‘P’… he often has trouble with that!), and can trace the shapes.
Blocks
The organisation of the year worked (for me, at any rate). Four weeks is enough time to sustain focus on something. Break week was a good opportunity to catch up a bit, although I’d like to make more of an effort to go out and do other stuff in that week. Three Blocks before changing direction also worked well, although wasn’t as obvious as it might have been.
Singing
The folksongs generally went well. Putting them on the front of the TV cabinet was a real help, but obviously worked best when I had a real grasp of the tune:-) We tended to be more successful at learning the more pacy songs (although, he is now singing bits of ‘Auld Lang Syne’ after I put it up on New Year’s Eve).
My Planner
I had started the year by putting all my plans in a document, and printing it out. It’s 13 pages, most of them double-sided (2 pages each for a yearly overview, and each of 10 Blocks—the only reason they’re not all double-sided is so that I can look at both parts of each block in a single layout). Putting it all together ahead of time was good. I generally was quite relaxed about adapting it as the year went on (although, I did try not to too much this year, as it was our first year). I didn’t refer to the printed out copy nearly as often as the electronic one… but I think I will still print it out next year.

And what didn’t?
Cooking
I started quite well, but only in bits. I didn’t really manage to get consistent with this. I’m not overly concerned, Puggle did do quite a bit of cooking, usually in chunks of a couple of days at a time. My main reason for including it was so that I’d be sure to do stuff with him, I wasn’t sure how distracted with Bilby I’d be:-) But she sleeps well, so Puggle and I had time together. As far as the cooking goes, I think it would be more use to simply break down the skills he should master in the next year, and make sure he has a chance to practise them in day-to-day cooking. Much more measuring is definitely a focus for 2008, and cutting—what a shame! He might just have to make lots more Rocky Road
Listening to Music
I was much less consisent with this than in 2006:-( I think I need to develop a better approach to organising my playlists. And to work out how to include it in Mat Time (well, not in Mat Time necessarily, but hang it on that peg).
Artist Study
Again, I was more consistent in 2006. I’m fairly sure that having copies of the pictures on the TV cabinet in addition to the screensaver (which did work, just not as well as previously) will be a big help.
Planned Art
I had tied these in to the letters we were doing… somewhat arbitrarily. We didn’t get to most of them. Partly because I didn’t always remember to look at what the activity needed in advance, and partly because they seemed too random. I am still planning art for next year, but my approach will be a bit different… we’ll see how that goes:-)
Christmas Block
This worked from the perspective of getting ready for Christmas, but I had anticipated continuing some ’schooling’ (I had planned for a fairly minimal programme… I wasn’t expecting much). As it turned out, that didn’t happen. Mostly that was probably me getting distracted with all the other things I was concerned about doing, and failing to make a point of doing the reading/singing I had planned. We’ll try this again another year before I decide it needs to change.
Narration
I think I was just expecting a bit much a bit soon—and wasn’t properly prepared to develop the skill. We’ll go with much shorter texts, and that should help a lot.
Nature Walk
I failed to make this a regular activity. The couple of times we went it was great, but I need to be more particular about including it.
My Planner
I didn’t refer to the printed out copy of the planner nearly as often as the electronic one… but I think I will still print it out next year.

The worked list is longer than the didn’t work list, so I’m happy:-)

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Resolutions

January 1, 2008 at 2:30 am · Filed under Domestic Life, Family, For the Future, Music, Plans, Reflection, Season

Quickly and simply, before I go to sleep!

To play more games! I’ve finally sorted our games stack so it’s possible to actually get a game out without having to remove the whole pile… now I want to make use of them.

I had thought to get back to the piano, but maybe I’ll just make it to make more music—it certainly wouldn’t hurt if I did more violin:-)

To read more ’serious’ stuff… I didn’t do so well last year, but maybe it’ll take better this year.

To make more ‘art’ (more watercolour with Puggle, more photography).

Oh, and I guess going hand-made for birthdays:-)

More functional ones?
To go to bed earlier (tonight’s not a good start, but New Years never is).

To drink more water.

To de-clutter.

To finish putting books/movies/music into Delicious Library.

I can’t believe it’s 2008!

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Progress—Thinking about the Term

April 28, 2007 at 3:39 pm · Filed under For the Future, Home Education, Progress, Puggle, Reflection, This Week

Term One
(This week is the end of Term One. There are three terms, plus a Christmas block to make up the total year. I plan for us to school year round. We’ll work for four weeks with a focus, and then have a week that is unstructured (aside from Swimming and Co-op which both follow the local school year). Three of these blocks will form a term, which will mean twelve weeks of school and three weeks of break per term, three terms a year. There will be a tenth block, which will be basically December, where we will still do some formal work for the first four weeks, but much lighter than usual (this is planning generally for the future, at the moment it probably won’t make much difference) while we prepare for Christmas.
I want to name the terms, as we’re not using the same structure as local schools, so I think numbering them will just lead to confusion. Not sure what we’ll name them… need to ponder on something appropriate…)

Back to this last term. We stuck to the plan in fits and starts. I was kind of expecting that—it’s one of the reasons for
beginning now, so I can develop the habit.
The singing and the art study works well. The craft and cooking basically falls down when I forget to look ahead at what I’m doing. I kept going to begin a craft and then realise that there was something that I should have looked out ahead of time. Actually, the same applies to the composer study too… We didn’t listen to much Mozart, because I forgot to line up tracks ahead of time.
Puggle enjoyed the poems a lot, although we rarely read them more than twice a week. I should make more of an effort to read them each day (at this stage, they’re all quite short). The same with the nursery rhymes.
The stories that we were reading were less successful. Partly that was me not making a push to sit and read them (we read picture books a lot, but not the longer stories). But I think part of the problem was also the slow reading of the tales. I think for now, we might change to reading the whole story each day, a couple of times a week, and see how that goes.
I started printing out letter outlines, just so that he’d be seeing the letter each week, but he loves to trace around them! I’ll keep doing this, but I think I’ll put away the skinny pencils and crayons, and just leave the thick ones. His grip is quite variable of late, but with the thick crayons, it tends to be more correct.
We’ve been gluing his work into a journal (that will be what we take to co-op fair), but I probably need to be more regular about that, perhaps do it on Friday afternoons? (That’s also probably a good time to be sure to add cooking requirements to the shopping list).
Mostly though, I just need to make a point some time on the weekend of printing out what we need, gathering craft supplies, and making sure the music is lined up. That and the full story readings should make a difference to how this next term progresses.
Actually, I guess I should try and be more regular about posting my progress reports… I have a number drafted, but incomplete…

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