Skip to main content

Johnson School for Boys

Image
By

What you are about to see is nothing fancy. It does not "measure-up" whatsoever to the pinterest-y crafty, elegant school lessons that you may see around the blogosphere, but it is real. This is basically what we try to do every day. 

We have a memory verse we memorize and discuss for the week. This is this week's verse (and probably next week's as well). Both Anthony and Lukie do a great job memorizing verses.



Crafts are not something we do every day, but today we used watercolors to paint leaves to go on our "thankful tree". My friend Jess showed me hers that she did last year, and it seemed like such a great idea to help promote attitudes of thankfulness. Paint the leaves, then think of things you are thankful for and write one on each leaf. Luke is thankful for Mickey Mouse, and Anthony is thankful for Mommy, and Sunday's "because of church and Sunday Night Football."



Getting those creative juices flowing!


As we do things like this, I usually like to have instrumental music on. Then I had an idea to use this as an opportunity to introduce a new (to them) composer. 


We listened to Joplin's Rags, and during nap time I created a worksheet about it. I had been looking everywhere for something where we could document what composers/artists we cover, and could not find anything that fit what I was looking for. So I finally just created my own. Not sure why I hadn't thought of doing that before...



Here's what it looks like. Please ignore the mistakes. I'll edit it soon enough. Anthony loved filling it out. Really. He did!






And he loved reading it back to me once he was finished writing! I did help him with spelling the words "Texarkana"(which is apparently a city on the border of Texas and Arkansas...) and "nervous", but everything else he did independently.


I love asking them to listen to a particular song with their eyes closed and ears open, while letting their mind draw pictures. Then I ask them what pictures they imagined, and how the song made them feel. 


This year with Anthony, I make sure we read (independent, read-aloud, and me reading to him), write and do some kind of math every day. We are also learning about our Solar System, telling time on an analogue clock, counting/adding money, world geography and a ton of other stuff. He LOVES doing school at home. I am so thankful for that, and I know it probably won't always be that way but I am glad he loves it as much as I do for now.


So, how does Lukie feel about pre-school? 



If I ask him to "preform" anything, I usually get this face:

BUT if I just give him a little direction and let him explore freely at his own pace, he flourishes! Hey, everyone has their own methods. LOL!


He always goes tribal when he paints. Ever since he saw "The Lion King."
 

 His favorite thing is PBSkids.org. He loves the Curious George games, and so do I. I don't even think he realizes he is learning!

Mostly, we are practicing writing letters, folding washcloths & towels, and getting everyone milk and snack. He loves to serve like this. Also, Lukie has shown an increased interest in learning how to read. He knows all of his phonetics very well, so I have started working with him in putting them together. He is doing great with this!! Allowing him to learn in his own way is the best thing for him, and makes me extra-thankful for the freedom to home-teach. I can only imagine the labels that would be placed on him if he was in a mainstream school. I am considering adding some Montessori-style activities for him. I think he would really love that.

The biggest question I get, and one of the biggest apprehensions I had when starting school was "what am I going to do with Ethan?" Well, here is what Ethan does while we do school.

He is right there, in the thick of it!
  





He has to be in the middle of everything, and will not have it any other way.

Ethan already knows all of his letters by sight, and can count to 14. I really believe it is because he hangs out with us while we do school together. So even though I am not "trying" to teach him, he is learning a ton just the same! 


Love my boys (and pbskids.org)!!




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Spring is Finally Here!

By
Finally! I feel like Spring has finally come to stay. My allergies are killing me, and my skin is reacting to sunlight in true Jess fashion. I'm pretty sure I have solar urticaria. WebMD told me so, so it must be legit. Seriously though, I do have all the symptoms and it seems to be getting worse with age. It's kind of awful but the fresh air is so nice, I can't stand to stay inside. I likely am going to have to get some sun protective clothing. If I was worried about being cool before, wearing a long-sleeve swimsuit really will seal my fate as a very, uncool mom. hahaha! Last week was so nice out that we took the whole week off from school and focused on enjoying the weather and preparing for Easter. The homeschooling community likes to say that instead of taking off for snow-days, we take off for sun-days. I do love that flexibility.  Today, we started back up with school again but the boys still spent most of the day outside in the fresh city air, and our day was pre...
Post a Comment
Read more

I never thought I'd ever...

By
Me and Ian were talking about how much lives have changed since we had kids. Not only the way we spend our time together as a family, but also our mentalities. For example, I was talking to a friend of mine who either just got a tattoo or was thinking about getting another, or both. I can't remember. Anyway, I have been wanting to get a tattoo, so I asked her how much she thought a small one would cost. She said "oh, not that much! Maybe 60 bucks?" I immediately said "Oh, well that's 3 boxes of diapers, which is too much".  I realized then, that I convert the cost of pretty much everything to the amount of diapers I could get for the same price. haha! I never thought the biggest commodity in my life would be a jumbo box of Target brand diapers, or that this exchange rate would help curb my appetite for things that I want, but don't need to buy. An example would be a Nintendo Wii. I have wanted one for a couple of years now. But it costs like10 boxes ...
2 comments
Read more

Autumn fun!

By
     Last week, to celebrate the official start of Autumn we took a little nature walk at a nearby park. I just love this park because there is so much space, that I don't worry about the kids running too far ahead of me.   My little Luke especially loves that I am not constantly asking him to 'wait' or 'come back'. He is ever the explorer.        Our mission was to observe nature in the beginning of Autumn, and collect things we find on the ground.       We had a really fun time exploring. Anthony spotted some lilypads, but to his mild disappointment, no frogs. We saw a squirrel in a tree making a really weird noise that I had no idea squirrels were even capable of making. We came to the conclusion that he may have been sick, or singing us a song. Lukie made friends with a couple of ducks. We observed the very dark gray skies, and predicted that it would begin raining some...
2 comments
Read more