I am in the process of locating a good history idea to teach him something about history. I will more than likely begin in New Jersey and expand his horizon from there. That way, he gets history and geography at the same time.

We did math on the chalkboard. I showed him a few patterns for adding so he could manipulate the numbers better. He loves puzzles, so I am trying to make it a mental puzzle for him. We went over his phone number and apartment number. He already knows how to call 911.

The only book work we did was to read about hedgehogs, compare them to porcupines, and a guessing game with a little booklet we cut out of Your Big Backyard magazine.

I printed some things to cut out for the fruit of the Spirit. His Sunday school class was learning about it this weekend, so I thought I would expand on that lesson and imprint it on his heart. We discussed the nine fruit of the Spirit in terms he could understand. I got the sheets from A Kid’s Heart. She has a heap of Christian schooling booklets and sheets there. We used the PDF for the fruit of the Spirit and made the basket with fruit.

He really enjoyed lessons today, and I enjoyed teaching. It was a great day in homeschool/unschool.

He picked out some really good ones to start with. The one we red today was called Read A Picture Colors and Numbers. He did very well, learned some transitional words and such like “a”, “to”, “you”. I also tested his recognition with words he is spelling and color words. I have a Fisher Price Phonics book that does this beautifully.

We got into our first fractions. I am going to devise a board of sorts with fractional pieces, unless I can find one already made for cheap somewhere. We reviewed some of the basics of telling time. He is doing great with that. I am going to end up getting his 1st grade curriculum pretty quickly, since we transition back and forth between the K and 1 levels of work.

Other than the fact that he enjoys whining about pretty much everything except learning a bible verse and coloring, he is doing well.

We are also talking about the Son of God and how He is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path (Psalm 110:105). He wrote the letter S and practiced his name. He also drew some pictures of things that begin with S.

We did an experiment with force today. We used ourselves, different sized Care Bears, and my spinning computer chair in order to show how things that weigh differently will spin at different rates of speed in the chair. Explaining force, gravity, centrifugal force, and inertia to a 5 year old isn’t easy, but he gets the gist of it.

Later on today I will do some more things but right now it’s break time.

Tags: sun, science, jesus

He is having trouble writing the number 2. He wants to write it from the bottom up, but that doesn’t work too well for him. Taz gets so frustrated with it, he quits. I move him on to things he is more comfortable with, and come back to that from time to time. He will figure out his groove for it eventually.

He is learning how to utilize the lines better, so he can write more neatly. The helping guide dots had eluded him for a while, but now he is getting the hang of why they are there. His name is nearly perfect the way that HE likes to write it. It’s legible, that’s all that really matters at 4 years old.

Word recognition has gone up tremendously. He can know discern which words are the same or sound similar. Rhyming words he is mostly okay with. We are working little by little on him getting more of a reading vocabulary going. He can read a few things pretty well, but then he memorizes some things and speaks them back while pretending to actually read. I guess that means when I tell him to do something, he doesn’t forget 3 seconds later. HAHA

I am going back through his workbooks and writing down what we have done for the last year and a half. I usually date the pages and keep the workbooks. I am thinking I need something more concrete than that. I have to get into the habit so when it comes time for him to go out into the world, he will have all the records he needs.

He has also been doing a lot of imaginative play. He made a wedding dress out of playdoh yesterday for his girl action figure. She married the boy action figure and they had a few adventures together. We attended a wedding this past weekend, and he was fascinated with the clothes and dynamics of marriage.

He has done well to remember up to the 3rd day of creation thus far without too much prompting. We are moving on to the 4th and 5th days next week.

Written with no help or prompting. He reads it and says “No”. I corrected him and told him that the first 2 letters are indeed the word “no”. I watched him when he wrote it. It came out as OWN if he had written it in that order, but he did not.

I just taught him some basic math on his fingers. He gets how to do it and we are going to continue to work on his basic addition with the 1 + y = x type stuff. I am sure that by the time he is 4 1/2 he will know the basic facts like the back of his hand.