Weekly Round up Sept. 24-28

Well, only my 5th week of homeschooling and it was a very difficult one for me.  I went head to head with a host of doubts and a dark cloud over my mind and spirit.  Schooling was at a minimum, but we did manage to muddle through and get some stuff done.  A bright spot was that we received our Cathechism book that I had to order twice as the first one was lost in the mail, Chat's with God's Little Ones.  It's a lovely book and very handy guide to teaching the Faith to the kids, broken down in daily "chats" of about 5 -10 minutes each.  Again, a big thanks to my mentor-friend for bringing this book to my attention.  After a dreary Monday, I decided to completely do something different on Tuesday, so I went to the fountain of information and goodness that is Pinterest, and found a great and free farm unit preschool printable pack from 1plus1plus1equals1.  Wow, that is a great site, you should check it out, tons of great printables and information.  I printed out a lapbook and the girls and I spent the morning putting it together.  It was a wonderful change of pace for all of us, Gabriela loves crafting and they both got a lot of cutting, coloring, and glueing practice as well as some phonics, matching, sorting, and game playing.  Annalise and Gabriela truly enjoyed it and I will definitely be doing some more lapbooking as it really combines the girls love of crafts with learning.  We reviewed the phonic sounds of the letters Qu, R, and S this week and read once from our seashore book.  We learned about the birth of Moses in our Bible studies.  Gabriela did one quick sandpaper grading activity.  Overall it was a super light week, we only schooled 3 days.

 

Golden beads: learning how denominations or made up of groups of 10

 

 

Grading sandpaper

 

 

Beginning sounds clipping

 

 

 

Coloring

 

 

 

 

 

 

Animal nomenclature cards

 

 

 

 

We finished the week by going to St. Ann's art class and learned about angels and St. Michael the Archangel, just in time for his feast day.  The girls made a crafty angel.

 

 

 

Weekly Review, Sept. 17-21

This week proved to be the beginning of a couple of really hard weeks for me in homeschooling.  I don't know if I had just poured everything into reading and planning and the first month that I was already feeling burnt out, if the honeymoon period was over or if I just have really overextended myself in both my expectations and abilities.  I presume it was a bit of it all.  I have managed to keep up the basic phonics work, handwriting, bible study and a tiny bit of math.  In Bible, the girls learned about Joseph and his coat and his time in Egypt.  We went through the sounds of K, L, M, and N and did some word building.  I introduced the Golden Bead Material to Gabriela.  She really enjoyed manipulating it, but then wanted to play with it.  I did not let her play with it for fun, and I'm a bit confused on how to proceed with this aspect of the montessori materials.   The girls collected some leaves and did leaf rubbings and we threaded and colored pasta necklaces as well.  I read some chapters from our Seashore book and the girls watched some more Salsa episodes. 

 

Coloring Pasta Necklaces

 

 

Open-ended crafting, Annalise put that little triangle together on her own

 

 

Gabriela playing with the Golden Bead Material

 

 

Annalise word building.  She begs to do it like her sister.  It requires a lot of active involvement on my part but she is definitely learning her phonics and well on her way to reading. 

 

 

 

 

 

Number writing practice with sandpaper numbers.  The use of sandpaper numbers and letters has really been fruitful for Gabriela's penmanship learning.

 

 

Julienne doing a litte practical life bottle opening practice (no she hasn't mastered it, yet!)

 

 

I took some pictures on our weekly library outing

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Weekly Review Sept. 10-14

This, only our 3rd week of homeschool, I have to admit I felt a little tired.  I had gone full speed the first two weeks and I was already feeling it!  Mainly my montessori activities suffered, but we got through a fair bit of schoolwork   We did daily phonics, studied the Story of Noah and the Ark, which culminated nicely and unexpectadly with the art class at St. Ann's at the end of the week.  We practiced pouring and explored tactile opposites.  I went over some basic addition with the number rods and explored evens and odds.  I've come to realize that Gabriela likes worksheets a whole lot more than I was planning on using them, but I've been letting her work through some workbooks, and she really enjoys that.  Finally, we discovered  SALSA episodes thanks to a friend.  There is an accompanying curriculum that I am going to start, but last week the whole Salsa thing translated into a whole lot of watching that I need to curb this week coming up and actually make lessons out of.  We did a fair bit of painting and read more in our history book and a lovely book on Abraham Lincoln.  We also continued reading stories in our seashore book.   That culminates nicely into this weekend because we came to the coast to visit our family. 

 

Flicker Paint

 

 

 

 

 

Exploring Tactile Opposites

 

 

 Making words

 

 

Painting

 



 

Handwriting with sandpaper letters

 

 

 

Glueing and letter practice

 

 

 

 

Introduction

HI and welcome to my new blog.  I have decided to start blogging as a way to chronicle my journey as a homeschooling mother.  I never thought I would homeschool even though many who follow an alternative lifestyle do.  I don't consider myself that alternative or radical, but I do follow the principals of natural and attachment parenting.  I'm an avid breastfeeder, I baby wear, use cloth diapers, natural cleaning and body products, try to eat clean, visit the chiropractor and eschew most modern medicine (including vaccinations). 
I am a Roman Catholic and have been all my life.  I have gone through various degrees of separation from the Church.  Seems like I have cyclically come back to the mother Church, and currently I have experienced a conversion and am trying to live as a full and true Catholic. 
I feel compelled to discuss my reasons for homeschooling even though I generally avoid this topic.  I truly don't like discussing it, it makes me uncomfortable because I feel so very counter culture and I don't like insinuating that sending chidren to school makes anyone amoral, lazy or love your child any less than I do. 
With that said, the reasons I am choosing to homeschool this year are because I think 5 years old is too little to be gone from home for 7 hours a day.  I am not a fan of our popular culture and the early sexualization of girls  Does sending your kid to school contribute to that?  I think that the peer culture of our society does contribute to it, and children become obsessed with what their peers are doing.  I don't like the popular songs on the radio and the messages they convey and the immodest dress that even small girls wear these days. (Have you looked at the selection of clothing for girls starting size 7, gross!)
I am trying to teach the children the fundamentals of the Faith.  Let me rephrase that, the children and I are learning the fundamentals of the Faith together.  My own Catholic upbringing was very superficial, although weekly mass attendance and praying was stressed.  I performed all the sacraments of course, but it mostly felt like something done out of obligation and I can confess that in my heart I didn't know and feel the true meaning of it all. 
Another reason I am homeschooling is because I am in love with the Montessori Method and find real truth in value in it.  If I could send my children to a Montessori school, I would probably do it.  There are a couple of public options, but the lottery is competitive and we didn't make it.
I named my blog Vista Montessori, but I don't pretend to be anywhere near to a montessori school.  I'm using Montessori methods among other things.  My style so far is an ecletic mix of Montessori, Charlotte Mason, and Classical education. 
I'm hoping this blog will allow me to document my children's lives.  A friend has a fabulous blog where all her children's lives are chronicled and I really love that.  Also, I'm hoping it will give family an idea of what we are doing and a way to keep up with us.