Back To School 2018-2019

Hi guys! We are officially back to school for the 2018-2019 homeschool year. We took the summer off which was much needed but now we are back to routine and schedule. Which I love by the way.

This was our first week and it went really well. This year I have a 5th grader, 3rd grader, Senior Kindergartner, and a toddler. That's a lot of grade levels to joggle so, I broke our schedule down into 4 parts.

1. Morning Independent Work for my older two-during this time they work on typing, Islamic studies, map drawing, sentence diagramming (5th grade) and math facts (3rd grade. While the older boys are busy doing that I do circle time and phonics lesson with my K student and toddler.

2. Morning Basket- after morning snack we all gather back and do read-aloud, map drills, states and capitals flash cards, poetry, etc. During this time all the boys are either building Lego, playing with playdough, drawing, or doing a puzzle. I'll share more about what's in our morning basket.

3. Independent Work (for the older boys)- the big kids work on spelling, grammar, independent reading, geography. While I work with my K student on math, sight words, and play with my toddler.

4. Group Studies- After my littlest one takes a nap which is right after lunch. We come back the school room and work on history and science, and ELA interactive notebooks.

Now that I've shared all that lets get to the fun pictures of our first week of school.

On the first day of school we always have a pancake breakfast and open a small gift I put together for the boys. This year I made them a monogrammed clipboard, coloring book/trivia book, some brain putti (they love this stuff) and their favorite candy or chocolate bar. It just motivates them at the beginning of the year.

Tot/Kindergarten shelf.

I keep all their hands on activities for phonics, fine motor, sight words, writing on this shelf. After our phonics lesson (K student) he can come here and do extension activities that reinforce our phonics lesson. He is currently doing word family study. My toddler can explore this shelf all day. The bottom half is his material. I keep an alphabet basket (he's currently doing the letter A) sensory play, a book, and some kind of math or puzzle.

I switched the activities in the middle of the week.

Tot School Activities:

This week he is doing activities for the letter A. He already knows all his alphabet and sounds but his too little, so I want to keep doing fun activities with him when ever he wants. He usually will do a couple of activities and walk away and that's fine with me.

Blue rice fine motor scoop and transfer activity. I colored the rice to go with our A is for airplane theme. 

Letter A sensory bin. Dig and find objects that start with the letter A and match them to the cards. He loved this activity. After he found all the objects he played with the beans all day long.

Name recognition bottle cap activity.

I'll share more of his tot school activities on another post.

Kindergarten Activities:

Like I mentioned my K student is going to work on word families for the first half of the school year and if he is ready we will start All About Reading with him.

Here are some of the fun hands on activities he worked on this week.

-at word family lacing activity. 

This week he is working on a community helpers theme so all his activities correspond with that. He reads the words on the stamp and matches it to the envelope with the correct pictures. If it's right he gets to mail his letter. 

Number puzzle and writing from 11-20.

Handwriting with out tears. 

This was his favorite activity. It was fun and completely independent work. Say the name of the picture, build the word, write the word, and open the card to check if you did it correctly. 

Since this post is already getting way to long. I'll share more pictures and fun activities in another post. Have you already started school? How's it going?