Friday, January 9, 2009

AHHH Routines!

As much as I enjoyed taking December off from School- I was THRILLED to start back up. Breaks are nice- but ahhhh- routines are SO much easier! We started school back up on Monday with a few changes. After finishing up his Skylark notebook in the fall, and Bug learned about Maine. Well, he said he really wanted to learn more about the 50 states. So Ben told me to get it figured out. After trying to plan a unit on the 50 states- I gave up- I told him- I'd rather just keep going with Beyond FIAR- since it's all written out for me. But Ben said he'd take over Bug's school assignments. Tee-hee- I've also delegated math- and he now goes to Ben's Aunt Pam's house for Math class once a week, so all I have left to work with Bug on is spelling and grammar.

So Ben came up with an AWESOME spreadsheet worksheet for Bug. He will do one for each state, and do 1 state a week- so this is going to be a l-o-n-g project. In his studies Bug does the research he needs, draws his own map, complete with county lines and important cities. He studies the Native American Tribes that lived there, the first settlers, 10 interesting people (and does a report on one) 10 plants and animals native to that state (and draws pictures of them) Finds 10 interesting places in the state, and does a report on one of them. I think it's going to work GREAT! The best thing is- it's independent! I don't have to plan out each week, or do much of anything other than sit by him while he researches on the internet (We need to find a good cheap internet filter- any suggestions?!)

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Bug is doing great! He is doing much more independent writing than my little man (and doing it more fluently). I don't know anything about internet filters, but you may want to call the library. They sometimes have to use them in the children's room, and their IT people might be savvy about this kind of thing. :-)

Amber said...

I talked with my IT guy and he said the best he as seen yet, and it is fairly inexpensive is at netnanny.com, let me know if you have anymore questions!

Shelley Hansen said...

It is GREAT to have a wonderful home schooling support system!

Melinda said...

great idea. It's always nice when you can get another look at a problem, especially when that look comes from no one better, than dad!!! Internet filters...hmmm... I've only used the good old mom!