Back to School: Preschool and First Grade!

It's September and we're in back to school mode! Thomas is working on preschool material, and Alex is starting first grade! I am so fortunate to be able to do this at home with them again this year.

We did a little re-organizing of our "school room" or "play room" as we call it.

We have our play area . . .

And our work area.

We are still using our work boxes from last year, but I've changed them a bit. Instead of numbers on each box, there are pictures. That shows the boys which assignments they can do on their own, which they will do with me, and which ones we will all do together.

Another change this year: we didn't buy any curriculum. I pretty much figured out, after buying some last year, that I didn't need it -- at least not in these early grades.

Here's what we'll be working on:

Reading: We will be using library books. I will be reading aloud to both boys, and Alex will read to us. We will use fairy tales and fables, biographies, poems, short stories, and chapter books. Thomas will be continuing to work on lowercase letters and letter sounds, and hopefully will begin reading basic words by the end of the year.

Spelling: Alex will be starting weekly spelling words this year.

Writing: Alex will be doing some handwriting practice, as well as starting to write sentences and stories. I didn't push writing with him much last year because he really wasn't ready/didn't like it, but it will get more of our time this year. Thomas will work on letter writing and writing his name.

Math: Alex is working on a second grade math level and will be working on all kinds of things: adding and subtracting with borrowing/carrying, basic multiplication, word problems, fractions, geometry, place value, etc. Thomas is working on counting, number recognition, putting numbers in order, comparing quantities, and more. We have plenty of workbooks and manipulatives to pull from for this.

Science: we will be using the book called Garbage: Investigate What Happens When You Throw It Out to learn about reducing, reusing, recycling, composting, biodegrading, etc. There's lots of fun projects involved with that. We will move on to something else (hasn't been determined yet) after we finish with that.

Social Studies: We will be learning about one country each month, including geography, culture, food, resources, etc. There should be some great projects and activities we can come up with to go along with the countries.

So that's what we have planned so far on Boomerang Drive!

-- Holly