Preschool Homeschool Cards

My youngest son has only just turned four. We decided early on that he didn’t need to do any sort of “curriculum” for awhile. Instead, we would let him follow his interests and we would spend a lot of time talking to him about what was going on, which brings in colors, letters, shapes, vocabulary etc. This also allows us time to label items in English, French and Arabic for him and expose him to quality t.v. shows and iPad apps in all three of his languages. However, he has been very jealous of the fact that his brothers have “homework”. It gave them the “privilege” of mom’s attention, first dibs on technology, etc. etc. So to help the situation – and to stop the constant question of “What can I do mom?”, I created these “homework” cards for him.

We printed them, laminated them, put magnet tape on the back and hung them on the refrigerator. As the day goes on, if he starts acting bored, I ask him to “pick a card”. He chooses what he wants to do using the picture clues and moves it to the right hand side of the fridge. Then he does his activity. Sometimes he lasts 5 minutes at the activity. Other times he lasts 50 minutes. He has no time limits, but is required to clean up one activity before he can pick another card.

The difference in his behavior since we started this has been phenomenal! He is now rarely jealous of his brothers’ homework, because he has his own. He spends a lot less time wandering around annoying those people who are trying to work, which makes life so much easier for all of us. And he is much more willing to do things he might not usually want to do, like calendar, simply because he chose it and it wasn’t Mommy saying “Let’s do this now.”

If you’re interested in using these choice cards with your children, feel free to grab them from my Teachers Pay Teachers store. They are a free download.

Our First RV Vacation

While we live fulltime in our RV, we actually stay stable in certain places for one to four months at a time while we workamp. (See this previous post about our 2015 plan to workamp and live without paying rent.) However, we have been lucky enough to schedule our workamping positions so that we have a week or two off in between jobs, allowing for many vacations throughout the year. During these vacations we plan to explore and work on our family motto of Live Your Life!

We are now completing our first such week, here’s where we have been and what we did with our time:

 

We left our first, amazing placement at Thus Far Farm on Saturday, March 28th with some tears shed and a catch in our hearts, but ready for adventure.  Our first stop was only an hour away at Talluah Gorge State Park in Talluah Falls, Georgia where we hiked, saw waterfalls and crossed the scary hanging bridge. (My kids say I’m the only one who thinks it’s scary!)

 

 

Next we headed to the Great Smoky Mountains – on the North Carolina side - where we explored a historic farm and then drove through the steep, snow covered mountains, enjoying beautiful views and crossing our fingers that our old RV would make it – it did!

 

 

Our third stop was in Knoxville where the kids enjoyed The Muse – a science and discovery museum, planetarium and the playground just outside it for hours.

 

 

For our fourth stop, we were supposed to go to the Daniel Boone National Forest in Kentucky, but our GPS led us only to the supervisor’s office, not to an entrance. Instead, we found a local state park – Fort Boonseborough and enjoyed hiking around a Civil War Fort, Native American dwellings and playing near the river.

 

 

When we hit Cincinnati, Ohio, we stopped at the Cincinnati Museum Center which houses multiple museums in an old train station. We only attended the Natural History Museum because it was what was covered by our NSTC pass, but it was more than big enough to explore and enjoy the day, including a cave and a trading post where the boys were able to win fossils of their own with their work on the daily scavenger hunt.

 

 

Next stop was Columbus, Ohio and their famous COSI museum.  This had to be the biggest and most amazing museum that we ever went to. It was packed because of a combination of Spring Break and rainy weather, but there was tons to explore from the Progress exhibit that showed how life had changed from 1898 to 1962 to the hands on Gadgets exhibit to the “Kidspace that was like a separate kids museum inside the larger museum. We spent five hours at the COSI and still didn’t see it all.

 

 

The last stop on our journey – before we head for our new WWOOF position on Earthen Farm in Bangor, Michigan – is in Dundee, OH at Evergreen RV Resort where my father drove in from Buffalo to spend Easter weekend with us.  The campground has a lovely indoor pool and hot tub as well as tons of events for the kids for Easter. Plus we’re right in Amish country!  Great way to end a great week.

According to my son the best part about the whole vacation was that no matter where we went, he got to sleep in his own bed each and every night! Having our own RV is paying off these days.

 

Living in a Field Trip

The other day my son told me, “Hey mom, you know living at the farm is like being on a field trip all the time!” 

In a lot of ways, he’s right.  My boys have seen things and learned about topics often only introduced on field trips.  For example:

They can tell you the history behind this shoe:

 

They know how to use these to preserve food:

 

They gather eggs from chickens and pet the turkeys:

 

They have learned about starting plants from seeds, fertilizing and weeding:

 

They eat dinner twice a week surrounded by butter churns and cast iron skillets:

 

They have wandered through these woods, playing in the creek, looking at plants and searching for bugs:

 

They have learned what to do if the cows charge at them:

 

They have learned how to chop and carry wood for the fireplace:

 

All of these are lessons often taught only during field trips with school or scouts.  Instead of waiting for a special occasion, my kids have had the opportunity to live here, explore, and talk with experts every day.  We are so blessed that the owners of Thus Far Farm, Mary and Bill, have not only given our children the opportunity to explore, but they have been ready and willing to explain and answer questions.  Living a field trip is one of the best things I’ve ever done for my kids!

 

 

Homeschooling in Three Languages

When I tell people that we homeschool in three languages, I generally get two questions – Why? and How?

 

 

Let’s start with why?  For three years, we lived in Morocco, where my husband is originally from.  While we were there, the older two boys attended school in French and Arabic.  When we arrived they were 3 and 7 and spoke very, very little of either language. We dropped them into a Moroccan school and they learned by emersion. By the time we left Morocco three years later, they were 7 and 10 and could understand, speak, read and write both languages on grade level.  Although we were ready to leave Morocco, we weren’t ready for them to stop learning these languages, which was a major reason we chose to homeschool.  We wanted them to have time for all of their languages, rather than have them do additional homework after a full school day and begin to resent the languages, or worse simply forget them.

 

Now, how?  How do you learn in three languages?  Pretty much the same way you learn in one.  Our home language has always been English, so that continues to be the language we start explaining a topic in.  This is the reason that we are working on our Science and Social Studies through our Year Long Country Study in English.  However, every week the boys work on reading, writing, grammar, and math in all three of their languages.  We have played with a variety of formats and found that we most like doing one subject at a time in all three languages, giving the boys a chance to make connections between all three of their languages. 

 

For example, on Friday we work on Grammar and the kids have learned things like a verb is a verb in any languages, but that the verbs simply conjugate differently depending on the language.  Monday is Math day.The boys work on Math in English, French and Arabic.  They tend to learn the concepts in English, but work in the textbooks that we brought back with us from Morocco and on websites that my husband has found, to explore the same concepts in French and Arabic.  This gives them time to work on the vocabulary and the word problems in all of their languages, and further cement their knowledge.  Additionally, some problems – especially Long Subtraction and Long Division are presented differently in different countries and this is reflected in their textbooks.  (I have made a resource to help explain the different ways you can do Extended Operations, which you can download for free from my TeachersPayTeachers store.)

 

In addition to general curriculum in French and Arabic, the boys work on French in DuoLingo and Arabic using a variety of iPad apps to keep building their vocabulary.  Overall, we spend a lot of time comparing and contrasting and thinking deeply about the topics at hand.  Three languages can make for a full day, but the benefits our kids are getting are undeniable and the more connections they make the longer they remember things.  This situation is definitely best for our family right now.