Polish / Australian Homeschooling Family Living in Tasmania, Australia.
Well today the girls were working well together. We have struggled at times to have the girls working independently on their own stuff within the same space. Mainly because NIK likes to talk her way through her work and JAHG likes it to be quiet. Today was a great day though as NIK concentrated on her cutting and pasting skills while JAHG busily went about her English and Maths work. Lets hope we get more great days in the near future!
NIK busy working
JAHG busy Working
Well I am happy to say that the use of Mathletics seems to be re appearing in our weekly learning. Yesterday JAHG and I created a new learning grid, which is designed to document all the required things she is to complete in a seven day cycle. It does not have time frames, or even set work for each day, instead it has 50 boxes with a single topic written in each. The idea is that JAHG can choose which activity to do and once she completes it she can colour in the box. The only requirement is that in seven days time everything has to be completed – or it will become carried over into the next weeks learning grid, on top of the usual activities.
If JAHG manages to complete the work in good time, then she will have more time to herself before she must start on the next weeks learning grid. The page is designed to have a fortnights work on it, split into weekly sections. This means JAHG also has the choice to move on over to the next weeks work if she wants so that she has more control over when and where the work is completed.
I must add that since JAHG received her learning grid yesterday the manner in which she has approached her work is great. She is always one to happily do what needs to be done, but the idea of being able to colour in the boxes and therefore see her achievements in chunks of an area on the grid, is enthusiastically pushing her forward to complete the tasks in record time.
Some of the tasks added are simple living skills and chores, like washing, set table and clean up. While others are more learning activities like, spelladrome, mathletics, writing, science, maths, spelling, English, research and specific work books.
So through the introduction of our Learning Grid we have seen JAHG reintroduce learning tools such as Spelladrome and mathletics again into her daily life, which up until now have been more of a chore than a pleasure to participate in.
For Spelling we are using a series of Textbooks called Spelling Rules with our Children.
This is a great series, that has each book set up with a unit of work designed to be completed each week. The book contains 35 units in all. Each unit comprises of a series of activities based around a set spelling list. We have found that even though JAHG is extremely good at spelling and always gets the designated spelling words right, that the extended activities are great reinforcement for her learning. JAHG never gets bored of these books and enjoys the activities within each weeks lessons.
Most of the time JAHG will sit down and complete the unit of work in one sitting and often she will do more than one unit a week. We often also build upon the activities within the unit with extra writing, drawing and word games related to the topic of the unit.
Spelling rules is the basis of our weekly spelling. We do however build a series of other spelling related activities such as Boggle, Spelladrome & Focus on Text just to make a few.
The Spelling Rules series starts at Book A which is grade Prep level and continue through to book G for grade 6. It also has Two teaching books you can purchase if you wish to to help you teach your own children. however we did not buy these.
The best thing about these books is that they are made in Australia,
with Australian Spelling for all the words!
Teachers Spelling Rules books
Children s Text books
Other Interesting Links
Homeschooling with Spelladrome
I thought that i would share with you all some of the books that we purchase for our children to use as part of their home educational experience.
We use these maths textbooks as a basis for their learning and then build upon what they enjoy with activities such as Cooking – for weights, measures, temperatures & Washing – for sorting, grouping, pairing, matching etc. We are only limited by our own imaginations as to how we can incorporate Maths into our daily life and routines.
One set of books that we use are called Mighty Mentals. This is a great series of four books, which are labeled ‘Book A, B, C & D’. They are geared for grades 3, 4, 5 & 6 of the primary school years.
JAHG is currently working through ‘Book A’ as she is in grade 3.
JAHG has never been the most confident child when it comes to maths, but since using this Maths textbook, she has found that she enjoys learning math and has even surprised herself with wanting to do more of the units within the book.
Each Unit is designed to be completed over the course of a week. It is broken up into 6 different sections one being designed to be completed each day Monday to Friday and then one over the weekend. We however find that JAHG prefers to sit down and complete the unit most of the time in one sitting and will often do more than one unit of work from the book each week.
Once JAHG finishes the first book we will just continue on to the Book B in the series and work our way through them.
Here are the other books for you to view if you like. I can not recommend this series high enough.
Other Interesting Articles
Trying to Make Maths and Spelling Fun
