5 Days of Teaching Creatively: Homeschooling a Crisis

We are up to day 4 of our blog hop, and I can honestly say I don't really feel qualified to write this post!!  Homeschooling in a Crisis makes me think of a serious illness, house fire, Dad's deployed, death, etc.  And, well, thankfully I can't tell you about those at this time in my life.  

What I CAN tell you about is how to school through a MAJOR change.  Those major changes include moving, having a baby!  These are changes that I have heard of many homeschooling moms having a hard time schooling through, so I wanted to share what worked for us.

My big tip....well, we didn't do school for a bit. Lol!  Right, you are thinking that is not so creative!!  That's not even teaching!  Okay, I'll elaborate :).

We school year round.  We don't have a set 'school year.'  We school about 4 days a week and go to our co-op on Fridays.  Some weeks we only school 2 or 3 days if we have extra appointments.  But, pretty much, if we don't have other plans, we have school.  

What this does is it allows us to be ready for a crisis/change/really bad day/vacation in October, etc, etc.  When school is going to be really tough, we take that time off.

When Explorer was born, we took over a month off!  We needed to.  I simply couldn't prepare for any sort of lessons whatsoever!  On other days, the kids would actually ask to use the Montessori materials. So, they were learning even though I wasn't 'teaching.'

If you have found yourself trying to teach through a new baby, be kind to yourself!!  Stressing yourself out with trying to get all the lessons done won't help you or your kids.  It won't be worth the extra effort you just put forth, either!  Read a few books, include the kids in your cooking times, and think up other ways to 'learn' without 'school.'

Now, I'll be honest, I have NO CLUE what I would do if my kids were in High School and on the brink of graduation.  So, for those of you in that situation, check out the crew blog and other crew links below.  Hopefully, one of them has a good recommendation!!

Thanks for stopping by!

God Bless,
Lisa

5 Days of Teaching Creatively: Toys, Games and Puzzles-The Montessori Toddler Corner

We are up to day three of our 5 Days of Teaching Creatively blog hop!  Today's topic is Toys, Games, and Puzzles.  I thought it would be a great day to showcase our Montessori Toddler Corner!

Since Explorer is in our classroom a bit more, I decided I needed to be sure she has some things to keep her busy.  But, honestly, this isn't just for 'school time' this is her toy corner and these are the only toys out on a regular basis (extra toys are kept elsewhere).  I tried to choose toys that would help develop a certain skill in addition to being fun. I also tried to limit the amount of items to a very manageable amount for a young child. Here's a closer look at what's on the shelves.

In the basket on the top shelf we have a Leap Frog Fridge Farm Magnetic Animal Set.  This *is* a little loud and annoying, but she really enjoys it and the object of matching animals is a good one!

Hape Counting Stacker.  She really enjoys the challenge of placing the beads on the sticks.

Melissa and Doug doorbell house.  She can't unlock the doors yet, but likes the doorbells!  Mini Cooper often comes to help her unlock the doors.  Great group toy! 

These are probably two of our favorites!  Pat the Bunny book and our Jack-in-the Box.  Pat the Bunny is full of great activities such as peek-a-boo and smelling flowers.  Jack-in-the-Box is great for pincher-grabber control, and patience!

This vintage Sesame Street toy requires her to figure out the different 'locks' to make the characters pop up.  Very fun!

Melissa and Doug peg hammer set.  I love that the pegs do not come out!!  They can't be lost or put in the mouth!

Our two pull toys.  A vintage turtle and the Eric Carle caterpillar.  She enjoys both of them.

This soft block has a challenge of putting a cylinder into the opening.  Seems easy for us, but it is very challenging for Explorer. 

Montessori Mini-Knobbed Cylinders are a great addition to the toddler shelves-as long as your child isn't one to put things in her mouth.  Thankfully, Explorer is not.

Our little child sized recliner (thank you Grandpa!) is a great place to count with Lily-she counts in English and Spanish.  

Or, to cuddle up with a book from our book basked.  It's overflowing I know.  It's always hard to keep them at a minimum :).

And, next to the shelves is our little horse riding toy that she really likes!  

I hope that you enjoyed the peak into our toddler shelves.  I'd love to know what toys you use with your toddlers!  

Be sure to stop by the other crew blogs and see how they use toys, games, and puzzles in their home learning.  Click below or stop by the crew blog.

Thanks for stopping by and God Bless!

Lisa

We are also linking this up to:

5 Days of Teaching Creatively: Schooling in the Kitchen

Welcome back to our 5 Days of Teaching Creatively blog hop!  Today we are heading into the kitchen.  If you are stopping by for the first time, you may not know that earlier this year my daughter decided she wanted to learn to cook.  So, we are slowly making our way through the Better Homes and Gardens Jr. cookbook.  You can read more about her journey here.  As promised, however, she recently made Monkey  Bread Rolls and boy were they yummy!

As I have been teaching her to cook, you learn really fast that there are just some things you take for granted!!  

This is one example.  I realized that buttering the inside of the muffin pans is a learned skill!  Mine is on the right and hers on the left.  She did a great job.

The children found out that they like Pecans.  I could have never gotten them to try them otherwise!

Mustang was interested by the fact that egg makes sugar stick to the rolls.  A little chemistry?  :)

And I learned I need to take a picture of the food much faster!!  They were so yummy it didn't take much time at all for them to be all gone!

I have been thoroughly enjoying these lessons in the kitchen!  I don't like to cook, but even I am finding them to be fun and a GREAT bonding experience!

Our next recipe is Apple Muffins! Yummy!!

Checkout how my crew makes school in the kitchen by clicking the links below. Or head over to the crew blog! 

Thanks for stopping by and God Bless!

Lisa

Delight Directed Teaching-Work Plans, Lapbooks, and Montessori

Happy Monday!  This week I am participating in a blog hop with my fellow crew mates on the Schoolhouse Review Crew.  Each day we are talking about a different topic for teaching creatively.  You can see the line-up above.

Today we are discussing Delight-Directed Teaching.  Well, if you have read my blog at all, you know that at it's core, that is the definition of Montessori education.  But, I promise not to bore you with another what is Montessori post.  If you want one, you can check out my series from last year on 5 Days of Montessori.  Instead, I thought I'd focus more on how I've been directing the delights of my children lately.

Now, I am all for letting my children choose what they want to work on each day.  But, I have come to the realization that, if I tell my children 'pick anything,' they tend to wander around aimlessly trying to choose the right thing for quite some time.  And, when I say the right thing it often consists of the work that is the easiest or most fun.  I have found that they do, indeed, need some-um-help choosing.

I was SO glad when I began reading about the Montessori work plans on other blogs I read.  My favorite ended up being the plan shared on We Don't Need No Education {she's also a fellow crew mate!}.  Thanks to her, I found out that Montessori for Everyone offers free downloadable-and editable work plans!  Extra bonus was that I could just use their plans if I didn't already have any ideas!  In the future, I want to change to following more of their plans to be sure we don't miss anything.

I have both Mustang and Charger following work plans.  Here is a peak at Mustang's:

Now, this was my very first time writing one, so I found a few mistakes in my choices.  First off, I do not type a new one everyday, so leaving the date on there was silly-as was leaving the 'works chosen' area of the 2nd page.  Second, I didn't leave a way to document doing a work more then once.  But, overall this has been a great addition to our home Montessori classroom!

So how it works:  I require that she chooses 3 works per day-at least one must be language or math.  I got pretty detailed on some of them because we are using a curriculum and it was just easier to write out the actual lesson title.  After one is completed, she gets to check it off, and move on to the next.  The hope was that she finish the plan in the month...but that's my other error.  I didn't actually consider multiple times doing a work and days we didn't have school when I wrote the work plan.  I'll try to do better next month!!

The choices:  Some are pretty self explanatory, but I wanted to focus on three of the topics specifically. Knights and Castles, Astronomy and Space, and Earth.  We were offered a chance to review a few lapbooks from A Journey to Learning.  When I first thought about the product, I dismissed it out of hand and thought it would not work with our learning style...then I had an idea!  

I decided to go ahead and print out the lesson, lapbook pages, and extra learning ideas I came up with for 6 of the lessons on each one.  Then, I placed them on our shelves.  I added them to our work plan, and encouraged Charger to try them out and see which subject interested her.  This style has been a hit!  She has happily chosen both the Knights and Castles and the Astronomy and Space works.  I am hoping she eventually chooses Earth-but Charger has been all about the Earth lessons so it's all been used.  I will have more information on that when I do my review :).

Using the work plans has brought a new level of accomplishment to our day. I now have a better way of measuring how much work was done and can gage if it was productive or not.  It allows the kids to still make their own decisions, but helps them focus on what-exactly-their choices are.  

They also allow me to see which works need to be made and when.  This has been key for my sanity since in the past I have made work that no one touched and it annoyed me to no end!  At least I know that, eventually, someone will touch the work I have made, and also lets me know which kinds of work they really enjoy.  

Mustang has been choosing a lot of science-even her Apologia textbook and notebook-while Charger seems to choose math as his favorite.  My next challenge is going to be how to engage Mini Cooper, but that's for another post :).

Overall, the impact the Montessori work plans have had here are wonderful and I am soooo glad that we are using them!!!  

What about you? Are you using a work plan?  Which one?  How do you set it up?  Or, what other ways have you found to lead delight directed learning in your home?  To see what my fellow crew mates have done, see the crew blog or check out the links below!  

Happy Schooling and God Bless!!  

Lisa

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