Tommy the Author
Posted in Homeschooling, Tommy on Jun 22nd, 2011
Tommy’s newest art project–writing books about cars. Yep. Derek told him there’s a new Cars movie coming out this weekend, and Tommy hasn’t stopped talking about it since.
Category Archive for 'Homeschooling'
Finger Painting Again
Posted in Homeschooling, Tommy on May 25th, 2011
After seeing Bethany’s post about painting with matchbox cars, I knew we had to try it! I had grand visions of Tommy making racetracks like he does with his crayons, but it quickly devolved, as all our art projects are prone to do, into a messy blob. He was done in 5 minutes, too. Oh […]
Tommy’s Artwork
Posted in Homeschooling, Tommy on May 10th, 2011
Tommy has become a boy on a mission–to color at least twenty pictures a day. We should take out stock in construction paper! This is a picture of Christopher Robin, inspired by bedtime reading with Daddy: Note the phonetic spelling of Winnie-the-Pooh (and that “the” and “luh” sound and feel very similar to Tommy). Note […]
Buzz Aldrin
Posted in Homeschooling, Tommy on Apr 13th, 2011
This week Tommy used his rudimentary phonics skills to write this: That’s “Buzz Aldrin,” Tommy’s favorite astronaut hero, in case your phonics aren’t quite the same as my son’s. And this is a picture of Buzz Aldrin and the Saturn 5 Rocket, which Tommy delights in telling us is “the most powerful rocket ever!” See […]
Preschool Update: Phonics Fun
Posted in Homeschooling, Tommy on Mar 26th, 2011
Lately I’ve definitely been letting the phonics part of preschool slide because Tommy has all his sounds down but wasn’t ready as of a couple months ago to start putting them together to sound out words. This week, though, he rediscovered the foam letter stickers in the art box and asked for a preschool project […]
Louisa May Alcott on Education
Posted in Homeschooling on Mar 12th, 2011
Billy Ward was what the Scotch tenderly call an “innocent,” for though thirteen years old, he was like a child of six. He had been an unusually intelligent boy, and his father had hurried him on too fast, giving him all sorts of hard lessons, keeping at his books six hours a day, and expecting […]
Dorothy Sayers on Education
Posted in Homeschooling on Mar 12th, 2011
I’ve been thinking a lot about education lately, and good talks with the Gaetanos this week reminded me to pull up Dorothy Sayers’ “Recovering the Lost Tools of Learning” to remind myself why I’m into the classical model. Of course everyone should read the whole thing, but here are some selected quotes that resonate with […]
Accepting a Mess
Posted in Elizabeth, Homeschooling, Tommy on Mar 1st, 2011
Bethany’s recent post on fostering an environment of imaginative learning really convicted me in the area of letting my kids create a mess. I crave order, and I’m not naturally artistic, so I tend to limit “art time” to crayons as much as possible despite my kids’ love for markers, paint, and cutting paper into little […]
Letter Stickers
Posted in Elizabeth, Homeschooling, Tommy on Feb 9th, 2011
Lately Tommy seems to have had a bit of trouble with the concept that the letters in your name have to come in a certain order or they don’t spell anything…so we got out the letter stickers again and worked on spelling names in the correct sequence. Meanwhile, Elizabeth read her “bunny book.”
Preschool Work: Patterns and Colors
Posted in Homeschooling, Tommy on Feb 3rd, 2011
We’ve been housebound a lot lately, so I’m trying to keep Tommy busy! Yesterday I pulled out the foam blocks I’d picked up at Target during back-to-school time at the dollar spot and worked on doing AB and ABC patterns. It’s quicker than using stickers or coloring–he was done with several challenges in under 10 […]