Welcome to the Dinsmore Homeschool: Year 2

 

 After K-4 Jonah and Silas did not know a summer break was coming, so for 3 months they told me, "I really miss my mommy who used to do school with me!" We started our second year of homeschool on August 17th and the first 2 months of K-5 were wonderful! 

Pointing at Papa's birthday.

We didn't skip anything or have any interruptions. Then Mommy got pregnant and we hit a rough patch. We may have done a couple days weeks in my bedroom... on the bed... with the air on! But we moved back into our school room by January. 

An activity they liked so much they had to show Daddy when he got home!

We switched curricula this year. We used ABeka for K-4. My boys learned how to read just fine, so it works. Different things work for different families, but I didn't feel it was a good fit for us. There were 3 reasons I started looking for something else: 1. I wanted activity ideas... they're boys, we need to move! I had to supplement games and activities each day. We continued using some this year too.

Our fishing pond of word families

2. The worksheets were super repetitive. I like review and even worksheets, but present the material in different ways and ask different types of questions. 

3. My boys didn't like the readers. I dreaded reading and really struggled with it in kindergarten and early elementary, so I am pretty sensitive to this. The readers to me have vocab that isn't very common and stories that are unrewarding to read. The font used isn't the font that is taught, so often times my boys would struggle with letter recognition for letters like g's ts' and a's when it wasn't their fault.

I really wanted a curriculum that offers all subjects and that we can stick with through high school. This year we chose Bob Jones. While we were on furlough 2 years ago I actually met with a consultant and looked inside the books. It is about 30% more expensive, but I felt I got more than 30% more worth of resources. In the photo above, Bob Jones is on the left, Abeka is on the right. I realize that K-5 should be more meatier than K-4 anyway, but it is a much richer curriculum all around.

We covered science and history topics even though they are not stand alone subjects yet. 

Our volcano

Water Cycle

The reading comprehension exercises are excellent! My boys are kind of opposite in the way that they learn and it worked for them both. In the photo below, an Abeka reader is on the left and BJUPress is on the right. My boys loved reading time this year! This may be a maturity level issue too, but the readers are more interesting.

There are lots of reproducible activities in the back of the teacher's manuals, so Eden was able to do many things with us!  

Statues of Liberty

 My mom was here during the summer last year and even this year! She helped me organize, laminate and decorate my school room. We made a Superman (although I never went back and added his fists) and a Bible timeline.

Jonah was SO sad when we took the Superman down to set up for 1st grade.

I purchased a couple extra products for our school room this year.

We used this pocket chart for sight words, but I use it at the institute when I teach too.

The curriculum suggested unifix cubes.

 

We used them everyday. I thought seeing what they make with them after math class highlights their personalities! Silas made a Spiderman hand, Jonah made a gun and Eden made a doggie!

I also ordered this magnetic spinner. We used this metal door and our magnetic letters a lot! I would put blends in the spinner and they would have to make words.

 

There isn't anything more valuable than books. While we were on furlough last August we went to a used bookstore and brought lots of good ones back!

 

MaG sent us a workbook for Eden. She worked on that all year and loved it! She is so sweet while we have school!

 

I didn't care for the BJUPress Bible curriculum. I want a clear biblical applied truth for each lesson and more activities than what the workbook offered. It hasn't been updated in a long time and just isn't at the same level as their other subjects. Towards the middle of the year I started doing my own thing, then at the end of the year we tried a sample lesson from Picture Smart Bible and really liked it. We may go with that this next year or just do our own Bible study with the resources I already have. I haven't decided yet. 

Pillar of clouds by day / Pillar of fire by night... it all eventually turns into weapons.

 With the Phonics and reading curriculum we had a very fun year!

 All 3 of my kids bring stuff up we studied all the time. They keep asking me how many days till school starts again too. That makes me so thankful!

Weather charts

Studying the seasons

I thought this was funny. This would have been Jimmy and I if we had ever been in school together. Silas is finishing his paper about the time Jonah finishes organizing his crayons to start his! I see the practical side of Jimmy in Silas, so I value it.

 

 There was lots of Bible in the core subjects too. We built a Bible times town.

 Homeschooling twins is a hoot! Probably easier since they have a classmate.

Jonah and Silas are so different. We don't focus on competition, but we definitely don't eliminate it completely. We try to celebrate each other's strengths... learning how to both win and lose graciously. Neither struggle too much but are quick to encourage their brother if they miss something. Silas is extremely creative with an outside of the box personality. If I don't present the point of something he won't be interested. If I don't let Jonah get sufficiently prepared for an activity, he gets frustrated. Jonah is my inside the box little perfectionist. His box is going to be organized, alphabetized and the nicest box in the room, while Silas will have cut his box up to make it into a rocket ship! Both personalities are important in this world. Here I was teasing Jonah because we couldn't start this math activity until he sorted all his circles.

We made a Kindergarten Journal. It is a creative writing prompt encouraged by the curriculum. We plan on doing one every year. The boys wanted to re-read the entire book each time we added to it!

I love that after school as I move around the house the kiddos follow me, they just like for us all to be together! I've never even hung clothes on the line without tripping over one of them. Eden was sick one day and wanted to lay down in the room with us. From then on she called the blowup mattress her hospital bed! I think we are bonded, I hope it stays like that as long as possible!

We studied about community helpers. The boys ate this up!

Jonah was fire, not a person on fire...

 

I made lots of slideshows for their iPads of tools fireman, policeman, dentists and mailmen use. They loved it!

Our mailbox

There were snack suggestions too.

Firetrucks

Our marshmallow teeth

Jimmy made some things for us this year, like geoboards

and a burning house that they got to put the fire out!

Most of the days I found myself really enjoying our time together rather than just checking something off a list to complete. That's what kindergarten should be!

Sorting food groups

Who knew homeschooling by necessity would be such a blessing to our family! There are so many things I learn about them from our conversations, and values I get to share. These are many conversations I would miss otherwise.

We finished the school year the day before we left for the capital to wait on Titus' birth.
It was a school year we will cherish forever!

New Beginnings

Life is starting to get back to normal after the 3+ months of morning sickness. I am so thankful! We hit the halfway mark in our K-5 homeschool, that means we will be finished in April, before the baby comes. Tomorrow will be a fresh start of the second half. K-4 was a blast and I am so thankful we did it. Jonah and Silas have such a good foundation. We had 2 solid months of K-5 and then I got sick. This year being mostly just a confidence builder has been really helpful or I might have been panicked right now! While I wasn't feeling so well and falling deeper into a pit of mommy guilt I told the boys, "soon everything will be back to normal and we will have our old awesome school days again." Jonah said, "I like THIS school, Mama!" He is always the encourager! 

Homeschool Experiment

A new year at the institute starts on the 11th. This is the 3rd and final year for our first group of students. I don't know how we will let them go, I try not to think about it. We will miss them and their families terribly. This will be our first year of having 3 years of classes happening at the same time. That is 9 hours of material a day being taught, Tuesday through Friday, 12 classes a week! Jimmy is teaching 6 of the classes this semester, Pastor Norberto is teaching 1 (the students are so happy he is returning), Juan is teaching 4, and I am teaching 1. Please pray for Jimmy since there is a lot of material to prepare for along with managing the farm and students and overseeing the church. I often wonder why God didn't send us teammates, but God's plan is better than mine, haha! Eventually some of the graduates will end up teaching, I'm sure. That's better than an import!

The new beautiful stone porch across the front of the academic building.

In typical Kekchi fashion, we have no idea how many new students we will have until they actually show up with their families. Jimmy had one more family house built and is building a house for Juan (dean of students) so that it frees up more single student space. We might be building more houses the first week of classes! One new single student has already moved to the village next door with his family. He will move onto the farm next week. Several single guys and several families have said they were coming, but you just don't know until the last second, that's how this culture works. Please pray as our new semester begins!

Roof going on a new family house.

I have so much about our ministry and family over the last 3 months that I want to post. So much I want to remember and be able to look back on! So... that is what I will be doing over the next couple of weeks, posting everything I missed. Happy New Year!

Welcome to the Dinsmore Homeschool!

Warning, this is a long post, but some other homeschool mom like me might be interested, so I'm posting it. At least 2 grandmas for sure will be!

Homeschooling did not start off as being a passion of mine. My parents put me in a really good Christian school growing up. They never complained, but I'm sure it was a sacrifice. I really liked my school. I got a good education with a biblical world view and I loved being a part of the music program. Jimmy went to a private Christian school too, and I really like how he turned out!

 

I wanted that for my kids. I wanted them to experience different teaching styles and teachers with different interests and passions. I wanted them to have extracurricular activities available to them, to find out where their interests lie and get to be part of a team that worked together, whether athletic or artistic. Well that is not an option here. There are just not academically strong schools in Petén. We have very intelligent teens in our youth group that are still in 2nd and 3rd grade.

 Once I realized for us homeschool would be our only option, I decided to embrace it. I have a secondary education degree. I taught chemistry, physics, and algebra II in the States for 2 years... a far cry from teaching phonics to 4 year olds, but I really enjoy teaching. I wouldn't want to teach phonics to anyone else's 4 year old, since it is 90% about being patient, but so far I love teaching mine.

{Jonah building upper and lower case vowels}

When we were building our house, we already knew that we would be homeschooling, so we planned our homeschool room to be the second largest room in our house (second to our great room). We are really blessed to have this option... seriously, who gets to have a nice room designated to homeschool? On a priority scale for us, this is way up there. I was feeling kind of guilty for being a missionary and having such a nice homeschool space, but I don't think that feeling is from God, so I'm rejecting it and publicly praising Him for this blessing. So here is a tour of our homeschool:

 

A very sweet person from the States sent me the letters around the top of our room. We reference them all the time! I love them. Jimmy installed cork and a dry erase board for us. That fan is a life saver, because this room gets hot!

The cork is really handy. We use it for lots of stuff, like blend trains or

 

mapping out the generations between Adam and Noah. 

I cut contact paper strips to make the lines where we learn how to write our letters. 

 

When we introduce a new blend the boys pick an animal to go up the ladder. The board isn't magnetic, so it is a happy accident that we finished our guest room before this room was sealed and had to put metal doors on it. I hated them at first because they look dungeony, but now they are an asset. They give us plenty of magnetic surface for when we use our magnetic letters. 

    

The crayons and weather chart came with our curriculum. The boys love moving the little arrow each morning... usually just all the way around the circle back to sunny, haha!

 

This is where our behavior management chart hangs. There are a bajillion of these on Pinterest, so I have no idea where the idea originated to link to, but this was a last minute addition. It is SUPER helpful. They start each day in the green. If they remember something super hard, they bump up their pin. If they take initiative in a certain area or work really hard to improve at something, they bump up their pin. If they have a bad attitude, are disrespectful or ever use the words I can't, they automatically get bumped down. If they get to the red, Daddy gets notified when he gets home. But, if they get to the top by the end of the day, they get candy out of the machine on my desk. 

 I found the candy machine at the MegaPaca. That is a popular thrift store in Guatemala. This is a big motivator, maybe since they can always improve. Each kid makes it to the top about once a week. They each have been in the red before too... they are normal kids.

 

This year I decided to go with A Beka curriculum. We went with manuscript  and didn't purchase the Bible or readiness skills. We are doing our own Bible study chronologically. I never did find a curriculum I thought could do better at this level than any mom with pinterest. We have been using this guide as kind of a scope and sequence. 

I'm pretty happy with A Beka so far. I think the review games are pretty goofy, so we come up with our own, but most people don't get to homeschool 2 kids in the same grade, so it does make games different. I am meeting with a Bob Jones rep when we go on furlough. I'm thinking about switching over in about 4th grade, once we have a good phonics foundation. The options can be overwhelming!

 

 Another missionary mentioned a little hole in the wall teaching store in Guatemala City. I haven't found any other store here that had teaching supplies like that one. I picked up this tree set and also a barnyard set. This tree works perfect for our Christian character traits. We highlight a different Christian character trait each month and incorporate an activity every Monday as a review. Focus on the Family Canada has some excellent character trait curriculum for free. Seriously, it is SO GOOD. I also supplement with some free links from this website. We started with Diligence. That was perfect for Silas, who most things come easy for and occasionally when they don't he gives up. Not any more. They mention diligence to me several times a week now and talk about how they really didn't want to do something, but they faithfully finished it. Yay! If I catch them exhibiting the current character trait in class they get an apple in their barrel. At the end of the school day they trade in their apples for gumballs. Currently we are on Humility. That one was a little harder to explain. They stuck all the apples on the tree that had traits that exhibit humility and all the apples on the ground they decided were rotten because they have prideful traits written on them.

 

This is the barnyard set. We made it into a vowel farm. We begin each phonics lesson by singing Old MacDonald with short vowel sounds. This is a hit. If I forget, they fuss at me... that's probably an annoying homeschool kid trait, correcting the teacher. We'll work on that, ha!

 I ordered this pocket calendar on Amazon. It was $15, and it is worth every penny. My kids like most 4 year olds have no concept of days and time. This has helped. They like moving the cards around. The back of all the cards have Spanish on them. Perfect for us!

 

This is the back of our classroom. Those big windows help with the heat too! I stained the shelves that were in the boys' bedroom and moved them into our school room, along with all of their books and any education toy that we could use. This shelf separates the desks station from our table and reading stations... I know sounds so official. Moving around from station to station during the day helps them stay focused. And they love official sounding things, it makes it seem super special.

You can kind of see our felt finger puppets on the shelf too. We use them in our puppet theater to retell our Bible stories. I am slowly adding to our collection as I have time.

The theater is made out of fleece, which I picked up on furlough too, since I haven't found it here before. I guess a lot of planning went into this room! 

2 of those cubbies on the shelf are Eden's. She has toys that I only let her play with during class and she loves coloring, so that burns up a lot of time usually. She moves around to the different stations with us and is learning her letters too.

 I try and let her participate in a lot of the things we do unless it holds the boys back. She has been pretty understanding so far, although she did not appreciate that she didn't get a pencil box the first day of school! Having her own desk helps.

 About a year ago Jimmy found this fabric wall map at the MegaPaca too. I think they get a lot of floor samples from toy stores or something. It is a FAO Schwarz brand, regularly $80, that Jimmy got for $10. It looks brand new. Crazy! Velcro sticks to it, so I'm sure we will be making all kinds of cool things to go along with our studies in the years to come. I moved the rug from the boys' room too, to make our reading area. The giant pillows were another MegaPaca find. I have only covered one so far, but eventually there will be lots of colors.

 It kind of creeps me out though, so I usually check behind the pillows before we sit down. Just in case there is something hiding there!

 The table was our old dining room table. I picked up the cable from Ikea a long time ago to hang their work from on our back wall.

 

I picked up these stamps the furlough I gave birth to the boys on. It was my first step to embracing homeschool! During handwriting time I pick their very best letter and it gets a stamp. The littlest things are the biggest deal to them!

{Labeling the days of creation at our table station;)}

{Creating the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil}

Class usually last about an hour and a half to 2 hours. Thanks to the curriculum, it only takes me about 15 minutes to prep every day. About one day a week I invest a couple hours into printing off free games or creating activities from scratch that might help them in an area they are struggling. MaG gave us a laminating machine. It is a wonderful tool for homeschool. In this environment, paper stays wet, so it is nice to invest a lot of time into something I know we will be able to preserve and use for a long time.

{Some of our manipulatives and games}

  The boys were super excited about their first day of school. I hadn't let them in the room for a couple days as I finished setting things up.

 

We have kept up the excitement over the last 3 weeks. I thought once we hit blends, it might be the end of the honeymoon period, but we regrouped and conquered! They still ask for school each morning.

Our school is so fun even Lucha and Bags want to attend, haha!

Lucha is excellent in school, Bags kind of stinks at it... she lives in the red.

While homeschool isn't for everyone, it is what God has chosen for us. I started off dreading it, but my perspective has changed completely in the last couple years. We always start off each class with prayer and thank God for giving us this time together. 

CRAZY ITEM OF THE DAY: 

We have school mascots and they aren't dogs. We don't have a false ceiling in the school room yet and the kids' rooms on the other side of the half wall do not have windows in them yet (the kids sleep in Jimmy's office.) There is a family of bats that live at the pitch of our roof! They sleep during our class. Kind of neat! They start flying around about 6pm.