Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Organizing the MFW-K day

     

We are into our official homeschool year.  We started somewhere in May, right after #4 birth and took until the end of June to finish the first week.  Oh, I was feeling some fear that maybe I was in over my head.  My thought was that even though I have this great passion and desire to homeschool my children, what happens if I never get to it in our day.  well, we are getting better and of course, we still have no real set routine yet.  I hope by Christmas, we will find it or maybe Santa will bring me one. 

As we are moving forth in the lessons, I am excited that I am coming together mentally with the planning and physically with keeping it together.  I will say, right now we are homeschooling either on the living room floor or at the coffee table.  I do not have some awesome cool, eat your heart out classroom.  I am going to make a makeshift display area over our tiny dinner table to help us review and gloat over our hard work.  I had hoped to use the bulletin board squares that you tape up, BUT the darn things keep falling down.  SO I am patiently waiting for my husband to make a board to put them on.

Here is our stuff!

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Calendar. Part of our morning routine is to put the date on the calendar.  I originally bought a calendar set from the Dollar Tree and had it all together on a poster board.  Having only a few places to hang it and having guest knocking it down, I opted to get rid of it.  I found this little gem at Staples for $3. 

A small hiccup it that #3 likes to erase the numbers when no one is looking.

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I don’t actually mind, because now #1 is getting a lot of practice writing the numbers. Bad mommy?

 

I took the example by Melanie at www.treasuresunseen.blogspot.com and set up all my unit lessons like she did.

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I love being part of the My Fathers World Kindergarten – Yahoo group.  Group members share files and ideas and help with keeping the mommy’s chin up.  In that group, there is a weekly summary of each unit study.  So I print mine and put the week we are working on attached to a clipboard.  I also clip the pages we will work on behind the summary.

DSC06609  The generous mom who made this, created a somewhat standardized form that she added weekly details.  One thing to note about MFW-K is that it operates like a letter of a week program that is combined into a unit study and submerged into the bible.  For that, I am in bliss to teach my children this program.

Now I never meant to do this but my daily workbox just came to be and is working fine for now. In it I have:

  • tactile numbers
  • teacher manual
  • bible
  • box of crayons
  • box with scissors, glue, pencils
  • letter box (this is the envelope box, plan to make it pretty later)
  • 3-hole punch
  • paper items for the next craft project
  • books from the library that go along with the study
  • a game (cooties mini version from wal-mart) to celebrate the end of our lesson for the day. [I am finding that ending with a game helps motivate us to stay on task and helps me to remember to have fun]

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Now I can not forget that I have to keep a portfolio of #1 work.  So here is a 3-ring binder from one of my college courses.

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We are moving along.  And I am already amazed at what I am seeing.  #1 is very good at knowing the sounds of letters, so we should be moving into blends rather soon.  #2 is really pleasing me.  We are using this year as his Pre-k, so I plan for him to do a lot of just sitting in.  Well he is very determined to do things perfect.  He is more than happy to do what ever #1 is doing and I believe he would try to take over her work.  I think the most important task for him right now is to just sit back and listen and mimic her. I hope #1 gets just as excited.  She is doing it to please me, she is a pleaser.  But I also know given the chance, she would much rather be doing something else.  I hope as the routine gets more in place, she will come around.

~trish

13 comments:

  1. Thanks for leaving a comment on my blog (www.increasinginknowledge.blogspot.com)
    I wanted to see if you could email me the spreadsheet you are using for MFW K. I have one that is a little differnt. I think I like your better.
    I am thinking about starting earlier than the fall cause my kids just plain need something constructive to do. I am pooped out on ideas for EVERYDAY!

    sharonsaad @ gmail.com

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  2. I love the MFW K weekly summary sheet! Is there any way you could e-mail me the file? Is it a PDF? I recently purchased the basic kindergarten set and cannot wait to try it but I need more organization. I think this would help me out tremendously. GREAT post by the way!
    Thanks a bunch,
    Tracey at Tot Play: A Learning Journey
    tlmswt2000(at)msn(dot)com
    *Replace at and dot with appropriate symbols ... I am sure you already know this (but just in case).

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  3. Hi Trish!

    Thank you SO much for this post. I just got all our mwf-k materials yesterday and was trying to figure out how to organize it all. I love the binder idea.

    Do you think there is any way you could email me the document with the weekly schedules? Ashleighbsmith(at)gmail(dot)com. I have asked to join the yahoo-group, but my membership has been pending for over a month. Not sure what's going on there.

    Thanks! :)

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  4. Hi! I just found your blog and am stating MFW-K too so I am scouring the internet looking for helpful ideas too. I also am interested in the weekly schedule document. If you have it available or know where to find it can you please email me? Thanks so much!
    crystalbugno at yahoo dot com.

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  5. Curious if you still had the file for the weekly summary page?? No one seems to be moderating the requests to join the MFK-K group on yahoo. Email is taegashi@comcast.net Thanks!

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  6. I would also like this resource if you are able to email it. sewloveddesigns(at)gmail
    Thanks!!

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  7. Hello! I was wondering if the MFW K weekly summary sheets were available? We're starting in 2 weeks and I know this will help us TREMENDOUSLY! --Alicia V.

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  8. Hi I was wondering if you could send me the planning summary sheet. It looks awesome and we would love to use it. We just received our materials and will be starting mfw k after Christmas. Thanks. Jamiendenny@gmail.com

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  9. I just came across your post and love the MFW-K schedule. Do you still have it available?
    Thank you jaslynnless@hotmail(dot)com

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  10. do you have a link or file to share the weekly summary? that looks so very helpful, we will be starting in a about a month and trying to get organized now!! thanks!! love all the insight!! lianawallace@yahoo.com

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  11. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AnqGTLlrhNmEdGpEaWthOV80YjQtMnZ1RHBnV2prTXc&usp=docslist_api

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    Replies
    1. This link is for the file. I do no own it. I was blessed to find it and I saved it to my drive. Hopefully you can open it. I originally got it from the mfw yahoo group.

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  12. Thanks for sharing how your homeschool works! How do you join the yahoo group?

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