Sunday, October 10, 2010

Our "Curriculum" Part 2

The Torah says to "teach a child according to his ways" and so I have 2 munchkins who have 2 very different styles of learning. My little guy (5) is extremely academic. He can read books for hours on end and loves worksheets, workbooks, math and anything Science. My munchkin (3) is text book Montessori- she loves fine sensory activities, sorting, cutting, sticking, beading, anything like that.

And so I made her a little station with workboxes that she can do by herself. Each drawer is numbered and she does them in the order of the number. As she has finished each activity, she puts it back in the drawer and sticks a "check" on it, notifying me that she is "done" and then moves on to the next drawer. I have 6 drawers in total and she loves loves finding what surprises mommy has put in there every day.

Now my little guy, he has folders with different "assignments" in each one. Some are worksheets, some are little reading books, some are hands on activities (which I put on the trays) and he picks and chooses which activities and assignments to do. There is no quota for how many things he has to do a day and so he can spend as much time as he needs on each thing. He loves the independence of picking and choosing what to do. Some days he does all of them, some days he does just a few, depending on his mood as well as the activity.

He is enrolled in an online Yeshiva and so he does his Judaic studies in the morning for an hour and a half with the rest of his class. Its pretty awesome as he has kids in his class from all around the world who are all little Yeshiva boys and girls just like him living in the middle of nowhere! We have a big world map on the wall and he has pinned all the different countries/cities of his classmates (Cancun, Mexico, Guatemala, France, England, St. Thomas VI, and around the continental US), he really loves it and it covers so much- his Hebrew reading, writing, prayers, holidays, customs etc.

Here is his system which works really well for him. He also has little "I'm all done!" cards to let me know which activities he has completed so I can "refill" it for the next day:

Sometimes my munchkin wants to be like her big bro and so I give her Alef Bet work sheets from this book:


They are fabulous for beginners in letter recognition, and she feels like a big girl doing her worksheets. I have a little folder that she keeps them in and feels really proud of herself:)

So thats what works for us so far-
Hope you find what works for you!
Thanks for stopping by,

2 comments:

  1. Very cool ideas! I never would have thought about using a "check mark." That might be something I need to try. :) Thank you for sharing!

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  2. where did u sign up for yeshiva online???/ my son is 4 and gislrs are 2 1/2 and ive always awanted to send them to yeshiva how much is it? i want to homeschool/

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