2011-2012 School Lesson Plan - Noah

As I mentioned before, I have decided to have a little more structured schooling with Noah this year. Last year, he participated in a lot of our craft projects, but other than that, he really didn't have much to do during our school time. That meant that he provided us lots of distraction. There were times that I was ready to pull my hair out because he was constantly wanting attention, I was trying to teach Madison, and she was distracted by whatever Noah was doing. This year, I was determined to not let that happen.

My solution was to make Noah his own box containing things for him to work on during school. It means that I have to be more diligent in finding and providing his work box activities, but so far it's been going really well. A lot of the activities are things that he can do on his own, but there are some things that he needs my assistance with. Since Madison is learning to do a little more independent work, I can work Noah during those times. So what's in the box?

Noah has his own calender notebook. He also has his own box of crayons, his own pencil, and a variety of books and worksheets. My mom got a bunch of school books and worksheets at a rummage sale from a lady who used to be a teacher. I have been using many of those worksheets for Noah because they are very age-appropriate for him.

I have a couple math books that he has been working through as well as some basic number flashcards to help him learn his numbers. I have also been using a number of worksheets from one of my favorite homeschool blogs - Confessions of a Homeschooler.


Also taken from Confessions of a Homeschooler are activity pages to help Noah learn some pre-writing skills...

...and pages to help him learn his letters. The pages you see here he uses Do-a-Dot markers, he traces, and he uses a pushpin to poke holes along the lines of the letter. My parents also gave him a couple of alphabet books as a gift.

Noah doesn't know his letters very well yet, so these books have been very helpful in introducing the letters to him. They have also given him practice in writing the letters, something he is still a long ways from mastering.

Noah is our puzzle-boy, so I usually have him choose a few puzzles from our stash to work on as well.

Along with these work box activities, Noah works on his Awana verses, he participates in our Science lessons and experiments, he watches the music lesson video, does art projects like painting or coloring, and he listens as we read the various supplemental library books. He actually lasts the entire 3 hours that we work on school in the morning, which is something that was unheard of last year. Of course, his attention span is a little shorter than Madison's, so I don't make him sit there all the time. If he gets off his chair to go play with his toys, I'm just fine with that. I realize that he is not even school-age yet so I don't force it upon him. I just have these things planned out for him because more times than not, he wants to do school too.

So there you have it. This should give you some idea of what goes on here during the school week. I'm sure things will be tweaked in the months to come, but for now, this is what works for us.