Today we're having a bit of trouble with Beau's online program...well, actually, we're having several problems. :)
First, our LessonPathway's subscription has supposedly run out, when it was supposed to be good for five more months. I need to get that straightened out, because we all love that program.
Second, Time4Learning is proving to be a bit more complicated than we originally suspected, haha. The "games," as we call them (always games, never lessons...I always want the kids to be having fun, not "working," so they will always have positive associations when it comes to learning), the games are great, lots of fun and great quality. That isn't the problem.
This morning, I switched Beau temporarily to the first grade program, just to see if it would be better for him. He's doing better with the first grade things...they're more challenging and he isn't bogging down in boredom because he already knew the material the way he was with the kingergarten program.
However, the overall structure of the system is something I'm having to get used to. I think that after a bit, we'll figure it out. :) It's just a tad bit confusing right now.
The Time4Learning system offers Language Arts (Phonics, for Beau), Language Arts Extensions (which we haven't explored yet, but I imagine will be something along the lines of Reading after the phonics section turns into English), Math, and Science. I feel that until this school semester is over, this is the best way for us to school.
As of right now, I'm taking the spring semester off from college. It's just proving to be too much. I might still take one or two classes a semester like I was before, but I don't imagine I'll be trying to take a full load again anytime soon.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Gettin' back in there...
Wow. So it's been EXTREMELY difficult getting back into a routine since everything was turned upside down in our lives. It certainly didn't help that midterms were last week for me, either. But we've been trying to ease back into some sort of schedule, and today is looking bright!
We did our calendar with breakfast this morning, instead of the afternoon like we had been doing the past couple of weeks. It really helped because everyone was sitting still so they could pay attention.
Then I set Beau up with his website time, doing a few phonics activities, which, to be perfectly honest, bored him to tears. He's having to wade through the things he already knows, like the letters and their sounds. I'm honestly thinking of upping him to the first grade program if things don't get better after this week. He's just more advanced than what they're giving him right now.
He did three of the activities in about fifteen minutes, basically just breezing through them. I'm going to give the kindergarten program until Friday and then switch him to first grade Language Arts unless the kindergarten program picks up pretty quickly.
We did our calendar with breakfast this morning, instead of the afternoon like we had been doing the past couple of weeks. It really helped because everyone was sitting still so they could pay attention.
Then I set Beau up with his website time, doing a few phonics activities, which, to be perfectly honest, bored him to tears. He's having to wade through the things he already knows, like the letters and their sounds. I'm honestly thinking of upping him to the first grade program if things don't get better after this week. He's just more advanced than what they're giving him right now.
He did three of the activities in about fifteen minutes, basically just breezing through them. I'm going to give the kindergarten program until Friday and then switch him to first grade Language Arts unless the kindergarten program picks up pretty quickly.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Slow start this week
It's been so busy this past weekend that we've taken a bit of a "holiday" in honor of Labor Day. Even today, which was the first "normal" day we've had since last Friday, we didn't do much "formal school."
Of course we did the calendar, but even getting them to stay still to look at our calendar was tricky, and I realized that any crafts or lessons I had in mind for today would be a wasted effort. So we threw the lesson plan out the window and enjoyed ourselves with our various individual projects. Beau and Xander played a lot with the computer games, Bella played dress-up, and I searched online for coupons and various homemade cleaning products, which I'll talk about later.
Something exciting we did get to do today was allowances. We finished tearing off the row of purple construction paper on our allowance tracker, and filled in the amount of allowance they've saved so far ($12) towards their PS2. I manged to slip a bit of math in as we added up the amount of everyone's allowances added together. I love the idea of them saving their money to buy something they really want, because they're learning about economics and the value of money. It's something that will stay with them for their whole lives.
Of course we did the calendar, but even getting them to stay still to look at our calendar was tricky, and I realized that any crafts or lessons I had in mind for today would be a wasted effort. So we threw the lesson plan out the window and enjoyed ourselves with our various individual projects. Beau and Xander played a lot with the computer games, Bella played dress-up, and I searched online for coupons and various homemade cleaning products, which I'll talk about later.
Something exciting we did get to do today was allowances. We finished tearing off the row of purple construction paper on our allowance tracker, and filled in the amount of allowance they've saved so far ($12) towards their PS2. I manged to slip a bit of math in as we added up the amount of everyone's allowances added together. I love the idea of them saving their money to buy something they really want, because they're learning about economics and the value of money. It's something that will stay with them for their whole lives.
The chore tracker filled in with one week's worth of allowance
I've been looking into ways to be more frugal with our grocery shopping. I've discovered several online coupon sources I'm going to try to start using, and I'm going to find someone I know who gets the Sunday paper and ask if they'll donate their coupons to me. :)
I've found several, several recipes for homemade cleaning products, including washing powder and a bleach alternative. I'm excited to get to the grocery store and pick up some extra vinegar and baking soda. :D
Friday, September 4, 2009
It's been a lazy day
We weren't able to make it to the play date in the park. :( It's okay, though, we need to conserve gas, and right now I can't justify driving all the way to Opp, especially with things being so tight. Maybe next time. :)
We printed out a wall calendar to hang over our chore charts since Beau was so interested in that form of a calendar. He likes being able to see how far away certain dates are, like Halloween.
Speaking of Halloween, everyone is getting excited about it. Beau is saying he wants to be something from the movie Cars, Xander wants to be Batman, and Bella is of course leaning towards being a princess (again, hehehe). Hopefully we can make our costumes at home this year in leiu of buying them from the store (which would be so expensive!).
Also, we're starting to think about Bella's birthday party, which will have a princess theme. I'm thinking of buying her a Sleeping Beauty costume and letting her wear it that day, and possibly putting together a few extra things for her dress-up drawer as her gift. We'll probably have the party here at our house again. That seems to work out the best.
We got to play Go Fish with the math flash cards this morning! It was really fun. Beau caught on quickly, and we played three hands of it. Math without even thinking about it!
Then we played the Wow Wow Wubbzy memory game with the cards you match. Xander had to practice sitting patiently and waiting for his turn - he really is getting better at that.
The Green Eggs and Ham interactive storybook has really captured their attention this morning. Beau loves computer games, so one of the main tools he uses is the computer and the educational games Mom and Dad gave us a few years back. They're games Mom used to use in her own classroom when she taught kindergarten.
I came across the House Guidelines the Duggar famiy uses, and I basically love them. I want to make a poster with them written on it to hang in our "classroom." They are:
1. Always use soft words, even if you don't feel well.
2. Always display kind actions, even if you have been mistreated.
3. Show joyful attitudes, even when no one else is looking.
4. Have sincere motives with no thought of self-gain.
5. Think pure thoughts.
6. Always give a good report of others. Never talebear unless physical harm will come to someone. Use Matthew 18.
7. Never raise a hand to hit.
8. Never raise a foot to kick.
9. Never raise an object to throw.
10. Never raise a voice to yell.
11. Never raise an eye to scowl.
12. Use one toy/activity at a time.
13. Never let the sun go down on your wrath. (Don't go to bed angry or guilty.)
14. Amendment J.O.Y. - make serving your family a priority - put Jesus first, others second, and yourself last.
I think all of those are good advice for anyone, really. I also like the way they're called "guidelines" and not "rules." It's the same way we "play games" instead of "do lessons." :)
We printed out a wall calendar to hang over our chore charts since Beau was so interested in that form of a calendar. He likes being able to see how far away certain dates are, like Halloween.
Speaking of Halloween, everyone is getting excited about it. Beau is saying he wants to be something from the movie Cars, Xander wants to be Batman, and Bella is of course leaning towards being a princess (again, hehehe). Hopefully we can make our costumes at home this year in leiu of buying them from the store (which would be so expensive!).
Also, we're starting to think about Bella's birthday party, which will have a princess theme. I'm thinking of buying her a Sleeping Beauty costume and letting her wear it that day, and possibly putting together a few extra things for her dress-up drawer as her gift. We'll probably have the party here at our house again. That seems to work out the best.
We got to play Go Fish with the math flash cards this morning! It was really fun. Beau caught on quickly, and we played three hands of it. Math without even thinking about it!
Then we played the Wow Wow Wubbzy memory game with the cards you match. Xander had to practice sitting patiently and waiting for his turn - he really is getting better at that.
The Green Eggs and Ham interactive storybook has really captured their attention this morning. Beau loves computer games, so one of the main tools he uses is the computer and the educational games Mom and Dad gave us a few years back. They're games Mom used to use in her own classroom when she taught kindergarten.
I came across the House Guidelines the Duggar famiy uses, and I basically love them. I want to make a poster with them written on it to hang in our "classroom." They are:
1. Always use soft words, even if you don't feel well.
2. Always display kind actions, even if you have been mistreated.
3. Show joyful attitudes, even when no one else is looking.
4. Have sincere motives with no thought of self-gain.
5. Think pure thoughts.
6. Always give a good report of others. Never talebear unless physical harm will come to someone. Use Matthew 18.
7. Never raise a hand to hit.
8. Never raise a foot to kick.
9. Never raise an object to throw.
10. Never raise a voice to yell.
11. Never raise an eye to scowl.
12. Use one toy/activity at a time.
13. Never let the sun go down on your wrath. (Don't go to bed angry or guilty.)
14. Amendment J.O.Y. - make serving your family a priority - put Jesus first, others second, and yourself last.
I think all of those are good advice for anyone, really. I also like the way they're called "guidelines" and not "rules." It's the same way we "play games" instead of "do lessons." :)
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Interesting day...
We started the morning with changing the calendar, which led to a discussion about the new month and how long it's going to last. I explained that there are twelve months in a year, and drew their names on the board. Beau was really interested in how many of them start with the same letters (January, June, July; May, March). Then we drew a wall calendar-type of calendar and talked about how it shows the same information as our regular calendar.
Beau played Buzzy at the Airport and Xander watched him play while I fixed snack. Bella likes to watch me fix snack, so she was right there with me.
After snack, Beau wanted to finish a mini-game in Buzzy at the Airport, so I set up the math flash cards while he played.
This was our first time playing with the math flash cards, and it went over well. Beau easily recognized the smaller groups and called out their numbers, but he had to stop and count when it went past six. He enjoyed it, though, and it shouldn't be a problem getting him to want to play again. I'll try to devise a "Go Fish" type of game with the cards soon.
Then we played with onset-rime blending with the Larry Boy puppet. Larry Boy is having trouble speaking, and when he tries to say a word like "fish," it comes out like "fffffff-ish." The onset sound is "f," and the rime is "ish." The object was to get the kids saying the words like Larry Boy would without being told how. Beau caught on quickly, and Xander tried, as well. Bella called out the names of the pictures as we went along. Everybody loves the Larry Boy puppet. :)
And then something unexpected. (The unexpected often happens when you have small children.) Bella was climbing up on a stool and tipped it over on her big toe. It was a wooden stool, and it hit her toe pretty hard. (She wasn't supposed to be playing with it, of course.) I dosed her with some Tylenol and put her to bed when propping her foot up and letting her rest on the couch didn't seem to help.
She's fine now, though. :) She woke up from her nap and announced, "I all better now!"
A friend of mine told me about a play date with a homeschooling group in Opp. It's tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. at Opp Park. I've never been to that park - I don't even know where in Opp it's located - but I want to go. I'd love to be part of a homeschool group! Tomorrow doesn't look like it's going to happen, though; Steven has a doctor's appointment in the afternoon, and I've still got to get the check and deposit it and all of that. But who knows? I'd like to try to go to this thing.
Beau played Buzzy at the Airport and Xander watched him play while I fixed snack. Bella likes to watch me fix snack, so she was right there with me.
After snack, Beau wanted to finish a mini-game in Buzzy at the Airport, so I set up the math flash cards while he played.
This was our first time playing with the math flash cards, and it went over well. Beau easily recognized the smaller groups and called out their numbers, but he had to stop and count when it went past six. He enjoyed it, though, and it shouldn't be a problem getting him to want to play again. I'll try to devise a "Go Fish" type of game with the cards soon.
Then we played with onset-rime blending with the Larry Boy puppet. Larry Boy is having trouble speaking, and when he tries to say a word like "fish," it comes out like "fffffff-ish." The onset sound is "f," and the rime is "ish." The object was to get the kids saying the words like Larry Boy would without being told how. Beau caught on quickly, and Xander tried, as well. Bella called out the names of the pictures as we went along. Everybody loves the Larry Boy puppet. :)
And then something unexpected. (The unexpected often happens when you have small children.) Bella was climbing up on a stool and tipped it over on her big toe. It was a wooden stool, and it hit her toe pretty hard. (She wasn't supposed to be playing with it, of course.) I dosed her with some Tylenol and put her to bed when propping her foot up and letting her rest on the couch didn't seem to help.
She's fine now, though. :) She woke up from her nap and announced, "I all better now!"
A friend of mine told me about a play date with a homeschooling group in Opp. It's tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. at Opp Park. I've never been to that park - I don't even know where in Opp it's located - but I want to go. I'd love to be part of a homeschool group! Tomorrow doesn't look like it's going to happen, though; Steven has a doctor's appointment in the afternoon, and I've still got to get the check and deposit it and all of that. But who knows? I'd like to try to go to this thing.
Balance
...is the hardest thing to find.
There are days when I am truly Super Mom. But most of the time I fall far short of that title.
Yesterday afternoon was a blast! We made a Helping Hands wreath, where we traced the kids' hands and made a bunch of cutouts, each labeled with the name of the person it belonged to. Then we glued them to a construction paper wreath while talking about things we can do to help keep our community's environment (our example was our home) clean and a nice place to live.
Beau said that doing our chores was a good way to keep our community clean. Then we did all our chores at once, which turned out to be a whirlwind of fun, with even Xander doing his chores without whining or fighting every step of the way. We hung our helping hands wreath on their bedroom door (finally replacing that old diaper wreath that I hung there when Beau was a baby! I'm embarrassed to admit that I just kept forgetting to take it down!)
We marked our chore charts with X's and check marks and tore the strip of construction paper off the bottom of our chore tracker that represented one day of chores. When they've finished all the days of chores (five weeks worth), they will have earned enough money (throught their allowances - Beau $5/wk., Xander $4/wk., and Bella $3/wk.) to buy that Playstation 2 they want (a printed picture of the game console is posted right above their chore traker, so they'll remember what they're working for). Here is the chore tracker with the thermometer that will be filled whenever they've saved on their allowance. I'll let you know how they do...the colorful strips of paper at the bottom are to be torn off every day when the chores are finished. There were 35 (for five weeks), and now there are 32.
Beau and I tallied up the number of days it was going to take to earn the $60 to order the PS2 off of eBay, which turned into a math exercise as we practiced addition and counting to 60.
After that, Xander wondered why the air conditioner vent pushed a scarf up into the air but not his Thomas train. So we talked about moving air (wind) and why some things are easily moved by it and others aren't. Beau practiced with his penmanship dry-erase board while I talked. When he was done, he helped Xander and Bella run around and try to find things that were light enough to be pushed by the air.
We brought out the math beads, which turned out to not be as frighteningly messy as I had feared. Xander surpised me by being able to string the beads even though technically he's not "supposed" to have the fine motor skills to do that yet. Beau strung 20 beads on his string with no problem. Next time I'll ask him to do thirty, and so forth and so on.
Bella and Xander practiced separating the beads into different groups based on color and shape. Bella is learning her colors slowly but surely...I'm trying to restrain myself from actively teaching her them by reminding myself that her brothers learned them by themselves just in everyday life and I don't want to rush her. She knows her favorites - pink and purple.
Through all of that, though, I managed to miss my window of opportunity for making a nice supper, and Steven was home as we were finishing putting the beads away. We ended up with hot dogs and chips...not too shabby, but it didn't quite hit the spot, either. Ice cream for dessert!
The point is, I didn't balance well enough. Sure, we had a great time with "school," even though I was tired after my own day at college, but I didn't allocate enough time to fix supper. I need to work on finding that balance! Lord help me! :)
There are days when I am truly Super Mom. But most of the time I fall far short of that title.
Yesterday afternoon was a blast! We made a Helping Hands wreath, where we traced the kids' hands and made a bunch of cutouts, each labeled with the name of the person it belonged to. Then we glued them to a construction paper wreath while talking about things we can do to help keep our community's environment (our example was our home) clean and a nice place to live.
Beau said that doing our chores was a good way to keep our community clean. Then we did all our chores at once, which turned out to be a whirlwind of fun, with even Xander doing his chores without whining or fighting every step of the way. We hung our helping hands wreath on their bedroom door (finally replacing that old diaper wreath that I hung there when Beau was a baby! I'm embarrassed to admit that I just kept forgetting to take it down!)We marked our chore charts with X's and check marks and tore the strip of construction paper off the bottom of our chore tracker that represented one day of chores. When they've finished all the days of chores (five weeks worth), they will have earned enough money (throught their allowances - Beau $5/wk., Xander $4/wk., and Bella $3/wk.) to buy that Playstation 2 they want (a printed picture of the game console is posted right above their chore traker, so they'll remember what they're working for). Here is the chore tracker with the thermometer that will be filled whenever they've saved on their allowance. I'll let you know how they do...the colorful strips of paper at the bottom are to be torn off every day when the chores are finished. There were 35 (for five weeks), and now there are 32.
Beau and I tallied up the number of days it was going to take to earn the $60 to order the PS2 off of eBay, which turned into a math exercise as we practiced addition and counting to 60.After that, Xander wondered why the air conditioner vent pushed a scarf up into the air but not his Thomas train. So we talked about moving air (wind) and why some things are easily moved by it and others aren't. Beau practiced with his penmanship dry-erase board while I talked. When he was done, he helped Xander and Bella run around and try to find things that were light enough to be pushed by the air.
We brought out the math beads, which turned out to not be as frighteningly messy as I had feared. Xander surpised me by being able to string the beads even though technically he's not "supposed" to have the fine motor skills to do that yet. Beau strung 20 beads on his string with no problem. Next time I'll ask him to do thirty, and so forth and so on.
Bella and Xander practiced separating the beads into different groups based on color and shape. Bella is learning her colors slowly but surely...I'm trying to restrain myself from actively teaching her them by reminding myself that her brothers learned them by themselves just in everyday life and I don't want to rush her. She knows her favorites - pink and purple.
Through all of that, though, I managed to miss my window of opportunity for making a nice supper, and Steven was home as we were finishing putting the beads away. We ended up with hot dogs and chips...not too shabby, but it didn't quite hit the spot, either. Ice cream for dessert!
The point is, I didn't balance well enough. Sure, we had a great time with "school," even though I was tired after my own day at college, but I didn't allocate enough time to fix supper. I need to work on finding that balance! Lord help me! :)
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Morning
I used to play music all the time, no matter where I was or what I was doing. Now I'm beginning to understand the sweet music of the early morning, with nothing but the hum of the fan in our bedroom to break the silence around me.
The coffee in my cup begins to lift the fog in my mind, and I begin to come awake. I think I'll do my personal Yoga practice this morning in the quiet. I'll probably end up helping to teach our small class again today at school. I think the instructor is training me, in her way. Does she see in me a potential to teach?
Today, our plans are: of course to change the calendar and track the weather, and I'm thinking of pulling out that math activity with the beads I've been saving. I've been nervous about the chaos that will surely ensue whenever Bella and Xander get their hands on those beads, but I think that if I can take my Mom hat off for a moment and relax, I'll be able to enjoy the mess and not worry if the living room gets strewn with those beads, as long as they're learning and having fun.
Besides, with the advent of our new chore charts, cleaning has never been easier!
The coffee in my cup begins to lift the fog in my mind, and I begin to come awake. I think I'll do my personal Yoga practice this morning in the quiet. I'll probably end up helping to teach our small class again today at school. I think the instructor is training me, in her way. Does she see in me a potential to teach?
Today, our plans are: of course to change the calendar and track the weather, and I'm thinking of pulling out that math activity with the beads I've been saving. I've been nervous about the chaos that will surely ensue whenever Bella and Xander get their hands on those beads, but I think that if I can take my Mom hat off for a moment and relax, I'll be able to enjoy the mess and not worry if the living room gets strewn with those beads, as long as they're learning and having fun.
Besides, with the advent of our new chore charts, cleaning has never been easier!
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
I have a blog for everything else, so why not?
Besides, I enjoy setting up new accounts, hehehe.
I plan to use this sort of as a journal for what we're doing, and also as a way grandparents can stay up-to-date. Also, I'll probably use this space to vent and/or brag a bit whenever someone conquers a milestone or when we do something especially interesting.
I don't want to have to type out every single thing we do every day all at once, so I'll start by talking about the one thing we never fail to do, even on days we aren't technically "doing school." Our calendar.
We have a pretty elaborate homemade calendar. It consists of a corkboard and some hand drawn words and numbers. Example: we have a sign that says "today is" and then underneath is the day of the week it is, the month, the number date, and the year. Over to the side is another sign that says "yesterday was," and another that says "tomorrow will be." Oddly enough, I gleaned those last two ideas from high school spanish class; it was an effective way to remember what the names of the days of the week were. Same concept with us!
The kids have really cottoned on to the days of the week thing, usually telling me what day it is before even being prompted. Even Bella will join in when they yell it out! We sing, "Sunday Monday, Tuesday Wednesday, Thursday Friday, Saturday," to the tune of "Oh my Darlin Clementine," to help them remember. It's worked wonders!
The calendar is bright and colorful, each with cut-out letters in one color on a different colored background, and of course different colors for every piece. It probably will never be "finished"; we're adding new things to it all the time. The kids love it and they never fail to remind me to "do the calendar" every day.
I plan to use this sort of as a journal for what we're doing, and also as a way grandparents can stay up-to-date. Also, I'll probably use this space to vent and/or brag a bit whenever someone conquers a milestone or when we do something especially interesting.
I don't want to have to type out every single thing we do every day all at once, so I'll start by talking about the one thing we never fail to do, even on days we aren't technically "doing school." Our calendar.
We have a pretty elaborate homemade calendar. It consists of a corkboard and some hand drawn words and numbers. Example: we have a sign that says "today is" and then underneath is the day of the week it is, the month, the number date, and the year. Over to the side is another sign that says "yesterday was," and another that says "tomorrow will be." Oddly enough, I gleaned those last two ideas from high school spanish class; it was an effective way to remember what the names of the days of the week were. Same concept with us!
The kids have really cottoned on to the days of the week thing, usually telling me what day it is before even being prompted. Even Bella will join in when they yell it out! We sing, "Sunday Monday, Tuesday Wednesday, Thursday Friday, Saturday," to the tune of "Oh my Darlin Clementine," to help them remember. It's worked wonders!
The calendar is bright and colorful, each with cut-out letters in one color on a different colored background, and of course different colors for every piece. It probably will never be "finished"; we're adding new things to it all the time. The kids love it and they never fail to remind me to "do the calendar" every day.
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