Homeschool Newbie

Sleep interrupted...

2012-02-05T07:54:00.002-05:00

I'm Up!!

I don't know why I'm up so early on a Sunday morning. But I'm up. Well, wait I do know why I am up...the last few weeks have been so crazy and busy that my sleep schedule is off. Way Off!  Yes, it sometimes makes for a grouchy mommy, but I think I have done good so far. (don't know if my kids will agree with that or not!)

The reason my sleeping is so off can be traced to a night a few weeks back when I was snoozing away in a hotel in South Carolina. You see, my sister in law just had a new baby and it turned out that my husband happened to have to go and work that same week in the city where my SIL and my brother live! Yep, that's right! We took a road trip to meet the new guy!  He is so cute! He was all teeny tiny and smelled like a new baby...anyway, back to the hotel! Some crazy person decided to start a fire in the hotel fireplace without opening the flue. What happens, just in case your are wondering, if you do not open the flue on a hotel room fireplace is that your room fills with smoke causing the fire alarm to begin blaring in the middle of the night. Which in turn causes every alarm in the hotel to go off, which then causes everyone to have to go outside including the family on the third floor who has to carry two sleeping children down 3 flights of stairs. Freezing your buns off in the parking lot holding your half asleep 8 year old is not fun! All ended up well (just a lot of smoke) and we were able to go back to our room after about 15 minutes. We made it home the next day with all of our things smelling of smoke and headaches from the blaring alarm. I hope the couple in the room on the first floor learned a lesson: if your feeling romantic on a Wednesday night at a Residence Inn and decide you need a fire...OPEN THE CHIMNEY FLUE!

Now this may surprise you, but even in the midst of loving on a new baby and fire alarms, we were able to have a great school week that week. I love how my kids will get to their school work in a hotel so they can finish it and we can do fun stuff. We learned about the War of the Pacific and the a little about the Atacama Desert. We also got to talk about the different branches of the military and what role they each play in protecting out country and fighting in a war.

We got to head to Atlanta to a dance convention for #1 daughter. She had a great time with her friends. Mark and #1 son headed to Alabama to spend the weekend at my in laws house.  When the conference was over, the girl and I headed to Alabama ourselves. My mother in law had to have a double mastectomy and we wanted to be there.  Her surgery went great and she is on the mend.  She is an amazing women! -sidebar: ladies if you haven't done it get your mammogram!

We were able to finally finish the butterfly life cycle movie we were making. I can't share it yet because the camera I recorded it with on records in a format that is not supported by my movie editing software. I have to do a little more research and figure out how to convert it or something like that. The individual clips turned out very cute. I am hoping to figure out how to edit it this week.

Since I am up and everyone else is still sleeping I am going to check in with some of my favorite blogs like Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers and the hip homeschool moms. Heck, after that I might even go find a book to get lost in for a few hours.

April

The Week with the movie well, almost...

2012-01-14T09:31:00.001-05:00

What a great school week here in East Tennessee! The kids jumped right back in after the break and we were able to get almost everything done that was planned for each day. (which is awesome!)

We jumped right back in with some great History stories about the Irish Potato Famine, and then we moved on to South American.

Preposition was the word of the week in English. Not only did we diagram some sentences we are learning a jingle that lists prepositions to make it easier to spot them in sentences.

In Science we learned all about the Butterfly Life Cycle! Truly ALL about the butterfly. I went a little crazy at the library and checked out like 10 books to go a long with our science book. The girl finally got tired of reading about it and told me "Mom, I don't need to read anymore books, I know the butterfly life cycle." I guess we will see when they actually get to finished their project for the week.

And I say "get to finish" because we hit a weather snag with our science project for the week. The kids are making a movie showing the butterfly life cycle. Super fun, right? Yeah well, except when you get a light dusting of snow on the ground! Snow and a butterfly emerging from it's chrysalis just don't really go together. So instead of making a butterfly movie on Friday morning this is what we did:

Oh well...we will get back to work on the movie Monday!

April
Bienvenido a Mi vida loca

Thanks to weirdunsocializedhomeschoolers.com for the weekly link up!

Holiday Vacation Is Over

2012-01-08T17:15:00.001-05:00

Goodbye Holiday break! Happy 2012!!

So there it went...

Over already...

Man, I am going to miss sleeping in! But it is ok! I am ready to get started and get back to the regular routine craziness that is our life.

I have readied the lesson plans. Hopefully the kiddos will think that the stuff we have coming up is as cool as I think it is!

April

Art Class and Science Projects

2011-12-17T09:49:00.002-05:00

Is it really the week before Christmas? I can't believe it! I am ready for the Holidays though, not because I have completed my shopping list. Far from it! (yep that means I haven't even started!) I am just ready to visit and catch up with family!

The kids worked on science projects this week. We have been studying protists and so I gave the kids an assignment to make a protist for me. I let them each choose how they wanted to make it. The boy, who likes to draw, pulled out the construction paper and poster board and got to work drawing and cutting out a didinium eating its dinner. The girl pulled out some styrofoam balls and colored clay and began building a podophrya. I love how you can see their personalities and learning styles come out even in the smallest thing like a science project. Both projects are looking great so far.

We also did something new. The kids went to an art class on Wednesday. It is the first time it has worked out in our schedule for them to go. So off we went to the library to meet the art lady. The kids had fun and made some cute pictures. they enjoyed it and want to go back next week. We will see if we can fit it in before we head off out of town for the Holidays. (I hope we can so we can decided if it is something we want to add as a regular to the schedule starting in January.)

Speaking of Holidays...it is time for a Holiday break right? I think we are all ready for a break. I really want to have some "do nothing" days. Of course, I don't think that we will have any of those until we get home from Holiday travels. But that is okay, I can wait because just stepping back and doing some fun Holiday things like decorating cookies and a gingerbread house will make for a relaxing break too.

April

The week with the Recital

2011-12-10T08:33:00.001-05:00

It was a great week here in the Nicholson house! Lots of learning and some fun mixed in too!

We had: Two point paragraphs, and decimals too, don't forget the adverbs (how?, when?, where?), or adjectives (what kind? which one? how many?) definitely don't leave out the articles adjectives because they have the cutest jingle! We are the articles adjectives, teeny, tiny adjectives A, AN, THE, A, AN, THE! (sorry, it gets stuck in my head!)

We also got to play with a microscope this week! A neighbor has one and we were able to borrow it. We played with it for about 1.5 hours. (I know you don't really "play" with a microscope. Saying "play" just makes it sound fun and gets the kids attention.)

We started something new this week. We are incorporating copywork into our daily work. I thought that the kids would really grumble and moan about it (which is why we are just now starting instead of when I first read about it a few months back), but they are doing great with it. They have even looked through some books to pick something they want to copy!

We had something big happen this week. We had our first piano recital! I am so proud of my kids! They did great! They were so nervous, but they did it. After practicing their songs all day long on Tuesday we headed to the recital where they continued to practice on the big beautiful grand piano. Nothing like seeing your kids sitting at a 150 year old piano that has real ivory keys and actually playing a song!

I also set up the Jesus Tree, and we have begun opening presents to hang on it. I love that the kids enjoy doing it and they remind me that we need open something under it each night. I love having a tradition to do every year that is worth so much more than making lists and opening presents.

I am off to catch up on some of my other favorite blogs like Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers and the Hip Homeschool Moms. I so love being able to see what other families are doing. I always learn some great tips!

April
Bienvenido a Mi vida loca

Field Trip, Thanksgiving

2011-12-03T14:56:00.001-05:00

What is the world is wrong with my neck? Oh yeah, I know! It is the whiplash I have from how fast time is passing by. Crazy to think that Christmas is just few short weeks away.

Things are going well for us. We seemed to have found a groove and everything is running pretty smoothly.
If only it would stay that way!

It probably wont though because these people I live with keep wearing different clothes when I tell them to just wear the same thing they wore yesterday. Hey it's already dirty right? OK, OK! I was just trying to cut down on the piles of laundry!

After a couple of weeks of having a husband out of town for work, we decided to mix it up and go with him the week before Thanksgiving! Definitely one of the perks of homeschooling! It was a great trip! I was pleased with how well the kids did with getting school work done.

It was cold and rainy, so I had to rethink my field trip plans for the trip. We ended up going to the American Printing House for The Bind. They have a neat little museum and they will give you a tour of the facility. IT WAS AWESOME! Not only were able to see the machines they use to make braille books but we learned some of the history behind the education of the blind. It was a great experience. I think everyone should go and check it out!

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving! My parents came up from FL and we had a blast. I really enjoyed have a break from school! (Did I say that out loud!) I am looking forward to having a break for Christmas too!

What? Did I say Christmas?
Yep! I think I did!

Find something to hang on to and hold on tight! This is life baby! And...

IT IS GREAT! (make sure to keep some Thera-Gesic around for your neck though!)

April

Domestic Goddess

2011-11-14T08:06:00.001-05:00

I am a Domestic Goddess
By: April Nicholson

I am a Domestic Goddess!
My home is never in a mess
In perfect order, everything
Into your day, sunshine I bring
A smile forever on my face
Frustration there's not a trace.

No crumbs on my kitchen table,
My pantry shelves all have labels.
The kitchen floor is spic and span,
There's no dust on the ceiling fan.

I clean the baseboards every week,
The bathroom mirrors have no streaks.
I vacuum the floors everyday,
Dust on the blinds is wiped away.

Storm Door hand prints can not be found
No outside toys left on the ground.
My puppy always goes outside,
There are no carpet stains to hide.

No laundry piled up on the floor,
Clothes are neat in dresser drawers.
Clean bedrooms you will always find,
Kids do their chores and always mind.

A menu plan I have in hand
While in the grocery line I stand.
I make nutritious tasty meals
All while wearing pearls and heels.

Children never jump on the couch
I always smile and never grouch!
Big bad coughs and runny noses?
By the bed I will put roses.

I am a Domestic Goddess!
My house is never in a mess
In perfect order, everything.
Into your day sunshine I bring.
A smile forever on my face
Frustration there is not a trace...Well
that's because I just woke up!
It was just a dream! CRAP what bad luck!

Have a great day everyone. I hope my ramblings brought a little smile to your day.

April

Hi Ho Hi Ho it's Geocaching We Go...

2011-11-12T07:48:00.001-05:00

One of our caches!

We started our week with a little geocaching adventure. If you have not heard of geocaching just go to geocaching.com. It is like a treasure hunt game. Last Sunday morning we decided to give it a try. It was a blast!! We found three caches within a few miles of our house. We also found some hiking and mountain bike trails that we never even knew where there.

On Monday, I decided to take the kids and let them have a try at finding a cache. There is one conveniently located at the park right next to the library. (one of our favorite parks) The location was great and it was an easy find for kids. They enjoyed it and so off we went to find another. -fun family time and learning to read a map at the same time! Does it get better than fun plus learning?

This week we also invited some friends over to make Thanksgiving cards. There is a lady in our area who collects cards for Meal on Wheels and they hand them out with the Thanksgiving meal. Out came the construction paper and markers and stickers. Oh and let's not forget the warm from the oven cookies and juice boxes that made the card making even more fun! now don't go thinking that I was some great domestic host who made homemade cookies because we had company coming over. I am NOT that good a host. They were pull apart Toll House! hahaha

We also had a play date with new friends this week. It is nice to sit and chat with another homeschooling mom about what works and what doesn't for their family.

Next week will be a new homeschooling adventure for us. We are taking our school on the road for the first time ever. I am excited!

April
Bienvenido a Mi vida loca

The week with Halloween

2011-11-05T08:41:00.001-04:00

So glad for the weekend to be here.

I am going to veg out in front of the TV for a little bit today. Did everyone hear that! I am going to watch TV. DO NOT BOTHER ME!!! Bahahaha

We started our week with an off day. No, don't go thinking that we like Halloween that much. It just happened to work out that the Dad was off of work on Monday and we wanted to spend time with him before he went out of town for the week. Anyway, back to Halloween...

We hosted our neighborhood's Chili Cook Off this year. It was a driveway full of people and loads of fun! Especially the part where my girl and her best buddy put on a show/play for the whole neighborhood. They had been practicing- some scripts they typed up -for about 2 months. I was not sure they would go through with it, but they did! It takes guts to get up in front of anyone and speak, but to do it when you are 7 and 8 year old girls is just about the coolest thing I have seen in a long time! I am one proud mama!!!

Due to a doctors appointment we had to change our schedule around a little this week. It made for two super busy days instead of just one. But even with that we were able to get some good "work" time in. The kids spent a good bit of time this week on Math Whizz. Still seems to be a fun place for them to play and learn.

I also took it "back to old school that's so cool..." (oops sorry it might be a little early for singing) and brought out the School House Rock Multiplication DVD. We have been watching it during breakfast time!

We also read about protists in Science. I have a friend who has a microscope that we are going to borrow and use next week. That will be really neat.

The kiddos have also been playing a new game I downloaded onto the iPad. Well, two new games actually! One is Presidents vs Aliens and the other is Stack The States. The iPad has gone with us everywhere this week so they could play these games. It has been fun listening to them talking about the Presidents. During one game session they apparently missed the question and my girl said "oh no AHH it was the one with the weird hair!" I guess we just can't appreciate the fashion of other times. hahahahaha

It was raining during piano this week so I drove the kids around to the piano lady's house (instead of letting them walk through the little patch of woods behind our house). While I was sitting in the car waiting on them I was able to catch up on a favorite blog of mine www.weirdunsocializedhomeschoolers.com . This week she shared a post about how important our words are. A good post if you have a couple of minutes to read it.

Off to go and refresh my coffee and kick some kid shows off my TV! (I guess that will give me mean mom title for today! But too bad so sad!) :-)

April
Bienvenido a Mi vida loca

Dance Party Week

2011-10-29T11:58:00.000-04:00

We partied this week! No really, we partied! Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. Halloween party after party every afternoon!

That is how it goes when you have a daughter who loves to dance and takes 6 classes! Yeah, do the math on that!

That makes 6 parties, and 4 afternoons of dressing up in a costume!

We did some serious partying!! It was fun!!

One more Halloween party to go this year. It's the neighborhood Chili Cook Off! We are hosting it in our driveway this year. It is always tons of fun.

Piano is going great! #1 son said that this week's lesson was the best one. Totally Awesome is what he said. He actually wrote his own little song this week. :-)

The piano teacher is having a Christmas Concert and the kids get to play a song. They are excited about it. They have been playing several different Christmas songs to find ones that they like. I love Christmas songs so to already have them playing in the house is great.

Our month of math is coming to an end, but it has been great. I like the progress that has been made. I think we are all well on our way to enjoying math more and more. The Math Whizz online tutor website has been great. I think we will keep up with it for a little while longer.

The leaves here in East TN are beautiful. We are going to ride into the mountains today to see them. Here is a picture of the pretty tree in my yard.

April
Bienvenido a Mi vida loca

Logic Puzzles and The Metric System

2011-10-22T09:29:00.000-04:00

Coffee...check

Fuzzy warm pjs...check

Fuzzy dog acting crazy...check

It must be Saturday morning! AWESOME!!!

Still working on Math Math Math and more Math in our house. The kids have not run away screaming yet...not about the math anyway! Bahahaha!

This week we worked on 2 step word problems. Yep word problems! Again!! YUCK YUCK YUCK!!! Oh no wait, I am not supposed to say that out loud! So how about this instead: (insert sarcasm here) word problems are awesome! they are cool real life stuff! word problems are fun! blah blah blah

Anyway...after we finished the 2 step problems we moved on to Logic Puzzles. Now those are actually a little fun. Only a little! What has made them fun has been listening to my girl talk through her puzzles. She is much more of a thinker than I have given her credit for. Plus, I learned she knows random stuff about dinosaurs. I told her "I didn't know that you liked dinosaurs!" She replied (very dramatically with a rolling of the eyes included) "I DO NOT LIKE DINOSAURS! A lady came to school one day in first grade and talked all about them and that is how I know about them." So I just told her it is cool that she remembers stuff from all the way back in 1st grade and I think, by telling her she was cool, I redeemed myself from the terrible error of thinking that she liked dinosaurs.

The metric system was also on the agenda for this week. It was actually quite fun. I found a fun rap song on the eduacationrap.com page. We have listened and danced and just acted plain silly with the song. And that was tons of laughs! We also labeled pieces of paper and laid them on the floor cake walk style and then worked to convert meters to kilometers, millimeters to centimeters and centimeters to meters. Hopefully, some of it will stick. Especially since I am walking around with "meters liters and grams, now you don't have to cram for your exam on the metric system" playing over and over and over again in my head.

I also discovered Rock 'N Learn Science videos this week. Love them! We watched and learned about Physical Science this week. Very neat resource to have for review.

All in all a great week!

April
Bienvenido a Mi vida loca

Yogurt and a Field Trip

2011-10-15T09:08:00.000-04:00

So, I started this thing a few weeks ago with the kids. It's a marble jar. Each time the kids do something nice for each other, or do a chore without being told or use good manners without being reminded they get to put a marble in the jar. We have also let them put marbles in for good listening skills, following directions and moving up ( good day, great day, outstanding day) instead of down (loose a privilege, grounded, be cooked up in a stew for dinner, get stuck in the garbage can - I am exaggerating here! ha) on the behavior chart.

Anyway, they reached the goal of filling the jar to the top! YAY!!! So Monday we went and had a treat of frozen yogurt. Now that is a good way to start out a school week!

This week we spent a lot of time on word problems. Dreaded word problems. Awful word problem. Why do we have to do this word problems...or just whatever you like to call them word problems. It was actually not that bad(do not tell my sister Lynne I said that! She would say "I told you so!" She helped me with many math problems growing up.). I had the kids make banners of the "clue words" you find in word problems that help you know what operation you need to do to solve the problem. Then, we put the banners on the wall so they have a quick reference.

On Friday, after seeing a friend post some beautiful pictures of the mountains, I decided we needed a field trip. So I packed up a picnic and off to Cades Cove we went. It is beautiful right now! We had a lot of fun. The kids really seemed to enjoy it. They loved walking through the old homes and we went through one of the old churches. It was only us in the church, and my boy walked up to the pulpit and said, "Today, we will be talking about Isaiah", then he read a scripture from the bible that was laying there. A couple came in the door and said "look we have a preacher here today!" haha It was cute!

Another great week in the books!

April
Bienvenido a Mi vida loca

Math Math Math and Sparkling Lemonade

2011-10-08T09:12:00.000-04:00

HOW COW!!!!! It is so quiet at my house!

It must be Saturday morning. Glorious Saturday morning, when everyone else in the house is still sleeping. Well everyone with the exception of the dog and me. It is an amazing time really. Who would have thought that I would love a quiet morning this much! I usually like to get up and get moving and get on with the day. But not on Saturdays! Not anymore. I truly look forward to the only slow morning of my week. It is nice to come downstairs and not have think about getting kids started on their school work for the day, or what are we having for breakfast, or do I have a plan for supper.

This is ME time. Glorious ME time.

Ok so maybe I should say me and the dog time! He keeps jumping up on the couch beside me as if to say: "Don't forget me! I'm here too! Yeah Yeah me! It's still me, down here with ya lady!" hahaha

We have had an awesome week! We even had the kids make it to OUTSTANDING DAY on their school behavior chart on Wednesday.  I just have to say, That was outstanding!!!

We are focusing on Math for the next month or so to make sure we have a good foundation of things like fractions and decimals and word problems. Dreaded, word problems! I think it will be good for both of my kiddos who are just average math students. A good foundation makes it so much easier to understand higher math and to think through all of the steps that some higher math requires.

You got your messy math, m&m math, mental math, math on the computer, and math facts. Of course, it is Fall so let's not forget candy corn math. If only those candy corn fit together so you could make a little pie with them for fractions. The kids are both using the Math Whizz website and they are enjoying it.  I am glad they enjoy it because that makes it easier to do so much Math everyday when they think it is fun.

All in all it is working well so far. No one has run from the table screaming about how they hate math...

Ok so maybe, in my head, I pictured myself running from the table screaming about how I hate math, but I didn't actually do it and that is what counts. Right?

I have come to the conclusion this week that being irritable and frustrated can become a habit. It can become the easiest place to go to when things are busy and time is flying and things do not get done quite like the list says they should. (stinking list!) I am making a conscious choice to NOT go there. (Ok it has only been a few day, but so far so good!) I don't want to feel frustrated everyday about things that did not get done. We are accomplishing so much everyday and that is what I need to be focusing on. Didn't someone say: "Life happens while you are busy doing other things"?

Speaking of other things: let's just talk about Sonic's Sparkling Lemonade. Uh Yeah YUM!!! Love that stuff! This would be thanks to my SIL Julie who just had to stop and get a drink at Sonic when we were together one day last summer. That was my first taste of Sparkling Lemonade and now I am hooked on the stuff. Especially since I pass the Sonic almost everyday. Darn you Sonic!!!    Here is the kicker, apparently Sparkling Lemonade is just Sprite with Lemon in it. Who would da thunk it! Something so yummy could be so easy with only two ingredients.

Well, so yummy until you decide that if you are going to make it at home you should save a few calories.

Yeah that's right I wanted to save a few calories! So I chose some Sprite Zero to make it with. WRONG CHOICE!! My rationale was that Pepsi Zero taste pretty good, surely Sprite Zero will too. NOPE! YUCK YUCK YUCK!!!! DO NOT TRY IT!!! It is awful!!!! Go ahead and walk an extra 20 mins and go for the good stuff!

Truthfully it tasted so bad that I am scared to try it again, even though I have real Sprite now. hahahaha

It is getting later in the morning and I need to go and read email and some of my favorite websites( one being http://www.weirdunsocializedhomeschoolers.com/) before other people start coming down the stairs making noise and ruining the quiet time.

April

last week in a nutshell

2011-10-03T12:19:00.000-04:00

Wow, I can not believe that it is Monday already. Time to start all over again! NOOOOOOO!! Can't I just go back to bed. Oh well, at least I have already had some coffee. :-)

Last week, we spent a lot of time on Math. We actually began our week with MESSY MATH MONDAY. We practiced fractions with some candy corn, some biscuit dough and then some shaving cream. Yes, it was messy! It was very fun too. We have decided to give MathWhizz online a try to supplement our math. It has games and an assessment, so it supposedly tailors the lessons to your child and where they need extra practice. I like the idea of them getting to practice on things they are having trouble with.

The kids are still enjoying their PE class, which is great.

We practiced some cursive writing. #1 son already knows how, but #1 daughter is just learning. As far as writing goes we also wrote some fun sentences about old shoes and where they may have gone and what they might say if they could talk. Cute stuff. I love seeing the kids use their imagination!

A couple of examples of what a shoe might say to the person wearing it:
Do you watch where you walk? You got me muddy! and Do you bathe?

Another week in the books and new one already beginning. Man, time sure flies right by!

April
Bienvenido a Mi vida loca

Busy busy bees

2011-09-24T09:15:00.000-04:00

Holy frijoles, Batman! It is the weekend again already! How did that happen? Isn't there supposed to be some time in between the weekends? What happened to Monday, Tues, and those other days?

Oh wait...

I know what happened!

They flew by in a whirl of Math, English, and PE with piano lessons thrown in there.

So here I sit trying to remember what we did. It was some good stuff! I would tell you if only I hadn't left my brain back on Tuesday! I think it is still trying to catch up with the rest of me.

Seriously though, I thought that homeschooling would make our family less busy. Boy was I wrong! We are busy busy bees! My poor house is the one who is paying the price!

Can you say messy? No, really. I mean MESSY!!!

I figure that I will get to it eventually. Right now I am busy learning things like when to use the words "done" and "finished" correctly in a sentence. "Turkeys are done, children are finished." hahaha I definitely do not remember that from school. I guess it is never to late to learn proper grammar. I will use it, but it probably still will not sound correct when it comes out in my very southern twang!!

Ok on to the children, who are "finished" not "done" with their work for the week. (ok ok I will stop now I just had to show you that I did learn something this week!) It was a good week. We had a big reading week in our house! I LOVE LOVE LOVE those! We had two days where the kids asked me if we could take a break and just read for a little bit. Umm...abso stinkin lutely!! (yea yea so that is not correct english, but Oh well! It is exciting to see my kiddos get into the books they are reading. (-: )

#1 son began a new book for reading this week. It was suggested to me by a friend who sells Usbourne books. It is called Conspiracy 365. ( I would tell you the author, but the book is upstairs and I am feeling that going up the stairs will require too much energy at this moment) I will tell you that my little guy enjoyed the book! He is already finished with it and ready for the next one in the series. That is what I call AWESOME!!!!

#1 daughter is enjoying reading her Peter Pan book. That makes for one happy mama!! She is one who gets bored after a chapter or two. She has made it to chapter 8. YAY!!!! We might actually get this one completely finished!

Piano lessons started again this week. #1 daughter is taking lessons this time as well. They had a blast and have been practicing everyday with no complaints. (yet) # 1 son is trying to learn to play a very easy version Bach's Toccata and Fugue. He fell in love with the song when we learned about Bach from our composer book and asked if I could find it and print it for him to learn. So....after a quick google search I found an easy piano version and printed it for him and he has been playing around with it everyday. Pretty good, I think, for a guy with only about 3 months of lessons under his belt. (although, I am sure he is not playing with the right fingers and yada yada yada...BUT...he is having a blast and has gotten pretty good with the first line of the piece.)

So as you can see our week was a good one!!! I am happy that it is Saturday, though! Maybe I can get to work on this messy house...or maybe I can get another cup of coffee and watch the shows on the DVR instead. Yeah, that sounds like a better plan to me!!!

April
Bienvenido a Mi vida loca

PS Ok I feel bad for not knowing the author of the book so I googled it and here is a link to the series:
http://www.myubam.com/ecommerce/details.asp?sid=B1306&gid=126384294&title=Conspiracy+365+January&sqlwhere=submit%3Dsearch%26search%3DConspiracy%2B365 Ok now that I have relieved some of my guilt about being lazy I am going to see what is on the DVR and to read some of my favorite blogs.

The week with the hair bow...

2011-09-19T13:44:00.000-04:00

So last week was quite an interesting one for these newbie homeschoolers. The kids are having a great time at PE with one exception: #1 son said something at PE that embarrassed #1 daughter. I don't mean the "oh you shouldn't have said that" embarrassed. I'm talking about the "crying and don't want to go because all of the kids are going to laugh at her" embarrassed. Now, the mom tried to console the girl and make it all better. My attempts, even though they came from the heart, just were not cutting it. #1 daughter did not want to hear: "no one will even remember what he said" or "life is tough" or "man up". I highly doubt that telling her she could "punch his lights out while I turn my back" would have worked either! (sidebar - I did not say that it is just a hypothetical thought.) So after my failure as a mother who can make it all better, I walked over to #1 son and told him "you better go fix it right now!"

And fix it he did!!

The next thing I see is my son coming out of my daughter's room with a blue bow in his hair! No joke! He said that he was going to wear it into the gym so that the kids would laugh at him not her. My 10 year old son wore a blue bow in his hair into PE class on Thursday so that the kids would laugh at him and not his sister. Now, I never thought I would ever say such a thing as this, but I am so proud of my boy in his blue bow!!!!! This mama's heart is so proud of her little guy!!! Maybe he will turn out ok in spite of me! :-)

April
Bienvenido a Mi vida loca

Where did the week go?

2011-09-09T11:54:00.000-04:00

We made it through another week. Whoo Hoo!! I am so exhausted by Fridays that I can't really think clearly. It is a good thing that I make some lesson plans or we would not get anything done on Fridays. I have truly been surprised at how tired I get by the end of the week.    Anyhoo...

We have really had a good week. This week was the start of our Homeschool PE class at the Y. The kids enjoyed going. They were able to go swimming, and did obstacle courses and made some new friends too. I am so glad that I was able to get them in the class.

Our Science experiment on photosynthesis is over. It was kind of a bust! We had some huge rain showers and flooding this week so one of our leaves that was supposed to stay on the plant actually fell off. Another leaf - the control leaf- got twisted around in the wind so much that I thought I was going to have to just pick another leaf and say this one will do. We did finally find the one we had marked.  So I supposed we were able to salvage it and see that light is important to plants.

We played in the rain for an English assignment this week. That is one good thing about the days of rain we had.  We also made "friendship chains" this week, and talked about what makes a good friend and how to be a good friend. A cute book we read about friends is Rosie and Michael by Judith Viorst. After we read the story the kids wrote sentences about the characteristics of a good friend. They transferred the sentences onto strips of construction paper then we stapled them together and are going to hang them up above their desks.

I also learned this week that our bible study book might be a bit too much. I am spending so much time telling the kiddos what specific words mean that I don't think we are getting as much "God stuff" as we should be getting. Don't get me wrong, I think it is important to know and understand exactly what the bible says and means. But I am afraid that if I have to spend the whole time explaining words like sordid gain and dissipation and pugnacious the kids are going to get overwhelmed with vocabulary and just tune out. We are going to put the book away for awhile.

All in all our week was a good one.

April
Bienvenido a Mi vida loca

P.S. I saw an awesome post over at weirdunsocializedhomeschoolers.com this week that I think I am going to use. That is if I ever find time to put it together. The Mom Binder! A neat idea to put prayer request in with lesson plans and stuff so that you have everything together.

Paper airplanes

2011-08-31T13:52:00.000-04:00

Who would have thought that paper airplanes would make a writing lesson so fun. I sure didn't! But after making and then playing with our paper airplanes in the cul de sac yesterday, we came inside and wrote about them. Our planes buzzed like bees, soared like eagles and shot out like bullets (ok so that is a little exaggeration, but I figure we're using our imagination so I let it slide).

April
Bienvenido a Mi vida loca

and week 2 comes to a close...

2011-08-28T15:34:00.000-04:00

Wow!! I can't believe we have put week 2 of our homeschool adventure behind us. It was a busy week with lots of learning for the kids and me.

The kiddos spent the week learning about India and Afghanistan. They also learned about adjectives, adverb and got to practice making alliterate phrases. Fletcher's friend Fanny fries fat flagellum! Yep, that is a science vocab word from our study of cells. Funny kids!!!

I spent the week learning even more about my sweet kids. I have already had to make some changes in the way we do things to accomodate different learning styles and personalities. There is such a learning curve in the homeschooling thing! It's okay though, because it has been a blessing to see even more closely what makes these little people tick. I am excited about the upcoming week.

We made it to the park for school on Monday. It was a gorgeous day! A gentle breeze blew as we sat on a blanket next to the creek labeling the parts of a cell. What a great way to have school! That was my kind of day!! We will definitely be doing that more often.

April
Bienvenido a Mi vida loca

The First Week has come and gone....

2011-08-20T10:09:00.000-04:00

Well...we made it!! Our first week of school is under our belt. I think that it went really good. We practiced some math facts on #1 son's favorite math fact website : http://www.arcademicskillbuilders.com/ and then found a new website that the #1 daughter really likes: http://www.fun4thebrain.com/ . If you need vocabulary then we have some for you. Howitzer, amiable, taxonomy just to name a few.

Speaking of taxonomy WOW the science that we did this week! Science is not my best subject, I will be honest about that upfront. However, I even learned a lot of info this week. "King Phillip Charles on firm ground stood!" I am sure that I probably heard that before, but it was not something that stuck with me. (Sorry Mr. Butler! I would probably be a much better student now.)

The History has been so interesting. I have learned some fascinating things about Africa: King Leopold of Belgium, The Scramble and the Berlin Conference, just to name a few! We also read a book about a village in Africa where the men live in square houses and the women live in round ones. I think that I am really going to like this History and I sure hope the kids do too!!! I really like how a lot of what we have done so far has been written into "story" form. It seems to make it so much more interesting than just trying to memorizing facts.

All in all, I am very pleased with how the first week has gone. I think we are off to a good start, hopefully we will be able to keep the enthusiasm up as we get farther into the year.

Our library has a pretty wooded park with a walking trail right beside it. So on Monday, just to be different, I think I am going to have the kids pack up their books and head to the library/park to work. Hopefully the weather will cooperate...

April
Bienvenido a Mi vida loca

The First Day of School!

2011-08-15T22:13:00.000-04:00

It was a roaring success! The kids and I had a good time. They were excited to start. They both came downstairs at 6:40 am dressed and ready. I had set their alarms to 6:35 am! We did some English and Science and Reading and Math today. We also did some organization stuff like labeling notebooks and filling out a "to do" list for each kid. All in all it was a good first day on our home school adventure. In celebration, we went out to get Asian food and went to the movies. Now, if you will excuse me, I need to go and read up on Taxonomy so I will be ready for the second half of our Science chapter...

April
Bienvenido a Mi vida loca

The Brown truck...

2011-08-10T21:56:00.000-04:00

delivered boxes today! Boxes of books and workbooks fit for a great homeschooling year! Well, that is my hope and prayer. The kids didn't do cartwheels or anything but I did get a "YEAH" out of the #1 son. I will take that any day! Now it is time to get some type of lesson plans done so we can start next week. I am very excited.

I had a friend tell me the other day: "How lucky to be with your kids everyday!" Truthfully, I had not thought of it that way at all. I have become more and more excited about curriculum and such as the school year has approached, but I never even thought how lucky I am to be able to be with my kids (especially while they want me around!). It will be soon enough that they will be grown and gone so I am hoping to keep that thought buried in my mental filing cabinet during this year! I am so blessed!!!

April
Bienvenido a Mi vida loca

Your order has been placed...

2011-08-05T17:03:00.000-04:00

I did it! I clicked the "send" button and now should have most of our curriculum on the way in the next couple of days. WOW!!! That is a huge burden off my shoulders. Now, the actual hard labor of rearranging the "playroom" to be the "schoolroom" begins. I think it is going to make for a busy weekend.

A
Bienvenido a Mi vida loca

Officially a Homeschooling Family

2011-08-03T10:49:00.000-04:00

We registered with our umbrella school, so we are now officially homeschooling. YAY!!! The next step is getting curriculum ordered so that we can begin our school year. Who would have thought that ordering curriculum would be such a big deal? In my head, I was thinking I need an English book, a Math book, a Science book, and a History book. Pretty simple right? WRONG!!!!!!!

Instead, it is:
Do you know your child's learning style? Sociable Sue? Perfect Paula? Wiggle Willy?
Do you know your teaching style?
What "type" of homeschooling will you do? Traditional? Classical? Charlotte Mason? Unschooling?
Do you want curriculum that teaches from a Religious worldview?
Do you want textbooks? Unit Studies? Workbooks?
Do you want to spend a lot of time working with your child or do you want them to work independently?
Do you...BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH

It has all turned into a garbled mush inside of my head! So I apologize if you call me and all I can is : whashowpeenohownowbrowncowloomoocrabeabekadopingbjushmoosombrepactoonolowlooneybin (well you get the picture)

Truthfully, I have decided just to pick some things and see if they work. If they don't that is ok because we will just find something else that will suit us better.

April
Bienvenido a Mi vida loca