Our Routines

We have a few things we do each day.  One of them, of course, is to update our calendar with the current positioning of “Today is”, “Yesterday was”, and “Tomorrow will be” markers.  We review the month and day of the week at this time also.  Another part of our routine comes from our beloved Kindergarten teachers in Virginia.  We have a big chart with 100 pockets, three medium sized pockets which I made from paper to hold straws, and a tally sheet.  Each day we add a number to our chart (alternating colors to reinforce odd/even numbers), add a straw to the ones pocket, and add a tally mark to our sheet.  After ten days, we bundle the straws and move them to the tens pocket.  Eventually we will move the ten bundles to the hundreds pocket.  I am quite certain my paper pockets won’t last that long, but they fill the need for now.  We also do some counting each day-either counting the number of days we’ve been in school so far, or how many days until something important.

[Aside: I have to wonder why in the world we had to make the numbers 11-19 so whacky compared to the 20's, 30's, etc.  The kids think it's crazy when the Math U See guys says stuff like one-ty one, one-ty two.  However, they think it's hilarious when he says two-ty, two-ty one, two-ty two, etc.  Please tell mine are not the only kids to laugh at this!]

Here is a picture of our sweet Little Lady, mastering the art of drawing hearts in her journal.  Journals aren’t something that is stressed in the homeschooling materials I’ve read, but all my kids have had them in school.  We don’t use them everyday, but it is a good way to allow free writing and drawing.  LL isn’t writing in hers yet, but I will start having her sound out simple words very soon.  Behind The Boy, you will see our calendar and chart.

(Ignore the whacky black rectangle above LL’s head.  Just me trying to cover up sensitive information…)

Here are some shots of our morning outside.

And just one more of our big girl, Belle.  It’s impossible for me to believe that she will be 10 years old in less than two weeks!!

Chug, chug, chug

We’re in our 4th week of school now, and I couldn’t be more pleased with our progress.  The kids are having a great time and so am I!  As far as I can tell, they are learning quite a bit too…but I suppose only time will tell.  We’re wrapping up our unit on TX History this week with a creative writing project.  I knew Belle would like the assignment, but wasn’t sure how well The Boy and Little Lady would do.  As is turns out, The Boy did very well!  First, I asked them to draw a picture of what they thought Texas might look like 150-200 years ago.  I kept the instructions fairly loose, waiting to see what they would create.  Belle took inspiration from a combination of some books we read (The Picture Book of Davy Crockett and Sam Houston Standing Firm) as well as The Little House books and drew a covered wagon heading up a trail, passing a house.  The Boy went for the typical male approach and drew a battle scene-the Alamo-where he was the lone survivor.  :)  Little Lady, on the other hand, is still too immersed in her ego-centric world to imagine herself 150 years ago.  Ultimately, she drew our house as it is now as that is the only Texas she can really imagine.  I didn’t push the issue with her, after all it was meant to be a fun activity!
After the drawings were complete, I had the kids write a story from their picture.  Belle came up with three ideas and set about writing Chapter 1.  She was losing focus after that, so we’ll continue her story another day.  The Boy put together 6 or so sentences to describe his picture.  He isn’t the elaborate writer that Belle was at his age, but he does a good job putting together sentences.  Most of them begin with the word “and”, but we’ll sort that out as the year goes along.  Little Lady wasn’t interested in coming up with a story to go with her picture.  I was willing to write it down for her, but she chose to draw in her journal instead.
Little Lady loves learning her letters and the sounds they make.  Our text book gives a new letter with a line to a poem for each lesson.  For instance, our lesson today was on the letter N.  We learned about the sound /n/, a few words that begin or end with /n/, and then learn the next line to our poem.  Today’s was: n stands for /n/ in /n/ /n/ net.  Each day we review the lines from all previous days.  Tomorrow we will play a little game to make sure she is really remembering her letters and the sounds, and probably play with our picture sort magnets.  I’m hoping she is ready to really start reading once we get through the rest of the letters, but I’m not interested in pushing her.  Had we not moved, I can’t say for certain if she’d even be in Kindergarten this year.  We’re keeping it fun and as stress free as possible.  Honestly, though, it’s amazing how much of The Boy’s stuff she is learning.  She piped up with the definition of a noun today when The Boy stumbled.  :)
Well, I’m off to bed now.  We are enjoying our FINALLY cooler mornings with lessons on the back porch.  The kids even put on sweaters this morning, though they didn’t last long.

Back in the saddle

***Oh how I make myself laugh!!  I put this together over a week ago with every intention of adding in links and editing.  Well guess what??  That just might never happen.  Sorry not to give credit to all the publishers and such.  If there is something you want to know more about, just ask.  I’ll happily provide more info.***

I’m going to do my best to jump back in the blogging world.  We’ve moved to TX for the year and, as such, I’ve started homeschooling the kids.  We started last week and are having a great time.  I’m not a “all in one” curriculum type, at least not this year anyway.  I reserve the right to change that opinion at some point, should we decide to continue homeschooling.  I followed the basic recommendations of the book, The Well Trained Mind, with a few adjustments.

Here is what it looks like for each child:

Belle (4th grade)
Grammar: Building with Diligence: English 4
Spelling: Spelling Workout D
Reading on her own: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
Handwriting: Zaner Bloser Grade 4
Math: Math U See Gamma
Science: a unit on Astronomy
History: Where We Live/Texas History

The Boy (1st Grade)
Grammar: First Language Lessons
Spelling: Spelling Workout A
Reading on his own: Henry and Mudge books and Little Bear books
Handwriting: Zaner Bloser Grade 1
Math: Math U See Alpha
Science: The Kingfisher First Animal Encyclopedia
History: same as Belle

Little Lady (PreK-Kindergarten)
Reading: The Ordinary Parent’s Guide to Teaching Reading
Handwriting: Zaner Bloser Kindergarten
Math: Math U See Primer
Science: same as The Boy
History: same as Belle and The Boy

A few notes about why I picked what I picked…Belle has never had a formal grammar book.  She knows the basic parts of speech, but I honestly don’t know if she learned them in school or just doing mad libs with me.  I never saw evidence of grammar work, but I know much more happened in school that what I saw coming home.  The book I selected has a Christian perspective.  It isn’t so much that it overtakes the topic of the book, and it has brought up some good discussions between Belle and I concerning religion.  It is fairly dry, as any grammar book would be, but I firmly believe in teaching these concepts.  Belle is such a gifted writer, and I want to make sure her stories remain sound grammatically as well as imaginative.  I don’t think it is realistic to do a lesson every day, but maybe that will become easier as the routine settles in.  This book also includes writing prompts every few lessons.  I like having this as one of our options.

I also firmly believe in having weekly spelling words.  What I like about the Spelling Workout books is they give a list of words plus several workbook assignments.  Sure, I could come up with a list of words for them each week, but the assignments would be a pain to create each week.  We will supplement the assignments with fun games like Bananagrams and possibly some online games as well.

In a true classical education, the reading assignments tie in with the history assignments.  With us just starting out, I wanted the kids to have assigned reading that I knew they would love.  Belle is in a big Harry Potter phase right now, but hasn’t had the discipline to read all the way through the books.  She tends to prefer shorter books she can get through quickly, so I thought this was the perfect opportunity to encourage it.  Also, I haven’t quite decided what we are doing with our history.  Do I pick one time period for all three kids and dig deeper with Belle or do I pick one time period for Belle and another for The Boy and Little Lady?  I just couldn’t decide, so I put off the decision by beginning with a Texas History unit.  We’ve talked about our address, phone number, city, county, a map of TX, the state flag, and the state bird so far.  I bought a simple kids book about TX to get us started.  We will delve deeper into the actual history-explorers, important landmarks, etc.-once we finish covering the basic state facts.

As for math, the Math U See books just arrived on Friday, so we haven’t actually used them yet.  Instead, we spent the week doing basic review and simple math with dice activities.  On Friday, I let them do basic drills on the computer.  I’m looking forward to digging in to the Math U See books next week.  I’m sure that the Primer books weren’t really necessary for Little Lady, but she needs things to occupy her while the others are in school.  She doesn’t do well with the play while your brother/sister finishes this lesson.

Science is another area where I was undecided.  The Well Trained Mind suggests a study of physics in 4th grade, though the experiment book they recommend is so old.  I just wasn’t sure it was the right fit for us.  So instead of chancing the order, or just going to look at the bookstore, I postponed the decision with a constellations unit.  We have a couple of excellent books I haven’t taken the time to really study with Belle, and this seemed like the perfect time.  The One downloaded an excellent app onto the iPad that made star gazing really awesome.  It’s only available on the iPad, though.  I was surely missing our house in the woods with excellent views of the stars last night.  Our house in TX is in a traditional suburban neighborhood, complete with star-blinding street lights.  Thankfully the iPad made things much more clear.

For as much as I struggled with Belle’s science, picking the book for The Boy and Little Lady was easy.  I knew LL would love learning about animals, despite not needing a formal Science curriculum for Kindergarten.  And getting to learn about them with The Boy?  Even better!

Whew!  That was an excruciatingly long post, but I know I will like being able to go back and read this one day.   Sorry if I bored you to tears!  Here’s a cute pick of my sweet children on the first day of school:

Tuesdays

Tuesdays are Little Lady and Mommy days. Most of the time I like having a day with my sweet shadow, except of course when she is beyond pitiful, missing Belle and The Boy. I can always detect those days right away as she asks for lunch as we’re pulling out of the school parking lot at 8 am. I guess she figures pick-up isn’t much after lunch, so an early lunch should bring an early pick-up. Little does she know what little control over the school schedule we have.

Today started as just that sort of day. She simply cannot fathom playing something on her own and isn’t willing to engage me in play. I let her have a little TV time while I busied about the house. As soon as that was over however, it was clear we needed to get out of the house. We spruced ourselves up a bit-make up for me and braids for LL-and headed out on a quest. TB is getting baptized (also called babatized around here ) next month and I wanted some new pants for the occasion.
The first store was a strike out, in both merchandise and improvement of LL’s attitude. We took a little break for a bagel and chocolate milk (coffee for me) at Panera and that was just the boost we needed!

I found the perfect pants at the second store and another Little Lady/Mommy day was saved! She really has the sweetest smile of any little girls I know.

This week…

This week is getting busier by the minute. Belle has a Toga Day complete with a Greek inspired feast and The Boy will be celebrating the 100th day of school. I have some cleaning to do in the basement-I’ve shoved all the Christmas stuff down there and need to take the time to organize it, not to mention the gigantic pile of clothing I set aside to donate but have not managed to do so yet. I’m helping with the yearbook again this year (I enter all the orders in the computer) and this is our prime order time. Of course, I still have Bible Study on Wednesday and Thursday…
How will I ever sustain myself through all this fun?? This pretty little magazine followed me home the other day and I think those brownies on the cover will do the trick!

Thanksgiving 2010

We visited with The One’s family for thanksgiving this year. Only one of his brothers could come, but that didn’t stop the cousins from having a great time together.

We ate lots of turkey, potatoes, pies and cupcakes, but mostly I had fun hanging out with my SIL. We came home for the weekend and enjoyed a quiet weekend at home. December is going to be the busiest it’s ever been with travel, a birthday, the church pageant, Christmas, and so much more! Sadly, I know that means it will be over in a flash.

Enjoying the few quiet moments will be the key to this holiday season.

Soccer time

The Boy loves soccer. He runs up and down the field, looks up before he passes, and scores plenty of goals all while wearing a huge smile. Here he is with one of his coaches giving him a five after TB scored a goal.

Big girl

I love seeing how each child excels. Little Lady is definitely gifted in writing and drawing. The girl has been able to color within the lines and write her name in all caps for a year now. Her latest development is to write her name in what we call “The Kindergarten Way”. You know, first letter capitalized and the others lower case. The Boy only started doing it regularly this school year. Now, LL does still write it in mirror half the time, but it still counts in my book.

Here’s a pic of my big girl showing me just how big she is.

Ugh! I’m having difficulty getting the picture on here from my phone. Will try again later.

Test

Posting this from my phone, and I really have no idea how well this will work. I figure it’s been so long since I’ve posted anything anyway, might as well give this a try. Doubt I actually have any readers left anyway!

I have big hopes of sharing more pictures thanks to this amazing new gadget! The One spent days researching just the right combo of body and lens. We have already gotten some fantastic shots.

May 2010: Strawberries, Ballet, and a Birthday

One of the things I will miss the most about living in VA is all the fantastic pick-your-own fruit farms.  This year brought the most fantastic strawberry season ever.  The Littles and I met some friends at one of the local farms to pick strawberries.

“Look, Mama!”

She’s very careful to pick only the best berries.  :)

I just love pictures of my two Littles holding hands.  Even though they are developing their own interests, they are still best buddies.

Also this month, Belle had her Ballet performance.  The younger kids danced to various Mother Goose Rhymes.   Belle was in The Old Woman Who Lived In A Shoe, Mary Mary Quite Contrary, and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.  She had so much fun being a part of a real ballet performance.

My Beauty!

We also celebrated J’s birthday this month.  He’s now joined me in our 35th year!  He requested John Besh’s King Cake for his birthday.  I made an Emeril version at Mardi Gras which we all loved.  Unfortunately, we didn’t like this one as much.  I told J if he’d only chosen a regular cake for his birthday we wouldn’t have this trouble!  Oh well…Here’s a pic of the cake and J blowing out his candles.

My parents and I went in together on a hammock for J’s birthday.  The kids were thrilled to help set it up right away.

Unfortunately, we didn’t have all the right hardware.  Nothing a quick trip to the local hardware store couldn’t fix, but we did have to wait until the next day.  The kids helped me set it up so we could surprise Daddy when he got home from work.

Once he arrived home, the kids all piled in with him.  Daddy snuggles are the best!!

Well, that gets us caught up through May!  I’m only a month behind now…