indoor PE fun

So its quickly coming to that time of year when we just DON'T go outside much, right now its somewhere in the 30's and I know its supposed to rain or snow or something equally nasty like that. Sooooo, I am coming up with creative ideas to give my ADHD crew some PE without going outside. The girls all are very active, they usually play at least 3-4 hours a day outdoors on nice days (yes that is on top of schoolwork done indoors lol) So you can see why the winter is such a problem for us, we can't spend that much time outside playing in the snow (well, some people could but the girls and I get way too cold too fast for that) Well, today during lang. arts with the girls I saw something that made me say "ah-HA!" in my mind. I took a roll of extra tape from our indoor painting (still have lots of painting to do still but we're waiting until spring to finish so that we can open doors and windows for ventilation) and did a bunch of tearing and taping, and voila! In my entry I have a nice blue-tape hopscotch on the floor, just the right size for Melissa and her tall 6 year old self, but small enough that Kimmy can do it too (Melissa is teaching her how to hopscotch now) I have pictures of the kids in action on it, eventually I'll get around to uploading and sharing them.

The next project will be making some bean bags so that the girls can toss them into laundry baskets I think, and I'm hoping to teach the girls some yoga to help them stay flexible. They need a LOT of physical activity daily, and one can only take so much of them climbing onto the top bunk in their room and jumping off onto the floor or Kimmy's twin bed below you know....................................... lol And most of my ideas don't have the potential for broken necks like their bed jumping does.

more hurdles

Well, yesterday I had that teleconference with our supervising teacher. We went over how Melissa did on her 1st grade diagnostic testing. She did really well in reading and writing, she scored just below grade level. It was a much higher score than her teacher and I both thought she'd get, so we are very happy with it. The intervention that we have going with reading has really paid off, I'm so happy that we started right away with it. However, her math score was really low. Her teacher knows that she can do the math that was tested, she had been doing some of it in the elluminate sessions that Melissa's been in. In general, Melissa is way ahead in math. One of the questions, the testing teacher read her a word problem and Melissa had to write the math problem and then solve it. She wrote the problem correctly, except for her numbers being upside-down, and was able to tell the teacher that the answer was 16. Then she wrote the answer 91 on the paper. Soooooo, our teacher and I discussed how to proceed with this. She wants me to get Melissa tested for dyslexia, and I completely agree with that. I've suspected it for over a year now, and the teacher said that she's so confident that we'll get that diagnosis that she'll file paperwork for services as soon as I get a referral from the pediatrician to get her tested. So, I have a dyslexic child with ADHD and auditory processing issues, what a combination. I wonder what the end result of all this testing we're about to start will be. She has an appointment next week to check her weight (she's having some issues with losing weight lately since starting the ADHD meds) and discuss how her meds are working, so I'll get the referral that day.

Tis the season!

For yummy goodies, that is. Every year I do some baking and such for Christmas, and this year is no exception. Today I'm planning on making fudge and buckeyes, and I may make some sugar cookies too if I feel up to it (and have enough butter lol) Now I already know, what are the recipes I use for these goodies? Well, I'll share now.

Buckeyes

3 lbs. powdered sugar
2 lbs. good creamy peanut butter (I use Jif)
2/3 slab paraffin (aka Gulf Wax)
1 lb. butter (or margarine sticks), softened
1 large package semi-sweet chocolate chips

Combine the powdered sugar, peanut butter, and butter in a large bowl. Roll by hand into small balls, you'll have about 200 balls (about the size of a golf ball, maybe a little smaller) Chill them overnight. The next day, melt chocolate chips with a double boiler (I use a big pot with a small metal bowl as a makeshift one, it works) and then add paraffin. Stick a toothpick into each ball and dip them about 3/4 into the chocolate, leaving a cirle undipped around the toothpick. Place on a cookie sheet to cool, and chill until hard. They should look kind of like actual buckeye nuts.

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Peanut-butter fudge

18 oz. jar creamy Jif peanut butter
1 small tub marshmallow creme (cheap stuff is fine)
2 sticks butter, softened (NOT melted)
12 oz. can Carnation evaporated milk
4 1/2 cups sugar

Put the peanut butter and marshmallow creme each on a plate for easy adding when its time. THEN get a heavy saucepan out. Combine milk, butter, and sugar in the pan without heat and mix well. Then put on heat and cook on medium-high heat until boiling, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon. Set a timer for 7 minutes as soon as it starts boiling and continue to cook, stirring constantly, for that 7 minutes. Immediately remove from heat when timer goes off. Whisk in peanut butter to creamy, then add marshmallow creme and whisk until fully combined. put in greased (or cooking-sprayed) 9x13 pan and refridgerate FLAT overnight. (Oh yeah, when you pop it in the fridge you MUST hand that sppon to the husband for him to lick clean, or to the kids or yourself to lick clean in his honor if he's unable to do it because he's at work like mine or deployed like my little brother)

I've not made the fudge recipe before, but it looks really promising to me. My great-granny used to make some awesome fudge when I was a kid but never taught me her recipe for it, so I've been searching since she died in 2003 for a recipe that is really close to hers. This one from the looks of it may be a very close match, but I'll know for sure tomorrow when the fudge is chilled and ready to eat. I have soooooo much butter on my counter getting soft right now, its not even funny lol And I still have to hit the store for more butter and a few more things to make the fudge, but my father is going to come over so that I can do that. I caught him early enough in the day that I know he'll be sober for it, so I'm taking advantage (I was planning to go tonight after Scott got home from work but I don't need to now)

preschool galore week 1

Well, its official, miss Kimberly is in panties full time now! She's been wearing them for a week with no accidents, so we have officially graduated her to preschooler status. She starts lessons today. Here is her preschool lessons for this week:

letter Ff
number 1
counting to 5
color red
fishies is our theme

Sooooo, we'll be doing a variety of activities this week that all surround the above topics. For the letter, we're going to learn how to print the capital F and recognize capital and lower-case Ff, learn the sound, and find objects that start with /f/. In math, we'll learn to recognize the number 1 and model what 1 obect is, and work on counting to 5 (she can already do this one so its a review for her) For the color, we're going to learn to recognize the color word, find red objects, and color pictures of red things. For fishies, we'll learn about some of the different kinds of fishies, count fish crackers (and then eat them lol), color different fishies to make unique ones of our own, and visit the pet shop to look at some of the different kinds of fish that you can have as a pet. Oh, and I may also try and get a hold of "Finding Nemo" to watch, and we may look at different exotic marine life online and such. I'm not sure how far we'll go with fishies yet, we're going to play it by ear.

The big kids are having a different load of work. In history, Melissa is still in ancient Egypt, currently studying Judaism (I probably totally misspelled that but am too lazy to look it up lol) and Lydia is in Asia learning about China and Japan. For science, we are *finishing* our unit on the states of matter, today Melissa has her unit test. I haven't looked yet at the next unit, but I think I remember something about weather from when I pulled the student pages for it a couple weeks ago. In math Melissa is working on counting patterns and skip counting while Lydia is working on measuring distances and comparing lengths of objects.

In a half hour I have a teleconference with our teacher, and we'll be discussing how Melissa BOMBED the 1st grade diagnostic testing. She did ok in everything except her math, I was very happy with her reading and writing scores. But math, the girl totally froze up and couldn't even count, which is why we are taking a little time with counting right now. I want to be 100% certain that she knows how to count as well as I know she can, so that we don't have her freeze again at testing. Poor kid, she doesn't test well. But the meds for her ADHD are working great, as are the tricks that the doctor suggested.

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom! preschool galore!

Well, its that time. At 3 years old, we start watching each child to show signs of being ready to learn their letter sounds and begin some easy reading at their pace. Nothing too major, and we always go at their speed. Well, last week Kimmy started spending more time listening to her big sisters' phonics lessons, and has learned how to say the alphabet. That is the sign we look for, so I started thinking about her lessons in this area. I always pick a theme for the child who is learning her letters, and this particular child's theme is based on her favorite book of all time, Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. So what is a homeschooling mom to do with THIS theme? Well, allow me to share some pictures and tell the tale..............................

I started by telling little miss Kimberly that she is going to be starting her own school lessons next week, and THIS was her response to it.


Yep I think she's happy. So next I got our supplies for the project out..........................

Its hard to see, but that green paper does have some drawing on it. I drew a leaf outline on several sheets of green and cut them out.


This is where the theme is centered at, before I put it up. Yes, that is a part of my huge fireplace that we are looking at right there, and unfortunately it is painted brick (what a wate of such beautiful brickwork, but we had to paint over it because it was originally LEAD BASED paint)

And this is the result, a Chicka Chicka Boom Boom tree! I just need to add a few coconuts to it and we'll add a letter to the top of the tree as we learn its name and sound. Notice the beyond thrilled 3 year old there standing where she's not allowed to stand normally LOL

Now, for how I'm going to do this. I am a FIRM follower of Sonlight language arts K for teaching reading. There are great activities and we learn one letter a week, following a specific order that will enable the child to start reading after learning just a few letters in week 9. I also intend to add in activities from the Brightly Beaming site for each letter from the preparatory program. And NEW for us this time around, I am going to be doing the alphabet lap-n-tote from Homeschool Share to give us a record of all the letters we've done as we learn about them.

Every Monday, I will try to remember to post that week's letter and what my activities for the week will be. We will explore a variety of different things each week, and just have fun with it all. I only spend typically around 20 minutes or so a couple times a day at the most on lessons with preschoolers formally, doing worksheets and crafts. So this will be sprinkled through the days and we'll prepare foods starting with that letter, read stories that go with the letter (using daily and weekly themes like fish and firefighters and flowers for letter F week)

Now, doesn't that just sound like a barrel of fun and games? Preschoolers are my favorite students so far, I always look forward to lessons with my preschool children.

vacation

Scott had this past week on vacation from work. The last time he was on vacation we didn't do squat for schoolwork, and I spent 2 weeks catching back up again. So I set myself up with a plan to do 4 days' worth of schoolwork during the time he's on vacation (this includes the 2 weekends) and just be happy if I get that much done. So how did it go you ask?

Well, Melissa finished 6 days of math, which was 2 days more than anticipated. Lydia kept up with her math as well. We stayed on target with lang. arts completely with both kids, although we did skip a few more activities than usual. I don't think the kids really noticed. We did only half the history we needed to do (one lesson each instead of 2) and I don't think we even touched science with Melissa, but that's ok. Phonics, well we were planning a week more of no lessons for Melissa for this week anyway and Lydia is still working on making a connection that she needs to make before she can move forward at all. So we spent time just reading together, they spent time playing at www.starfall.com and we just had fun with it. Oh, and Melissa did a few pages in her Explode the Code workbook that we add to the phonics to help cement things better.

Yep, I'm ok with how this week turned out. Last time he was on vacation I had soooooo many lessons to catch up on, so having just a few to catch up isn't really a big deal. Its really easy to add extra art, history, and science to my days because the kids like those subjects and do really well with them.

well that went out the window lol

I posted that I was going to give FlyLady another shot. Well, I did. Unfortunately, I'm so flaky that I can't keep focus on anything for very long really. I gave up on day 3 and just hired someone instead LOL My father has been looking for a way to make some extra money, and I got Scott's blessing, so now dad comes over a couple times a week to do whatever I didn't get to with my regular chores, plus he gives me the opportunity to go out shopping or running errands if I need to without having to drag 4 kids with me. He promises to be sober on the days he comes over, and I don't let him in the front door if I even suspect he's been drinking, so we're going to try it for now. If that doesn't work, then I'll come up with something.

LOL I told you I was flaky..........................

FlyLady hmmmmmm

OK so I've been thinking about this a LOT lately. I'm not what anyone would call even a halfway decent housekeeper. OK I will admit it, I stink at housework. I'm disorganized (no, I know where everything is until you put it away on me lol), life is cluttered, and I'm always behind on the basics like laundry and dishes. There, I admitted it. I'm a housework flunkie.

So why am I mentioning FlyLady, you ask? Well, my friend Janis is doing it herself now after moving into a new home and having no real routines for housework there (and no desire to reinvent the system she had at the old place, I don't blame her!) She's on day 5 or 6 now of FlyLady and is doing well with it. Oh, and she has 6 kids, one being a baby and one being an ornery toddler LOL Now, I've attempted FlyLady many MANY times in my parenting lifetime (6 1/2 years and counting) and every single time I failed miserably. I lack motivation and focus to do it, even in the 15 minute sessions she suggests tackling things in. Its really a MAJOR discipline issue that I have with myself, I know this. The only thing that I have kept is my control journal with my routines in it and a few extras that I felt compelled to add. So, I'm thinking that since we've managed to be 99% consistent with doing homeschool lessons daily like I need to, its time to tackle another consistency issue that I have. I'm going to begin to tackle the disaster that I have created with my housekeeping skills. I'm going to go shine my sink now. lol I won't post a pic of it because quite frankly, you'd be horrified at the piles on the counter around it. But at least I'll have a shiny sink. Tomorrow, I'll keep at it, and instead of the 15 minute session she suggests, I'll try doing 5 minutes at a time. We'll see how this goes..........................

I may end up failing for a 23rd time, but hey I gotta keep at it until I find something that works for me. So far, nothing is working (and that includes trying to get the kids to clean up after themselves a couple times a day, since Scott feels it is his job to teach them that a woman's job is to stay home, take care of kids, and clean up after every person that lives in the household like a darn maid) I have no help around here that doesn't throw a royal hissy fit (including the 35 year old man I married LOL) but nobody really complains with my lack of housekeeping skills either. I dunno, I personally don't like it but don't know how to approach it myself. Maybe I'll figure it out as I go along.

lol we caught up

Well, last week we caught up on Melissa's hours. She's now 3 hours ahead as of last week. I'm thinking that I'm going to take today off to do some stuff around the house, then we'll pick up extra lessons each day to make up for skipping today. They will get their technology time for the week today, and Lydia has soccer. I say that's good enough for today, especially since they are playing educational computer stuff. We'll see though................. I'm just tired and need a break, those extra hours happened over the weekend when we wrapped up some extra lessons to make up the time we lost.

I am so tired now from it all though, we just need a day off to relax. Heck with anything that's not household related, I'm going to do practical life skills day today. It'll be fun, doing laundry and dishes, heck we may even do a little baking if I feel up to it. I had too much happen last week and over the weekend to allow me the luxury of just relaxing............................. We'll pick up where we left off tomorrow I htink, unless one of the kids actually asks to do some lessons.

Melissa and phonics- Oh, my!

Well, moving her down to K phonics has been a really good decision. Tomorrow she'll do her last bit of 1st semester of phonics. She's really grown and developed a huge amount of confidence in her skills with this move down like that, and is quite fluent with her reading at the K phonics level. I'm very happy with the progress she's made so far. So, I thought I may give her a week or two (or maybe even 3) off phonics instruction to just enjoy her reading abilities. I'm thinking she can play at starfall, I'll get out all our earliest phonic readers that she can read and leave them where she can readh them, and we'll focus on another subject for the time she's taken off (I certainly have enough science that she can do, she likes science so I'm sure that taking time off phonics to do extra science will NOT bother her one bit) She's just done so well with phonics that I really can't think of a reason to jump straight into second semester work right off. If I encourage her to read daily and write daily, and we practice the sight word flashcards a bit each day, she'll do just fine for the little break I'm thinking we should take. There are a lot of really cool science labs in the upcoming unit that I think she'll want to do, so we're going to definitely add some extra science into the mix for her. Today's experiment has us blowing up balloons to different sizes and weighing them to see how much air weighs, and the one after that has us working with the stove, ice, and other frozen goodies (can we say ICE CREAM!!!!!!) lol I have a feeling that she'll really like the upcoming science stuff...................

Now if only I could get Lydia past this hump in her phonics, she got to the unit that has her reading words and it made her screech to a stop. So I'm going to be backing up with her for a week, doing some practice from lessons we already did in the past to help build her confidence again and help her make that connection. We'll do that for about a week I think, and then pick up unit 9 again.

another Monday, another week

Well, this morning I had a teleconference with our teacher. Now, let me first say that she is a WONDERFUL person and is extremely relaxed about things, and always has a lot of great ideas for presenting something to the girls when the OLS suggestions don't work and my mind isn't working too well. Anyway, we had our meeting and then the girls had a short session with her on the computer in the online classroom. Today she went over rhyming with Lydia and did some reading with Melissa. Lydia mixed up rhyming words matching and matching words by their beginning sounds, but that's my fault because we've spent a lot of time on distinguihing the individual sounds within a word. I don't know hwo the child learned to read because she can't pick single sounds out very well at all. Melissa, she did so well with reading that she was waiting on the teacher to type out sentences so that she could finish reading them to her lol

We also discussed Lydia's KRA-L test that she did last month. Lydia flew through it, working right on grade level with everything. She only missed the letter Nn in the whole test. That's a consistent thing here lately too, she somehow forgot the letter N exists lol We also discussed how Lydia's doing with her writing letters and numbers. She has gross and fine motor delays from being born a month early, and it is especially apparent with her schoolwork that involves her writing. Her hand gets tired easily and she has a lot of trouble with forming her letters and numbers correctly. She just doesn't have full control over her hands yet for this particular task. Her teacher is perfectly fine with me doing almost all of the writing for her at this point, especially since she knows I'm working with her daily for a couple minutes on printing and on developing her fine motor skills.

Overall, we had a good teleconference. The next one will be November 30th at 10:30am.

Our first quarter- DONE

Today marks the end of the first 9 week grading period for us. I know its not a major thing, finishing 1/4 of the school year. But for us it is a huge milestone, this is our first year of homeschooling and we have been really nervous about sticking to it. So here are the stats, are you ready?

So far this 9 weeks, the girls have each completed...................

Lydia-
44% math K
22% phonics K
18% lang. arts K
15% history K

I know not all those numbers are great, but you can definitely tell her strong point. Her numbers are going to change a little bit, as we are probably going to do a history lesson today and Scott is going to do a lang. arts lesson tonight (he does the read aloud part of it at bedtime and I do the actual seatwork during lessons the following day, so we usually have 2 or 3 lang. arts lessons done at one time)

And now for Melissa-
25% math 1
39% phonics K
18% lang. arts K
22% history 1
8% science 1
10% art 1
sufficient progress in violin lessons

OK so some of her numbers aren't close to being as good as Lydia's are. We had a few things get involved that caused us some difficulties. Melissa has ADHD and we had some nasty viruses run through here a couple times this school year, so we're playing catch-up still. I anticipate that by the end of 2nd quarter we'll have everything caught up (you can tell which two subjects are not my strong suits LOL) Melissa is doing some of the behind subjects this weekend, so those numbers will go up a little as well. Math is right on, but we are just happy that she's at the place where she LIKES math and she's good at it too so doubling up math lessons hasn't been much of an issue (some days she's even done 3 math lessons because she likes it that much) I'm going to play around with how I teach each subject, we'll see how my idea works.

But honestly, I think we've done pretty good with lessons and being at least semi-consistent with teaching the girls. Especially when you consider I have a 3 year old and a 2 year old to work around............... lol

high hopes for this week

Well, last week was a total waste for us. We got sick and a whole host of other stuff happened. So, no biggie we'll just get on and pick up where we lest off. I'm really hoping that this week we can start to make some progress with getting things done and caught up again. The girls spent a lot of time playing on their computers and watching tv and listening to me read. Not really much, but hey its better than lying around picking at their feet I guess LOL If yesterday is any indication, they are almost at 100% again after that round of illness, so we resume as normal today. I may try to squeeze a second math lesson in on Melissa today, we'll see how she responds to it though. I'm just going to play it by ear and see what happens.

Now, we do have one interesting thing I want to share. Last week, Melissa also started meds for ADHD. Its a pretty clear-cut case too, and she resonded quickly to meds in a positive way. However, I feel like it is working just flat out TOO well. She's calm and able to focus, but unfortunately she doesn't really want to do much of anything now. It may just be her starting them and being sick that was causing it, but she literally has been lazy and clingy the last few days. I can't seem to get her off me, she's constantly hugging and kissing me and right up by me watching intently everything I do. I think I may be calling the doctor this week to see if that is even close to normal. I may just try to keep working with her unmedicated until she's older, just to see if she does improve on her own like I keep hoping she would do. I'm not sure I like the child she's turning into with the Adderall, although it is really helping her to focus a lot better.

This week, in addition to the mountain of schoolwork we need to start catching up on, I have to catch up on a LOT of laundry and dishes, along with getting the house cleaned back up again. I really am not looking forward to this week, there's just so much to do and I don't know if I can get things back under control with cleaning our house and doing lessons and just everything that's involved. Oh, and I have to take Melissa to get her new glasses today, and Lydia has soccer practice tonight. I don't know if she's really up to it yet, but I'm going to take her anyway since I had a parent who obviously thinks that a soccer game is more important than a healthy kid because he ripped into me Saturday for keeping my sick kids home, making it so that Lydia's team didn't have enough players for the game and they had to forfeit. So, I'm going to make a point and take them all to her practice today, she's the only one that I don't think is really fully recovered yet. I figure her sisters can all bundle up and play on the playground while I sit at the picnic table and she is lying there on me bundled up watching practice. I just hope that the other parent gets my point with that, especially since we'll be doing it again on Tuesday with Melissa's practice. I am NOT amused, some people take peewee sports way too seriously...........................

oh no, tv's down lol

I hate getting up in the mornings before 8am if I'm not feeling too great. I've trained the kids for htis in fact. They know that if I'm not up when they get up, they are allowed to QUIETLY go out to the living room and watch tv (usually Disney or PBS depending on their mood, sometimes Noggin) Well this morning I got the RUDE wakeup of Melissa climbing all over me, bouncing and yelling that the tv isn't working. Our satellite isn't working properly. So we suffered through some ceral with a barely-functioning mom, and I then called our phone company to find out what's going on. My first thought was that we forgot to pay the bill, but its not that. Our bill is 100% current with no balance. Apparently, Dish is having issues right now and they are working to get their programming up again, everyone is without tv right now. Its a good thing I already gave Melissa her meds or I'd have a very angry child bouncing all over the place yelling about it. Instead, I have kids playing in the bedroom. They are pretending to run a restaurant. I'm really starting to like Adderall at the moment..........................

Now I just need to get myself woke up and functional so we can do lessons while we wait on the tv to come back up again. When it does come back up, I'm going to sneak off to take a nap while the kids watch it for a bit since I got up a couple hours earlier than I needed to this morning (I didn't sleep well last night)

illness and a broken nose *lol*

Yes that is an interesting combination, isn't it?

Details aside, Scott and I were goofing around last week and it ended in my nose bleeding all over the place. Total accident, I promise. Anyway, I have a broken nose now as a result. But on a positive note, I'm no longer snoring at night................... lol So no more sore throats in the morning YAY Have you ever tried to do lessons while slightly foggy from pain meds or while distracted by the pain of an injury? It ain't fun, I'll tell ya. But we're surviving.

And on top of it, I had the pleasure of taking Lydia to the doctor today for a sick visit. All 4 kids are sick with the same virus. With her symptoms, Scott and I were worried about the possibility of the flu, and with H1N1 in particular. We don't do flu shots and are opting out of the H1N1 vaccine as well for our own reasons, but today has me at least starting to reconsider this stance. Especially with Kimmy and me having asthma, we are both prone to lung infections and have both almost been hospitalized from complications of infections. Well, thankfully its not H1N1, and its not the flu. Its a nasty chest cold that we need to watch to be sure it doesn't turn to bronchitis or worse over the next few days.

So what does all this have to do with our schooling the kids? Easy, it means that we're not going to do too much in terms of lessons for a few more days. Now I'm going to go lie down on the sofa for a bit until Scott gets home in a few so that I can retreat to the bedroom.

aaaaaahhhhhhh the joys of soccer

I swear, when this school year is over I am never signing up Lydia for soccer again. She is really good at it, and she enjoys it. So what's the problem you ask? She refuses to play or practice if I'm not literally on the field with her. That works fine for practices, her coach doesn't object to it because its an extra pair of hands that actually are semi-familiar with playing soccer. But at games, well lets just say it takes a lot of bribing and coaxing to get her on the field for any of the second half. The one time we got her there at the beginning of the game, she stood there and HOWLED at the top of her lungs like it was the most horrible torture on earth. She is definitely more of a ballet kind of child, soccer was NOT a good idea for her.

At least Melissa gets out there and plays though. Even if she is kicking the ball into her own goal and stops to chase butterflies or pick flowers during a game LOL

The only really cute thing about Lydia's soccer is when Jordan runs out during practices and starts playing with them (like she did today, they used the extra balls to mark goals until she took one and started playing soccer like the big kids *oops*) I have a feeling she'll do great at soccer in a couple years, she sure loves it right now (just like Melissa did, heck Melissa we bought a soccer game for her for Christmas a couple years ago to play on our PS2 and she was in heaven playing it with daddy's help)

Wrap-up time, Jordan is licking my computer desk again to get my attention LOL

well, we're close on hours at least

So, every month our OHVA teacher sends us a calendar with the rough guidelines for weekly hours to log for our students in K and 1st grade. It also has diagnostic testing listed on it and stuff like that, so there's more than just hours guidelines listed. It has a spot to the side to list supplemental attendance if we want, and a couple ideas under it for some fun supplemental activities to do with our children. I print this calendar off EVERY month for the hours guidelines so I can see where we are. Well, since Scott was on vacation last week we didn't do all our schoolwork, so we've got a bit of making up to do this week and next week. Lydia's fine, she's 35 hours over the guideline (she loves schoolwork and wants to do extra assignments, it'll even out at the end of the school year probably) so I'm not worried about her not meeting guidelines. But Melissa, she's 10hrs short after last week. She usually stays right at guideline, so all that missed time is from last week. Guess the next couple weeks I'll be adding one extra assignment in for her to play "catch up" in hours, we're short in music and science so those will be the areas we add in extra for sure.

next year?

So, we're exploring options for next school year so that we can start saving money *if* we decide to go away from OHVA. We're looking at a few different programs, and I'm starting to branch out from the stuff I am failiar with into different areas. I know I don't want anything that takes a lot of prep work for me to do successfully (part of why OHVA works so well for us, I like to be lazy about prepping to teach) but I like having interaction with the girls and feeling and seeing what they are learning while they do it.

I've looked at Switched On Schoolhouse for when the kids each hit that level that they can do the work, and I like it because it doesn't take a *lot* of work for me. However, I don't like it because they would be doing all the learning themselves without my direct involvement like I am doing now (I'm not sure I'm ready for that kind of teaching to happen suddenly in one school year, I prefer that they go more independent slowly like they are now with a few subjects)

Sonlight. Ahhhhhh beautiful Sonlight. I own 3 cores, 2 lang. arts, and a science. I love their materials obviously. Great quality materials, wonderful books. We LOVE great literature and learning through reading. So, what is the problem with it? Too much legwork for me to prep for the day. I also am finding that I prefer to hand out a worksheet for comprehension instead of asking questions and gauging her answers for comprehension, and I feel like its not *quite* guided enough. Its perfect for preschool though, which is where we'll stay with for now.

Tapestry of Grace. Hmmmmmm now this one is a bit more complicated. Its a lot like Sonlight, but not at the same time. I LOVE how the program is set up on a classical 4 year history cycle, from creation to current day. I love how all levels are included in one guide for each unit of the year plans. I even like the activities that are suggested in TOG for further study and reinforcement. I mean come on, they have LAPBOOK KITS you can buy for each unit. It would really fit well for us with my love of literature for learning, the hands-on that the kids love with all the activities, and they have quizzes that I can buy to give me the worksheets that I like to use. So what is the downside? Prep time involved. The year plans are expensive enough for us that I'd have to do the first year of each plan piecing together the books from thrift stores, yard sales, and the local library. Too much legwork for me lol But it is awfully tempting still..................

Calvert. Oh man, don't start on this one. I like the text-based thing for some reason. It makes teaching the kids really simple. The huge downside is the cost, obviously. I've been eyeballing Calvert since Melissa was just a year old.

So, I've found a lot of options that I can discount easily because of cost, prep work involved, or a number of other reasons. Not looking good for us if we decide not to stay with OHVA................ lol I am still exploring options, and weighing the pros and cons of each. So, why is it that we are looking at possibly leaving ohva after this year you ask?

We have 2 children back to back, one in K and the other in 1st grade. I do their work with them individually, and I'm noticing a few little issues. First, Melissa is studying ancient history in 1st grade, which follows Story of the World pretty well. Lydia is studying world geography and a few fun tidbits about each country while we're at it for 1st semester, and will do American history a bit for second semester. Next year, Lydia will do the history Melissa's doing this year, and Melissa will move up to the second stage of world history (following SOTW vol. 2 fairly closely from what I hear) I'm not sure if it would be a good idea to have me teaching a time period in history two years in a row for at least 4 years, until Melissa is old enough to go independently with her history studies.

That is just one reason though. Second would be the requirement for "social" face to face events. We are required to attend 4 events each school year that the kids are signed in for. Meaning, I can do one on one with each kid and do a total of 8 events, or I can do 4 and sign both in together each time (so far this is how we're doing it) I don't do social situations well at all. Anyone who knows me, they have probably noticed that I don't do well with a lot of eye contact and I have a hard time on occassion with carrying a normal conversation. I also have annoying little tics that happen when I'm in a situation that makes me nervous, I start counting my kids over and over to make sure they are all here, I bounce my legs (5 bounces on one, then 5 on the other, and repeat), and other little things that aren't as noticeable. I don't do well in social situations. I FORCE myself to do them though, so that the girls are given the social outlet that they need since they aren't in a public school stuck with 25+ kids their age all day in a classroom sitting at desks/tables doing worksheets and being reprimanded if they talk to their "seat neighbors" Now this social requirement they have is a pro and a con both. If I didn't have the requirement, then I'd probably not go out at all except for soccer practices and games, and the occassional daytime shopping trip (I prefer to go shopping after the kids are in bed at 8pm) That is a pro for it. Now the con is that I have a mild anxiety attack every time I walk out the front door to head to a social situation, and it takes everything I have in me to not crawl out of my skin and run screaming back inside and under the covers on my bed to shake like a leaf. I obviously have gotten really good at bottling that up, I can now hold it in until I get home and am able to escape and just shake a while. (I had soccer games this morning at 9am and 10am, and I came home and pretty much immediately went back to bed to hide for 4 hours)

However, you can't beat the price of OHVA. Everyone likes a free curriculum, and its a really good one too. It fits our style, and provides the accountability that we need to actually do lessons daily. I have someone that I'm held accountable to, and am required to actually teach the kids and log my time for the work we did. Its not that bad of a deal for us.

See the problem with pros and cons lol

Right now I'm researching the Robinson curriculum. I found a link to it in an ad banner on facebook, of all places. I'm not too familiar with it, so I'm going to be taking time ot read about it. It appeals to me because its a more independent program from what I see, and it is one that I just purchase one time (only have to buy math books for it) But I don't know enough about it yet to make much of a decision yet.

violin lessons with Melissa

I've really been hesitant about violin lessons, and for good reason. See, we did our budget and we decided we could afford violin lessons for Melissa, but then we had a hole come up in our budget. My dad lost his cell for the 4th time in 2 years, and we decided that instead of renewing our contract (yes I know its not smart to have a phone for him on OUR account) and we decided not to renew our contract so that we could get him a new phone and number (the person that has his phone was making calls to Germany on his phone) This means that my father is no longer contributing to the cell phone bill, but we are counting it as a worthy cost to not have to worry if he has his phone or not any more.

So I'm teaching her violin myself. I am NOT one to teach my own kids an instrument, it just scares me. However, because of the change in budget, I have to teach her if she's going to learn for now. I'm sucking it up and working with her on it. We are reviewing the parts of the violin, how to hold instrument and bow properly, and sitting/standing properly each lesson and then doing a couple minutes of introducing the new concept or working on an existing concept, followed by Melissa practicing while I am there to correct her position and assist her with the concept we worked on. The current lesson is up and down bowing, pizz. playing (that's the fancy way of saying plucking instead of bowing) and open D and open A for notes. She's having a blast, we are doing different rhythms for playing right now and she loves the challenge of bowing the rhythm I clap for her to echo. She's got a pretty good ear for rhythm in fact, and is getting the concept rather quickly of bowing on one string at a time (except when the music says to play on two strings at once, which will come much later in lessons) I'm actually impressed with how well she's doing at violin lessons, especially since I am NOT a violin teacher. I much prefer to play instead of teaching, but this works for now.

I always SWORE that I would NEVER teach my own children how to play an instrument, that I knew my limits and that an instrument is my limit. Well, what happened to that limit? lol I'm still not teaching other peoples' kids though, I'm not sure I could handle that one. I'm a gifted classical musician, NOT a teacher.

You know what they say. Those who can, play. THose who can't, teach.

finding individual strengths

I've been thinking about this all school year. Melissa is NOT a bookish child, but she tries so hard to enjoy schoolwork and find a subject that she's good at. It bothers her so much when Lydia gets a concept that she's struggling with, so I had to split them up even with the lessons they do together. Its more work for me, but I'm fine with that as long as they learn at their pace and are confident. However, I still am on the hunt to find what each individual girl is strong in, and what she enjoys. It is important to me personally to find that one little spot where they truly shine. Here is what I've discovered so far from doing this.

Lydia is a fairly easy to teach kid. She loves history and geography, and does really well in it. Phonics and language arts is a breeze for her, and same with math. She gets a concept very quickly and has incredible retention. However, she is NOT an organized sports kind of girl, she prefers the fine arts for physical education instead (stuff like ballet is right up her alley, however she does well with almost any sport she tries)

Melissa has been a difficult child to figure out. She is not an academic child. She thrives on sports, the outdoors, and anything that gets her really moving. She has trouble with reading, and isn't very coordinated. She also is nearsighted and needs to wear glasses, as well as being left-handed. Figuring her strength out has been more difficult in the academic arena because its just not something that really is her thing. She likes doing worksheets and writing, and has wonderfully creative ideas for stories and songs and such. She's also very interested in music like I am. She is just starting violin lessons with me, and already shows great potential. However, with academics I had to look at her strengths in a different way. She is ok with history, she enjoys it but doesn't really get excited about it. She can take it or leave it. Phonics and language arts, I don't even need to explain that one I think. However, when it comes to math she not only does well, but she enjoys it as well. Right now we are working on subtracting from numbers up to 6, and she's doing great. She did two lessons within 25 minutes today, she is currently doing her test for the second lesson. She has yet to get a NOT perfect score on a math test, and I highly expect her to finish her math book by Christmas at the rate she's going.

My girls may be only 12 months apart in age, but they are so drastically different in strengths and what they enjoy. I am so happy to have this opportunity to teach them myself, and work to their strengths like I can.

wow, this is working well

You know, I was REALLY nervous about how this school year was going to go. I had such a hard time last year, I had no freaking CLUE what to do or expect when I started last year and I got overwhelmed fast and couldn't do it as a result. That ended Melissa in public school January, halfway through her K year. So needless to say, I was just a little apprehensive about how this year would go.

Well this year is the TOTAL opposite of last school year. We are cruising nicely, getting all our assignments done, and I haven't felt this capable in a long time. Lydia is wrapping up her unit on Austrailia this week, Melissa's plugging away nicely on ancient Egypt and the early nomadic life, and both girls are making great progress in their lang. arts, phonics, and math. Science is a bit rough because I really DON'T want to do this one experiment involving melting popsicles in different areas and tracking how long it takes (I've put this one lesson off for a week and a half now) but dangit we are going to do it Saturday if I put it off again tomorrow (I'll make Scott do the actual experiment with her so that I don't have to deal with the mess, I'll teach the lesson though that's before the experiment and I'll observe him doing the experiment and help her record the results of it all but I refuse to melt perfectly good popsicles lol)

In math Melissa's working on subtraction, and Lydia's just finishing up a unit on tally marks and picture graphs. Lydia will take her test today or tomorrow, depending on how fast she moves through the last 3 lessons before it (hey the child is doing 3-6 lessons a day in math, she is soaking it up and retaining like its nothing at all, plus the majority of it so far has been review for her) Melissa last week did an addition unit (ok it was a week and a half unit, remember we do school 6 days a week so that we can take light days if we want and it will all even out in the end) and has nailed her addition up to 6 facts. We haven't memorized them yet, but she's slowly memorizing them as we review them. I'm expecting that the same will happen with our subtraction facts that we're working on now.

Phonics, well Melissa blew by Lydia in that area but she's a year older and I expected it. We are starting unit 8 with Melissa, which I expect her to do in 2 days after reading through the lessons for the unit. Lydia is in unit 7, today she's doing lesson 2. There are 5 lessons in a phonics unit by the way, so in theory we are supposed to finish one unit each week. But Melissa, I'd like her to finish phonics K by Christmas and so far its looking like she will. Lydia will move at whatever her pace is, and if she doesn't finish K phonics by Christmas then we'll just keep going her pace and finish when we do, and I'll fill in with Explode The Code or something like that to keep her skills up.

Yep, its a good year so far for us, we are having a blast doing all the work that we have. I'm REALLY glad that we stuck with OHVA for this year instead of trying to go independent. Its really helped me to stay on track to do lessons daily, given me the structure that I need to stay consistent, and its made life easy because I just have to look at the computer screen and do what it says to for each lesson to teach it instead of trying to figure it out on my own.

I do believe we found our niche in the homeschooling community, even if we aren't "real" homeschoolers because we aren't independent. I know my limits, and a virtual academy is my limit at this point. We may go independent later, as all 4 kids join in on lessons, but for now it TOTALLY works for me to do this way. We're good, lessons are good, life is good. The only downside is that I'm cycling again so I've hit a paranoid phase. Its definitely making things interesting, I hope this doesn't last long and that the depression I'm going to enter doesn't last long either (I don't usually get manic stages with my type of bipolar disorder, if your curious I'm a type II bipolar, which is much closer to some more serious diagnoses than I'd like to be)

money skills

Now I KNOW for a fact that last school year Melissa did work on coins how much they are worth and all that stuff. Well, so far this year every single time we've come across a review involving coins she goes "uhhhhhhh" and doesn't know what any of them are if they aren't a penny. I am really disgusted by this, I KNOW she came home with worksheets that she did in school about the value and names of different coins because I hung a couple on our fridge. She got good scores on those sheets too. So how is it that she has NO CLUE how to tell a dime from a quarter?

Good thing I had purchased Lydia the Kumon counting coins book to do this year, I've got Melissa doing it instead right now. She's started at the beginning, working on counting pennies. We'll be doing this for a few days or longer, however long it takes her to work through the entire book. I'm not going to keep playing around with this, being able to accurately count money out is way too important of a skill for her to fumble on it for very long.

She's definitely not liking me too much at the moment though, especially since I'm having her do ALL the pennies pages today (she already knows how to work with pennies, its the others she can't do)

music revisited

Well, we are going to attempt to get Melissa into Suzuki violin lessons in the spring, we can't do it right now because of cost issues. We're going to save up for her lessons. However, we did go ahead yesterday after soccer and get her a violin and a book so I can start working with her on it a little bit. She's alerady in a 1/4 size violin, almost a 1/2 size but we chose to get the smaller one strictly because I can always trade up with our rental when she hits that growth spurt that requires a bigger one. So, we got the first book of the violin program I was taught with in public school, and I'm going to start working with her on the basics. Tomorrow we will start learning, and I'm going to begin with teaching her the parts of the violin. I want her to be able to name them all before Thanksgiving, which I have complte faith that she can do that if we work together on it. Her violin is freshly tuned (by me and my good ear) and sitting in my bedroom waiting (we gotta protect it from the 2 year old LOL) I am going to spend some time today searching for some printables for her on the parts of the violin, and maybe I'll attempt to do a lapbook with her on this. That would be a really fun way for her to learn them I bet.

I'm only going to focus this first week on the parts though. And we won't spend the entire lesson time working on it, I'll also work with her on how to hold the instrument for playing and begin some bowing so that she can make some squeaky noise for daddy lol There are so many things she'll need to learn with playing the violin, this lapbook is going to get HUGE I think. Maybe I'll get a binder and some more cardstock instead of doing a traditional lapbook.................. lol Although I could do it like a friend of mine did the "Finding Nemo" lapbook with her daughter last school year, we'll see how big it gets this first week of making the little minits for it.

foreign language

Yes I know, I teach a lot already to the kids with us doing soccer practices and games, studying ancient history and basic world geography, math, phonics, language arts, music, and art among other things. So why on EARTH would I choose to take on yet another subject for the girls to tackle? Its quite simple actually.

My Kimmy has a mild speech delay, and is still having trouble communicating clearly with the rest of us sometimes. Also, Jordan has hit that place in life when my girls tend to want to say more than they can actually verbalize, and it causes a great deal of frustration and leads to some fun little temper tantrums that I absolutely despise in toddlers LOL So, we teach some sign language for basic signs starting as soon as they can begin trying to flap their arms intentionally. We teach basics like "milk" and "eat" and "sleep" along with "more" and a few other basics (some you just don't need to bother with, I swear the word NO is the first one my kids seem to master with clarity and meaning LOL) Well, my older girls have been watching me work with Kimmy and JoJo on some signs to expand a little more, and have asked to learn more signs as well. SO, Scott and I discussed it and we agreed that I should go ahead. I did some looking around, and at the suggestion of a fellow homeschool mom in my church ward, I decided to purchase the "Signing Time" DVDs, or as many as we can afford. This weekend, I am planning to make this purchase for the girls. They can watch one daily to give me a few minutes to take a shower or do other chores that they usually get in the way during (like dishes lol or a phone conversation with an old friend that I've recently gotten in contact with again) Since I am *fairly* confident in my own sign language, I just need to brush up, I won't need to watch the DVDs with the girls every time, just the first one or two times to jog my memory hopefully.

Also, with my doing sign language with the kids, perhaps it will help me to regain my language problems from the stroke I had earlier this year. I'm at a place where I'm willing to try almost anything to get that back to where it was. I'm sure that it can't hurt, and it may also help with my hand function on my right side a bit so that I'm not dropping things quite so much.

ooooops

OK for this one I need to give a bit of background. And then you can have a good hard laugh at my expense.

On labor day, Scott noticed that our front yard was soggy and that there was a big puddle on our walkway that was bubbling between the walkway cracks. Great. So we called the water department and had them come look at it, they confirmed that it was a broken water main. So, we called plumbers to get it fixed (apparently the water main is our responsibility from the street shutoff, we thought it was from the outside meter) So, on Monday the backhoe came in and dug a nice 120 ft ditch in my yard from street to house, and they shut off the water. I was prepared, they gave us a week to get ready for this. I had every bit of laundry and dishes done plus gallons of water waiting for drinking, cooking, and toilet flushing. The water was shut off Monday around 11am, and was back on at 2pm Tuesday. Not too bad I think, and we got an all new main, new meter, and replace our hot water tank lines too (we knew it needed done but Scott's been putting it off so I added that in to the repair because I got sick of waiting on him to do it LOL) So, $3,300 later we're all set and done. I have a long mound of dirt in my yard, and part of my drivewy was torn up from it, but I have running water and NO leaks. That's the important thing. lol

So, as a result of this work I have been flushing all our water lines as I need them. I did the kitchen and bathroom immediately, and then flushed my hot water tank. Well, this morning it was time to do the washer lines. So I took the drain hose out of the pipe, and one at a time I flushed my water lines for about 5min each (I wanted to be 100% sure all the junk was out) Then I put the lines back and ran a sanitize cycle since it hasn't been run in a few days (just in case something was growing). Then I went to do my dishes.

After I finished the dishes, I sat down at the computer to play a game just as the washer strated draining water. I noticed that it sure was loud, and then remembered. I didn't put the drain hose back in the pipe after flushing my lines. I effectively flooded my laundry room floor.

As a result, my laundry room floor is cleaner than its been in the 6 years my family has owned this house (especially the year that we've lived here) and its cleaner than it will ever be again as long as my family lives here.

Yes I can laugh about it now, but it was NOT funny when I first did it and had to go find my mop (which I quit using when my dad gave me a swiffer and a bunch of wet pads)

music lessons

Well, I had a teleconference with our OHVA teacher yesterday. She got on the computer with each girl solo to see how their skills are going in math as well. Anyway, she asked me how we like things and how its all working out, especially with music (I've done ONE lesson of their curriculum, I don't care for it much as a professionally-trained musician) She listened to my thoughts on it, and then said that she thought it may benefit my family better to have music as an attendance-only subject instead of a curriculum subject (she offered to do art that way too but honestly if I don't have curriculum for art we'll never do it lol) So now I'm free to teach music lessons how *I* want to do them. So here's my take, remember I'm approaching with a very strong musical training background.

The girls are going to listen to some of the greatest classical works of our history, as exposure and to try and create a soothing background to our lessons time. We'll enjoy works like Moonlight Sonata and Beethoven's 5th, great vocals like Ave Maria and the Hallelujah Chorus. The girls will hopefully gain a beginning of a deep appreciation for these works, and others similar to it (trust me, I have quite the collection of classical music, I think I have over 100 CDs and can play many of them as well) We'll attend outdoor concerts when weather permits, to further this exposure. We will also learn tidbits here and there on different composers, just basics at this point since they are young still. Also, if our budget allows it, we may include violin lessons when soccer season is over for the fall for Melissa. I started piano at only 2 years old, so I'm a firm believer in starting to play an instrument at a young age if they are interested. Melissa wants to learn the violin, she knows I can play it fairly well and has taken quite an interest in the group Celtic Woman, particularly the solo violinist. Lydia will tag along with appreciation at this point, perhaps taking her own lessons if we can swing that as well (mommy's going to teach the violin lessons at first until soccer is over, we're going to learn the names of each part before getting the instrument and then we'll go from there with learning to hold it and make sound and then working on rhythm, I'll let the teacher we hire teach her how to play notes and she'll learn to read music later probably just because she can't read books yet, let alone music)

So, looks like this weekend Scott and I will be taking Melissa up to Martin Music here in Newark for her very first violin. They are so cute when they are the size she needs................ lol I guess I better start looking for a teacher for her, I think I'd prefer one trained in Suzuki method but any training will work if she can scratch out a squeaky "Twinkle Twinkle" after a year of lessons (that's the problem with starting young, it takes longer to learn the basics)

My last day with a 1 year old

Tomrrow Jordan will be 2 years old. Now, normally I have another infant by now, but this time we're not even pregnant yet. We are enjoying this time with our girls and working out other issues with my health before adding more to our family. Anyway, this is a bit of a strange moment for me. I never had this position of parenting a 2yo and not having a younger child as well, so I can spend more time working with Jordan on her temper and meeting her needs than I have with the other girls. We are enjoying this place in life right now, we are looking hopefully at the end of the diaper tunnel and we are done with the crib and highchair. But man it feels odd to know that there's not another baby in the near future here. Instead, I'm focusing on helping my little girls become young ladies, into becoming someone that I can be unendingly proud of. Now don't get me wrong, we are proud of our girls every day, but I'm talking that long term goal of making wonderful free thinkers who will not stand by and let someone stomp them down. Women who know what they want and aren't afraid to go for it, no matter the cost. THAT is what we are working toward now, and its a very slow road with a lot of difficulty.

Yep, its an interesting time in our home. Looking down the path we are taking and seeing the end result we are striving for, and seeing it just a little closer, always makes for an interesting time.

Melissa's live session

This afternoon Melissa had her live session with her teacher, and the teacher agreed that she does need to go down to phonics and lang. arts K in our curriculum. She spent about an hour in the live elluminate session, playing some letter games and doing some reading. She didn't do too bad, but still her teacher agreed that she needs to go down for some holes in her phonics skills and to help her build her confidence before we start pushing her. The paperwork has been filled out and submitted, and I should know by the end of the week if they will approve her going down a level (she said they are really good about doing that if the teacher submits paperwork for it, especially when the paperwork states that the parent came to the teacher with the concern) So, we're going to be doing phonics and lang. arts K with both girls this school year, and Melissa will move back up to 1st grade level when she is ready (hopefully around mid-year)

weekend backyard science with daddy

Scott has really opened up to the lifestyle of teaching our kids at home I think. Usually on weekends, he sits at the computer playing T4C or at the tv playing football on his PS3. Well, today we got Dairy Queen for lunch (he's making life easy on me this weekend, I had a procedure done Friday and am still a tad sensitive and sore from it) and in the girls' kids meals were bug houses. They are just little things, about the size of a crayon box with a vented lid and a sliding magnifier on the side. Anyway, Scott took the kids out in the back yard on a bug hunt. They each caught a different bug in their houses, and they are all at the table out back, looking up their bugs in the animal encyclopedia and learning neat tidbits about them. They have been at it for an hour now, and they are LOVING this time with daddy. They got a grasshopper, a millipede, and a ladybug so far. They are even letting Jordan in on the fun, showing her the different bugs and teaching her how to say their names. lol

Melissa and phonics

Well, tomorrow Melissa has a live online session with her teacher to evaluate her to see if she needs to go back into phonics and lang. arts K instead of staying in grade 1 level. Scott thought is was silly to consider putting her back, so today I did her unit 1 assessment for phonics. She should have done the unit 2 assessment on Friday, if that tells you how much she's struggling. Anyway, he was listening to us while I did her assessment, and when he realized that she can't do the work he was livid. Not at me or her, but at our local school district. They passed her to 1st grade even though she didn't pass the K reading assessment, they told me to work with her every day through the summer. Well, watching her literally in tears today over the first sentence she had to read to me in her assessment made him so mad, I've never seen him this mad about something before. He literally wanted to go find her teacher and hit that woman, but its not the teacher's fault. Her teacher worked with her every day on her reading in school, I worked with her daily also, she just isn't getting it. Reading just isn't clicking for Melissa at all, she can painfully sound out a word like "cab" (that's actually the word that got her to tears today, she just hit her limit right there with it) and knows some sight words but she's not ready for more complicated reading beyond that.

So tomorrow at 1pm she gets a live session with her teacher, the teacher already told me that its not a sign of failure on our part if she has to go back a level, and its not a problem if she goes slower than written through K phonics for a while as long as she is making progress. Her teacher agrees with me that Melissa needs tested for learning challenges, but can't say what to test for or when they can do it until after a couple live sessions and seeing a good bit of Melissa's work. We are just being patient on this one for now, and will see what happens.

But Scott and I are both in agreement on one thing. If OHVA gives us a hard time about Melissa's reading progress (especially after this year is up if she's not done with K phonics) then we're going to be pulling her from their program and work independently with her until her reading is up to grade level. Lydia may or may not stay in OHVA if that happens, we'll decide later based on how she does with this year's work and how we feel about the program overall after the school year is up. I'm not going to let a group of people who don't work with my girls daily tell us that they aren't doing well enough in their lessons somewhere, if this happens we'll be independent homeschoolers in a flash. I will NOT be bullied by a public school district again, not after the year Melissa had in public K last year.

joyful fun with lessons

So, today ends the official first week of ohva for us. Lydia's flying through lessons, and Melissa is doing OK. She's a bit behind in phonics/LA but that's expected for her, she's been struggling in that area for a while. I had a talk with her teacher, and she wants to do a session online with Melissa to get information about how she's doing in that area to possibly move her down to K phonics/LA instead of 1st grade. Scott and I totally expected it, so we aren't objecting at all about it.

She also told us to just do the weekly assessments with Lydia in phonics/LA until we hit her place, so today we are doing the week 5 assessment with her. She's also doing a couple lessons at a time in math, but is doing really well with it. She's almost finished her first unit in math lol

Melissa really loves doing her history, science, art, and music lessons though. She thinks they are an absolute blast to do. We have some really pretty artwork already created and she's having fun reviewing what we learned in our first science lesson about measuring in centimeters vs. using your foot or handspan (or other things like that)

We also started soccer this week. Last night was Melissa's first practice, and tonight is Lydia's. Melissa has practice twice a week until the first game, then its once a week on Tuesdays. I'll get Lydia's practice schedule tonight. A dear friend of mine, her 6yo daughter and 5yo son are on my girls' teams, so if practices are the same day we have it covered lol We are playing in the local AYSO league, and I am loving it. Melissa's coach is tough but very understanding of kids who've never played before (like Melissa) and he has his assistant coach working with the new kids on basic kicking and such. I have to remember to put batteries in my camera and take it with me to the next practice so I can share a couple pics on here for you to see her in action. I'm really excited about being a soccer mom, as silly as that may sound. I know also that the girls are going to do great once they get the hang of playing. Melissa had a blast last night, although she was sooooooo tired after practice that she basically shovelled in her supper and then went to bed lol I hope tonight Lydia has fun, and actually goes out on the field to play instead of just clinging to me like she usually does. I'm going to try and get there early so that she can get used to the other kids and her coaches before practice starts, then maybe I can get her kicking her ball a little and that may help her get into the mood of playing. She's the one who needs the social outlets that I'm providing so many of, and the main reason I'm juggling 2 in soccer, 2 in girl scouts, and doing AWANA (any kid old enough will go off to their classes while I volunteer in the nursery, taking care of the ones too young to participate while their parents lead groups) I overscheduled our activities like that to try and get her some social outlet, she is the most ANTISOCIAL child I've ever seen. I think she'd rather eat spiders than interact with people, so I'm giving her opportunities (and likely wasting our money at the same time) and praying that eventually she'll come out of her shell.

Oh, and if you want to see how we spent yesterday morning, go check out my friend Tristan's blog for pictures of her "NOT back to school" gathering. It was a total blast!

our first day of ohva

Holy cow is all I can say LOL We are starting 2 weeks before the official first day purely because I want time to ease into lessons with the kids, and its a good thing I'm doing it this way. We've done about all I want to for today, but tonight we'll do art real fast after supper. So far today here's what we did:

Lydia's phonics
Lydia's lang. arts
Lydia's math (need to review tomorrow though before she can move on)
Melissa's phonics
Melissa's math (another reviewer for tomorrow)
Melissa's lang. arts started

Yep, we did that much today. I feel like it was a highly successful day, however it doesn't look really like we did a ton since math for both girls is review mainly (Lydia's managed to start with one of the few K concepts we didn't already teach her LOL) I was a bit surprised at how well today went, although Melissa had a total meltdown during lang. arts that indicated she needed a nap (which she went for an hour an a half in her bed, snoring away once she got over being hacked off at me for banishing her to bed lol) Yep, today was a very successful day, it was a great start to the new school year for us I think. It was dry and a bit boring for my taste, but its going to be a good year for us I think.

At least, we made the commitment to this school year with OHVA, and I have no intentions of leaving the program at all this year. Its going to be a rough transition for us all I think, I'm not used to teaching them FT like this and Melissa's not used to mom being her teacher, but I have a feeling it will go just fine this school year. And if we decide that we don't like it after all, we don't have to go back next school year. I flat out REFUSE to change what we are doing this year just because it may not be the easiest for me from the get-go and because its dry, I'm 100% certain that would damage the girls more than help them at this point so we'll be finishing this year no matter what we end up thinking of it. At least both girls absolutely loved having their worksheets to do, especially Lydia. They thought it was pretty cool, and working with the hands-on stuff to practice what we were working on certainly helped too.

interesting..........

I learned something this past few weeks having the girls all home and doing lessons. I am NOT capable of successfully homeschooling independently. I do not have the self-discipline or motivation to do it, we just aren't getting anywhere with it. I knew this would be an issue for us because of my lack of discipline, but I had no idea it would be as big of a problem as it is. In 4 weeks I have managed to do 1 week of lang arts for each kid, and a few pages of math with Melissa. I know its summer break, but I keep finding reasons to not spend time doing anything with the girls for lessons. They ask every day to do schoolwork, but I just can't seem to make myself stop dragging my feet about it. I have our approval letter and we have to report for Melissa this year, so this is really something I need to overcome.

So I came to a decision. Back when I decided to go independent I called my OHVA person and told her I wanted to withdraw the girls and she said ok then hung up on me. I never knew if she actually did or not until this morning when the UPS truck came to my house with boxes that contain a computer issued by OHVA for us to use for the kids' education. I was in the middle of cleaning up for an appraisal on the house for our refinance (gotta love the low interest rates!) and it took me a bit to figure out what it was for, I didn'get figure it out until I had already signed for the delivery and was taking boxes in my house with the UPS guy helping. I was totally clueless and then WHAM it hit me like "*slap slap* girl get a computer desk and get ready for the ride!" Ever have that feeling? Well, I am going with it for now. We will be sticking with OHVA after all I guess, it isn't even close to what I saw myself doing for educating the kids this year but with my stroke that happened, I feel like I need to just step back and let other things happen for a while. I know that the local public school is not where the girls are supposed to be, and the fact that things are working out like this for me with my mobility issues and memory problems, I just know this is a divine intervention. Am I irritated because the ohva person didn't withdraw our enrollment like I requested back in May? Sure I am. But now I see why things are happening this way. God knows that I can't do this on my own yet, that I need the help with it all to be successful. I really didn't imagine that I'd be withdrawing my notification to homeschool, but I am definitely doing that as soon as I can get through to someone in that department.

But I'm still going to be using as much of our Sonlight materials as possible, and I plan to pull pages from our Miquon books for each kid that go with the k12 materials, or use them as extra work if they want more after lessons for the day are done. I'm definitely NOT going to be returning what I bought, we're going forward with it and pushing through. The kids can't get enough schoolwork anyway, after all I'm the one that gave Sonlight the Christmas morning tale in their catalog for this year (its in one of their articles) My kids love doing schoolwork, and can't get enough of it right now (well, when they aren't practicing soccer for the season they are bugging me for schoolwork)

illness and a CT scan

I thought I'd give a little something on this, because there are several people that read this blog that I want to tell about this but I keep having issues that keep me from getting to the phone or able to e-mail them.

For the last few months, I've had a few health issues. It started in late March when I thought my allergies were acting up again. My nose was all plugged and I had trouble breathing and I was really dizzy with some mild head pain. After having a lot of trouble with it at Melissa's birthday party, I decided to try and make time to go to the doctor. Meaning, 6 weeks after it started I ended up at the doctor's office. If I had gone in immediately, it would have been a simple sinus infection. But because I had waited, it had spread to all my sinuses on the left side of my head, into my left ear, my eye was starting to swell shut, and it was causing pain up into my head above my left temple. I was given a high dose of penicillin (1000mg twice daily) and vicodin for the pain. After a few days I was starting to feel a little better so I figured all was getting better and I'd be fine.

On Memorial Day, however, things took a different turn. Since the infection had started, I started having migraines so bad that my left eye wouldn't want to open, and when I could force it to open it was droopy. Anyway, on Memorial Day I had a new turn of symptoms. We had gotten a new computer the day before, and I had gone out to get a desk for the computer to sit on that morning. I was in our room, assembling the desk, when I started fumbling things and having trouble keeping hold of screws and the hex wrench. Then I started getting dizzy, and my heart started beating irregularly. I stopped working on the desk for a bit to rest and try to get my head together again, and I noticed a funny thing with my vision. I had this cool zig-zag of flashing lights going across my upper right visual area, and above/ouside it I had really cloudy vision that faded to black while the vision on m other side of it was perfectly fine. I went to tell Scott about it, and started stumbling the entire way from our room to the living room where he was. When I tried to tell him, my words just wouldn't come easily at all, and I fumbled a lot trying to explain it to him. He decided to get pizza for supper that night to give me a break from cooking so I could rest, and while he was gone the funny vision stuff stopped and I got real heavy feeling, so I decided to lay down on the sofa. I closed my eyes, and felt my breathing slowing down and my heart pounding like it was jumping out of my chest. I felt myself sinking deeper into myself, and thought "it would be so easy to just go to sleep for a hundred years, I think I'm dying now" I felt no fear or concern, just peace and warmth. The girls kept climbing on me and smacking at me, talking to me, and just being pests so I forced myself to get up instead of going to sleep like I wanted so badly to do. About 2 hours after it all started, it was over and I was sort of back to normal.

I went to the doctor the next morning, and she said that it was my sugar and asthma acting up at just the right moment, and that my heart pounding was axiety because I have too many kids. She put me on Lexapro and sent me on my merry way. I took her pills, even though I knew she was wrong about the anxiety. When I went in to see her my right arm wasn't working right and my right leg was dragging, plus I was having some trouble coming up with the words and my head hurt so much. The pills she gave me made my head pain so much worse that even with the vicodin it was a 5 on a 1-10 pain scale, and I couldn't function. So I ended up back in her office, and she said it wasn't the Lexapro causing the problems and to just give it some time to start working well. I didn't take it for a few days and then tried it again, with the exact same thing happening again, so I threw away the pills. I also decided to get a second opinion with a different doctor.

My appointment for that second opinion was yesterday, and he was very concerned with all that has happened the last few months to me (especially the last couple weeks) and ordered a CT scan with contrast of my brain and sinuses. I was called today by the center doing the scan, and my appointment is tomorrow at 2:45pm for registration before my scan at 3:15. He is worried that I didn't just have sugar issues like my doctor said, that it was a type of stroke known as a TIA. He is especially concerned because I am still having issues with words not coming to me when I speak and type, forgetting things (like going to the Sonlight forums to read one of the boards, thinking halfway down the first page that I want to start a discussion about having a pet bunny, and then forgetting what I wanted to post about by the time I get scrolled back up to the top of the page), and my leg is still dragging a bit and I'm having trouble still with getting my right arm and hand to move and work the way I want. The pain in my head is less intense, and today I actually woke up for the first time with no pain at all and I still have no pain after 10 hours.

I'm tired of being sick, tired of not knowing what is wrong with me. I want so badly to just have my life back to how it was last year. I want answers, I want to know what is wrong and get it fixed as best we can. I don't know how all this will affect our decision to homeschool, but at this point we are still pushing forward with plans to continue at home. I can't imagine trying to juggle 2 kids in public school while going through a bunch of health problems and procedures and only God knows what else right now. I only know that we are supposed to homeschool, and the Lord will provide us with the ability to do it even through all this struggle with my health. Please, if you read my blog, say a prayer for my family. And if you feel compelled to, feel free to pass a link along to anyone else that may pray for us as we go through this trial.

Its funny though, on Monday I'm hoping to start a summer-long unit study of our body with some materials I borrowed from a friend of mine. I may be able to incorporate some of these tests I'm going through as material for helping teach this unit to the girls in a gentle way to help them better understand their bodies and what is going on with me. Only time will tell if I do that though. For now though, I'm going to just publish this and go make some chicken tacos for tonight's supper, and hope that I don't get too dizzy to finish supper.

started today

We had a bunch of stuff happen yesterday (translation: mommy ended up taking some vicodin and was knocked stupid after the stuff happened) so we didn't get to start summer term. So we started today. The girls did a few pages each in their HWT books, and then Lydia did some pages in a counting workbook while Melissa and I started on her Kumon telling time workbook together. After we did that, I read 2 stories from core P3/4 to them. We are going to read the entire core once through this summer, and then when we finish we'll move into P4/5 and do it the same way before we do core K.The first treasury we are reading through is Eloise Wilkins, we read the first two stories. They were a little young for Melissa and Lydia, but they loved the pictures and they got into the stories anyway. Kimmy had a blast listening to the stories because she is 3, the age they intend the core to be for. Now they are watching tv and resting (I hope they are resting a bit at least) so I'm taking some time at the computer.

I didn't think Melissa would get so excited to do schoolwork since she finished public just last week, but she's stoked that we are doing school at home now instead of waiting. I want to get her to read to me in a bit, so I'll get out the Fun Tales (Sonlight lang. arts K readers) and have her read the first one to me. We're going to do one of the books every day until they are done, and then the following Monday she'll start LA 1. I'm wanting to build her confidence before I jump into LA with her, so she doesn't refuse to do the work even though I know she can do it easily already. Also, next week I'm going to do a unit study on our bodies and nutrition for science. We're starting with just the basics for now though, once we get science added in and we are doing it daily then I'll add in a little world geography study (we'll do a "world tour" this summer, we'll learn the continents and oceans and talk about some of the famous places on each continent, then when we start our world history we'll add in the countries we study during the year under each continent, we'll have a binder for each girl to show what she's learned all year, and hopefully every year we can add to our world tour using a different color cardstock and paper each year to tell what we did each school year)

Not too exciting really, but its given me a LOT of confidence in my ability to actually do this. I hope every day of lessons goes this smoothly, although I already know that it won't go as well as it did today since we are pretty much just reviewing things the girls already know (and helping solidify Melissa's ability to tell time, after we do time we'll start on money)

anxious little boogers!

Well, I figured it would happen but hoped it wouldn't. I set us up a start date of June 22nd for summer "term" to start our school year off gently. I have ALL our supplies already, I'm just looking through them and becoming familiar with what we are doing. So, this is my summer plans for us:

core P3/4 at their desire
human body/ nutrition unit study (with a notebook for each girl)
Kumon time and money workbooks for Melissa
dollar store workbooks for both girls
finish HWT K with Melissa

Not much right? We're just keeping up our current levels of math and reading with the workbooks, and writing level with Melissa in HWT. I don't have grand plans for the summer, we're going to read and fine-tune Melissa's weak spots while learning about nutrition and our body. Well, Melissa and Lydia both asked me if they can start lessons tomorrow instead of waiting. LOL I guess having that stack of supplies for this fall has them excited to get going with it already. So, we're going to do just that, we'll start tomorrow and work through the workbooks, and when they are done we'll move into the curriculum for each subject (HWT cursive for Melissa, Sonlight LA K and 1 starts this fall PERIOD, and Miquon orange when they finish their dollar store workbooks) I can't believe I let them talk me into starting earlier than I wanted to. lol

Guess that happens when you decide to homeschool......................

Pizza Hut Book It program

I used to do this every year in school when I was young enough, and I loved getting my coupon each month to have pizza with my daddy. Well, this year we did Book It with Melissa and she didn't do too well, she only earned one coupon all year. So, we are going to try again, and I just signed her and Lydia both up for the program for the 2009-2010 school year. Registrations are now open, here's a link for homeschoolers:

www.bookitprogram.com/enrollment/homeschool.asp

I can't wait to do Book It! with these two, and I'm willing to bet they turn it into a contest to see who can earn her coupon first each month LOL If they do end up doing that, I'll make it a contest that the girl who goes the highest past the monthly goal gets to pick who takes them.

approved and box day

OK I'm taking a good moment right now to post. I've been sick for a couple months now, battling a major infection in my head. We thought we had it licked but its flaring back up again, and causing me a lot of problems and pain. This is that moment where the painkillers are kicked in but I'm not stupid yet, I just hope its long enough for me to finish.

Today's mail was a big day for me. I have been expecting a package from FedEx for our last workbooks that I ordered on Sunday. Well, it arrived, and I'm having trouble keeping Lydia away from the workbooks LOL Melissa is going to be stoked when she gets home in about an hour. Also, the USPS had a letter for me that I didn't expect quite so soon. I got my approval letter for Melissa to be withdrawn and homeschooled this upcoming school year. We are OFFICIAL now.

And now I go lay back down until my dad gets here so I can get Melissa from school. Hopefully the pretty colors are gone by then lol

My last materials shipped today!

Yesterday, I placed an order for math for Melissa and Lydia (we'll be doing Miquon math this year with both girls) and ETC 1 and the first pre-ETC book to finish off that part of their LA programs, and I checked my inbox to see that Sonlight has already shipped my order and gave me a tracking number for it. I *should* be having a box day on Friday if I calculated correctly, as shipping info isn't uploaded to FedEx online as of when I checked an hour ago. Perfect timing too, as Melissa's last day of public school (for the rest of her life!) is on Thursday so we can celebrate our kickoff to being a homeschool family again with an official box day. (only a homeschooler can understand that kind of excitement LOL) I am so looking forward to sharing with my girls a math program that inspired me as a child to love math and do so well with it as I did, and I have a feeling that we will have a *very* hard time waiting until our official summer start date of June 22nd LOL

And tomorrow morning, I'm going to a thrift store to pick up 4 school desks for the girls to have in our school area for seatwork. I have a feeling that doing this will give them that feeling of readlly doing schoolwork, and encourage them to work harder at staying on task so that we can get things done faster. And it will eliminate the issue of "she's in my space mom! she's elbowing me! she's pushing my papers/book!" that we would have with using the dining room table instead lol If each kid has her own desk for schoolwork, it will be easier to split them the heck up to avoid this little bit of bickering. I'll just have to deal with them throwing stuff at each other instead.

And coming soon hopefully will be a blog for Melissa! I'm going to have her do her LA written work on a blog, typing up her stories and such there. At first I'll be typing them for her since I'm a trained secretary with a killer typing speed (I'm trained to type as I hear it spoken, I average around 80wpm when I'm really moving but stick around 45 on a normal day) but eventually she'll move on to typing it all up on her own. So, that is to come in late June, when it arrives I'll post you a link to check out her creativity. I have a feeling we will all see a lot of great creative works from her, she has a wonderful ability to make up stories with great detail.

oh I sure hope I'm wrong!

So friday night I got a used Sonlight LA 1 and their I Can Read It! books (the expensive part of the readers lol) to do with Melissa this fall. Well, I was looking through it last night and today, getting familiar with it before we start in 3 weeks, and I think I may have gotten her the wrong level. As in, too easy. At the beginning of January, she wasn't able to sound out "cat" and she struggled like heck in LA K and later in public K class with her reading and writing. Well, she took off like mad this last couple months since we bought P3/4, in both reading and writing. I am at the point where I'm thinking right now that LA 1 may be too easy for her, although I haven't looked past the first few weeks yet in the schedule. I'm going to do that here in a few minutes, and then I'll be deciding if I want to try and get my hands on a used LA 2 and readers or not. This is definitely a change from how it was for her just a few short months ago, its amazing what happens when a little time passes sometimes!

And to think I was worried that she would struggle for a few more years with reading................. lol Guess I was wrong!

For everyone at Sonlight!

I have to dedicate a post just to the Sonlight crew, they are this wonderful.

Luke, your comments on my blog this past month or two have been inspiring and encouraging for my dh and me. When I started this blog originally, neither of us ever imagined that someone at Sonlight would find it and comment. You've seen my recent indecision, and have been so kind in your comments when I'm sure that others are thinking "just make up your mind already woman!" You have given little insights here and there that have helped me to better understand my oldest daughter, particularly in the reading area. Your blog has also helped me, it has given me things to chew on a regular basis, turning them over in my head and thinking about them until I have gotten everything I can from them. I thank you for this.

Sarita, your blog is simply wonderful and inspirational for me. I don't read it as much as I want to sometimes, but your wisdom and experience really shines through in all your blog posts. Whenever I don't know what to think about something that comes up here in my home, I know that I can probably get some ideas from your blog.

Amy and the others who work on the Beam. I always look forward to my issue showing up in my e-mail inbox, to see what great discussions have come up since the last Beam in the forums that I may want or need to read. There is almost always at least one discussion linked in the Beam that has an answer to a problem that we are working out, an answer that I may not have found. Thank you for taking the time to put together each issue so that I don't live on the forums LOL

For the catalog crew. I have always enjoyed my catalog when it arrives at our home, especially the articles. I also wanted to personally thank you for quoting me in an article (mine is the quote with the crazy kids that wanted their Sonlight before Christmas presents lol) Thank you for taking the time to put together such a wonderful catalog that my entire family enjoys. My girls love to look at all the pictures of families with their Sonlight materials, and seeing what cores are in store for them. DH loves to read the little quotes sprinkled through the catalog, seeing how much other families love their materials. And I love the whole thing, although I'd love to see one of the pictures I submitted in a future catalog.

Thank you all for the wonderful jobs you all do to provide us with a wonderful curriculum, a wonderful online community, and all the other great things we get. I wish all companies thought about their customers as much as you all obviously do, taking the time to ask our opinions on the forums and taking our comments and suggestions into consideration. I am so happy that I found Sonlight first when we began researching materials when Melissa was just 4 months old. I can't imagine going with any other company for materials, and I can't imagine a different style of curriculum being truly as well thought out and complete as your program is. Thank you all so much for everything you do!

Ahhhh the used curriculum sale!!!!!

I went to my first-ever used curriculum sale last night. I have been doing my homework for a few weeks now, as Scott and I have been getting a nagging feeling that ohva just isn't the right fit for our family even with all the benefits it has for us (free materials, computer, partial reimbursement for internet costs, no reporting, and just about anyone could pick up and teach if I'm sick and unable to) Well, I sent in my notification yesterday to the district, and on Monday I'm calling ohva to withdraw our enrollment. So, last night I went with a friend of mine to the sale to see if I could score a few things I knew I wanted to get for this upcoming school year. Well, I spent $36 there, and this is what I managed to pull off:

Sonlight language arts 1 (2007 edition)
Sonlight I Can Read It! set (2007 also, was packaged with the LA for a total of $10)
Miquon math lab annotations book
full set cuisinaire rods (for the math we'll use)
Explode The Code 2, 3, and 4
a book for our president unit study (its about the White House)
a magnetic picture/ word board

Now, our plan originally was for us to use Miquon math and ETC for LA, I wanted to do SL's LA with Melissa but I can't afford it new and didn't think I'd get an awesome deal on it used like this. Well, I was holding out for the PERFECT deal on a used set of LA 1 and ICRI books, and I got my deal. That's almost a $90 set, those two together, and I paid $10 for it. I was hoping to find ANYTHING for ETC that we could use (we were planning on workbooks 1, 2, and 3 this fall with Melissa) and I only have to buy book 1 now. Same with my math books, I was hoping I could get at least the lab annotations used so that I could save a little and I did. There were a few people there selling sets, but none of the sets had the workbooks I need this fall so I only got the lab book and the manipulatives.

My friend that I went with, she spent $20 and walked out with sooooo much more than I did, but she got a lot of workbooks and freebies. She also haggled a few deals for stuff, unlike me (I felt the prices were good enough without having to haggle)

ohva

You probably know by now that I'm one of the most INDECISIVE people on the planet lol I felt really good at first about our choice to go with ohva for the girls so that we could have the transition and all that for Melissa, and because its free (big plus when your on a budget!) Well, yesterday I came unglued to 3 people: my wonderful husband and 2 friends of mine. One friend took me to the homeschool group's curriculum share on Monday night (she drove and I made supper for her and her kids, then Scott watched all 6 kids by himself so we could go, he deserves sainted for that! lol) and she discovered a program that she LOVED from the moment she first started leafing through the books. She discovered Konos, and talked to the lady who brought it to share and fell even more in love with it as she talked more to her about it. She finally found something that fits her I hope. Me, on the other hand, I wasn't excited by Konos at all, it just looked like it would require way too much tweaking to make it work for my family with our beliefs and what we want to teach. Soooo, I started looking at other things there. Nothing even came close to comparing to my Sonlight, but that's ok. I still enjoyed looking. Then I found it. Someone brought a copy of Story of the World vol. 3. I had purchased vols. 1 and 2 on clearance from the WTM site (its the old edition, that's why it was clearanced) and they are sitting on my shelf, just waiting on me to get them out and do them with the girls. Then, I saw Explode the Code books over at the lang. arts table, and I knew instantly that Melissa would LOVE it just from leafing through it. Mth table, I found someone had brought her child's Miquon math workbook and the lab annotations book. Again, I had that ah-HA moment when I leafed through it. (if you don't know already, I have a fond history with Miquon. I went to a private school for pre-k and K and at 3yo had already finished all their K materials so they got me started with Miquon math and some LA workbooks that I can't remember, I did all 6 Miquon books during my time at that school and I'm a total math geek, I love math)

So since Monday night, I have been praying about it, thinking, and discussing it with Scott. I came totally unglued on my other friend in an e-mail yesterday and she sent me a reply with the most useful thing of all: a breakdown of the pros and cons of going with ohva and not going with ohva. So I thought more about it all day, prayed a few more times yesterday (as well as a couple times overnight and this morning) and Scott told me this morning to get my intent ready. So, I e-mailed my friend again, and she helped me with my notification letter this morning after I took Melissa to school. It felt so good to get it done, I just have to type up my list of materials and brief outline of what we're covering this school year (she helped me write them out for me to type up at home after helping me with her little standardized *form letter* for notification) I am officially NOT going with ohva now after how things have worked with me and Scott the last few days. I think it has been a process though, I started doubting myself a few days after I got the approval notice from ohva. And apparently its been weighing on Scott too, as he seemed a bit relieved when I first brought it up with him.

So instead of ohva, we'll be doing Story of the World vol. 1, Explode the Code, Sonlight LA K (for Lydia), miquon math, Horizons math K, HWT print and cursive, and Sonlight science K (and we'll add in a bit of astronomy for Melissa since she asked to study the solar system) I still don't know exactly how I'll pull it off with a 3yo and 2yo in the mix as well, but I'll figure it out later LOL