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

Jordan's latest new skills and more

So, I don't consider any child under the age of 4yo to be doing lessons of any sort, however I do work with them casually through games and such. Lately, I've been working with Jordan on naming some of her body parts through fun little games, and left/right discrimination. Yes, they will learn to tell left from right at 2yo if you make it a part of daily language. Well, today I was playing piggies with Jordan (you know, that fun little toes game, "this little piggy went to market......." that always ends in a tickle and the little dear squealing with laughter) and when we finished she stuck her left foot in my hand and said "fee! mo!" (translation: Feet! More!) so I quizzed her a little bit. She can identify her feet, nose, and hands when asked. Well, not so consistent on HER nose, when I ask her where JoJo's nose is she sticks her finger up mine instead LOL and she says the body part when we ask her where it is. So now we are working on belly, hair, and mouth. She is so cute, there's definitely no speech delays with her thank goodness!

Also, with Kimmy we've been working on colors and shapes. She's starting to get there, she can identify yellow, blue, and red with a fair amount of accuracy, and she knows circle, square, heart, and star. We also have started working on teaching her to recognize her name when its printed so that I can start putting her name on things for her to find instead of having one of her big sisters get things for her or my getting it for her. We also are working on getting her to talk around other people, she's still not too sure of herself with speaking if we're not at home or if new people are around. But she's getting there, she's come a long way in the past year with her speech delays thanks to the work we've been doing with her (no speech therapist involved for the most part, that's just not in our budget and insurance won't cover it for some reason)

Lydia's making progress too. She's been mastering a few things lately in the motor skills department, especially her ability to maneuver silverware. Yesterday at breakfast, she took on the challenge of trying to cut her pancakes with a plastic knife. She actually managed to cut them up (ok more like tear them up, but its definitely improvement) We're still working on her pencil grip and getting her fingers to work for her to start drawing and writing more, as she gets really tired fast when she tries (I'm talking 30 seconds fast normally) but that will come in time. That's the beauty of being able to homeschool, I can write for her when she gets tired, and she can type instead if she wants (or use my voice-recognition program that I use on my worst days for typing when it hurts too much to really type)

Melissa, well she's doing good in school from what I'm seeing with stuff she brings home every day. I just have to trust that she is doing as well as I think she is, and I'm still working with her daily on her reading. That's the only place she's not quite there yet, except for money recognition. But the money thing will come in time (and I think there's absolutely nothing wrong with her money knowledge, she got $10 from Scott's mom and $5 from my mom and stepdad for her birthday and was able to tell us exactly what they were, and she reads the price labels at the store for me on the lower shelves that I can't bend down to read some days, she also enjoys trying to sort and count all the change in our HUGE jar that we have sometimes if she has nothing else that she wants to do and doesn't want to tell me she's bored because she knows I'll give her a rag and tell her to clean the bathroom floor or some other horrible chore, its amazing how fast they learn to be imaginative when you do that kind of thing in response to "I'm bored mom!" LOL)

its official!

OK it is official, we are now enrolled in OHVA for the 2009-2010 school year. I got the confirmations in my e-mail about an hour ago, we are now members of the OHVA school and in the world of public schooling at home (face it, that's pretty much what OHVA and other virtual academies are, but I'm allowed to say that as a parent of OHVA kids) Anyway, all I will need to do is mail in a copy of Melissa's last report card when we get it, and then she'll be set to go.

Now we just wait for placement testing and to get our materials. I wonder how long that will take to be done..........................

call from OHVA

They are definitely on the ball, that's for sure. After Melissa got out of school today, I was getting the little kids out of their seats when I got a call fro OHVA. It was my person that is handling our registration process. She was calling to touch base with us and to remind me about the documents they need us to send in. I told her about the letter we got AGAIN saying that they are recommending that Melissa repeat K (yes we got another one today, despite the teacher saying that she may pass assessment if she keeps making progress at the current pace) and she told me that it would be no problem, if she's held back and we agree that she'll just change her grade and if not, then she'll leave it at 1st grade. Anyway, we had a nice little chat about the school and how things are done and what I can expect as the primary "instructional parent", and about the testing the girls will have to do. No problem at all, we're in process so far and all is well. I'm feeling better about this decision every day, and I know that its the perfect choice for us right now. The contact that has been made so far by OHVA is really helping me to feel more comfortable with this decision. I mean, I felt good about it when we first made the decision, but today's call really helped to cement that great feeling I'm having.

things are moving forward for fall

Well, yesterday I did the enrollment application for Melissa and Lydia to OHVA for fall, and I printed up all the paperwork that I had to fill out by hand and mail in with the documentation they need/want. So, all the paperwork was filled out and documents were copied. Except one. I could NOT find Lydia's immunization record from the health department. I searched all day, everywheer that I could think of that it may be. Then last night I went to bed without finding it.

This morning I got up at 5:15 with Scott, and after he left I logged on the laptop and started reading my e-mail and a few other things online. Then it hit me. The day after Lydia got her booster shots, I had to take her to the doctor for a bad ear infection. I had taken her shot record to the doctor to give them the information on her shots the day before, and it was in my diaper backpack! lol That was easy enough................... So the paperwork all went into an envelope and to the mailbox for pickup. The papers are now on their way to Maumee, Ohio for the registration to continue.

And then, an hour or so ago I logged into the OHVA admissions portal to check something else, and I found that they had already assigned us a person to handle the registration and testing until we are assigned our teacher. Cool beans, its definitely moving forward now!

Now I just have to wait for the next step, which is placement testing I think. At least, I'm pretty sure that's what the site said is next after the peperwork is recieved and processed. That won't be too bad for Lydia, but I have a feeling Melissa won't do too well with it when its her turn for testing................................ But I'll have to wait and see how she does when its time for her to be tested.

I just hope I got all the documentation they asked for, I don't want to have to mail more paperwork to them next week LOL

Ohio Virtual Academy

Remember how I posted about praying for the knowledge to know exactly what we need to do this upcoming fall? Well, I got the answer and its NOTHING like what I was thinking about.

For the last several days, every day a flier for the Ohio Virtual Academy or another virtual school for our area would be in the mailbox. I would glance at the fliers just long enough to see which one it was from, and then drop them in our recycling bin. I'm not a fan of the virtual academies, they feel too much like public school to me (oh wait, they ARE public school, just at home instead of in a building) Anyway, last night I had a dream, and the ONLY thing I can remember was that it was involving me schooling Melissa and Lydia this upcoming fall.

When I woke up this morning, I thought about that little I remembered from the dream, and I knew it was His way of telling me something but I didn't get what it was. Then I thought to myself "hmmmmm OHVA, I wonder............" and decided that after I got Melissa to school I'd look at their site a little just for kicks. So I got Melissa up and into the shower, then she got dressed and I got her Cheerios at the table. She ate, got shoes on, finished her homework, and then sat and colored with her little sisters for a couple minutes before time to leave.

I walked her across the street like usual so she could walk the 200 or so yards to the school (this is a new thing for us) and then I went back inside once I was sure she was in the school (I can watch kids go inside from my porch) I got on my laptop, and the internet wasn't working. So I went and fiddled with the main computer and the wireless hub and the modem, and ended up having to reboot the whole thing for it to work again. (we have to do this every few months for some reason) By the time I got back to the laptop and online, I forgot about checking out OHVA. I checked my e-mail, then read a few chat boards I go to regularly. On one, a lady was talking about unschooling, asking who was unschooling their kids and such. Now, Scott and I were discussing taking a more unschooling type of approach for the next several years to make it easier on ourselves, and so I responded to her with that. The next discussion I read was talking about a virtual academy in FL, and wanting to know what people thought about doing virtual schooling. Then I remembered that I was going to check out OHVA lol

So I checked out OHVA, and instantly it hit me like a load of bricks. THIS is what we're supposed to do in the fall. I need the rigid structure that it gives us for assignments, the materials are excellent (OHVA uses the K12 curriculum), and it gives us things that we can't get ourselves right now (we are out of hs budget money for math and LA materials, and we wanted the girls to start learning typing and gaining more computer skills) Melissa is a very worksheet-oriented child, and needs structure also. There is a ton of accountability involved since it is technically a public school, but it gives me the ability to be 100% involved in their education right now when they need that the most. If I don't have that strict accountability, then I won't do it usually. I'm really bad about that kind of thing. And best of all, my father approves of it since its public education and I have to answer to a teacher and do all the standardized testing and all that stuff. His biggest thing about my homeschooling is the fact that I have a hard time sticking with stuff unless I absolutely have to, and that I have health problems that require me to have stuff set up so that anyone can pick up right where I leave off without a problem. With our Sonlight stuff, we can't just pick up and go right now, handing over everything to my father or Scott's mom if needed because I'm in the hospital. By using OHVA for the time being, starting this fall, it will meet all our needs and still give the girls a great education and the one on one time that they need. And best of all, I won't have to coordinate times for bus pickups and dropoffs with the two oldest going to K and 1st grade in the fall while Kimmy is going to Head Start a couple days a week at the same time.

I'm still going to use the Sonlight materials we have though, as supplement to our OHVA education. One can NEVER have too many great books!

I love this time of year

Have you ever looked out the window and felt truly ALIVE? I'm having one of those days right now, in fact this is the second day in a row I've had this particular feeling. The sun is shining, there are no clouds that I can see, and I turned off my furnace yesterday and it STILL is off (those big windows are really good at heating this house when its this time of year, overnight it only got down to 65 in here except the bedrooms where we had the electic heaters running) The kids are happier, things are blooming, and allergies are flaring big time. So why do I feel so peaceful and great today? Well, its an interesting story..................

Two days ago I e-mailed a friend of mine. See, this week is K registration at the public schools, and I haven't gone to register Lydia since we are planning on homeschooling in the fall (including bringing Melissa back home) Well, I've had so many doubts about my ability to just do this, I was considering going up to register her for this fall. So anyway, I e-mailed her to get a little boost that I can do this, and then I went to read the Homeschool Share forums. My friend posts over there, and I read a post about how she'd prayed about next school year and how she felt led to doing something completely different for the upcoming year instead of creating her own unit studies and lapbooking them. It made me stop and think a moment, and I realized that I hadn't PRAYED about this fall at all really. So I stopped right then and prayed, at 5:30 or something in the morning. I asked God what His plan was for their education at this point, and I asked him to give me total peace about whatever decision is the right one and to help me remain convicted and strong in the decision, no matter what it may be. Well, the rest of that day I started feeling calmer, and then yesterday morning I felt this odd peace as I read stuff on the homeschool forums I go to and I filled my shopping cart at amazon and Sonlight with the last couple things I need for the school year so that when its time I can just order it without thinking. I haven't felt this confident and peaceful about a decision in a long time, except for the decision that Scott and I made to not have any more children right now. It is a very refreshing feeling.

I know part of this feeling is because I know God wants us to do this, and part of it is because we have me on meds that work. I'm no longer in *constant* pain (although I have pleanty of that still but it is liveable), I don't get the cycles of depressions and angry periods, I can sleep at night, and I'm actually feeling like there is a reason to get out of bed and try to shower and get dressed every day. It is truly amazing, I've been slowly handing more over to His control and I'm seeing the benefits of it in many MANY areas of my life. Its not just the homeschooling part, His fingerprints are in all areas of my life right now. I am so happy right now to have this ability to put my trust and life in His hands, and know that I will be taken care of and led the right way. In fact, on Wednesday when I was doubting myself so much, I told myself that I just need to FROG more. (if you don't know, FROG is "fully rely on God" and its something I was taught as a kid and that silly saying still follws me as an adult) I am starting to really see the fruits of that FROGing, and I wish I had done it sooner.

OK so I went waaaaaay off on a tangent here today. But I really felt like I needed to post this, so I did. And now I will leave you to chew on my post, if you so desire.

more reading success

Melissa is required to be able to read books at a certain level to pass K in school. Well, this has been a struggle for her. A few times last month, her teacher would send home a book that level as her baggy book for the evening, and it would literally have her in tears because its too hard. Well, today's baggy book is that level again. I sat her down on a stool in the kitchen to read to me in private, and she immediately went into meltdown mode. Started crying and covering her face and slumping down, saying she can't do it. I managed to calm her down, took a couple minutes though. I talked to her about it. I told her that I'll never think she's dumb if she can't do it, that its ok to not be able to read it if she tries to, and that I'll help her with the words if she needs it. She finally stopped, and started to read it. She only needed help with ONE WORD! She missed the word "tie", which is totally understandable since we never really did much with double vowels and other goodies (we were still struggling on cvc words) She even managed to nail the words "special" and "basketball" without any trouble, just a slight pause before she said them. It appears that my girl may be passing the reading part of the K assessment after all......................... Now we just have to get her counting solidly without any help so that she can pass that area, then we'll be set for the year.

Reading!!!!! she's really reading!

This week is Spring Break for ps. So I've had the joy of working with Melissa the last few days one on one for much more time than I could with her in school. Today, I decided to break out our K12 readers (obtained from a friend) and I handed her one. She just read 2 stories from the 3rd book to me. We obviously still have a LONG way to go in reading, but its proof that she's getting there. Every word she didn't kno by sight, she said the individual sounds for the letters and then blended them to make the right word (we're still on words like nap and mat) She even recognized words like "the", "and", and "on" without hesitating.

She has definitely come a long way in reading recently, the readers that she was bringing home I thought she probably memorized the stories at school that day but she's never read this book before around me, so now I know for sure that she's really reading it and not just reciting from her memory. I am so proud of my little girl for the progress she's making.

Math-U-See

I've looked at this particular math program for several months but never really was too interested until recently. Monday I got the DVD demo that I requested in the mail, but didn't really have a chance to watch it until now. It kinda hit the back burner, if you know what I mean. So anyway, I decided this morning to watch it on my laptop (hey the little girls were watching Disney, the tv was taken lol) It took a few tries for my laptop to read it (had to get the dust off the disc first) but then I got to watch. Well, I'm very impressed with what I saw on the DVD, it appears that this may be a good fit for Melissa. I like how the concepts are presented from what I saw in the demo, and it was instantly engaging for me the math genius. I am going to have Scott watch it tonight if possible so we can discuss it together and decide if we want to stick with Horizons and Singapore for the 2 school-agers or go with Math-U-See instead. I really like how the levels aren't numbered like grades, but use greek letters instead for labelling each level. This is SUPER important for Melissa so she doesn't get upset about doing a math level that is lower than grade level, and so she doesn't get into quite as big a tizzy as her little sister passes by her in math for a while. I also really like the way lessons are presented, if the instructional DVD is done the same as how the demo was done then I'm SOLD. I feel like we may be making a change to our plans for next school year, if Scott agrees that the price is ok since I'd be buying Primer and Alpla both with the rods (including the completer set) in one purchase to try and slow down Lydia in math a bit (she'll begin with Primer while Melissa and I work her way through Alpha, plus Melissa will start alpha a full 3 or 4 months before Lydia starts primer so that should help a bit too)

I just nervous about the price tag, although a lady whose youngest daughter is in Lydia's gymnastics class offered me her primer manual and dvd since her youngest is now starting alpha, so that will cut the cost a little bit.

tentative plans for 2009-2010 school year

We're set to start in June with the 3 R's (reading, writing, and math) about a week after she finishes the public school year, and then in July we'll slowly add in the rest. But here's what I'm thinking at this point (note all my materials that I have to order are available at the same company)

for Melissa:

Sonlight cores P3/4 and P4/5
Sonlight science K
Sonlight LA 1 and readers
Horizons math (will do placement on first day of summer vecation)
Explode the Code 1-3
lapbooking to supplement core and science
violin lessons I think

for Lydia:

Sonlight core K (she'll also sit in on P3/4 and P4/5 if she wants)
Sonlight science K
Sonlight LA K and readers
Singapore Primary math 1A and 1B (she's a math whiz)
Ready, Set, Go For the Code
lapbooking to supplement core, science, and LA

for Kimmy:

Sonlight core P3/4 (and the others if she's interested)
lapbooking with her big sisters


Now, you may ask why on EARTH I'm doing Sonlight's preschool cores with a 1st grader in the fall, while my K'er in the fall will do core and science K. Well, that is because Melissa's not too big on listening to me read. I'm planning to start in June with the 3 R's and will add in P3/4 to do, and in September I'm hoping to start core K and science K. I'm hoping that starting off gently like this will get her wanting to do core K with Lydia, but if she doesn't then I'm not going to get upset by it. The local public schools have pretty much given up on her already, which is really sad. She needs more time to do things, and I know that when she does get ready that she'll take off and fly to where she needs to be. Unfortunately, I'm going to have a hard time with this at first because she is definitely one of those kids who do best with the "better late than early" approach and her sister is definitely not one of those kids. lol But it will work out eventually.

Sonlight again

I've used Sonlight in the past, and we really enjoyed it. I have cores P4/5 and core K, science K, and LA K. We always enjoyed reading to the girls, and for the most part they love being read to. Well, except Melissa. She's not one to actually like books, she's more of a "give me a worksheet and tell me what I need to do" kind of kid. She struggles a lot with learning to read, and despises almost all books. So, we made a desperate purchase. We bought Sonlight core P3/4 specifically for her. Lots of great picture books and fairy tales, she likes these kinds of stories. Anyway, I realize it was a long shot, we knew this before we shelled out the $280 for the package. I will tell you though, we figured that even if it didn't get here even a little bit interested in reading or books, we have 3 other kids that will enjoy it. Well, last week our box arrived (I ordered on a Friday and it came on Tuesday, they are VERY prompt with shipping) while Melissa was at school. When she got home, her entire body lit up at the books. All the colorful covers sitting on the table sparked her interest, she has to nose into EVERYTHING new around here. So, she leafed through a few and looked at the covers, trying not to act interested (we all know how 5 year olds are LOL) Then she came across the Flip Flap Body Book, and she decided after leafing through it a moment that she was going to park herself on the sofa and look at it. After about 20 minutes, I took the book from her and told her to go ride her bike in the driveway for a bit. She grumped a LOT and then went outside. I checked on her after a little bit to see how her outdoor time was going and this is what I saw.

Now doesn't that just make your heart burst with joy? And just for giggles, here's one of Jordan that I took this morning.

file folder games

Yet another one of my ventures now. Yesterday I stumbled upon some file folder games at Homeschool Share, and I decided to print out a couple to assemble for Kimmy to do this school year with her big sisters. I got those two assembled now, I did an apple match and an animal match game. Anyway, while I was putting together the apple on I got the great idea to put together several, and some for her big sisters too if I can find some. So I went to www.childcareland.com and looked through the free files, and found some more file folder games and other activities that I'm going to do with my girls. I printed up a couple so far, and will get them assembled today and tomorrow. Then I'll start printing up some more there that I want and look at a couple other sites that I was told about on the HSS forums (thanks Tristan!) When I get an opportunity, I'll put up some pictures of the file folder games for anyone who wants to see them. *smile*

lapbooking

I've been considering this for a LONG time as part of doing lessons with the girls, and always dismissed it in the past really. I would look at pictures of other peoples' lapbooks and just get so overwhelmed that I'd chuck the idea. Well, now here I am planning some lapbooking for the upcoming school year. I'm going to do as many as I can with Melissa in as many areas as possible because that really is how she learns best, so right now I'm planning out the different lapbook topics we'll do in each subject. Here's what I have so far.

our solar system
counting to 100
basic addition facts up to 9
basic subtraction facts up to 9
telling time
a "history notebook" world tour of different countries
a "my body notebook"
sight words
phonics rules
several "just for fun" ones on some of their favorite stories

I'm feeling pretty confident in doing this, and I *hope* to have some plans made to share later before the start of the next school year (we'll be starting in July, Monday after the 4th I think but maybe sooner or later, we'll see what happens) We'll also do the alphabet notebook at Homeschool Share with Kimmy.

rough ideas for next school year

As you know, I'm planning for next school year already so that I can relax and enjoy the year without worrying too much, and to tweak as much as I want. Anyway, I am doing some unit studies and lapbooking this year I think instead of what we've done in the past. It will be Melissa's 1st grade year and Lydia's K year, so I'll only need to do reporting for Melissa. Now, we aren't still 100% sure that we're going to homeschool, but we feel a need to be ready just in case we do decide to (we're about 95% sure we will at this point, unless I start back to college like we are also considering) Anyway, I just had this huge ah-HA! moment while looking at the Hands Of A Child lapbooks and a dear friend's homeschool blog. She did a unit study on the movie "Finding Nemo" and turned it into a HUGE lapbooking project, learning about the animals in the movie and about Austrailia and even dissecting some of the sea critters they learned about. What if I take a movie that the girls really enjoy and learn about the area and time period its set, the famous people that may be in the movie, animal life, the culture of people there, and such? For example:

the movie Pocahontas (the girls LOVE this one)
we learn about:
the story of Pocahontas
the Jamestown settlement
exporer life in the New World
the indian tribe (lifestyle, traditions, religous beliefs, etc)
the main wildlife in the movie (raccoon, hummingbird, that obnoxious doggie LOL)
maize and corn (their main crop)

The movie "The Lion King"
we learn about:
African geography
african safari
wildlife
maybe even a couple african tribes if we want to
go visit that area of the Columbus Zoo

Do you understand what I'm thinking about? Its kind of hard to explain really well.................. I have it really solid in my mind and know how it'll work, and I know the kids will have an absolute ball with it. I can do this with all their favorite movies in one way or another, and our big science study for the year will be incorporated into it as we learn about the plant and animal life of different areas that we "visit" in our world tour. I'll probably do the Finding Nemo unit my friend did, but a bit differently than she did it, and instead of traditional lapbooks I'll have each girl do binders for their world tour, using dividers to mark each area we visited.

counting to 100

I had a conference with Melissa's teachers on Friday, and got the skinny on how she's been adjusting and where I need to work with her more. She apparently can't count past 12 according to the teachers based on the initial assessment, and she only knows the sight words "a" and "I" and can't pick individual sounds out of words at all past the beginning sound. They gave me ideas on how to work with her in these areas, like using flashcards for her numbers and sight words and having her practice writing words as they sound and stuff like that. Well, I'm using flashcards for sight words, and so far she knows 9 of the 25 I made cards for. Not bad considering we've worked with them just a couple times the last 3 days. For math, I *was* going to use M&Ms and let her eat however many she can count each day (go until she can't get any more correct in a row and then work on the next 5 numbers up together for a minute or two before letting her eat the ones she counted correctly) BUT the little turd snuck into the kitchen and ate the entire big bag of candies I had hidden (well I thought I hid them really well and out of reach LOL) So, instead I'm doing something a bit different. I went to Donna Young's website and printed off some 100 charts, the page with 2 on it. I did filled in ones and blank ones both, and handed her one of each, a pen, and a yellow highlighter. She's sitting at the table with these items, saying each number before she writes it on the blank chart and then highlighting it on the filled in one. When she gets stumped, I tell her the number and she repeats it before writing and highlighting. Its a very dry method of working on her numbers, but I'm sure that after a few weeks of doing this daily she'll be able to count and write her numbers to 100, and recognize each number in isolation. That will completely catch her up with her classmates in math, and then we'll attack the sight words harder with "rainbow writing". That is a thing they do in her class, the teacher hands each kid a page with the sight word in big letters and the kids trace it with 5+ different colors and then read it out loud as a class 5 times before writing it at the bottom of the sheet 5 times. We'll do that along with flash cards daily until she learns the sight words completely, but we'll "rainbow write" only one sight word daily. She needs to know the list of 25 plus 5 from a second list of 50 words for her final assessment to pass K.

I've determined that if I can successfully get her caught up to where she needs to be to pass the assessment in the spring, then I'll be able to tackle homeschooling her again for certain. If I can pull off this, then I can do just about anything when it comes to teaching her.

Now, somebody explain to me why Melissa is giggling nonstop and telling me that this math work I gave her is so much fun. If I were to do this assignment I'd probably be bored to tears................................. lol She just finished it and is asking for MORE schoolwork...................... I guess she likes doing lessons at home again.

rough times

Well, we decided that with all the issues with many things in our home, it would be best to send Melissa to the local public school. Now, I have issues with this anyway, but I went ahead and enrolled her. She's been in school for 3 weeks now, and its just a struggle every day she has school. This morning was especially hard, she had 5 days off because of bad weather then a 4 day weekend for inservice and a holiday, and it just collapsed under me. I had to carry her into the school while I was in my 3" heels and she was kicking my knees repeatedly and screaming in an attempt to get me to put her down. Then when I got her to where she needed to be, she chased after me thinking that if she followed maybe I'd bring her home. I take her back only to have her do it again, then when I took her back again her teacher was in the hall and saw the struggles so she jumped in and pulled her over and helped me get her in the school and stay there. This is a pretty typical day, she waits by dropoff most mornings to give me a hand with getting Melissa into school and staying put while I leave. Rips my heart out, but I'm still doing it for now.

But she won't be staying past this school year. In the fall she'll be coming back home again, no matter how difficult it is. Its just too much for me and her to go through these struggles every day just to get her to school. I can't wait until the end of this school year, and neither can she (yes we already talked about it, I needed to make sure she knows that its just temporary and was hoping that it will help with her getting off to school, I'll find out tomorrow if it did help any with that)

And totally off the topic of our educational adventures, but it will have an impact here in the future. My sweet Kimmy was at the doctor this morning, and the doctor was checking out her dry skin and doing a typical sick kid appointment (barking cough and major runny nose) Well, poor sweet Kimmy has asthma, multiple environmental allergies, and excema. The inhaler that the doctor prescribed for her is the same brand and dosage as the one I use that was prescribed to me by *my* doctor (for the record, I'm 27 and have had an asthma diagnosis for 15 years) We also have prescription allergy medication and a prescription cream that I need to dole out daily for Kimmy. But she is loving her new inhaler, when I asked her if she liked it she grinned and said "I love my new medicine, it makes me not hurt here any more (rubbing chest with both hands)" Ahhhhhhhh the simplicity of a 3 year old. She does think her allergy syrup is yucky though, and said she doesn't want to take it any more. LOL Sweet little thing.

Now why did I say that will impact us in the future? Doctor appointments, tests, and potential hospital visits come to mind right offhand. I can just see it throwing a big kink into our homeschooling starting in the fall, but I'm ok with that. That's the best part of homeschool, we can grab workbooks and take it with us no matter what we're doing. We don't need the dining room table to do our schoolwork, just a flat surface, workbooks, and pencils/crayons.

we started K finally!

In case you didn't know, for preschool last year with Melissa we had so many interruptions that we only got about half our work done for the year. This is what I love about homeschooling by the way. So when we started this year with Melissa, we were picking up in the middle of preschool materials. Well, I managed to get a wonderful deal on Sonlight core K and science K (I'm talking $50 and my spare tv here, the seller was a friend of mine who knew my money plight with the materials I needed) and I spent a week studying my instructor guides before we started this week. I was all geared up to start yesterday; I had gone to the library to get a few books to add to it and had copied the worksheets for the week and typed up a simple lesson plan for the week with all the assignments for the week in each subject that we are going to do. Then when yesterday came, the girls fought me on their morning cores and managed to drag them out until suppertime so we didn't get to lessons. No biggie really, they were really sad that they didn't get to do lessons (after all, these are the children who asked me on Christmas Day if they could do lessons before they asked if they can open presents, and when they asked me we were standing by the tree with all the presents under it LOL) but they must not have cared that much because they dragged folding a small basket of their clothes (I'm talking small enough it barely holds 3 pairs of adult jeans, not a huge rectangle one) and put away a few toys in their room.

But anyway, our read aloud is "The Boxcar Children" and for history we are learning about Martin Luther. Today in science we learned about the water cycle and how rainbows are made. In language arts, our weekly letter is Mm so we did our letter page today, and the copywork is our street address. In math, Melissa FINALLY mastered counting by 2's to 10 so we moved on to ordinal numbers 1st-5th. Yep, today was a hit. We did very well, and I'm really happy at how things turned out for us.

Oh, and we also watched the presidential inauguration this morning, and talked a little about Barack Obama and his job. Melissa asked me how old his daughters are, and if they go to a school or do school at home. She thinks his girls look like they would be fun to play with and didn't quite get that she can't just go to their house for a playdate (but oh man would I love to do that, a trip to the White House is on my list of things to do in the next 5 years for school-related field trips) So I'm guessing that as soon as we are done with Martin Luther, we'll learn about our new President and do a lapbook about him.

January 7th lessons

Well, today was another super simple day for lessons in our home. Its snowing here, and I can't seem to keep a fire going in the fireplace effectively, so its been difficult finding the energy to really do much of anything.

Melissa started with a math lesson. Today we did more practicing of determing even and odd numbers up to 10, and then we practiced counting to 10 by two's. She really did *not* like the lesson because this is a totally new concept to her, so she spent half our our 20 minute lesson time whining and complaining while trying to sneak out of her seat to hide under the table. There's a reason we keep lesson time for each subject short, when it gets difficult she usually starts whining horribly. Then she did 2 pages in her handwriting book, and ended with a couple pages in her Explode The Code book (we're still on the primers with her, as review and fun stuff for her as well as to help her start breaking down the individual sounds in words to help with reading and spelling)

Lydia did another letter sheet today, this one she drew a picture of an Aa item (she chose apple) then she wrote what it is on the line (I had to spell it for her though, no biggie she'll get to that point on her own eventually) She also did a review page from her shapes workbook. She finished up with a page in her handwriting book.

Kimmy colored in a page for the colors red and blue. The pages just had drawings of things that color and we talked about the color and then went over what the items she was coloring are. Then I showed her the right crayons to use, and she did her page. She finished up the rest of lessons time with her number puzzle again, she really likes that thing.

Tonight the girls are going to AWANA for bible, and then tomorrow we'll pick up their memory verses for our bible study until the next AWANA time. Then tomorrow we have gymnastics, so it'll be a busy day there. Ugh, I'm already tired just thinking about it.......... lol

January 6th lessons

Well, today was another day lol I did our lessons today, and it went pretty well I thought. Kimmy spent the whole time working on board puzzles for the letters and numbers.

Melissa, today in math we started learning about even and odd numbers up to 10. I used legos and some of our pattern blocks for manipulatives to help teach it, and I think she's starting to get the hang of even vs. odd numbers. By the end of the week she *should* be able to rattle off her evens and odds up to 10 if I keep working with her on it. We aren't doing any actual reading lessons, as she's still pretty resistant at this point to even trying it. So, instead we are doing spelling words. I asked her to write out 8 simple words on a piece of paper and draw a picture to go with each word, and then I asked her to read each word back to me when we were done. I'm going to do the same words again later in the week, because she seemed to be able to just sound them out a little and tell me exactly what the word was. I think we may try doing this for a while instead of the reading part of our language arts program just to see how its going.

Lydia, today she did a matching worksheet to review numbers 1-5 for math. In her language arts, she did a letter worksheet. She had fun with it, since it was a coloring page. She had to color the apples with a captial A red, and the ones with a lowercase a yellow. Then she colored the tree. She also participated in the spelling lesson with Melissa, but we only did a couple words with her.

Jordan napped through the whole thing thankfully, she's been getting her 1 year molars in and has been a total beast to live with for a week and a half now. I'm ready for her to finish this teething sesson already, she's by far the worst teether I've had yet. She just screams and cries nonstop and inconsolably almost every minute she's awake it seems like, and I just want to run screaming half the time becuase I'm so tired of hearing the constant screaming, crying, whining, and screeching.

When Jordan woke up, we all snuggled on the sofa together while I read a couple stories to the girls. The theme for this week is honesty, so we read about George Washington and the cherry tree as one of our stories. The point went right over Melissa's head I think LOL But then, this is the same child that last night spent 15 minutes trying to convince us that she wasn't standing in the kitchen eating the grated parmesean cheese straight from the container, while she stood in the kitchen next to the empty contain sitting on the counter with cheese all over around her mouth, down her shirt front, and on the floor at her feet. I was less than amused, but now I can look back at that sight and chuckle about it. I have a feeling that any lessons in honesty will be hard to teach her, so I'm preparing myself for a long hard series of lessons with her on the subject.

Oh yeah, this afternoon I also sat down with Kimmy for a few minutes and we counted her fingers and toes together, one hand/foot at a time. I'm working on teaching her to count to 10, so we are doing fun little things with it for a couple minutes each day.

January 5th's stuff

So we kicked off the restart of our school year yesterday. I decided to take it really easy, so we didn't do too much. Yesterday, we talked a bit about good foods and bad foods, and how we need good foods to fuel our bodies. I showed them their food pyramid printouts I got online from www.mypyramid.gov and then we made an uber-healthy lunch of pbj, carrot sticks, cottage cheese with strawberries, and citrus blend juice to drink. Its a pretty typical lunch for us to have, so while being fairly healthy it was also familiar. We didn't do a lot else, but it was a good start to easing back in I think. Today we're going to dig a bit more on the basics of the food groups and food pyramid, and we'll add in language arts as well. Maybe we'll do handwriting too, we'll see how it goes.

Ahhh the new year!

So here it is, the first day of 2009. Isn't it lovely? I took some time to really evaluate where Melissa's at this year so far, almost halfway through the "school year" and am now setting some loose framework in what I'd like to do with our remaining time before we start next school year in September (this year it looks like we won't get much of a summer break)

I'm feeling pretty good about the fresh start that I have now, I have had time to reflect the last few days that I've been injured (I hurt my hip while walking the puppy in our back yard, I found a hole lol) and I realized that while we haven't made as much progress as I would have liked, we did make some progress so far this year. No, we aren't as far in our math as I hoped we'd be, and we have to restart our reading and LA program because Melissa lost it thanks to a long run of the flu in our home, but that's ok in my eyes. I'll get us there, it just may mean that we carry into the summer and don't get a "spring break" this year and we may have a few weekends. I doubt Melissa will object to this anyway, she was asking me if she could do lessons on Christmas morning before she asked when they would get to open presents LOL So that's where we are at now, its literally a fresh start for me with lessons. I am almost done creating a really fun study on the food pyramid and the food groups, which will be the majority of our science study the rest of the year (at least through the winter) We're going to expand it beyond just talking about what good foods and bad foods are and what food group things are in, we're also going to include fitness and cooking and even learn about some of the exotic foods that we don't eat much and where they come from (as well as where our regular foods come from, how they grow, and how they go from nature to kitchen) Its a huge study, but I'm really looking forward to it. While we do our basic food pyramid learning, we're going to touch on the names of the continents and oceans and learn where on a world map they are. Nothing too rigorous, but its something they'll need to know for when we delve further into our health study. When we finish that, we'll pick up one of the girls' favorite books from our core, its a Usborne book called "Things People Do" I'm sure you've seen it before, its a wonderful picture book about the different jobs and what the people do in those jobs. The girls got a real kick out of it, so we're going to do a study of it again and focus on one 2 page spread a week, and do a lapbook on the book (I have a feeling it will end up as big as the lapbook a friend of mine did with her 7yr old on "Finding Nemo" if not bigger LOL)

So, I need to learn how to add pics to my blog posts, because I'll have pics soon probably to share of our lapbooks as we do them.

lapbooking, hmmmmmmm

So today I've been thinking about some stuff. I'm not really happy with how our homeschooling has been going. I've tried a few different things the last couple years, and nothing really felt right. So, I think we're going to try lapbooking. A wonderful lady and fellow homeschooler at my church does lapbooking for her homeschool lessons, and I've been following her blog lately to see what all she's been doing with them since her oldest isn't too much older than my oldest girl. I really enjoy looking at the pics of the lapbooks she's done with her kids, and am inspired to do it myself here with the girls. Therefore, I don't know if we'll be starting lessons today like I thought we might last night, or if we'll take this second week off for Christmas break like we had originally planned. I'm thinking that we will take that second week off and start on Monday next week, that way I can plan out a few lapbooks and unit studies to go with them. I just don't know.............. I guess we'll see what happens. I am going to put together a simple-ish unit study and make a sample lapbook before I teach the girls so that we have a visual of a lapbook and so I have some clue what the HECK I'm doing with this idea. I expored the idea of lapbooking in the past, but have never really gotten into it because its a *crafty* looking thing and I am NOT the craafty type if you know me. Well, I like to to things like knitting and sewing, but I don't do art projects and the idea of coloring, cutting, and pasting sends a shudder through me because of the potential mess. But, I'm going to go out on a limb and do a unit study with a lapbook, and just jump right on in and see what happens with it. If it goes well, after we finish the study I may add the unit study and lapbook outline and directions to my geocities page that I keep saying that I'm going to update LOL

last day of Christmas break

Well, I was going to give the girls 2 weeks off for Christmas break this year, but we're all getting pretty antsy and ready to start back to our routines. So, I'm going to be starting up again tomorrow with lessons. That means that today, I am going to be looking at my materials to see what we're covering this week and plan out how to do it each day so that we aren't overloading ourselves and are having fun while we learn. I'm pulling my Sonlight core IG back out, and we are restarting the LA program, so tomorrow will be a completely fresh start for us this school year. I'm also going to get Kimmy started at some basic pre-writing and such since she'll be 3yo in just 2 1/2 weeks. We start the preschool stuff at 3yo, and since I've been saying for a while tht our school years start in January it makes sense that I'd have her start in now.

We're also going to start a new reading program for Melissa that I found free online. Its a reading remediation program for children who are older and not reading, but can be easily adapted for younger kids learning to read. I'm feeling pretty good about it, and will be combining it with our Sonlight LA program to give us the reading aspect of LA.

Scott just read this big front-page article in the newspaper about the public schools and reading. He's now really concerned about how Melissa's doing with her reading because of this article. Let me see if I can get a link to the article online for you to read, I think its a load of BS intended to make parents think the public schools are doing more in this area than they really are. OK here it is:

http://newarkadvocate.com/article/20081228/NEWS01/812280301&referrer=FRONTPAGECAROUSEL

He read some of it out loud to me, and I just had to laugh about it. I don't agree with this article at all, but there were a few things that I found really funny. There's a section that tells how parents can best encourage reading in their children and help them learn to read, and it starts with "read to your children daily" Hmmmmmmm haven't homeschoolers been saying to do this for years now? Kind of funny really if you think about it.................................

And for the record, I think its great that the paper showed the county schools' 3rd grade reading test scores, but I'd like to know how these schools also did in K, 1st, 2nd, and 4th grades. I bet there's a big difference as they progress through the years.........................

mid-year blues

I don't usually complain about things in general, but I feel a need to do so at the moment. I know some people look at my family and think "gee they got it all together, she's sure a superwoman" but in reality I'm exhausted by it all.

We've been pretty much just unschooling, only doing a little bit of handwriting, math, and language arts sprinkled in when the kids ask to do it. We've had a few runs of the flu this year already, so we've not had the chance to do stuff as much as I would have liked. Every plan I've made for new materials has been scrapped due to money, so I had to take advantage of our Christmas budget to get the girls some stuff for lessons (readers for Melissa, some more read alouds sprinkled among the girls, stuff like that) I'm doubting myself lately with my ability to actually keep doing this, I feel right now like such a failure because Melissa isn't reading hardly at all yet, she won't even try to sound out cvc words any more. She was doing so well in this area too until we had to stop because just trying to talk made her throw up for a week in October. Lydia just keeps wanting more, more, more and I just can't give her any more right now. I keep trying to spread myself thinner and thinner to meet everyone's needs without giving myself the down time that I need so badly, and its just not happening at all right now. Every time something starts going right, I get a huge bump that stops things everywhere else. Like Melissa's reading, it was going so well for a long time and then we all got sick and its like we are right back at square one. She has absolutely no clue any more about how to blend sounds together to read cvc words, and won't even try it again now. I just flat out don't know what to do. I think I may just restart our LA program and see if that helps any. If it does, we'll just keep at that subject through the summer, then take a week or two off before starting the next level to make up for having to restart partway through it. I don't want to do it, but I think I need to do it for her sake.

We're right on target with math though at least, that's one subject Melissa asks for even if she's so sick she can't sit up. I have no concerns about her with math at least.

I mentioned how thin I'm stretched, and I think that stretching is so bad that its got me doubting my own abilities to teach the girls right now. Since October I've been considering enrolling Melissa to start at the start of the new semester at the elementary school down the street, and putting Lydia into the preschool next door to the elementary school. But I can't do that, I can't just hand my girls over to the ps system without even considering the lasting effects of it. We live in a city with a not so great school system, so the local public isn't really an option at all. But I can't feel comfortable with just homeschooling by itself right now, I have so much going on and literally *no* accountability to keep me on track with what we're doing to ensure that we even do anything during the day. I'm considering the Ohio Virtual Academy since it would give us the accountability I need so much, but I don't know if I should to that for this year since I have stuff for the school year this year already. Maybe next school year, but this year I don't think I'll do the OHVA because I don't want to waste the materials I already spent the money on. So I'm going to make a commitment to post here daily starting when we pick up again on January 5th, and I'm going to detail what we did each day. I am GOING to do LA, bible, and math daily, plus at least 2 of the following subjects each day: history, geography, science, art, music, pysical education. That's 6 subjects to pick from daily as our additionals, and if I can't do 2 a day I have problems.

unit studies, unschooling, and lapbooking, oh MY!

So our original plans for this school year have already gotten scratched. Big surprise huh? We were just trying to do too much, move too fast, and nobody was happy. So SCREECH!!!!!!!!! We changed it all up again. Here's what we pulled now.

For science, we are using some ideas from www.letteroftheweek.com in the science of the week section. Next week we plan on using her pumpkin unit, and we'll do a lapbook and some other stuff for it. But mostly, we are just looking up stuff online that we are interested in and doing kitchen chemestry. We are making messes in the kitchen, mixing different things to see what happens. The girls LOVED making flubber, I'll post that recipe here later.

For social studies, we are just learning the basic details about our country right now. The girls can find the US on a world map, and can point out a few different states on a US map. That's pretty good for now, we'll continue to expand on that as we go the next few years. But we're about to take a little side trip to learn about the first thanksgiving and might make a lapbook for it too.

Math is still Singapore math, but that's only because I'm saving up for Math-U-See to do next year.

Language Arts................ now that is a fun one. We bought Sonlight LA K and are doing it. This is going very well for us. We lined up our handwriting books to go with the LA, so we are doing the same weekly letter in both books. The girls are having fun with this one, I'll have to share some pics my dad took of us when we did one of the weekly letter poster sheets.

Piano, well that is on a vacation right now. The girls love to do piano, but its just a thing that we had to put on hold due to other things. But to make up for the lack of music, they are in a choir for their grades and have practices once a week. So they are still getting music classes, just not what we had originally started with.

PE. Now this is a fun one. Melissa and Lydia both are doing gymnastics on Thursdays, and they LOVE it. Now, Lydia was doing a pre-ballet class at the ballet academy, but decided that she didn't like it so much as she thought she would so she tried her big sister's gymnastics class and absolutely LOVED it so we're taking a break from dance for her right now. She's just having so much fun with it, and I am really glad those two got into something they both enjoy and can do together.

Now, I mentioned UNSCHOOLING!!!!! We are indeed moving more toward that philosophy of learning, but still use structured materials. Right now, we've not done much of anything because the kids have been sick on and off since before halloween, but when we are back to it we'll be full force in math and LA, with the other stuff sprinkled in for good measure. We're having a blast with this approach, we aren't completely doing away with all educational texts but I'm definitely relaxing a lot more and starting to do more by following their leads instead of following my IG like its gospel. Its very hard though to not stress over the IG not being followed exactly.

2008-2009 school year plans

I know that I haven't posted much at all on this blog, but I'm busy with my girls. Anyway, this fall Melissa starts K, Lydia will be starting PK4, and Kimmy and Jordan will just hang out and absorb what they do lol They'll only be 2 1/2 and just turned 1yo when we start so no big deal if they get anything at all. But anyway, Scott and I discussed this a lot lately because he's not sure if we should homeschool this year since we are moving on Saturday and PS starts on the 21st, just 19 days after we move (because of the move my thought is to start OUR hs year on September 8th and just pick up some extra days to make up the time between our start and the PS start) So I'm going to make tentative plans for this year while he decides for sure what we are going to do (I gave him a deadline that is a week and a half away, if he doesn't give an answer by then I'll buy our homeschool stuff) Anyway, this is my plan for the upcoming school year.

Sonlight core P 3/4 (formerly known as core A)
revisit core P 4/5 (formerly known as core B)
Teach Your Child to Read In 100 Easy Lessons
the stuff left over from last school year:
- HWT K
- Ready, Set, Go For The Code
- Singapore Earlybird Math (finish 1 and do 2)

And we'll track the weather as our science for the year for our main project. Also, we'll do stuff from Ruth Beechick's 3 R's series to fill in any gaps that may be there. I'm just going to take a good relaxed year I think for homeschool, learning is a marathon and not a sprint after all. I was so gung-ho last year that we were pretty miserable with it all, so this year I'm backing off a bit and just relaxing about the whole thing. We'll play games, learn things pretty relaxed, and not do a bunch of workbook stuff unless the kids ask for it. Also, I have Lydia taking a jazz/ballet combo dance class and Kimmy doing tumbletots gymnastics with Scott at a local gym/dance studio (the one I went to as a kid in fact) and Melissa will either do karate at a local dojo or she'll do gymnastics at the place her sisters are going to, whichever one she decides on.

Yeah, my homeschool plans for this year are real ambitious, aren't they? lol I'm not motivated enough to make grand plans for it, they are so far ahead of the PS district we are moving to already that I am just not going to sweat it at all. They'll learn, and that's all that matters.

Christmas break

Whew, what a whirlwind year this has been for us all. We welcomed baby Jordan Nicole into our family on Sept. 3rd, started a new school year on the 11th for me and the kids all at the same time, and a million other little things. We are making great progress with homeschooling, far more than I ever expected to make. Melissa is getting ready to start K level math and handwriting when we restart on Monday (12/31) and is doing great with Hooked On Phonics. However, she is not enjoying our Sonlight core very much, so when we restart I'm going to try doing things a bit differently. I had originally chucked our instructor guide for the core because it jumped around ay too much, but now I'm thinking that I'll pick it up and start at the beginning of week 1, and just go straight through from there. We'll see what happens.

When we start, I also intend to supplement using Old Fashioned Education kindergarden program since its totally free. I am always open to trying additional stuff, especially free stuff. LOL I'll let you know ho I like it when we get going with it, I have a feeling that its just what we need to really get into homeschooling. Melissa just isn't the kind of kid who enjoys lots of being read to.

started yesterday officially

Well, yesterday we started our "official" school year, now that Jordan was born on Labor Day. It went very well in fact, much better than I expected it to. Melissa did some mental math aloud with me, both girls enjoyed their read-alouds, and the day's workbook pages were completed quite easily. We are really enjoying Sonlight core B right now, but I have a feeling its a bit over their heads so I'm working on attempting to get up the funds to buy the new core A that is coming out to do with them this year, and putting up core B until next year. Although, I intend to do core B a second time next year even if we go through it this year, so its no real big deal if I can't get core A, I may try to get just the instructor's guide for it and use our library and pick up single titles as we have the extra money, and just add it in to our current stuff this year for fun.

Today is going well also. Right now the girls are watching Letter Factory, that's a Leap Frog movie that teaches letter sounds. After its done, I'll do today's read-alouds with them, and then we'll take a break from seatwork until after supper. I don't want to give them too much at a time, they are only 3 and 4 after all. But they are really enjoying their "school time" and its meshing rather well with my college classes, so I have no issues with doing as much as they want each day.

I am going to let them watch the Letter Factory DVD every day I think, to teach them their letter sounds, for as long as they want to watch it daily. They are really enjoying this video, and its educational, so I see no issues with allowing it in our school lessons. Then once they get the letter sounds down, I'll get out the Hooked On Phonics stuff for Melissa, and let them both play at www.starfall.com for a little bit daily. And I'll introduce Melissa to Get Ready, Set, Go For the Code workbooks also, to reinforce the letter sounds while working on her handwriting a little bit. She'll really enjoy that I bet. Tomorrow I'm going to add in our Handwriting Without Tears pre-k workbooks for the girls to do, that should be fun for them too. They've thought everything we do so far is a ball, so I doubt they will object to another subject added in if it means a workbook. LOL These girls love their workbooks............................