what they are reading right now

Liddy loves books, and it is a challenge sometimes to find one that she can read that is going to challenge her at the same time. She's whipped through all our Sonlight grade 1 readers in just a few weeks, and has reread these books dozens of times. She LOVES the Dr. Seuss books. So after hearing her read one of those books yet again, I decided to test out my library stack of readers for Missa to see how her reading is. This is the book she's reading now........



She made it about halfway through it before deciding that she wanted to stop. That book was a *bit* of a challenge and a stretch for her, but she did very well with it.

Missa, on the other hand, has been slowly working all year long through the stories in this book........



She's not *quite* ready yet to tackle the book that Liddy is reading, and she struggles with the book she's reading now. We spend a lot of time reading together, me helping her with the words she doesn't know. She's about 1/4 through her book, we read stories a few times before moving on and revisit favorites that she's already read as we continue to work on her fluency.

Both girls' books are part of the Sonlight grade 2 readers set. I own the one Missa is reading, and Liddy's (plus most of the others) came from the local public library. I intend to buy the reader package here soon if I can scrounge up the money, giving Liddy and Missa both their own bible books (Missa will NOT part with her bible book any time soon, I already know this). But I thought it would be fun to share where my girls are in their reading (and even more surprising, Liddy's book is further into the reader schedule than Missa's book is but I think Missa's may be a harder book because of all those names).

When life happens.....

Yes, I am posting at 11:30pm. I got home not too long ago from the hospital, poor Missa has been in pain all day. She's described it as someone poking her in the stomach with a sharp knife. I didn't sweat it, and figured she'd be fine by this evening when she woke up at 7:30 with the pain. Obviously my day was SHOT.

She spent the day laying on the sofa, just kinda staring blankly at the tv and napping on and off. She didn't eat much today because it hurt, although she did go out front for a bit to watch the road construction (they are repaving the road we live on). She did have some relief early in the afternoon, or else she decided that the bubbles were just too tempting, and got up to say she'd do dishes for me when I said I had to get them going on. But other than that, she laid around, watching tv and napping and reading until Scott got home and decided that I needed to take her to the ER.

After 4 hours there, they determined that it *could* be appendicitis but said that its too early to tell and that it won't show up on any testing for a minimum of 24-36 hours from the initial onset of symptoms (which her only one so far has been the stomach pain). Since she has no fever (not like she does normally anyway when she's sick, last time she had a real fever was when she was in K and they sent her home with a fever of 104 and then an hour later she was at the ped's clocking it at over 106 while they scrambled to get it down again, they packed her in a lot of ice packs held to her body with a sheet) they felt that just some Tylenol would be sufficient, and sent us on our way. Thanks guys, next time I'll not bother wasting my time with y'all, I'll just wait for her doctor's office to open up the next morning instead since I could have given her Tylenol myself and called it good.

We didn't do any lessons of course, we just went with the flow of things. Tomorrow we'll try to pick up again if she's feeling up to it, we'll see how she's doing. If she's still in pain I'll take her to her doctor, but if it gets worse I'll skip the local hospital and make the drive with her and her 3 sisters to go to Children's Hospital up in Columbus instead. I'm not playing with Licking Memorial, they can't tell their bums from a hole in the ground.

preschool and learning goals- or why NOT to have them

I've been thinking a lot lately, thanks to a post I read over at the Sonlight forums last week. A mom asked on the forum there for the preschool cores what goals we set for our little learners to accomplish prior to the start of their K year. I answered, and then thought that it may be an interesting topic to cover here too just so anyone who reads this blog can better understand how we teach here in my home.

In our family, its not what the children learn so much as it is the journey they take to learning the material. We call ourselves eclectic unschoolers, which is a bit of an oxymoron. See, an eclectic homeschooler uses a variety of curricula to tailor the schooling as much as possible to their child's individual needs, taking current interests into account and changing up what doesn't work as needed. An unschooler has faith that a child will learn what they need to as they need and want to, and they provide incredibly rich learning environments and get their children involved in activities such as having a garden, taking care of pets, cooking, pursuing an area of the arts or athletics (or both!), and just about anything else you can think of. We are the best of both worlds. I use a variety of curricula as desired/needed for different subjects, particularly reading, writing, and math. Then I have curriculum for history and science, but we use it more exploratory. We may spent a year studying the same time period that is assigned to just 6-8 weeks in our history program, doing a lesson when they want to from the program or watching documentaries that go with the subject, finding information online, doing crafts and projects to replicate (sort of!) different things in our topic. Right now we're in Mesopotamia still, and the kids are waiting for me to feel the weather is good enough for us to go outside to try making mud bricks to build a small wall with. Yet, we don't pressure the kids. I suggest to them that they do some math or reading dailybut if they don't it is ok because I know that when they do, they will do multiple pages at a time and be more receptive to the work. I don't stress, and we have about as rich a learning environment as I can think of to do in our home with my physical limitations.

So, how does this apply to preschoolers? Well, my little Jojo, at the sweet age of 3 1/2 years old, is a preschooler now. She asked for some schoolwork like her big sisters do, I got her a few things to do gently with her. But I also thought about what my real goals with her are. I've never actually set goals for my preschoolers, as they have all be more than ready for K material when it comes time to start their K year at home. I had to really stop and think about what it is that I set out to do with my preschoolers, and here is what I came up with.

1. love learning Now, this sounds a bit odd to many, especially if you have children who go to public school. Those kids tend to HATE school by the time they hit 3rd or 4th grade, so loving to learn would be a foreign concept to some of these parents. However, this is one of my biggest goals for this age. Since we learn in a more organic manner, providing the tools for the girls to learn while not forcing them at the same time, it is vital that our girls be interested in learning more about things and know how to go about learning about what they are interested in. The preschooler's focus for this particular skill is to develop a love for learning about things. We do this by trying to always take the time to answer when one asks "why?" or "how?" or any question like that.

2. get down and dirty with life We do a lot of hands-on stuff. A LOT. Like I mentioned earlier, we are waiting on the weather to get just right for us to make mud bricks. We also are planning on building raised garden boxes this year and attempting to grow some food to take a little strain off our grocery budget. We don't have any pets due to Kimi having too many allergies to allow that, but we go to the Columbus Zoo regularly and they have a petting zoo for the kids, and the aquarium has a spot where you can get in line and wash your hands first to touch some of the sea life they have there (starfish, anemone, stuff like that). You can pet some reptiles there too sometimes, and we can ALWAYS see the animals. Last year, the girls couldn't get enough of the elephants (particularly the baby elephant). We cook with the kids. Just last week Missa made a lasagna with my help, she loves cooking and is pretty good at it for a kid her age.

3. develop a desire to be a part of our team Working together as a family is necessary in some parts of our life. With 6 people, that can make for a lot of messes. However, it also means that there are 12 hands to help pick up those messes, making the work just that much lighter for me. It also means that yard work is done faster, in theory. I have the ability to have the girls work in pairs to do different tasks, and if the job is too difficult for the little ones to help the oldest two take turns working with me while the one not working with me keeps her little sisters entertained. A preschooler can help water a garden, put the pulled weeds into a trash can, and pick up sticks. The extra 4 bodies means that grocery shopping can be done easier. The little ones help with getting things from the bottom shelves to put in the cart, and the oldest girls can push a shopping cart if I need more than one cart. If I go to Aldi, I can easily fill 3 or 4 shopping carts with food so having them able to push a cart really helps a lot. They all help bring in and put away groceries, with me standing at the van passing out bags they can carry until the last ones are ready to go in and then delegating who puts what kinds of stuff away and who unpacks bags for us to put the stuff away.

4. not let her get lost in the shuffle of our BUSY life Let's face it. With homeschooling and having 4 kids, me in college full time, and the various other things I do outside of typical housework and cooking, it can be hard to remember that the preschoolers are there at times. I regularly forget that my preschoolers need to have time focused on them too. It takes extra effort for me to remember this, and I use many different things to do this. I buy curriculum as soon as they start asking and I can afford it, giving me something to do with my preschooler. I have many books that I, my husband, or the oldest girls can read to a preschooler or toddler, and tomorrow I'll have All About Reading pre-level 1 for Jojo to do with me. She and I will take the time to do a bit of creative sewing to make a tote bag and matching apron for her, as well as make a puppet to go with it since I bought the basic package instead of the deluxe. At some point this week Sonlight will ship the handwriting books I got, one of which is for Jojo along with a math workbook that I have coming from them as well. I will use these materials as a way to remember to spend time daily with her as well as her sisters.

For us, the preschool and K years are the foundational years in our homeschool. These are the years that we have the most impact on the future of our little learners. What we do now to encourage or discourage them will shape the way they live and learn for the rest of their lives. Our biggest goals are to have the foundations they need for learning, living, respecting others, and loving God. If these foundations are laid effectively now, then later when they are learning the important academic foundation skills of basic math, effective reading, and the ability to write clearly and purposefully those skills will be easier for them and they will be more motivated (hopefully!) to work on it when they do not understand.

Learning does not stop just because one graduates from high school or college, or when they finish their studying for school each day. To live without learning is to die intellectually. My goal for these early years that all my girls are in with their schooling is to build the foundation they will need to not just learn effectively, but to WANT to learn constantly in their lives.

portfolio review- CHECK!

Ahhhh, spring. Grass is growing, flowering trees are in bloom (my willow out front is BEAUTIFUL right now), and there are lots of puddles for splashing in when mommy's not looking. Yes, it is a lovely time of year, and when we usually are at our most productive in homeschool.

Spring also marks the time when most homeschoolers are usually finishing up their stuff and getting their reporting options done. Here in Ohio, we are blessed to have a couple choices for reporting. One option is to do a standardized test and submit the scores. The other is to have a review done by a teacher certified to teach in the state. We chose the review this year, after much discussion and prayer on the matter.

This was my first official portfolio review. I had no clue what to expect, and was pretty sure I'd not get our letters to send the school district. After all, I'd been diagnosed with mono the first day we were out on our own homeschooling, away from OHVA, and then we'd been plagued by various illness and injuries since my recovery from mono in January (because I just won't stay in bed like the doctor says to, nope I take my kids trick or treating all over a small town a half hour from my home a week after diagnosis lol). We'd had a rough time finding curriculum that fits our needs and everyone's style of teaching/learning, just now settling into a bit of a groove this past few weeks with things. I think it is safe to say I was just *slightly* anxious about this review.

Thankfully, we had opted to make the 1 hour drive from my home to Grove City to see Dr. Holinga at The Reading Doctor. She was a homeschooling mom and understands the more non-traditional methods that sometimes happen as life gets in the way of textbook learning. We had a great time with her, and it was just so fun to get out and on the road. I had forgotten how much I love to drive, and the girls seemed to enjoy our road trip as well once we had all gotten bathed, dressed, and in the van. I had all our stuff that I could think of to bring for the review, we had math books (both the ones we started with in October and the current program we do now), journals, and samples of the history stuff we're doing (gotta love the queen of supplementing, I had their History Pockets and the current lapbooks to show her) along with a book for each girl so she could informally assess their reading. Missa rocked it with her Bible, and Liddy giggled her way through Green Eggs And Ham. Goofy child....... and we now have 2 pretty yellow sheets of paper for me to send with my notification that says they have completed a year of schoolwork at their levels and pretty much to back off me for a year. She was the PERFECT choice for us this year for review, and I plan to go back every year for review with her as long as I refuse to use standardized tests.

So now let's get rocking with our homeschool, its kind of funny to say that, since we did a year-end assessment at what would be closer to the start of our school years. We have decided it would be better for our family to take winters off the full courseload and do just a minimum of work, and then hump it through the spring, summer, and fall. I don't do as well mentally in winter, and we have so many illnesses that plague us during that time that it really is more practical for us to do it this way. As long as they make progress though, how cares how we do the school year right?

preschool plans

As you may or may not know, we don't do much normally for preschool here. We are big believers in the better late than early philosophy, and take a completely child-led approach for any child not under our state compulsory education laws. If I don't have to send in notification with that child's name on it, I don't force learning. That said, I do have a preschooler working almost daily in math, reading, and handwriting lessons because she has requested schoolbooks to be like her big sisters.

This upcoming fall, that child will her a K'er still not under compulsory attendance. She will continue her learning as she is doing now with Math-U-See (I have Alpha waiting for her currently), Handwriting Without Tears, and Sonlight readers at her pace and ability. It is her little sister that I am choosing to write about today.

Jojo is a typical 3 year old child. She likes to make messes, and sometimes these messes can take HOURS to clean up. Her beach in my kitchen is one of those messes, she dumped my sugar and flour to make the sand on my wood floor then used the kitchen sprayer to make the ocean. It took her about 3 minutes to do something that took me 4 hours to clean up sufficiently to not leave a sticky residue on the floor (as if anyone would notice my floor being sticky in there, you know what I mean if you've ever been in my kitchen LOL). She flushes entire rolls of toilet paper at one time, has plugged my bathtub with a washcloth, drawn on every wall and door in my home, writes on windows. Yes, she is 3 1/2 and she is VERY good at it.

SO, imagine my surprise when I was putting away the school supplies one day last week and she was helping me sweetly. Very carefully she handed me books to go on the shelf, and when I was marking off the boxes in my Sonlight core guides she fetched me a pencil. She wanted something.......

So I dared to ask her what it was she was wanting. I was not prepared for her answer.

"I want mine own Jojo spelling box and math book mommy, just like mine sisters."

Now, if you know anything at all from reading this, you know that we have been using Math-U-See for the older girls (Liddy, my 1st grader, is switching effective TODAY from Horizons math into Alpha with her older sister) and that Missa, my 2nd grader, does All About Spelling. She wants to do seat work just like the big sisters do.

OK, fine you say. Just hop online to the dozen freebie sites I know and grab worksheets for her, I hear you saying. Well, she's been doing those freebies for over a year now, and is becoming less satisfied with the work. I was anticipating that sometime NEXT school year she would have this request, so I didn't budget in to shop for her when we were at the homeschool convention. Now I'm in a bit of a pickle, aren't I?

So what did I do? First, I checked out blogs and chat forums that I frequent to read some stuff and get a few ideas on what to do with her. We're already lapbooking our way through Sonlight core P3/4, so she'll just move up to P4/5 with Kimi this fall. That takes care of social studies and read aloud time. Science is covered with our choice to do Real Science 4 Kids pre-level 1 with all the girls, she'll just join in on that one easy as can be. She's quite happy with that stuff in fact, she likes being included. But now, she also wants her own math and such.

Well, I personally think she's too young for Missa's spelling program. She'll be barely 4 when we do the official changing of the grades here in September. So I need to come up with something to substitute for the spelling. No problem, they also have a reading program called- you guessed it!- All About Reading! We'll buy that to give her a program of her own in that area. Math, well I'm just going to get the child a copy of the Primer level in our program, and let her go at it as slowly as she wants. She doesn't need to do a whole lesson daily like her big sisters sometimes do.

Crud LOL And here I was hoping for another year before she started asking me for real school books.

All About Spelling

This is one of those new things we got at the convention for next school year. Well, I spent the weekend cutting up the tiles and applying magnets and prepping the review box for Missa, as well as looking over the material so I know what I'm doing. This morning I got out the big magnetic dry-erase board and sorted out the tiles to get out all the ones we need for this level, putting the ones it said we need to start with on the board and the ones for later into a baggie. I think we will try starting this one today, and see where it takes us. If it proves to be a little too much on top of our current heavy load in history and our current pace in math (Missa's doing 2 lessons a week in Math-U-See at the moment now that we've got her into a routine) then I'll set it aside until around June or so. I try to ease us into new materials, and with as many things as we've changed for next school year we are really trying to start this transition now. It is the only way that I can handle working with the changes, doing it all at once just messes me up too much.

And since we're in the routine with history, math, reading practice, and Missa working on cursive, I thought it would be a good time to try and add in a little more now.

ancient Mesopotamia

I told you that we supplement our Sonlight core curriculum with a couple other programs right? Well, we do. We add History Pockets and lapbooking to our studies. In fact, right now while I type this post, I am pausing every few minutes to flip pages while I copy the activities for our ancient Mesopotamia lapbook from my new HOAC project pack. At convention I bought this as a full package complete with a prefolded folder and a set of the activity pages on color paper. Well, we are taking the folder from our next unit's pack out so they both have a blue folder, and then they are going to alternate who gets a color activity and who gets black and white (Liddy has been assigned to odd-numbered activities in color and even in black and white, while Missa get odd-numbered activities in black and white and the even-numbered ones in color). They have the understanding that if they share well for the next 2 units with the color activities, that I will buy colored file folders and paper and we will do more lapbooks with colored activities. If they don't, then it is back to black and white minit books and plain folders. I don't anticipate there being much of a problem with these two sharing the color printed activity pages.

Now, these aren't my first HOAC lapbooks. I've done a couple in the past that I borrowed from a friend to have a couple components to add to the free stuff. But this IS the first time that I've done a HOAC unit lapbook as the main component of our lapbooking. Usually we use free things from Homeschool Share to make our lapbooks, and then worksheets and coloring pages from various other sites to add in a bit more. I have never paid for all this material that we've added before this school year. This is the first year we've been able to afford to pay for extras after buying our core program for history, and I'm really enjoying it. I really enjoy not having to take the time to find minit book templates that will work, clipart that is relavant, and create a sort of lesson plan to include it with our Sonlight materials. I don't have to spend the time researching the topic to create a read-aloud handout for the girls to take turns reading me (which was something we wanted this year) and there is no need to spend a lot of time looking through library books to find ones that will work for us with the unit. With the addition of the two programs that we chose to add, I have all these things already finished for me. I just need to take the time to print it all up. My printer is getting *quite* the workout in "copy" mode lately as a result........ lol

But our plan for this week is to get into ancient Mesopotamia real good, hopefully completing half of our lapbook AND history pocket for both. I intend to spend 2 or 3 weeks studying this area, pulling worksheets from the k12 history book that we had for Liddy at the start of the year before we pulled out of OHVA. So, this week I need to get to the library and pick up some books for our study if there is anything available. It may not be super fancy or exciting, but the girls should enjoy it before we dig into our big unit with ancient Egypt. That one, I should purchase a couple more HOAC units to do (in eBook format though) but I'll decide on that after I get us started on this unit. Our Handle On The Arts materials came with a lapbook for ancient Egypt that I'm adding in as well, so we may be able to get away with just the one HOAC unit I bought and the various resources available free online. But I am looking at the HOAC Pyramids unit, so I may end up buying that one no matter what we decide.

my first homeschool convention

OK so I blogged a couple times about going to the Midwest Homeschool Convention this weekend. Well, last night we loaded up the girls to stay the night with grandma, and then Scott and I drove down and got a hotel room for the night so we could attend today. We slept in, then had breakfast and got to the convention right around 10am. I just wanted to go into the vendor's hall, as I knew what I wanted to get and look at, plus I wanted to explore some new stuff. So, we did for 4 hours before my hip and leg started to give out. In that time, we looked at several different science programs and picked one!!! YAY!!!!! We also managed to get the following other items:

All About Spelling levels 1 and 2 (from the company itself)
Math-U-See Beta with 2 student books, an Alpha student set, a second set of blocks, and the wood storage case (all sold out so they will ship to us)
Real Science 4 Kids Pre-Level 1 Chemestry, Biology, and Physics bundles
Write Foundations books 1.1 and 1.2 times 2 kids (will ship free to us)
Mathematics standards K-12 guideline book (badly needed for my own reference here!)
a book for me to enjoy
Hands of A Child Complete packs for Ancient Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt
a new Sonlight catalog that isn't all torn up so I can read it plus a discount code for my next purchase

Now, I just have to comment on some of this. The Write Foundations books for Missa and Liddy are a spontaneous purchase, and part of my plans for the upcoming school year to try and get them writing more on a daily basis. I walked by their table at the convention, and something made me stop and look. So, being the faithful person I am, I decided to. What the heck, I can learn about something new right? Obviously I liked what I saw and heard, because I got it for 2 kids. I have no clue if it will work well for us, but hopefully it gets them started to thinking about the writing process a bit and starting to write more in general.

My decision to get Real Science 4 Kids came after we looked at several different programs. I've tried so hard to like Sonlight science, I really have, but I just don't like it. Sorry, Sonlight, but it is the truth. It is too random and jumpy for our family, moving from topic to topic and too many books to read from each week. It is a great program overall, but is not the right choice for our family. So, we put science research at the top of our list. I'm familiar with several programs already, so I wanted mainly to get Scott's opinion of the different options. How it worked was...... He looked at Apologia's science books and got this look on his face like he had seen a fat man in a skintight micro-miniskirt with fishnets, heels, and all that nasty stuff. He was horrified by it, and refused to let me even consider it. I have to agree, it wasn't a good fit for our family's needs (and his opinion wasn't based on the religious content either, he read through part of a chapter and was horrified at the way the material was presented and said that it made him want to cry at how terribly it was written with so much misinformation, I didn't bother looking at it myself because I won't use a program without his agreement). A few others we looked at were poorly laid out, or too parent-intensive for finding materials, or too much time in front of a computer screen, so we ended up right back at the Real Science 4 Kids table at the end making a purchase. We are hoping to use all 3 books in the next two years with the girls combined into one big group, and just have fun with it before we move up to level 1.

Now, I'm sure you saw on this post that I bought All About Spelling from the company itself. I was planning to buy from Sonlight, but I wanted Scott to take a look at it before I bought it. So we headed over to the table, and then after he got a look at it and listened to their speil about the program he suggested that maybe we should buy it today. I agreed, and then decided that since I got it today that poor Missa will start it most likely on Monday. My hands are still tingly and sore from cutting up all the letter tiles to put the magnets on them.

Now, I also hear you asking why I would get just a new Sonlight catalog and a coupon code from them. Well, my new catalog was damaged by the USPS in shipping and it arrived on Monday. I decided that it would be better to just grab a new one at the convention instead of asking Sonlight to ship me another one and risk the post office damaging it too. And that coupon code will come in VERY handy here soon, as I am planning to place an order this weekend for the next set of readers that Missa needs and that package is priced high enough for me to use the coupon code. :)

Oh and the lapbook units. Yes, we use Sonlight for history, but we also add in History Pockets, the k12 history 1 student pages that apply, and lapbooking to our Sonlight to give it a much better hands-on appeal for Missa. That gives her another way to absorb the material, and I noticed in the past that when we lapbook she is engaged and interested and actually retains information better. So yeah, I use 3 curricula to teach the same material. No big deal. We are also adding a lot of depth to our core program (the Sonlight) with these added materials, giving Missa the extra that she craves. We chose to repeat ancients this year despite doing it just last year with k12 because she loved it so much and I wanted to dig in deeper to fuel that interest. So we take 2 or 3 weeks sometimes to finish a week of core work, but its ok because other weeks we may bust through a couple weeks of our core work in this subject. So there you have it, we tweak and modify to encourage the maximum potential of each child in their learning and that includes doing lapbooking, history pockets, and the occassional worksheet (for Liddy's sake, she's my worksheet kid).

So, my very first convention was a blast. I'm hoping that next year Scott can get convention week off work so we can go the whole thing, then I'll be able to explore every vendor they have there and go to some of the workshops. I can't wait, I have my list of this year's vendors and I plan to spend the year researching the ones I'm unfamiliar with to see if they are worthy of my investigating further.

countdown to convention!!!!!

Yes, our tax refund arrived and cleared the bank (minus a hold on almost half of it because of silly bank policies) so I can officially say that we are going to be going to the Midwest convention on Saturday. I am so happy, Scott has arranged for the girls to spend the night on Friday with his mom and then tonight he's going to reserve a rental car for us to take down to the convention (we don't want to put that many miles on any of our vehicles with the way he commutes in his car and our need to leave my van with his mom in case she has to go somewhere with the girls so she can do it legally). I am debating between a full pass for us and just a pass to the vendor's hall (which is what I REALLY want to be exploring and need Scott for help with). But, it is such an exciting moment for me, as it has been a full year since he and I got an overnight without the children (we're considering leaving Friday night and getting a hotel room somewhere closer to the convention since it is a few hours away from here) and we do enjoy getting away for a bit alone whenever possible.

Now I just have to figure out what to wear for the convention and if I need to take something for us to use as a carrying device for any goods we get there (but then, I am married to a man who can pick up a speedboat). I won't be carrying anything so it will be all on him to do that.

I've never been to a homeschool convention before, despite the fact we've been doing this a few years now. So I'm really looking forward to it, and to the CHEO convention in Akron this June when I can go without any kids at all if I want to go to it. I'm reading online for convention tips on how to best navigate it and what I need to have (like uhhh do they take credit cards or should I plan on us having a large amount of cash on hand, I'm making a lot of purchases this weekend based on some special deals that I know will be there at the convention, like the almost $300 I'll be dropping at Math-U-See, if they take cards then I don't have to plan ahead so that we can hit the bank and make a LARGE withdrawal and keep it somewhere on Scott that it can't be picked off him) but if you have anything for me to offer up, please feel free to share with me. I'm really looking forward to this!

dear 7 year old......

No, I did not ride on a dinosaur's back to go to school when I was a little girl. Thanks for calling me old kiddo, I can't wait until your own kids do the same to you one day.

teaching writing

I'm not talking about penmanship here, but the actual process of writing and all the technical stuff in grammar, usage, and mechanics (or GUM to make it easier on me). Missa is in 2nd grade, going to 3rd this fall at home, and Liddy is in 1st, going on 2nd at home, so it is time I start thinking about how to teach some of that stuff.

I have NO knowledge of the technical stuff. I was out of high school before I understood what a verb was, and I have no use for that stuff really. Even in my college classes so far, I've not had to do a great deal of stuff involving the technical aspects of writing (and I've taken English classes already, I have my last one starting up here on Tuesday in fact).. I am an intuitive writer; meaning, I know what I want to write and instinctively how to say it so that I can do well. I attribute that to my early start with reading (I believe my mom said she had me reading before I was 3 years old, but then I was an only child with a stay-at-home mom who had nothing but time to teach me that stuff so young) because I have had the opportunity to read a wide variety of literature in many genres and time periods, so I've had the natural exposure to how to write well. But if you ask me to diagram a sentence, I will laugh in your face because I cannot do it. Period.

I do not wish for my girls to suffer the same fate I have with writing. I want them to be beautiful writers, but I also want them to know WHY something is correctly written. I don't want them to depend on instincts to write, and grammar check in Microsoft Word. I want them to be able to write anything at any time without fear of having fragments and run-ons, without fear of being laughed at for their poor style of writing. I want them to have the foundation I never got. So, the search is on for materials I can use to start them with this process. And until I find that one program I'm looking for to teach it, I will teach them what little I know about the subject myself.

If you have a suggestion for me on this, I'm totally open to it, post away and know that I do read all comments and look into anything that is recommended to me.

new math, good response so far

One of my goals for this month was to switch Missa's math from Miquon to Math-U-See. Well, Friday I ordered Alpha for her and it arrived this morning while I was still rubbing my eyes and trying to wake up (UPS in this area likes to deliver EARLY for some reason, they were here around 9am). Missa appeared totally disinterested in it, and then tried to argue with me this afternoon when I went to sit her down for her first lesson in the book. But after we got going and she was more willing to give it a shot (with reminders that she can either do her math or she can go to bed for the night at 2pm becuase I wasn't going to deal with a defiant attitude today) she decided that it isn't so bad. She watched the DVD lesson with me and then took a brief break while I set up the dining table for 3 kids to do their math at once. I had Kimi and Missa doing their levels of Math-U-See (lesson 1 in Alpha for Missa, lesson 3 in Primer for Kimi) and Lydia doing her Horizons math 1 workbook. Kimi did 3 pages of math, Missa did 2 pages, and Liddy did 1 1/2 pages. Halfway through her first page of math, Missa said she loves her new math book and wanted to do more than just that page so I let her move faster.

what perfect timing

So, we are approaching convention season here. I have *plans* tentatively to attend the Midwest convention in Cincinatti on April 1 and 2 if I can sweet-talk Scott into letting me go down alone on Friday and then he meet me there that night while a friend of mine babysits for us for those 2 days. She already said she would watch them, so now I just have to convince Scott that I won't get mugged there and it will be OK for part of a day. If I can't convince him, then I'll go just Saturday with him. Or maybe I'll go to the convention in Indianapolis.

But anyway, I saw over at the Sonlight forums this morning a teaser about the new catalog. The new catalog is always a big to-do over there, and last year I got sucked in when I found out that they had chosen one of the pictures I submitted to them to print in the current catalog, along with taking 2 quotes from the forums about how Sonlight works in our family. I was quite honored by that little gesture, and felt it was just amazing to be recognized in such a way. I didn't submit any pictures for the upcoming catalog, so I haven't been too excited about the upcoming release. Until I saw that teaser.

Sonlight is going to be carrying All About Spelling when the new catalog goes live on April 1st. I planned to purchase this program for the upcoming school year, to help the girls with spelling. I have a dyslexic child in this house, so it is especially important to me that we build a solid foundation in spelling and phonics with her when it is coming so naturally for her sisters. I've tried a few other methods for spelling, including k12 phonics as written, giving spelling lists each week and testing on Fridays (like in public school), and using the k12 phonic tiles and creating my own hands-on method for teaching the subject. Nothing has worked too well for her, so we had decided to bite the bullet and just buy a program that is supposed to work really well with dyslexic kids along with "typical" learners. Since Sonlight will be carrying this program come April, I'll be able to buy the first 2 levels and the stuff to go with it (including a second set of the cards just so that the two kids in each group don't feel like they are competing, and at this point I think only the 2 oldest will be doing this program when we get started anyway unless Kimi shows a real interest in it since she's just beginning to learn to read now).

But this really excites me, because I was hoping that I'd be able to get it with free shipping and I was seriously considering buying some stuff at Rainbow Resource that we don't really *need* but would like (Five In A Row to supplement P4/5 for the youngest kids) so that I could get the price needed for free shipping. But now, Sonlight carries it so I can buy it without any worries about not having the minimum for free shipping thanks to my club membership perks. Now I just wonder if All About Spelling will be eligible for their 10% discount that I also get on most products......... I'm already planning to purchase Rosetta Stone Spanish from them for me to learn the language (hey if I'm going to spend that much money I may as well get free shipping, you know what I mean?) and several other things that do actually qualify for my discount (the Rosetta Stone isn't eligible) so it won't add much to my order even if it doesn't get the discount, but man I can't wait for this particular order to be placed and then shipped next month.

I'm almost as excited about being able to make this order as I am at the fact that we've almost gotten rotavirus out of this house after picking it up at Classical Conversations last week when we went to check it out as a possibility for fall. The fact that we brought home *that* particular bug didn't help me sell it to Scott, so I need to do some serious overtime work on convincing him before we drop $1600-ish on a once weekly co-op to supplement our Sonlight, and praying if its the right choice for us. A big part of why we homeschool is because of Kimi's immune system being so weak, any bug that comes through here she gets worse than anyone else and takes longer to get over it. Her sisters and I are all over this virus already but she is still running regularly to the bathroom and has an upset tummy so she isn't eating so much. And Kimi was one of the first ones to get it, she came down with it just a couple hours after Jojo did on Saturday night and then the other 2 came down with it on Sunday night, then me on Monday morning and Scott yesterday. I'm thinking I may see if I can give her something to help with the bathroom trips.

March- new month, new goals

So, I've discovered that by not setting clear goals and plans for the month, lessons don't happen too easily in this house. Now granted, I never actually accomplish all our academic goals that I set at the start of a month, but they do help motivate me to be more consistent in our daily work. So, I'm going to set some goals for this month in hopes that I will actually accomplish some of it.

finish 3 weeks of core 1 with the older girls
finish that first History Pocket with the older girls
do 4 weeks of P4/5 with the little girls
do 2 lapbooks with the little girls
do 10 days of math with Kimi
order and start Missa in Math-U-See Alpha
math daily with Missa and Liddy
have Liddy master place value
start cursive with Missa
Liddy finish her handwriting book
all kids read aloud to me 15 times each (not counting Jojo in this one)
finish our dinosaurs unit

OK those are actually fairly realistic goals, and I am pretty confident that we can do it now that the weather is becoming more appropriate for us to get outside so I can get more sun and fresh air. I also have a math final that's due on March 7th, so I am working hard to finish up that class and get on with life already.

I am wearing a skirt today

Shocking, isn't it? If you know me, I love my jeans and t-shirts. Skirts and dresses just aren't something that I enjoy. However, when Jojo was just a couple months old I did start a year and a half journey of only wearing skirts and dresses, complete with headcovering. I felt pretty, feminine, and noticed a major difference in how I carried myself. I wasn't as quick to lose my temper with my daughters when I dressed this way, and I spoke quieter, was more productive, and overall was happier in general. Then life happened, along with a move to a new home, and I transitioned back into my former jeans and t-shirts.

Well, today I dug out a skirt and nice shirt and put them on. I then dug out one of my old coverings, just to see how I looked. As soon as I put it on, I felt this calm sweep over me. I haven't felt this in a long time, and I like it.

I think I may need to do some serious sewing this weekend for me, on top of making those skirts I have planned for my children. And no, I will *not* post a picture of me in a skirt, if you want to see it then give me a call and then stop by.

frustrations in college

Yes, I'm dedicating a post just to my college complaining right now. But let me start by saying that I am truly loving the journey of getting my degree, it has really helped me to see things in a different light as far as how to effectively teach my girls. That is *always* a good thing right?

So what could be so frustrating about college for me? I mean, I just said that I'm loving it. Well, it happens to be one small thing really, and related to an upcoming class.

Next week on Tuesday, I start a new class. This class puts me into the new semester and back into my original group, but I'll have a 3 week juggle with starting a new semester and finishing the old one at the same time. It isn't a big deal, as the class I'm in now is just a basic math class and I currently am a week ahead in the material AND carrying a 100% grade. But the issue lies within the material for the upcoming class.

Now, if you've read my one and only post where I spoke in detail about my college classes, you know that I am attending a Christian college and studying ministry. WOW big stuff there right? Anyway, the problem is with the textbook I have for my next class that is coming up for this 2 course juggle that I'll have for 3 weeks. Are you ready for this?

The class is Earth Science. The textbook is evolution-based.

I'll leave it to you to figure out what it is that I have a problem with for that class. LOL As if it isn't *quite* obvious enough..........

One, I do not believe that evolution happened on the large-scale that theorists speak of. I don't care if they say the planet is around 4.5 billion years old, if you look at skeletons from ancient Egypt and ones from today you will see that 6,000 years produced very little evolution of our structure. Yes, people look different now from then, but structurally we are pretty much unchanged. Evolutionary theorists want us to believe that over the course of about 4 billion years, life evolved from an amoeba to a fish to early reptiles to dinosaurs and everything else, to eventually the animals we have here today (yes, people are animals too, I don't care if you are civilized and socialized and all that jazz, some of the people I know are more animal than person when it comes to certain desires). Obviously, I believe what we are told in Genesis, that God made everything on a 6 day plan and then rested the 7th day. However, I don't know if I lean more to the thinkings of young-earth or old-earth creationism. I am still sorting that one out on my own terms, and I don't need any help with it (I'm starting to have my lean, and when I decide officially I will let you know).

I had told myself that I was going to keep my college textbooks for my own personal reasons, but honestly I think that this earth science book will be hitting the used curriculum sale that our homeschool group does every year, if I can find a friend willing to put it on her table marked FREE TO A GOOD HOME because I find it that wrong to me. And I just got the book on Friday.......... It certainly won't be lasting long around here, that's for sure.

Math-U-See Primer

I decided to go ahead and start Kimi today with Primer. I spent a good amount of time yesterday once the program arrived looking it over and playing with the manipulatives and doing the lessons myself to get familiar with it, so I had a rough idea what I'm doing. Well, we did lesson 1 today. Kimi and I sat together and watched the DVD lesson on my laptop, then we pulled that worksheet out of her book and got some of the green blocks to do it. We're just having fun with it right now, she did 2 pages of the lesson today and I anticipate that tomorrow and Friday she'll finish the lesson.

Now, this child is one that I sat and seriously debated on what level to buy her. At first, I thought I should get her Alpha until I discussed it with a couple people over at the Sonlight forums. Their input led me to get Primer instead, and once it arrived and I got a good look at the materials I started doubting that it was the right choice for her. But, we're going to do it anyway with her, and I'm having her actually use the workbook instead of my original plan to have her do the work in a notebook. She will likely finish it before Missa's birthday in April, but that's all right. I'm actually planning to purchase Alpha here I think next month for Missa to do, so I'll be ready when Kimi is ready for Alpha. I just hope that starting in Alpha we can treat the student workbook like a non-consumable textbook, and have the girls do the work in notebooks instead.

If you've done Math-U-See Alpha, do you think it will be possible to do the program the way I want to? The cheapskate in me just doesn't like the idea of spending that much on math workbooks if I can reuse them and have them write in notebooks instead. Notebooks I can get 10/$1 during the back-to-school sales so it is a much more economical choice for us to do this instead.

wow they are fast!

As usual, I had trouble sleeping tonight. So, I grabbed my laptop off the kids' school desks and am curled up in bed with it while Scott and Kimi sleep (now when did she come join us? oh well it didn't wake me when she did) and decided to check out where our Math-U-See is at in its shipment. According to UPS, it will arrive on Tuesday, January 25th during their normal delivery hours. It is right now currently January 25th, 4:47am Eastern. So, that means that supposedly sometime in the next 3-15 hours or so it should arrive. And THIS is why we like UPS over FedEx, besides the obvious history we have with them delivering damaged packages, the packages being late, and/or them delivering our package at the other end of town requiring me to start making phone calls and yelling at them until they find my package. Maybe it is just me having issues with FedEx, but whenever possible I go with UPS. My college sends my textbooks UPS every time (thankfully that is their default so I don't need to contact the bookstore and get that changed), and since Sonlight started offering the option of requesting UPS for delivery I take the extra day or two of my order being processed to get it (my requesting the different delivery option means that my orders go from the automatic processing to being manually processed, which is a bit slower at the warehouse I guess since a person has to put it in the system for packing and create the shipping order and notify UPS and all that instead of the computers there doing it all). I avoid FedEx for shipping whenever possible after having my Sonlight core P3/4 arrive late, across town, and when it DID show up the box was damaged and some of the corners on my brand new hardback books were dinged up and bent. Back in the spring I ordered a new guide for my core P4/5 and paid the extra for ground shipping instead of Media Mail since I needed it by a certain date, and they managed to lose my order at the local FedEx building where it was supposed to go on the truck for delivery. They claimed they attempted to deliver it Friday but that my business was closed so they couldn't. Last I checked, this was a residence, not a business. That one, Sonlight personally got involved in finding out where the heck my delivery was while I also was making calls, and then when we finally tracked down my package I threw a FIT on the phone (which if you've ever heard/seen one of my little hissy fits you know it is not something small and it can get loud and very nasty, I've had customer service people in tears before when I throw a fit). Needless to say, by the time Sonlight and I got it tracked down and then I threw that fit, they had a guy who wasn't a delivery person personally bring me my package (he was taking personal time mid-day for a few hours to drive in to Columbus to pick his son up at the airport for a visit and since I live on the way and right off the freeway they had him personally deliver it to me). FedEx and I have a looooong history of not getting along. I much prefer to work with UPS or even the USPS for getting my materials.

And the girls always get super excited when I tell them that UPS is coming that day. They know that even if it is one of my college books, a UPS delivery means that there is something new to look at and it puts a little change in our daily flow and it gives me a little boost to have that small change. This delivery today though, that one should be a BIG deal for Kimi since it is supposedly her first official schoolbooks and they all know that we're switching programs so they are all anticipating this delivery so they can check out the manipulatives and see what this new math looks like before they get their own levels to do.

Math-U-See

I've mentioned it before in past blog posts. I've considered switching to Math-U-See for a long time now, close to 2 years in fact. However, the cost of it has kept us from doing just that.

And then Scott got his paycheck this past Friday. Now, if you know my family we have a VERY tight budget, and every penny counts. On his most recent paycheck, however, we were pleased to find that we had been reimbursed a bit of insurance money. His employer switched health insurance companies for the 2011 calendar year. The old insurance company, they required pre-payment by the employer for the insurance premiums. This means that the money they took out in January was for February's coverage. Well, the new company takes the money the month it is due, meaning that January's withholdings is for January's coverage. So, we got the money that was deducted from his paycheck back in December back. That means that we had a little extra money that we didn't anticipate.

So, we decided to take the plunge. Kimi is 5 now, and bugging us for math lessons of her own. So, on Saturday morning we ordered Math-U-See Primer for her. I've always been spoiled by my experiences with Sonlight for quick shipping, but I don't know anything about how Math-U-See ships. All I knew was from when I ordered and had to pay shipping and that they only offer UPS shipping (cool beans, I don't like FedEx). No clue how long it would take them to ship my order.

Well, I got a tracking number in my e-mail inbox less than an hour ago........ I'm anticipating that we'll have it here by Thursday at the latest. Kimi is really looking forward to it, and Missa is also looking forward to it after I explained that I wanted her to try Kimi's level and see if she wanted to do this math instead of Miquon (since it is rather expensive, I'd like her to get into it and work on some of the material that she struggles with that is in Kimi's level so that she has a real feel for the program before I take the leap and buy her Alpha and Beta both to work at her pace). I have a feeling that by fall all my girls will be doing this math program at their levels and pace.

So, if I changed math to this program, does this mean that next I'll be changing up all my other subjects too? The only one left that I want to change is spelling. I've already changed handwrinting this month, and now math is starting to transition of a new program as well.

eating habits

Yep, we all have issues with this one don't we? Well, since it is the start of a new year, I'm re-evaluating some things. My goal to exercise at least a bit 3 days a week is great, but it isn't terribly effective if I don't have the energy to do it because of inadequate nutrition. So, I sit here contemplating a drastic change.

While I was pregnant with Jojo, I was pretty good with a vegan diet that was at least 50% raw produce. I had energy, I felt great, and just overall I was doing better than I'd ever done. I'm thinking it may be about time to start incorporating more of this into my life. I love veggies, I could live on a veggie and nut diet I think with a daily fruit tossed in for that morning burst of energy (I'm particularly fond of apples with peanut butter)

Now here comes the interesting thing. I'm married to a man who will hang me by my toes if I try to make him give up his "meat and potatoes for every meal" style diet. I need to incorporate this slowly for his benefit. I would love to see him eating the stuff I want to, but he is so picky when it comes to food that I'm going to end up cooking one meal for him and the kids and then preparing something else entirely for me each meal. Oh well, I can handle that I think.

At this point I don't have any money left in my grocery budget to go shopping for produce, so I will use the canned and frozen food items that I have on hand now until we have money again here in about 2 1/2 weeks. I'm going to be doing a lot of recipe hunting and experimenting this next couple of weeks while we switch to vegetarian breakfasts and lunches then go vegan with 50% or more being raw on my birthday.

Who wants to bet my kids try to throw a fit at me for this at first?

Making Math Easy

At yesterday's library trip I decided to check and see what kind of math resources were available that I could use for Kimi to last until I am ready to make my next curriculum purchase from Sonlight. Well, I found a couple things I can use with her, and Jordan at the same time, as filler but the big thing I discovered is a book series called "Making Math Easy."

This series is a set of six books by Rebecca Wingard-Nelson. The six books each cover one topic in depth from basic skills to more advanced concepts. All the titles in this series are:

Addition Made Easy
Subtraction Made Easy
Multiplication Made Easy
Division Made Easy
Fractions and Decimals Made Easy
Word Problems Made Easy

I got Addition, Subtraction, and Multiplication for us to check out and review/learn with (multiplication is a subject we've not started yet, and the other two need more practice to solidify skills). The publisher's site also offers free worksheets to download and print for use with the books, so I did just that (however, I only printed the even-numbered pages off since the odd-numbered ones are the title page and answer keys for each worksheet, I can use a calculator to check her work if needed). Now, I have these books for four weeks, plus a renewal for another 4 weeks that I intend to utilize, so I am planning to use these in place of Miquon for a bit to see how Missa does with grasping the concepts.

I also plan to purchase the entire six book series as soon as I have the money to do so. A friend of mine has access to purchasing the set from her local public school district for a slightly discounted price. So I am going to take advantage of this and let her know as soon as I have the money for them, and she is going to check to see if the school has any available to buy. If they do, I'm sending her the money for the books and shipping from Kentucky up here in Ohio. If not, then I'll pay a little more to purchase them online.

If you want to check out this series, here's a link to the publisher's page for the series. I think this is a valuable resource for any homeschooling family, especially if they have a child who struggles with math.

ENSLOW PUBLISHERS, INC.

Dinosaurs!!!!!

I'm creating my first unit study ever. I've done unit studies before, but only the pre-created kind that I can get from sites like Homeschool Share. But, this time I don't have ready access to all the books for the unit we want to do at Homeschool Share, so I'm creating my own for the first time.

They want to study dinosaurs. Lord help me, I still haven't decided if I am in the young earth or old earth camp on this, so I don't know how to approach the times and such. I'm thinking that for now, I'll just go with the mainstream opinion of the Earth being billions of years old and sidestep the dates as much as possible, replacing the "billions of years ago" references with "a long time ago" type stuff and PRAY that Missa doesn't decide to ask me how long ago that "a long time ago" is.

So, for the month of February and maybe a little bit of March I will be doing a unit study for science on dinosaurs. I have a dozen or so books that I got yesterday at the library, and this weekend I plan to go back and get more.

If you've ever created a unit study, do you have any advice for me on this? Missa is VERY interested in dinosaurs and right now is reading one of the books I got yesterday as a first wave of books to consider for the unit, and I know she's going to want to really dig in while at the same time I have a 3 year old who just likes dinosaurs. (and one of the books I got will really appeal to Lydia and her strange fascination with gross things, it is called "Jurassic Poop" of all things LOL) I'm a little nervous about this, since I've only done a handful of unit studies before and NEVER created my own pretty much from scratch like this.

buy a blank book or do a couple dozen lapbooks?

So, as I get ready for tomorrow's lessons, and the start of our newest venture in history with being VERY hands-on, I wonder. I have History Pockets to go with our core, as well as the Handle On The Arts Hands-On History year 1 book and numerous resources for free lapbooking pieces to go with our studies in the rest of core 1. So, do I hunt down some blank books that are going to be big enough for us to put all this in through the year, or do I get a couple more 1" binders and more cardstock to hole-punch for a big notebook we can add to all year, or do I just make a couple dozen or more lapbooks? I have an almost full box of file folders (one of the boxes of 100) so I'm not hurting for folders. I'm just trying to figure out the most practical method of putting this all together for the kids. Scott gets paid on Friday, so if I do something that isn't using a couple dozen lapbooks we can't begin assembling for a whole week (well with the binder option we can begin assembling right away pretty much, as I have some cardstock already on hand and we can punch it for them to use in assembly and then carefully store those pages until we get the binders).

If you have insights or input, comment box is open for it.

A Reason For Handwriting- Transition book

In my last post, I said that we were switching Missa's handwriting program. Well, here's what I think so far.

I've looked through the transition workbook and the "teaching guide" that covers all levels. I like it, a lot. In fact, I like it enough that I've decided to switch all my girls over to this program starting next school year. The only exception will be with Jojo, next school year she will do the preschool level of Handwriting Without Tears before she starts the K book in our new program.

Now, for what Missa thinks of it....... (and I quote her on this one)

"I don't like it. Its too much writing."

LOL Yep, she'll do just fine with it I think. If she sits down and gets to it, she does a great job with it. It is more writing than what she had to do with Handwriting Without Tears, but she'll adjust to it I think. And now for a picture from this morning's practice, it was her first day in it.



Yes, she was up at 6am doing her handwriting practice....... But she did a wonderful job, and I'm very proud of her for it. She's doing the practice lesson pages this week and next to get used to the new style of the paper and such, and then will go into the real stuff. I have a feeling that this will be a good time with her, once we get things going with her and she's ready to move on into the cursive pages (that alone will be what gets her really excited I think, she's been asking for cursive a couple years now)

small changes

You know I'm all about changing things as needed or desired. Well, I am making one small change in our curriculum at this point in the year.

Missa has been asking me to teach her to write cursive, but I've put it off because she has TERRIBLE printing and a lot of issues still with reversals in her writing. I had decided that this school year we'd spend one more year working on her printing before we introduce cursive. Then she finally wore me down after watching me make crazy fast notes on paper regarding my college work for a paper I had to do.

Being the always researching person I am, I started looking at different programs for handwriting. We've always used Handwriting Without Tears here, and it has been a great experience for us. It helped a lot to undo the majority of the damage that was caused by half a year that Missa was in our local public schools. Being a lefty in the schools is not a good thing if you don't go into the school already knowing how to write properly. Trust me on this one, I speak from experience as a lefty who went to public school and had a 1st grade teacher try to correct me by rapping my knuckles with a ruler every time I was writing properly (like I had been taught at home) instead of using that incorrect lefty hook to print. Missa came out of school her K year with the hook, and I spent all of 1st grade undoing that and teaching her to properly position herself and the paper for writing before we started tackling the bigger issues of these reversals and incorrect formations over the summer before we started this year, her 2nd grade school year. We've got her printing proper formation about 95% of the time, and have fixed about 75% of her reversal issues in this year and a half that she's been home. Yes, I think she may be almost ready for cursive.

So, in my searching I knew I wanted something different from the program we've always used. Yes, HWT is a wonderful program and saved us with her (and with Liddy's motor delays, she is doing HWT now very slowly and learning to form her lowercase letters now). However, I do not like the style of cursive that this program teaches. So, we change now. I spent a lot of time looking at different programs before finally settling on "A Reason For Handwriting" and purchasing the transition book set from Sonlight. (I have mentioned how much I love sonlight in the past right?) It arrives in the mail tomorrow, and that is when we will get started on it after I take a bit to get familiar with the program.

I chose this program (and Scott just said ok and handed me the debit card to pay) for a couple reasons. One, they use scripture for the handwriting practice lessons. Now, normally I avoid using Scriptures for anything related to schooling my girls so that I do not influence them to only believe one specific thing without giving them an opportunity to question it. However, when it comes to Missa I do not have this worry. She is one of God's little children, and has already decided that when she grows up that she is going to be a missionary and wants to go to different countries and teach people about God and Jesus. So I do not need to worry as much with her on the influence of scriptures in some of her lessons, she already has made her choice obviously. Also, this particular program has "pretty" pages for the final day of the weekly lessons to write the entire verse on, which is supposed to make the child work harder to do their best because it is paper worthy of being displayed. Yes, I will have regular displays of her handwriting pieces in our home I think. But the main reason we chose this program is because of the transition book itself.

The transition book starts with printing, going through the first half of the book only with printing practice before the students begin cursive midway through the book. This is exactly the type of material I needed for Missa, to use as a motivator for her to do well with the print work beforehand. Since we switched programs for cursive, I would have likely purchased a print workbook before the cursive book to go through with her in any other program so that she has the time to adapt to the different program. The transition book has that built in for me already, so I just have to sit with her each day and do the lesson with her and help her adjust to the differences while we work on improving her printing at the same time.

But the book hasn't actually arrived yet, it is scheduled for UPS delivery tomorrow. And knowing how wonderful UPS is in my area, it will be here right around 8am (usually just before that actually) so I will have more than enough time to look it over before we start lessons in the afternoon. I will update how I feel about it when it arrives, and again after a bit of time with the program.

Welcome to 2011

Yes, it is a new year. A fresh start to things, an opportunity to build memories and make changes for the better. I like to call Mondays the ultimate in the do-over because you are starting fresh for a week. Well, the start of a new year is also one of those ultimate do-overs. Its a new year, who cares if you totally screwed up 2010? You got a fresh start now in 2011, so grab it and run wild.

Often, people make resolutions for the new year. Usually those are things like "lose 20lbs" or "quit smoking." Those are BIG goals, and all people do is stare at the end and then get discouraged when it isn't easy and happen quickly, so they give up. Well, not this year for me. I decided that I need to set a few goals for my own betterment in a few areas. One for my physical/mental health, one for our home environment, one for the kids' homeschool, one for my college, and one for my relationships in general. So, here goes, my list of goals.

1: exercise 3 times a week at a minimum
2: develop a consistent routine for housework
3: be consistent in homeschooling at least 4 days a week
4: get my GPA to a 3.0 by the end of next Semester and maintain it
5: say at least one positive thing about each person I love daily

Now, do you notice that the central theme around my goals for this year involve me doing things on a regular basis? Looks like I am working on becoming more consistent with the things i need to do. Right now, I work out uhhhhhhhhh never. Housework happens when I'm forced to, homeschool may happen a couple days a week randomly, and my grades in college are hovering near that 2.0 line just high enough to keep my financial aid eligibility.

So, I need to come up with a course of action in this matter. I happen to know that I am capable of being consistent with things, as I managed to teach myself to take my meds every morning (it only took me 3 months of having an alarm go off at 6:30am every single day before I was able to shut that off because I take my pills when I get up each day). So, I just need to set myself up for success with this. I am going to start small. I have no clue what I'll do exactly, but I know that I am going to do this. I will find a way to remember to do the things I need to do every day to improve my home, my relationships, my education, and my health.

talk about a sign.......

So, I know from my own experience that this is the start of the difficult period of homeschooling for us. The weather makes me not leave the house unless I absolutely HAVE to, and that means the kids don't go out much either. They get stir-crazy and drive me crazy. The lack of direct outdoor sunlight starts messing with me (sorry but those full-height windows we have just don't make up for it, they filter the vit. D right out of the sunlight before it gets to me I think) and I start cycling more than usual. Overall, it just makes for a hard time here and we don't get as much schooling done because I'm just trying to keep a grip on myself so that I can function enough to do the chores and take care of meals and snacks. And this year, I have the added responsibility of attempting to also keep a grip to keep my grades up in college. Yes, it is a difficult period for us (and the reason why we call it winter vacation instead of summer vacation).

In fact, it has been so difficult here this week for me on a psychological level that, over the weekend, I had decided that on Monday morning I was going to go to the elementary school that we are zoned in to enroll the oldest girls in grades 1 and 2. But, when I made this decision I decided to pray about it. I asked God to give me a sign if I wasn't supposed to enroll them, and went to bed.

Then when I got up I looked out the window at my road. We had snow fall last night, and the road is pretty much untouched. Surprising too, since we live on a main road that is one of the main access routes to the freeway ramp here AND we have the branch campus of Ohio State and the technical college both about a block away. So I looked at the local radio station for school closings and delays, and then laughed. Yep, God gave me that sign all right............. There won't be anyone there to enroll the girls if I managed to get my van out of the driveway (I don't drive so well in snow, it messes with my depth perception real bad, that's part of why we don't go out so much in wintertime). Looks like we're just going to announce our winter vacation now and do whatever we get done between now and when things start thawing out. Our focus during this particular season will be retaining math and reading, making a little progress if we want to, and Missa wants to learn to knit so she and I will knit some hats and scarves for her and her sisters (since I'm pretty talanted in this area I will do her sisters' hats and scarves while she does her own hat and scarf, then she can make some for their bears). Other than that, it is survival mode for chores, meals, and my main focus will be trying to keep up in my college classes to at least maintain a C average so I continue to qualify for financial aid.

I do not like admitting that this time of year is upon us, and I know it will be difficult for us for a while, but it is necessary to take the time off. Scott will likely pick up science lessons on weekends if he wants to, and will pick read alouds from our previous cores to continue reading once he finishes Charlotte's Web (which he was planning to finish over the weekend but life has a way of happening like that so he didn't get to it)

homeschool roller skating

The local roller skating rink has a homeschool skate on the 2nd and 4th Friday of every month from Sept-May. I'd heard about it but didn't know when or how much it was, and was too lazy to call and ask. Well, this week I saw a message on our homeschool group's e-mail list about the homeschool skate, and when I saw that it it only $7 a family I thought "hmmmmm maybe we can afford that." Well, today was payday for Scott, and I asked him about it. He left the debit card with me so that I could pull cash to take them, and we went. I even got on skates and tried not to fall on my face, and we all had fun. I think we found something to do twice a month to give us PE for a while........ since they didn't like karate and we can't afford much else right now (hey, skate rentals for everyone is included in the price of homeschool skate, that makes it a VERY affordable $14 a month for us to get some exercise). Enjoy!

science thoughts for my girls

So, I'm sure you've gathered that we don't have a set curriculum for science this year for the girls. There is a reason for that too. See, I ran out of money before I had decided on science materials for our homeschool (thanks to an old house, broke-down pickup truck, and me getting mono and spending a month depending on Scott to bring home takeout almost every night for supper). So I decided that I was going to wing it, more or less, this year and see what comes of it.

Enter my grand idea. I own 4 different Sonlight cores, 1 Sonlight science level, and 4 different levels of Sonlight language arts. Yes, you can safely say that we are a Sonlight family with that stuff on my shelf. Of course, all that is on top of the books we've gathered over the years that we've been parents so far, and the misc. college textbooks I have from my attempts to go to school for a degree. I should have enough to do my own thing with science until we get the tax refund and can buy Sonlight science 1, right?

Now here's my idea. In cores P3/4 and P4/5, Sonlight included science as part of the packages. That gives me uhhhhh 10 books I think that we can really dig into. Now, my girls have read some of these books already with our past runs through those cores, but we didn't really dig in with them at all. So, I'm going to do one book at a time and we're going to read through it, digging deeper in the subject and material it covers as they have an interest. I have the internet (obviously) so we can easily dig in with some searching online without much trouble.

So yesterday I did just that. We started the Flip-Flap Body Book from core P3/4 and I only read the first 2 pages of it to the girls, and they were really interested in it. Missa begged me to read more, then cried when I said no and that we'd read more tomorrow, and then we moved on to history and she got interested in that. Today I'll read the next two pages of that book to them, and again field begging and crying for more before I go on into history and they get sucked into it and want more more more of history. I am NOT stressing over it at all right now, if they ask for more about science once we are done with our schooling this afternoon then we'll hop onto the laptop and do a little digging.

But yeah, that's my thoughts on science. We're going to just start with the books I have and go through them while we wait for the money to buy the curriculum I have picked (which, when I buy SL science 1 I'm also buying core 2 and science 2, plus at least one additional level of readers, which all that should cover me for a couple school years on top of my core 1 stuff we have now)

college for me

Yes, I know I don't post much at all about my college classes, except with the occassional reference to the busy schedule it creates for me. So I thought I would give a blip about that since this *is* our family's blog and my college journey is a big part of our life here.

I'm taking classes online through Ohio Christian University. I love it, I'm almost done with my first semester of classes. The classes run 3-6 weeks, just depending on what it is, and they send me actual textbooks via UPS about 2 weeks before the start of each class so I'm not trying to keep track of a hundred different books at one time with taking 5 or 6 classes at the same time. I currently have a C average because I had a rough time with my first English composition class, but it will be going back up again with this class that starts tomorrow and the one after that.

Anyway, my class that starts tomorrow is called "Bible Study Methods" and I'm really looking forward to it. There was a glitch with the bookstore not sending me the books for my class, so on Friday morning I had to contact them to find out if I was getting books or not. They had my books on the UPS truck that afternoon, and now they are sitting beside me just arrived and taken out of the mailer bag. I have two books in this class, "How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth" and "Bible Study That Works." Hey its a Christian college, of course I have bible classes like this. Of course, I'm also pursuing a degree in Christian Ministry so it is definitely part of the territory to have bible classes.

Anyway, I've looked forward to courses so far that I've taken, even that English composition 1 course I just finished and got a C- in. But this course, I'm actually excited about it. I'm looking at these texts sitting here (I haven't had a chance yet to skim them) and am feeling slightly giddy about starting my coursework. I have the syllabus, student guides, Word document activity pages, and all other materials downloaded and saved in a desktop folder for my college classes (and if you have to know how OCD I am about it, within that folder I have a folder for finished classes and then one for each class this semester, and within the course specified folder I have a folder for each week of the course which is where the individual week student guides and documents are at, and where I'll save all completed work before submitting it). I've read the syllabus and all the week 1 materials, and I've typed up my devotional response for this week to submit tomorrow morning first thing. Now, today when I'm not doing chores or homeschooling the girls I can get going on the rest of my assignments for this week.

I can't stress enough the value of college classes for a stay-at-home parent. Even if I never actually USE the degree I'm working on, just knowing that I'm capable of obtaining a college degree 10 years after graduating high school (ok in June it will be 11 years since I graudated in 2000) helps to boost my own confidence and that is reflected in how I homeschool the girls, do housework, and just live in general. I love being a stay-at-home mom, but it does get boring after a while to be constantly doing things for everyone else and putting yourself on the back burner. My college classes are that thing I'm doing for ME. Some moms may get manicures or go to an expensive salon for highlights and a haircut regularly, but for me the best way to treat myself and give myself what I need to feel good about myself is to be constantly learning and growing. When I finish my Associate's degree in 4 semesters (after this one is finished, I have one more class after the one starting tomorrow to finish the semester), I may or may not go on to the Bachelor's program online. Actually, after this semester and 3 more, I can choose to transfer into the Bachelor's program instead of finishing my AA first. Then, when I finish my BA at OCU, I may decide to work using my degree or maybe I'll enroll at Ohio State as a part time student and take a class here and there online for fun to keep learning and growing. Continuing my education is how I take care of myself and pamper myself. I'm not one for fancy clothes or expensive haircuts, I want to learn. I want to keep going in my own education and never be finished learning.

I also hope that by continuing my own education like I am with college, my daughters will see that learning is difficult sometimes and that you don't give up, that you keep pushing and trying anyway and just do the best you can and keep trying until you get it. I am hoping that watching their mom go through college while they are working on elementary school at home will give them an example to follow about sticking to it and hopefully inspire them to have the drive that I do to keep learning no matter what. I've already had a few talks with Missa about college and learning because she is the oldest of my crew (at 7 1/2 years old). She's the one of my girls who was in the Newark public schools for half of a school year, and the only one so far who has absolutely NO desire to ever go back to public school (yes, our second year at home is almost halfway done and she still flat out refuses to ever go to school again, she loves homeschooling that much). She asked me a while back why I wanted to go to school because I'm a grownup and don't have to do it, and was surprised that I like learning and think that its fun to do schoolwork. I spent some time showing her about what online college looks like. We sat down with my laptop and I logged into my online classroom and showed her how we do discussions in class, how I get my homework from the teacher, and how I turn it in when its finished. She thought it was just the coolest thing to be able to do college at home on the computer like I am, and asked me if she'd be able to do that when she's old enough to go to college instead of going to one of the big colleges and sitting in classrooms. I told her that when she's done with homeschool that if she wants to go to college that she certainly can do it that way for a lot of degree programs.

Obviously that talk with her about it (which SHE was the one to start) led to us discussing a lot more than just that I'm in college and do schoolwork too. We talked about what kind of jobs need a college degree and what ones don't, why some people go to college even if they don't plan to use the degree to work (like me at this point, I'm not sure yet if I'll use it), and a lot of other things about why it is important to work hard in school and learn as much as you can. I don't know that it had too much of a long-term impact on her with learning, but since we had that particular talk I have noticed that she appears to be more focused and willing when it comes to math and language arts lessons, even to the point where she is getting her math workbook and cuisinaire rods out on her own and doing a page or two when we're not doing schoolwork. She is starting to see the long-term value of working hard in school and learning, through my going to college and pursuing a degree with the snippets of free time that I have. I couldn't ask for a better return of the investment in a college education for me, if I inspire my girls to become lifelong learners and always work hard to do their best in all parts of their life then it is worth the student loans we're taking out right now for me to go to school.

"we're excavating, mommy!"

Yes, one of my kids said that to me a couple nights ago. We had decided to go ahead and skip the first two Usborne books in core 1 for now, and just incorporate a bit from those books as we go through the rest of the core. So, that puts us in week 7, and we've been learning about archaeology this week. This is super cute, so bear with me on it. I really wish I had taken pictures to share, but I didn't so you'll just have to imagine it happening. :-)

We had just finished reading "Archaeologists Dig For Clues" in history, and I was chatting on Yahoo with a friend of mine while the girls were playing in the schoolroom area. Kimi and Jojo had recruited their big sisters to help them set up an imaginative play, and I wasn't watching too closely to see what was up. Before too long, they had gotten Missa to draw them up a grid map just like in the book we had read, and they had gotten out paintbrushes and some other things. The little two each picked a square tile to work at, and when I started watching what on earth they were doing (before I asked) they were carefully using popsicle sticks to scrape a layer of dirt carefully and put it into a pretend container, and then use a paintbrush to clear away the loose dirt from what they were digging up. (ok before I go any further, they were PRETENDING here, there is no actual dirt on my floor, maybe a few crushed tortilla chips right now but no actual dirt) Now, I had no clue what they were doing, as I was not paying attention earlier to their talking with their big sister and getting out the book we had just read to show her what they wanted and all that stuff, so I had to ask them what they were up to. Jojo, bless her little 3 year old heart, looked at me with a big grin and said, "we're excavating, mommy!" and then Kimi told me that she had found a kitty buried over here just like they found a doggy in the book we read. Jojo ran over to her, and they carefully dug around it and built the box around it and all the other stuff just like in the book to preserve the skeleton until it was back at the lab to be properly removed. Then Kimi drew it on the grid that they got Missa to make for them, and she "wrote" it down on the log. Oh they had so much fun that night!

I really wish I had gotten pictures of them during their "excavation" so I could share them too, it was just too adorable and I had to watch it as it was happening because it just amazed me at how much they learned from simply listening to me reading to their oldest 2 sisters for history. I didn't think they actually WERE listening, but apparently they were.

I do believe that for now, one core for all 4 of my kids to do history is going to be a very workable option. I'm amazed at how much my littlest girls are picking up regularly from the reading we do together, and I can't wait to start getting into history with them next week.

Which, last night I peeked ahead in the core to see what we're doing with history so I could be ready for it. I got "A Child's History of the World" (we'll call this CHOW to make life easier on me) and "Usborne Book of World History" (aka UBWH here from now on) to look over. Now, initially I did NOT like CHOW at all, I had read the first 3 chapters and thought it was terrible. But then someone at the Sonlight forums told me that the first 3 chapters aren't used at all, it starts in chapter 4. So, I decided to give it a chance and see how it worked before I tossed it aside and replaced it with Story of the World. Last night was my first time looking at it beyond chapter 3, and I skimmed chapter 4 and the pages in UBWH that we would be doing with it. Then I went forward a bit more in the guide and skimmed CHOW chapters and UBWH pages, then added in Time Traveler for skimming when we got to it. I ended up stopping around week 23 or so I think with my skimming. I had so much fun looking over what we were going to be covering that I couldn't stop. I do believe the girls are going to have a blast with the hostory coming up, I can't wait to get started on it. (and I honestly do believe that a parent can not successfully homeschool their children with materials if they aren't excited about them as well, I mean they can teach the material effectively but if the parent isn't excited about it as well then the kids won't get even close to as much out of the material because they will pick up on their parent's boredom or dislike of the material no matter how well mom or dad tries to hide it)

Happy December! new month, new goals

I love this time of year. Honestly, I really do love December. It is that perfect time of year for my breathing, where its cold enough that we must bundle up to go outside but not so cold that even checking the mail is painfully cold. It is December 1st, 2010 and we have our first snowfall of the season today as well! It is a truly beautiful thing, there is just something magical about the first snowfall of the season that takes me back to when I would go sledding on the hill at my grandmother's house with the twins, Amy and Liz (they lived down the street). Of course, I can't remember only the good things about sledding down the hill with them, I have to also remember that one time I slammed straight into the apple tree and almost broke my leg (the upper one on my left leg, OUCH that flipping HURT when it happened too!). Yes, I do love this time of year, when we start putting fires in the fireplace regularly (read: almost daily to keep the gas bill down) and hot cocoa becomes a regular thing at the breakfast table. Hot home-cooked meals almost all the time, the beauty of snow falling, all that great stuff. The only thing I don't like about this time of year is that people seem to forget how to drive.

But anyway, it is a new month, and as you may have noticed already I try to set some goals at the start of each month for our homeschooling. Well, this month is no different. So here's what I'm thinking may happen here.

We've had a major "what on EARTH" time here since October when I withdrew the girls from OHVA. It totally turned things upside down in schooling, but in a very good way. We just finished the book "Archeologists Dig For Clues" today from Sonlight core 1, and the girls are fascinated, as usual, by this subject. Now mind you, a couple days ago I had posted about deciding to drop the first two books in the core history and moving on in history, and not really sure what to do about those two books because there is just so stinking much information in them. Well, I think I figured it out. This month, for December, we are going to add those two books back in and go through them. We are going to spend time learning about archeology and the science behind it, as an integrated history and science unit. This just came to me about a half hour ago, so its still just a beginning idea that I have. I'm going to do some digging at the library's online catalog, in my core 1 guide, and on the world history forum at the Sonlight forums to get some ideas on books and activities and such to add to this. We live less than 10 minutes (maybe about 5 minutes I think) from the Newark Earthworks Great Circle Museum, aka the Newark Indian mounds. I am seeing a field trip in our very near future here........... lol

For math, I am just aiming to work on it with the girls each 4 days a week. Nothing too ambitious, just do some work regularly on it.

With lang. arts and reading, Kimi and Jordan have started Sonlight lang. arts K (see my post yesterday about Kimi's first copywork) while Missa and Liddy are doing the lang. arts 1 program at their individual speeds. I want to continue that momentum, and keep plugging away a minimum of 4 days a week. I also would like to begin working with Missa on cursive I think, she's been asking about it a while so maybe we'll give it a shot and see what happens. For Liddy, we're goign to work on printing lowercase letters and using them in everyday writing instead of using just capitals like she insists on right now. Kimi is going to work on lowercase letters too, but more from the approach of getting it right the first time so we don't have the issues with her that we do with Liddy as far as flat out refusing to use lowercase letters. Jordan will do whatever she does in this area, as we aren't really doing much with her except exposing her to it all right now. The only parts of lang arts K that she is really doing would be the weekly letter sheet, looking at the picture dictionary, and doing some of the activities.

OK what am I missing? Oh yes, arts and crafts! This month I am *hoping* that we can make homemade ornaments for our Christmas tree this year since they managed to destroy all of our ornaments that we had every year prior to this one. I'll make some salt dough and color it with food coloring, then turn them loose on making ornaments to hang. I will also do some of those cinnamon scented ornaments if I can find the recipe for that dough, and we'll do paper ring chains to put on the tree instead of tinsel. At least, that's my plan, and we all know how my plans go sometimes................... *wink*

And for music, I think we'll learn a couple Christmas carols. I'm not thinking of trying to take my 4 kids and teach them to do a flawless "Carol of the Bells" quartet, I'm thinking more like an out of tune Jingle Bells or something. Keep it simple!

For read aloud time, Scott is going to finish Charlotte's Web and move into, and hopefully finish, Homer Price. But that depends on how much he reads to them each night more than anything else.

Of course, all these grand plans depend on the cooperation of my girls and them staying healthy long enough to do even half of it. lol Right now Kimi is sick and on antibiotics, so schooling is much more relaxed than it sounds. But we're still getting things done around here for the most part, when I'm not working on my college homework, keeping up with chores, or handwashing clothes because our washer died over the weekend and we're saving for a new one (it died sooner than we thought, we were already saving).