Tis the season!

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

Buckeyes

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

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

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Peanut-butter fudge

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

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

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

preschool galore week 1

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

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

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

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

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

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom! preschool galore!

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

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


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

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


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

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

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

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

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

vacation

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

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

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

well that went out the window lol

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

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

FlyLady hmmmmmm

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

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

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

lol we caught up

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

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

Melissa and phonics- Oh, my!

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

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

another Monday, another week

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

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

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

Our first quarter- DONE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

high hopes for this week

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

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

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

oh no, tv's down lol

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

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

illness and a broken nose *lol*

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

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

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

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

aaaaaahhhhhhh the joys of soccer

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

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

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

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

well, we're close on hours at least

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

next year?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

See the problem with pros and cons lol

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

violin lessons with Melissa

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

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

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

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

finding individual strengths

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

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

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

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

wow, this is working well

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

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

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

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

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

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

money skills

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

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

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