July 24, 2009
The kids found a turtle in the backyard. We kept it overnight but then let it go. They inspected it closely, fed it some water, celery and tomato and then we released it the next morning.
They found this dead Dragonfly out near the fire pit. It’s kind of nasty but how often do you get to see a dragonfly up close like this? This picture does not do the wings justice- they looked like they were made from silver glitter- just gorgeous.
Sometimes I forget the good ideas I used to have, only to rediscover them years later and say to myself “Why did I stop doing that???” Staging is one of those things I used to do when Mary and Nathan were little that somehow fell away over the years.
What is staging??? Staging is taking a few minutes to set out something “new” for the kids to play with when they get up. By “new” I mean something that has been put away in the toy closet for a while. I try to do this in the evenings after they’ve gone to bed and it seriously only takes about 2 minutes. I pull something out they haven’t seen for a while (a tub of Legos, the Castle set, etc.) and set it out for them to discover in the morning. I can be guaranteed a good hour or more of quiet playing when I do this.
Mary- June 18, 2009
Because I’ve been doing a lot of planning for the upcoming school year, we’ve been spending a lot of time up in the school room lately. The other night I set some things out for each of them to discover that I thought would interest them.
Nathan has been really into books lately so I set out this selection for him to discover on the floor- 3 books on houses and building, 2 books on space and 2 books on Indians. All things he has been interested in recently.
This little mushroom playhouse for Savvy- she loves to sit at the desk like a “big girl”.
Mary loves to draw and has recently been loving this Usborne “What Shall I Draw?” book that I picked up for her at a used homeschool bookstore. This book along with a pad of paper and some colored pencils will keep her occupied for hours.
Yesterday was a a chilly, rainy day. The sort of day where you stay inside and cozy up by the fire. This was Kip’s weekend off work so we were able to spend the whole weekend together and it was nice.
I helped the children build a fort out of the dining room table and a bunch of random blankets. You can see Nathan’s pirate ship “riding the waves” atop the table. The “railroad” tracks on the floor are actually the fencing that goes with Mary’s horse stable. They spent the morning hauling all of their most precious toys into the fort, holed up planning all sorts of adventures.
Mary turned Nathan’s log truck into a horse carrier.
We did a full day of school that afternoon- Reading, Math, Bible, Science, Handwriting, Logic. Mary with one of her completed logic works- we’re using “Castle Logix” this year.
Savannah, cleaning up all by herself.
Mischief. That should be his real name. 
Savvy fell asleep on Daddy that afternoon after a long day of playing hard.
Savvy working hard on her walking. She took 6 steps in a row!
This is how she gets herself into standing. She’ll be sitting on the floor, then will lean over and plant both hands on the floor in front of her, pop her biscuits up in the air so that she’s in a tripod position. Then from this position she’ll slowly stand up. She did this 5 or 6 times yesterday- such a great improvement!
Oreo cookie time after dinner.
We’ve taken a break from school for almost a week. The last day we did any bookwork was last Thursday. We did go on a field trip with the local homeschool group on Tuesday but we didn’t do any bookwork that day either.
Mary’s math program moved from counting to learning place values and I knew she wasn’t really getting it- she was guessing.
We’re doing two reading programs simultaneously- “Teach Your Child To Read in 100 EZ Lessons” and CLE’s “Learning to Read”. She has been doing very good work with LTR- she completes each lesson easily until she gets to the last page which is ALL sight words. And a lot of them. And she doesn’t know them.
I went back to our school book shelf and pulled out several workbooks that we haven’t used yet. It’s a pet peeve of mine to see new stuff that has never been used sit around and go to waste. Why keep it if you’re not going to use it?
So- given that I think she’s stuck on place values and sight words, I’ve spent the last week thinking about what to do next. Kip and I spent an evening looking at all of our school materials and talking it over and I think we’ve decided to take a quasi-break from both Math and LTR. We’ll spend the next 7 weeks between now and New Years reviewing counting, sight words, etc. and completing some review type workbooks. I plan to continue reading History and Science out loud and we’ve got some neat science experiments/activities coming up that I think the kids will enjoy. Kip is going to spend a little time in the evenings working on handwriting with her.
With that in mind, here’s our plan for the upcoming weeks:
Reading
Continue with 100 EZ Lessons
Practice sight words flash cards
Learn/Be able to do Sight word pages from CLE Light Unit 102
Complete these workbooks:
“I Know Letters”
“Color by Letter”
“Helping Yourself” pages 46, 19, 20
Math
Practice flash cards 0-9
Practice counting 0-9
Complete workbook- “Counting 1-10”
0-100 Math Sheets from Donna Young
General Review Workbooks
Complete these workbooks:
“Everywhere We Go”
“Adventures With Books”
“Going on Eagerly”
Handwriting
Practice writing full name
Learn to write “Mary” independently
“Handwriting Without Tears” Kindergarten book (orange)
Complete this review workbook- “Disney- The Alphabet”
History
Continue reading “The Light and the Glory” out loud
Read Thanksgiving and Christmas picture books
Science
“Hearts and Trees” Fall Kit
“Let’s Do Science Today”- one lesson per week
Continue reading aloud “Men of Science” and “Usborne’s First Book of Nature”
My Dad has been here visiting all week so I just couldn’t find the time to post… This will be a catch up post…
Warning: This is a picture heavy post so if you have dial up, well… I”m sorry!
So, I had this epiphany about Mary’s school today. I was thinking about how if she were enrolled in Kindergarten at public school they would include all sorts of things as part of her school day hours that I haven’t counted- lunch, recess, art, etc. When I include all of that she’s getting about 5 hours of school a day. 2 1/2- 3 hours of seat work but also lots of PE, art, etc.
Today is our half-way day- Day 90 of the school year. She’s technically half way finished with her Kindergarten year. Now, since we are schooling year round it’s not like we’ll hit day 180 in February or March and quit school for several months. We’ll just keep plugging along until she’s completely finished her Christian Light First Grade Course Work (which I’m using for Kindergarten as I think it is representative of what most kids learn in Kindy now) and Math-U-See Primer.
Mary- Today (10/30)- Half Way done with Kindergarten! (excuse the messy shirt- this picture was taken after spaghetti dinner and pumpkin carving AND 2 hours of playing outside!)
Friday 10/24/08
I bought Mary this used Lite Brite for $5- she and I worked together to make this cake. She was so proud of it! 
Monday, 10/27/08
Dad and I took the kids to the Science and Nature Center. All this time I’ve been avoiding going because I thought it would cost me $34 for all of us to get in. Turns out it isn’t as expensive as I thought it would be AND my zoo pass gets me 1/2 off the admission. It was only $11 for me and the kids! We will definitely be going back soon! It was sooo cold on Monday that we didn’t linger as long as I would have liked.
Sweet Savvy…
My Dad and Mary
My Dad and Nathan
Mary and Nathan in the tunnel/caves at the Science and Nature Center
Monday night I hosted my second Family Dinner for 10.
Sunday night I also had 10 people- our five, my Dad, sister, nephew and Mel and Carolyn (Kip’s Dad and his new wife). Monday night was our five, my Dad, sister, nephew, Bob and Kylie (my sister’s boyfriend and his daughter) .
Here’s Alec and Mary… do you think there is any hero-worship going on???
Tuesday, 10/28
Dad with Mary and Nathan…
Wednesday, 10/29
I LOVE these pictures of Dad with Puddy! We took these right before he was getting ready to head back to Pittsburgh.
Look at that little smile…
Also on Wednesday, I worked like mad trying to get the kids pictures taken. Wednesday was the last day of the Shutterfly deals I posted about earlier. I wanted pictures of the kids in their Halloween costumes, Christmas pajamas and Christmas outfits for the calender I was making for family members.
All three kids are chickens this year. Kip and I are dressing up as farmers with our little flock of chickens. Too funny.
Savvy- as always, so happy to have a kitty.
Tuesday, 10/7/2008
After reading THIS POST over at The Pioneer Woman I decided to order some Letter Tiles.
Here’s Mary with them yesterday-
First she sorted them into groups by letter.
Then I gave her some of her sight words and had her use the tiles to spell out the word. We worked on rhyming by turning “at” into “sat” into “mat” into “bat”. etc.
We’ve been following this schedule since January and it’s working beautifully for us. Mary’s Kindergarten work and Nathan’s preschool work is done sometime in the 9:00-11:00am block depending on what the weather is like (if it’s going to be a super hot day than they play outside first) and what we have going on that day.
Also- I regard the schedule as a tool to help me, not my “master”. So many people let the schedule rule their lives and it really shouldn’t be that way. It should be a help to you, not a hinderence or something that you continually feel guilty about. So when we need to deviate, we do, and it’s no big deal. For example, today I’ve got an appointment at 11:00am. So we’ll leave the house by 10:30, go to the appointment, meet Daddy for lunch and be home by 1:30ish. We’ll just hop back on the schedule when we get here.
|
7:00-7:30am |
Kids and Dad: Breakfast Mom: Showering and Dressed, make beds, bring down any laundry |
|
7:30-9:00 |
All: Free play, get dressed, bathroom Savvy: tummytime |
|
9:00-9:30 |
Big Kids: continued free play Savvy: change diaper, go down for Nap 1 |
|
9:30-10:30 |
Big Kids: Outside or specific activity inside if weather not good Savvy: Napping |
|
10:30-11:00 |
Big Kids: Schoolwork Savvy: Napping |
|
11:0-11:30 |
Big Kids: freeplay Savvy: Get up from nap, changed, in bumbo seat |
|
11:30-12:30pm |
All: Lunch |
|
12:30-1:00 |
All: Read Aloud/Practice sitting |
|
1:00-4:00 |
Big Kids: Napping |
|
1:00-1:30 |
Savvy: change her diaper, nurse/bottle, go down for Nap 2 |
|
1:30-3:30 |
Savvy: napping |
|
3:30-4:00 |
Savvy: Get up from nap, change, tummytime/ 1-1 time with Mom |
|
4:00 |
Big Kids: Get up from nap, potty, shoed and combed |
|
4:00-5:30 |
Big Kids: Outside or specific activity inside if weather not good Savvy: tummytime or outside if appropriate |
|
5:30-6:00 |
Big Kids: cartoons Savvy: floor time |
|
6:00-7:30 |
All: Dinner, play time with Daddy |
|
7:30 |
Big Kids: PJ’s, brush teeth, in bed |
|
8:00 |
Savvy: changer diaper, pj’s, bottle then bed |
A conversation with Mary this morning:
Me: Mary, you and Mommy are just alike. We’re two peas in a pod.
Mary: (trying to copy what I said above) Yup, we sure are! Two pots and a pan!
I laughed myself silly over that one!
A Day in the Life
I thought some of you might enjoy seeing some “snapshots” of our daily life.
Here’s handsome Nathan with his tractor.
Savannah is just crazy talented with her feet, as I’ve posted before. She’s playing with this toy by holding it with her feet so that her hands are free to play with the toy. funny baby.
A rather spectacular and industrious castle wall built on by Mary and Nathan on the ledge of the bay window in the living room.
Ahhh, Cherry pie. Looks delicious eh? I usually have trouble with crimping the crust around the edges but I think I’ve finally figured out how to do it correctly. I thought this one came out well.
Fat cat, sunning herself.
Mary completed her first color by letter/number picture. I think she did a pretty good job for a four year old!
Nathan’s first picture of a “person”. Prior to this he was just doing random scribbling. He did have help with the nose and mouth but he did the body, eyes, hands, legs and feet himself!
Daddy brought this home a few nights ago! It’s a hand-me-down from an older cousin but Nathan thinks it’s COOL!
Mary, playing ballerina in her ballerina bathing suit from Aunt Kaeb.
This is Puddy- mad, mad, mad that I’m not picking her up. This was nothing short of an all-out FIT.
Further Explanation of Before Five in a Row
An aquaintance of mine posted this explanation of Five in a Row on a parenting board that we are both on. We are doing the Before Five in a Row preschool curriculum but her explanation of how FIAR works is a good one.
Here you go, from Beth:
For Kindergarten we used FIVE IN A ROW. It’s an inexpensive yet effective and fun way to teach K and even preschool… my then 3yo was able to join in the fun and learn too without getting in the way or being a distraction. ![[Smile]](http://www.raisinggodlytomatoes.com/ubb/smile.gif)
All you need is the manual (around $25 but I’ve seen it for less used), a library card, a few basic craft and school supplies, a world map or globe, and comfy place to cuddle up and let the learning begin. To this day I’m amazed at what they learned… they STILL talk about some of the books we rowed and various lessons.
The way FIAR works is you read the book, which is great children’s literature not fluff and stuff, each day for a week… hence the name. ![[Wink]](http://www.raisinggodlytomatoes.com/ubb/wink.gif)
On Monday you would read the book and have a geography/social study lesson… find on the map where the story took place, maybe look it up in the encyclopedia about the place and their culture or have some books about the place to read, maybe make or color that country’s flag. For lunch we would try to have the food that is popular in that country, egg rolls for China as an example. In the manual there will be lots of ideas and lessons you choose for that day. Then Tuesday you review yesterday and read the book again. The the lesson is language arts… you may talk about illiteration or personafication or rhymes or any number of things dealing with writing and language arts. Again lots of ideas to chose from in the manual. On Wednesday is art. You review the first two days, read the story, and then have an art lesson about the way the story was illustrated, maybe about the color scheme, the style, etc. There is always several ideas to choose to teach in the manual. Thursady is math day (you can do each subject on what days work best for you, this was just how we did it), review and discuss the previous days and read the story. There are plenty of ideas for each story to teach a math lesson from simple counting, addition and subtraction, and even some very simple multiplication depending on what you chose to teach. Friday was our science day. We would review the week and then read the story. Depending on what our story was about we would read a few library books or the encyclopedia. If our story had ducks in it we would discuss the nesting habits, their feathers and their purpose and then off for the afternoon for a field trip to feed the ducks. Or if our story was about pizza or a cake we would bake and discuss leavening properties and make a pizza or a cake. There are always lots of ideas for each subject day.
