Semester Break

We're at the middle of the year. Things went great for a while, but life handed us some lemons. Keeping up with everything is a little tough, but I'd really like to stick it through until the end of the year at least. It is my hearts desire (at least I think it is) to continue the K12 program next year as well, but I need to become more organized and efficient before I can make that decision. Also, I have to consider Bubs, where he is in life, and what is best for him. He is a social creature.

I don't like thinking about all the things he would be introduced to in a public school environment. How do I teach him what's right and wrong if I can't be there and know what is all being put into his head and by whom?

If I enroll him in a public school I will still teach him things at home, and have him involved in a couple of extra curricular groups. I want to gently lead him in the right direction.

Home Schooling: Busy!

We have been busy! School, potty training, and several appointments for baby have had us continuously on the go!

I finally got a call from Bub's teacher. I am looking forward to working more with her. Tomorrow we have a phone conference. Bubs is excelling in math, needing some serious work on motivation for handwriting, excellent in language arts, excited for science and awesome at memorizing things for history. I am hoping we find more of a groove soon.

Home Schooling: Promoting Peace

Promoting Peace - Just some nice ideas I'd like to incorporate into the schooling done here.

LVS: Two Days Down!

We made it through the first two days! It's a transition, but it's been fun so far. Phonics is our trouble spot. We haven't tried science or history yet. My plan is to make up the lessons we missed tomorrow. (Which is technically today.) That means we will have to do three classes before the day is over. Because of our struggle with phonics we are one lesson behind schedule. I don't quite think that's the case though because our teacher mentioned using Thursday as orientation, and there was a school picnic/social on Friday, so I don't think most kids were doing a full day of school before.

I haven't made any lesson plans of my own yet. I did, however, modify one of our projects. Instead of making paper bag puppets we made paper plate puppets.

I need to plan a library day for every week. I think it would be good to have a regular place which could be a different learning environment for Bubs. Boo could use the time away from home as well.

It's all so exciting. My eagerness and passion continue and grow.

LVS: I'm Ready!

3:40am

I finished the orientation videos and reading (not speed reading, actually reading and soaking in) all of the course objectives and descriptions. I also got to sample a couple of interactive games. I love them! I feel great! Hopefully I can sleep. :)

Bubs is SO excited. I'm surprised he even fell asleep. I know the road ahead will be long/winding/full of bumps, but I have a feeling it's going to be the scenic route that I'm always looking for and love to take!

Home Schooling: Countdown

In 3, 2, 1... August 12th is the first day of school and I must say, this week has been a little more nerve wracking than exciting. :-S I put a lot of pressure on myself to be everything the kids deserve, sometimes it's hard to live up to my expectations of myself. I saw this article and it made me smile. I know I can do it, now is just the time to prove it!

LVS: Practice Lessons

On the K12 website I saw something about practice lessons and I thought it would be great to practice! I printed off a few worksheets... numbers, a skeleton worksheet, and some pages from the Alphabet Theme-a-saurus book LVS recommended. I had Bubs and Boo sit down at the counter and we spent 30 minutes on each subject. An hour and a half went by so quickly! It was great, the kids were great, and I was so pleased. Just an affirmation that this can really work. I can do it!

LVS: Discovery Day - Tanganyika Wildlife Park

Our adventure at the wildlife park started in a room with a lecture. It was good to hear how another LVS mom juggled online schooling and taking care of the home. The kids were eager to play and see animals though so we did not stay inside for the entire speech.

It was great walking around and seeing the animals. Tanganyika is very interactive. Bubs was able to feed lorakeets, goats, turtles, rabbits, lemur, and a giraffe! There were a couple of very cute baby monkeys flying around as well. ;) We also enjoyed a camel ride and being in the same enclosure as kangaroo. It was very exciting.

Due to the heat many of the families left early and I'm afraid Bubs did not get the interaction with kids that he or I were expecting or hoping for. We have another Discovery Day coming up and I will be better prepared for this one.

LVS: Summer Social

The summer social was my first interaction with anyone from the LVS staff in person. Two teachers, a mom, and myself discussed the coming school year, and the types of people who use online schooling.

It's really not a cookie cutter kind of thing. It was good to hear, as I have been slightly apprehensive of being an outcast in the "homeschooling" clique.

Bubs got to play with two boys slightly older than him. Boo was right there beside him, whether he wanted her to be or not, and baby was content to be held by one of the teachers. :)

Thank goodness for my besty. She's how we got there. :)

Home Schooling: Preschool

Slow and Steady Get Me Ready is a book that was recommended by the online school Bubs is enrolled in. They referred me to it because it helps teach patterns and rhymes which is a sort of prerequisite to start their kindergarten program. I bought it off of amazon.com and got it in the mail today! I read the introduction and skimmed through the book. I am more excited to use it on Boo and Baby than Bubs really. I believe he already has the skills the book teaches, but it seems like an awesome resource for preschooling children at home. I don't want to take much time blogging on this because both Bubs and Baby are sleeping and this will give me time to cuddle and teach my sweet Boo! Happy learning!

Home Schooling: Online School and Other Updates

Bubs is now enrolled in an online school. I am being blessed with the opportunity to play a major roll in his schooling and I will still have the security of being with a public school. I am considered a learning coach and he will still have an education specialist who is a certified teacher from our state. He will have regular assessments so I will be able to see if I am adequately teaching him. I am SO excited!

As of late, part of our bedtime routine is singing with baby. Both Bubs and Boo are doing a great job matching pitch and tone with me. Bubs is even beginning to harmonize. I am so excited and proud! Baby is also impressing me with his desire to sing at nine months old. Boo was the same way though! My children are truly amazing!

The only other news on the "home schooling" front is that Bubs love of reading seems to have been rekindled. He's doing a great job on word recognition. He's also been doing some neat things, teaching himself to write words by looking at DVD/VHS cases and writing what he sees. He knows the words as well, since he is familiar with the movies. It's great!

Home Schooling: Music and Arts

All of the kids have been very interested in music the past few weeks. We are constantly singing around the house. Usually to the tune of Clementine or You are My Sunshine. The kids even learned our address and phone number that way. :) Today I got Classical Baby in the mail. It has Dance, Art and Music. I also have a children's art history book on the way. There were several I wanted to order, but I figured I would check out what looked to be the most interesting/informative/kid friendly first. Another musical thing we are interested in our home is Tuvian throat singing. It's fascinating. We are having fun making different sounds with our voices and various objects we have around. Ooh! Another thing that I recently got which is surprisingly educational is a Purr-pals Nintendo DS game. I got it for Boo since she doesn't have any DS games of her own. She is only two so play will be extremely limited. The game is all about grooming/loving/playing with kittens. There are mini-games that include playing music as notes go by, and memory games involving more music. I'm so excited about it. Bubs likes it a lot too already. Yay! This month we will be starting homeschooling for Kindergarten. I am very excited. I hope it goes as well as I think it will. :D

V is for Volcano, W is for Wolf...

Bubs missed some pre-school b/c he was sick over the past few weeks. I knew the letters his class was learning so I printed off some worksheets and we traced and colored them. We also were yelling out words that started with our letter of the day.

Our neighbor showed Bubs her rock collection the other day and he really wants to learn more. I am thinking I can teach him the three different types of rocks and show him my rock collection, but I want to make it fun. I am more sure every day that I am going to enroll him in the Lawrence Virtual School for kindergarten at least.

Recently I made a schedule chart. I'm excited b/c I could have ordered it for $15 but instead I made it for less than two. It was work though. Totally worth it. I believe it will help us to keep a schedule up and also teach reading. :-) Yay!

Home Schooling: Scheduling 3/31/2010

Bubs has asked to do preschool at home for the past three days in a row and I have had to come up with things off the top of my head that interest him. We painted, practiced his name more, counted blocks and more, but I really felt the need for more structure. The other evening I looked up scheduling tips for stay at home moms and for homeschooling. I printed it all off and plan on implementing it tomorrow. So hopefully April 1, 2010 will be the start of a beneficial schedule for both the children and myself. I am praying it helps us in many ways.

Home Schooling: Cooking 2/27/2010

We are working on getting into more of a set schedule at our house. This is particularly difficult for me, but it seems that it will be neccessary to raised disciplined children. :)

This week I made up a meal plan. I have made meal plans before but I haven't seemed to be able to stick to them in the past. I'm excited about this weeks! I was online looking for new things to try in my slow cooker and new things to give the kids, that the kids would be able to help cook and I found some neat ideas!

My favorite idea that is in the process of being made right now are mini-cheesecakes. Bubs helped out with this and we had a nice time. There are a number of new things I'm trying this week including Chicken Cordon Bleu, Pulled Pork, Ham Rolls and PB&J Rolls. I found the recipes at allrecipes.com and crockpot365.blogspot.com.

I'm hoping the kids and I like them! I know we're having a fun time cooking tonight, and I look forward to pre-cooking a couple of the meals tomorrow as well!

Other than that Bubs wrote his name very well tonight and we are going to have a "Sunday School" Lesson a little bit later! :)

Sunday School on Saturday: Moses

Today we had "Sunday School." I hadn't really planned on it, but it worked out. Bubs is very eager for us to read our way through the Early Beginner's Bible and last night we read about baby Moses. I suggested that we watch a movie on Moses today. Beforehand Bub suggested we read more from the bible (so we can get to the end) so I read more about Moses. We watched the movie and before things would happen I would ask him what he thought was going to happen. He retained a lot of what we read. It was great! I also got to tie in the letter "M" since that is what Moses starts with! Bubs enjoyed the movie and afterward wanted to read a little more of the bible, so we read about manna from Heaven and the Ten Commandments. :) It was a good Sabbath. He wants to watch more bible movies tomorrow, so we may just end up making a weekend of it. ;)

Preschool at Home: 2/19/2010

Last night while winding down before bed Bubs asked me if we could have preschool at home again tomorrow. Of course with him asking and be excited for it, how could I refuse?

He is learning the letter "M" at the private pre-school he regularly attends. He seems to like this letter. He has been able to spell mom for over half a year, so I understand the love of the letter... He understands it! I looked up some lessons online and began to inform myself. I learned a couple of songs and printed off some letter pages and we had a nice time singing and saying "m" words and practicing writing the letter itself. He does a great job.

He also practiced writing his name. He's pretty good at all of the letters. "S" seems to give him some problems, in that, he always writes it backwards, but he's good at the rest of them.

He is a very good little artist and if he sees something he can almost always dupiclate it with pen/crayon/pencil/marker and paper. He gives a mama a lot to be proud of. :)

...In anticipation for tomorrow I have already printed off some worksheets having to do with the body. Bubs is fascinated by the skeletal system, so we will explore that a little, and maybe even en espanol. ;) I am also prepared for "Sunday School." Which we may actual do tomorrow since Saturday is the literal "Sabbath."

?En Espanol?

We like to encourage learning every chance we get in our home. Both Bear(my sig other) and myself took spanish in high school and college. Neither of us is fluent in the language, but we know enough to make spanish speaking friends and to get by as somewhat bilingual in our jobs. Naturally at home we speak "spanglish" on occasion. There are several bilingual books in our home thanks to my obsession with foreign languages and Cheerios. ;) Every night we read from either the bible or a bilingual book.

Bub has recently began to say things such as, that means,______... and en espanol,______. He is rarely correct but I am sooo excited that he is interested enough to ask and that he realizes there is more than one word for the things he uses and sees. His spanish speaking skills have improved in the past week since he has come to this realization and I am excited to continue to teach him more!

Preschool At Home: 2/18/2010

Yesterday my son's preschool class had their second field trip to a dentist's office. Bubs has already been to the dentist for a check up and a previous field trip. It was the second nice day in a row that we've had in months. It was finally above freezing and if I sent him to preschool he would be stuck at a dentist office learning things he's been through before, OR, I could choose to keep him home and have an outside nature/sports day with him. Also, if he went to preschool he would come home eat, take a nap and completely miss the nice weather.

After some careful consideration I decided to keep him home. I called the teacher and let her know that Bub has been to the dentist before and I felt the day would be better spent letting out some energy in the great outdoors.

We put on some sweaters and gathered our outside toys and headed outside!

I noticed the kids, Bub and Boo(2), cawing at crows. I decided to give them some bird fun facts. We had actually started bird fun facts the previous day with info on woodpeckers. Fun facts include colors, bird calls, diet and size. After talking about the crow I asked Bub if he remembered what bird was hitting the tree with it's beak the day before and he retained everything I had taught him.

I'm very excited about this retention! That means he pays attention when I'm rattling off useless facts without knowing it. If he can remember those surely he can remember the things I actually try to teach him. :)

Same day we also talked about squirrels and sports. We had a lesson in gravity as well... like, if you throw something to knock a stick out of a tree, the stick and the thing can fall and land on you. Luckily I had a friend over to give that lesson. :)

Home Schooling: Why?

I have been throwing the idea of homeschooling around for months, if not a year now and the more I think about it the more I want to do it. I know all the preconceptions, but I'm not like that. My kids and I are very social beings and while we may learn some things at home, we will be sure to get out and learn a lot other places as well. I don't see the point in having them in school from 8 to 3 only to have most of that time be spent in transition from one activity to another, not to mention the time that the teacher will spend disciplining. I went to a public school, and I don't think I turned out bad or anything, but I want more for my kids.

I want them to socialize through rec. department sports, martial arts, dance, music lessons, community theater, story time at the library, city choir and things of that matter. I would love to be in a school district that allows my child to participate in gym and music perhaps and definitely E.C. activiites. We will be a part of 4H or boy scouts and girl scouts. There is so much they can have fun with and learn from and I believe that homeschooling will give them the time they need to do those E.C. things without crowding their schedules.

My plan was to do a trial run of homeschooling this summer where I either revisited preschool lessons with my five year old or where I started kindergarten lessons to see how he and I deal with home schooling. No pressure. If it goes well I keep doing it, if it doesn't go well I enroll him in Kindergarten and he learned a little more than he may have otherwise. I've decided to start a little earlier though.