I don’t remember too many tea parties from my childhood, but I know I must have had a tea party once or twice. It’s a little girl’s way of pretending to be grown up and proper. Sipping apple juice or kool-aid from tiny tea cups and eating dainty little sandwiches and cakes is almost a rite of passage. Today Luci was invited to join her two friends, sisters Riley and Reece, for a Tea Party hosted by their mother, Amanda. The girls put on their finest gowns, tiaras, and slippers and enjoyed a very sweet tea party followed by some playtime on the swingset!
As Ben and I have studied Saturn we’ve learned about the Cassini Mission and the Centaur rocket that launched the spaceship. Today we attempted to make and launch our own Centaur rocket. Our mission: to construct a rocket using a film canister and construction paper and launch it using Alka Seltzer and warm water. The result: dismal failure. However we aren’t defeated in our purpose and we are working on figuring out how we CAN launch a rocket using this type of power (Alka Seltzer).
Monday, October 27, 2008
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Go Vote
First, let me start by saying that I encourage all of my readers -- whether you be family, friend, or fellow homeschooler -- to make sure you get out and VOTE on November 4th. This is a historic election year, but it has certainly been tumultuous and I, for one, am glad it is almost over! Just be sure to make your voice heard on November 4th. GO VOTE!
Now that I got my PSA out of the way...
The weather here has been absolutely beautiful for a number of weeks now, so we’ve been making use of the outdoors as much as we can. Last week Luci was learning about plants and trees and to illustrate the many different types of trees we did tree rubbings. With a crayon and some paper Luci did a rubbing of the different trees we have in our yard.
For some reason she looks like she has dark circles around her eye in this picture, but I’m not sure why it looks that way.
We went camping a couple of weeks ago with Grammy and Gramps. The kids, as usual, had a ton of fun. The guys went on a fishing expedition and brought in a pretty good haul, 21 fish in all...
One of which was a 21 inch Redfish caught by Gavin....
He was extremely proud of his catch! A couple of days later we enjoyed a fish fry at PawPaw’s house!
While on our camping trip we took a drive over to Navarre Beach to let the kids see the water. This is probably the number one thing we miss about living on the coast--being so near to the Gulf. It was such a huge part of our life when we lived in Mobile and we miss it.
The water was beautiful the day we went, but it was pretty cold to the toes!
We spent the past week trying to get caught back up with school work. We’ve been so busy with classes outside of home, field trips, and other outings that we’d fallen a bit behind in our schedule (not that I’m rigid in our schedule or anything, I had just set a goal of finishing the 2nd quarter by Christmas and I’d like to keep it). It was actually a good thing I scheduled that make-up week because it turned out Luci and Ben came down with pretty bad sinus infections. Luci also had an ear infection and both sounded like the congestion was settling into their chest. So the light week turned out to be well placed for the ill in our midst.
Ben continues to do OK with no medication. There are times the frustration wells up in him and brings him to tears, or times when he gets angry and has a difficult time controlling it. He is doing well with school work though. His handwriting and spelling continue to be the only sources of angst in his school day. His handwriting program has him set to start learning cursive after Christmas, but I am thinking we may have to put that off for a while longer. He is almost finished with his math program and he continues to amaze me with the way his brain thinks about numbers. It is almost like it is second nature to him, but ONLY when he’s not thinking about it too hard. For example, if you tell him he can do something at 3:00 and he looks at the clock and sees that it says 2:17 he can almost instantly calculate how many minutes he has to wait. And he will keep a running tally right up until the last minute. But if you show him 60-17 on a worksheet and ask him the answer he struggles. Take the pressure of though, and he can answer rapidly. Same thing with money, or adding/subtracting of almost any thing he encounters in his days.
Just before we went on our camping trip Gavin finished up a two week long writing assignment in which he wrote a short story about an animal native to one of the areas he has studied this year. His story includes illustrations and narrative telling of a young platypus who gets lost. He is looking for home and comes across a number of other native animals along the way in his search for his own environment. He did a great job on this project! His math grades continue to be excellent, only occasionally scoring less than 100%. How great it is to not have math be such a struggle for us this year!
Luci is having fun with her school work. I actually had to pull out some old workbooks I had from the boys, and start printing some coloring page type activities for her. She wanted MORE! She’s developing her fine motor skills and is starting to color in the lines and draw straight lines and nice circles. She wants to write letters, and I think she’s almost ready!
We have another busy week ahead of us and I’m hoping everyone will be well enough to participate in the activities planned. In addition to our regular PE class and guitar lessons we also have a field trip to the Fire Museum in Jackson. There will be about 50 kids in all and I’m sure they will have a great time!
Until next time....
Now that I got my PSA out of the way...
The weather here has been absolutely beautiful for a number of weeks now, so we’ve been making use of the outdoors as much as we can. Last week Luci was learning about plants and trees and to illustrate the many different types of trees we did tree rubbings. With a crayon and some paper Luci did a rubbing of the different trees we have in our yard.
For some reason she looks like she has dark circles around her eye in this picture, but I’m not sure why it looks that way.
We went camping a couple of weeks ago with Grammy and Gramps. The kids, as usual, had a ton of fun. The guys went on a fishing expedition and brought in a pretty good haul, 21 fish in all...
One of which was a 21 inch Redfish caught by Gavin....
He was extremely proud of his catch! A couple of days later we enjoyed a fish fry at PawPaw’s house!
While on our camping trip we took a drive over to Navarre Beach to let the kids see the water. This is probably the number one thing we miss about living on the coast--being so near to the Gulf. It was such a huge part of our life when we lived in Mobile and we miss it.
The water was beautiful the day we went, but it was pretty cold to the toes!
We spent the past week trying to get caught back up with school work. We’ve been so busy with classes outside of home, field trips, and other outings that we’d fallen a bit behind in our schedule (not that I’m rigid in our schedule or anything, I had just set a goal of finishing the 2nd quarter by Christmas and I’d like to keep it). It was actually a good thing I scheduled that make-up week because it turned out Luci and Ben came down with pretty bad sinus infections. Luci also had an ear infection and both sounded like the congestion was settling into their chest. So the light week turned out to be well placed for the ill in our midst.
Ben continues to do OK with no medication. There are times the frustration wells up in him and brings him to tears, or times when he gets angry and has a difficult time controlling it. He is doing well with school work though. His handwriting and spelling continue to be the only sources of angst in his school day. His handwriting program has him set to start learning cursive after Christmas, but I am thinking we may have to put that off for a while longer. He is almost finished with his math program and he continues to amaze me with the way his brain thinks about numbers. It is almost like it is second nature to him, but ONLY when he’s not thinking about it too hard. For example, if you tell him he can do something at 3:00 and he looks at the clock and sees that it says 2:17 he can almost instantly calculate how many minutes he has to wait. And he will keep a running tally right up until the last minute. But if you show him 60-17 on a worksheet and ask him the answer he struggles. Take the pressure of though, and he can answer rapidly. Same thing with money, or adding/subtracting of almost any thing he encounters in his days.
Just before we went on our camping trip Gavin finished up a two week long writing assignment in which he wrote a short story about an animal native to one of the areas he has studied this year. His story includes illustrations and narrative telling of a young platypus who gets lost. He is looking for home and comes across a number of other native animals along the way in his search for his own environment. He did a great job on this project! His math grades continue to be excellent, only occasionally scoring less than 100%. How great it is to not have math be such a struggle for us this year!
Luci is having fun with her school work. I actually had to pull out some old workbooks I had from the boys, and start printing some coloring page type activities for her. She wanted MORE! She’s developing her fine motor skills and is starting to color in the lines and draw straight lines and nice circles. She wants to write letters, and I think she’s almost ready!
We have another busy week ahead of us and I’m hoping everyone will be well enough to participate in the activities planned. In addition to our regular PE class and guitar lessons we also have a field trip to the Fire Museum in Jackson. There will be about 50 kids in all and I’m sure they will have a great time!
Until next time....
Thursday, October 9, 2008
En Plein Air
One of the great things about homeschooling is that other homeschool moms are always sharing their great ideas through their blogs or message boards. As a result I am constantly reading about new ideas that might improve our homeschool experience. Sometimes these things become a part of our school routine or daily life and other times we find it’s just not for us, or we don’t have time to work it in. Today we hit on one of those things that I really hope to make work for us long-term.
En Plein Air is a French expression which means “in the open air”. Usually it refers to the act of painting outdoors in the fresh air. Today we picked up some water color paper, a handful of sharpened pencils, some colored pencils, lap desks and a blanket and headed outside to draw. Some people call this a “nature study”, but I think “En Plein Air” has a pretty interesting flair to it! The only rule I gave the kids was that they could draw anything they wanted as long as it wasn’t a vehicle or anything with wheels. You might think I’m stifling their creativity or something, but I’m telling you, these boys will draw nothing but cars and trucks if you don’t tell them otherwise!
The act of sitting on a blanket and observing the natural world around us had such a calming effect on the kids and me. We talked about the shape of the trees, the flowers (weeds) growing from the recently mown grass, and the clouds that floated across a very blue sky.
Can you see the look of utter concentration on his face? He grumbled about doing this at first, but ultimately he enjoyed it.
Luci drew flowers (no surprise there).
This next picture was such a sweet moment that I happened to see as I was coming back outside from taking my supplies in. Gavin was helping Luci finish up. I wish I’d been able to get a better picture of this, but the moment was gone almost as soon as I realized it was there.
Until next time...
En Plein Air is a French expression which means “in the open air”. Usually it refers to the act of painting outdoors in the fresh air. Today we picked up some water color paper, a handful of sharpened pencils, some colored pencils, lap desks and a blanket and headed outside to draw. Some people call this a “nature study”, but I think “En Plein Air” has a pretty interesting flair to it! The only rule I gave the kids was that they could draw anything they wanted as long as it wasn’t a vehicle or anything with wheels. You might think I’m stifling their creativity or something, but I’m telling you, these boys will draw nothing but cars and trucks if you don’t tell them otherwise!
The act of sitting on a blanket and observing the natural world around us had such a calming effect on the kids and me. We talked about the shape of the trees, the flowers (weeds) growing from the recently mown grass, and the clouds that floated across a very blue sky.
Can you see the look of utter concentration on his face? He grumbled about doing this at first, but ultimately he enjoyed it.
Luci drew flowers (no surprise there).
This next picture was such a sweet moment that I happened to see as I was coming back outside from taking my supplies in. Gavin was helping Luci finish up. I wish I’d been able to get a better picture of this, but the moment was gone almost as soon as I realized it was there.
Until next time...
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Grades, Progress, and Pictures
Our second quarter of school is off to a good start. We are very busy this season with classes outside of home so it seems like we are constantly on the run. The kids are enjoying their classes with other homeschool kids and I enjoy the chance to have some ‘mom to mom’ conversations outside of cyberspace. Monday night we had a “Mom’s Night Out” for our homeschool group and that was a lot of fun to get out for dinner and conversation without the million and one interruptions of the kids. Brian and Gavin took care of dinner at home and even had the kitchen nice and clean when I got home! Kudos guys, job well done!
I gave Gavin his first ever ‘report card’ last week. It was a challenge, honestly, to give him a grade in some areas and remain unbiased. As parents I think we want them to feel good about themselves and their work and we want them to succeed. But I tried to balance that with giving him a realistic look at his performance. He did well, overall, but I am trying not to place too much emphasis on the ‘grades’. Gavin does well at most everything he attempts. It’s when he doesn’t put forth effort that his work is not up to par and his grades do reflect that.
We are still amazed at how smoothly things are going with Ben right now. He’s doing really well with his school work and I haven’t even had to resort to chocolate chips! We do have behavioral areas we are working on, but none of them are affecting his ability to sit and do his school work. We are doing spelling again--but not the same words we were working from before. I’m putting together spelling lists for him using a standard second grade master list. We play word games with them, write on the white board, and eventually on paper. His attitude toward spelling has improved tremendously and his self confidence has gotten a huge boost. His reading is going pretty good. He stutters a bit sometimes on the first line of a page or paragraph, but it coincides with the rapid eye blinking that the Adderall/Vyvanse caused and that side-effect has not fully gone away yet. So I am hoping that once the blinking stops, the stutter will as well. Once he gets past the initial stutter though, he is reading fluently and with inflection.
Luci is having a lot of fun with school. It seems lately she is going through a “growth spurt” of learning. She breezes through her books each day and would do more if I gave it to her! She spends a lot of time drawing these days and likes to make books. She draws a series of pictures, adds some wavy lines (the words, she says), and then asks me to staple her book together. She knows what her story is about, and doesn’t forget! She is really enjoying her PE Class. Her class has ten children between the ages of three and five and she is one of eight girls! They do some stretching and then play games like Duck Duck Goose and Red Light, Green Light. They also do obstacle courses, sorting games, matching games, etc...but all on a larger scale so that they involve moving the whole body and staying active for the entire hour.
After my last entry several people asked me about our new “diet” so I thought I’d throw in a little more explanation about what we are doing. Basically, I am trying to do the majority of my grocery shopping from the perimeter of the store. If your grocery store is like mine, you know that this means I shop mainly from the produce, fresh meat and poultry, dairy, bakery, and sometimes the freezer. I do not buy anything at all with a prepackaged seasoning kit (think Kraft Mac and Cheese, etc...). I don’t buy packaged snack foods like cookies, goldfish, or those fruit snacks. I don’t buy canned soups or soup mixes. There ARE a few convenience foods that I do shop for and those include canned tomatoes, salad dressings, peanut butter, jelly, packaged cereal, whole grain pasta/rice, whole grain breads, and whole grain pita chips or pretzels. The kids are doing great with it, they don’t miss the junk food really when there are a lot of other tasty things to snack on. My next goal is to cut out the packaged cereal but I’m loathe to give up the convenience of letting the kids fix a bowl of cereal for breakfast on busy mornings. Some things are just worth the convenience....
I gave Gavin his first ever ‘report card’ last week. It was a challenge, honestly, to give him a grade in some areas and remain unbiased. As parents I think we want them to feel good about themselves and their work and we want them to succeed. But I tried to balance that with giving him a realistic look at his performance. He did well, overall, but I am trying not to place too much emphasis on the ‘grades’. Gavin does well at most everything he attempts. It’s when he doesn’t put forth effort that his work is not up to par and his grades do reflect that.
We are still amazed at how smoothly things are going with Ben right now. He’s doing really well with his school work and I haven’t even had to resort to chocolate chips! We do have behavioral areas we are working on, but none of them are affecting his ability to sit and do his school work. We are doing spelling again--but not the same words we were working from before. I’m putting together spelling lists for him using a standard second grade master list. We play word games with them, write on the white board, and eventually on paper. His attitude toward spelling has improved tremendously and his self confidence has gotten a huge boost. His reading is going pretty good. He stutters a bit sometimes on the first line of a page or paragraph, but it coincides with the rapid eye blinking that the Adderall/Vyvanse caused and that side-effect has not fully gone away yet. So I am hoping that once the blinking stops, the stutter will as well. Once he gets past the initial stutter though, he is reading fluently and with inflection.
Luci is having a lot of fun with school. It seems lately she is going through a “growth spurt” of learning. She breezes through her books each day and would do more if I gave it to her! She spends a lot of time drawing these days and likes to make books. She draws a series of pictures, adds some wavy lines (the words, she says), and then asks me to staple her book together. She knows what her story is about, and doesn’t forget! She is really enjoying her PE Class. Her class has ten children between the ages of three and five and she is one of eight girls! They do some stretching and then play games like Duck Duck Goose and Red Light, Green Light. They also do obstacle courses, sorting games, matching games, etc...but all on a larger scale so that they involve moving the whole body and staying active for the entire hour.
After my last entry several people asked me about our new “diet” so I thought I’d throw in a little more explanation about what we are doing. Basically, I am trying to do the majority of my grocery shopping from the perimeter of the store. If your grocery store is like mine, you know that this means I shop mainly from the produce, fresh meat and poultry, dairy, bakery, and sometimes the freezer. I do not buy anything at all with a prepackaged seasoning kit (think Kraft Mac and Cheese, etc...). I don’t buy packaged snack foods like cookies, goldfish, or those fruit snacks. I don’t buy canned soups or soup mixes. There ARE a few convenience foods that I do shop for and those include canned tomatoes, salad dressings, peanut butter, jelly, packaged cereal, whole grain pasta/rice, whole grain breads, and whole grain pita chips or pretzels. The kids are doing great with it, they don’t miss the junk food really when there are a lot of other tasty things to snack on. My next goal is to cut out the packaged cereal but I’m loathe to give up the convenience of letting the kids fix a bowl of cereal for breakfast on busy mornings. Some things are just worth the convenience....
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
