History Odyssey

One thing I added this year was history, which has been a whole lot of fun so far. I'm using Story of the World - Ancients, which starts out with ancient nomads in the Fertile Crescent (6000 BC) and works its way up. I also use History Odyssey, which provides a "lesson plan" of sorts to go along with SOTW and we do these neat things called Hisory Pockets, which is all sorts of cutting out and coloring and making picture dictionarys and stuff like that. It's very hands-on and interactive, and all of us just have a great time on Thursdays, a.k.a. History Days. In fact, yesterday, we did history for two and a half hours! With NO COMPLAINING! Amazing.

On the left, Declan is demonstrating how the ancient Sumerians sailed down the rivers to trade goods. On the right, Reilly is showing just how much strength it takes to staple card stock to a popscicle stick. It's a full body event!

On the left, Reilly is working on her picture dictionary. On the right, Declan is engaging in a very entertaining puppet show about two ancient Sumerians who got married and had to kiss (several times!) and then sail on their boat down the river to trade things. Actually, I think he may have said that they ended up living in Tulsa. *shrugs shoulders*

Usually, we start school at about 8:30 and we're done by 11:30 or 12:00. I like this, because I like to be done before lunch; I find that it is very hard to regroup after lunch and get back into the swing of lessons. But, since we got so involved with history this Thursday, we had to finish up after lunch.
Luckily, the after lunch activity was a fun one! Dress up like ancient Sumerians and weave on a hanging loom!

One thing that cracked me up while we were "weaving" was that Reilly mentioned that the men back in that time had the "easy" work! This led to a discussion of how, exactly, it was easier to go out and kill a deer or farm the land then it was to weave the cloth to make the clothes. All of which led, of course, to discussing just how much easier we have it NOW!

It was a great, great day!

I DO Have All the Answers

Periodically, at the homeschooling message board I go to, we get new homeschoolers who ask questions about what its like to homeschool, and we're always willing to chime in with our answers and share what we know about this thing that we love. I wrote the following as part of a response to one girl today, and I wanted to come here and post it, not because I think I'm some sort of genuis, but so that I can come back at a time when things are a little rough and remind myself why I'm doing this thing that I love.

Is it worth it to homeschool?
Oh, more than I can even say! We're heading into our fourth year of homeschooling and before we started, I always said, "Well, if we could afford private Christian school, we'd probably go that route, but we can't, so we're homeschooling because public school isn't even an option." Now, four years later, I don't even think we'd do private school if we could afford it! I simply can't imagine not homeschooling!The one perfect example I can give is that when I hear Reilly read, I'm still amazed at the fact that I'm the one that taught her how to do that! It's wonderful!

How can your children socialize with other children if they're not in school and don't go to daycare?
Aaah, that's the Question of the Day for all homeschoolers or potential homeschoolers!
To be honest, I'm not sure why the world is stuck on the idea that putting 25 kids together in the same room for 6 hours a day is what makes them learn how to "be together". Where else in life are we around only people of our exact same demographic? I believe that most "socialization", even for public schooled kids, occurs [i]outside[/i] of the school setting, either after school with friends, at ball games, at church, at the playground, at the store, etc. etc. When you really think about it, while the children are in class, they are in fact encouraged NOT to socialize because it disrupts what the teacher is trying to teach!One of my favorite things to see is a group of homeschooled kids together, because inevitably they range in age from preschool to middle school and are interacting within that group, many of them engaging with the adults in the group, with a level of ease that I'm pretty sure is a byproduct of the fact that these kids are used to being around kids (and adults) of all ages, at any given time of day.
(Warning: political statement ahead!!!! If Obama wins the election, I look forward to saying, "Well, my kids will learn enough about being Socialists from the president!")

What are the pro's and cons?

The pros are that I get to be such a part of what they learn, I get to reap the joy of watching them as they grasp a new concept and watch their eyes light up when they finally "get it". I see what they've accomplished and how far they've come (specifically for Reilly right now, seeing as how she's farther along than Declan) and get such joy from knowing that it was ME that did that for her, not someone else.
Also, being a Christian, I have a huge objection to a lot of the worldview that is taught in school. For example, I don't believe that it is anyone else's job to teach my kids about sex, nor would I want abstinence being taught as an afterthought.
Also, as far as safety goes and all the junk that goes on now in PS, my "classic" line is that if my child is not at the school, I won't be the mom on T.V. saying, "We never thought it would happen at our school!" when a student has just gone in and shot up half the student body. (Just trying to be blunt, not callous.)
The cons? Periodic waves of pressure, knowing that their education is in my hands. These are getting fewer, though, the farther we get in this journey! Sometimes I do think that it would be "nice" to have time away from The Kids. But, honestly, I'm really used to that whole aspect now and when I really sit and think about it, I know without a shadow of a doubt that it will only be a blink of an eye and they'll be teenagers and off with their friends a good portion of the time, so I'm going to just cherish this time that I have right now.

CoOps and Things Like That

Just a quick update before I go and collapse myself into bed:

• We started back to our homeschooling co-op last Friday, which was very exciting for all of us. It's such fun, and such a blessing to have a change of scenery and friends each week. This year I'm going to be in Reilly's class of 1st through 3rd graders for the first semester, and then I'm the Preschool Director (notice the Big Fancy Capital Letters! WooHoo!) for the second semester. Declan is in Kindergarten all by himself, which gives me a little pang in my heart, mainly because I'm worried that they're going to have to tie him to his chair! No, I kid...he'll be fine. It's a fun time, and it's really going to be nice to do school at home on Monday, Tuesday, then have a break on Wednesday, do school on Thursday, have a break on Friday, then do school on Saturday! Plus, Troy has been getting home at around 10:30 or 11:00 on Saturday morning, so it really hardly feels like he's working at all, so it's really nice!
• Another thing that we started today is a doing a history co-op with two other families who we are really good friends with and who are using the same curriculum as we are - The Story of the World. Shelley, Julie and I decided that it would be fun to get together every other Monday and do the fun activities that go along with the reading but that are too time consuming to do just for ourselves. Today all of the kids did "cave drawings" on paper bags with pastels, made timelines of their families and then compared them to one anothers. We were going to do an "archaeological dig" in the garden, complete with roped off sections and things to find, but it's been raining and it would have been waaay too messy, so we ate dirt pudding instead, complete with gummy worms. We all had a really good time and I look forward to future co-ops with them. Next time I'll take my camera!!

Stuff, Stuff, and more Stuff

Interesting title, huh? I'm sure it just makes you want to jump in with both eyes and read away!

Today is Declan's first sick day! Poor guy woke up this morning with a bit of a fever and said he had a sore throat. Actually what he said was, "Mom? Can I have something soft for breakfast because my throat is sore?" and while I assurred him that I would make some Malt O Meal for him, he told me all about how he had repeated "soft food, soft food" over and over to himself to remind himself to ask me about that when he got up. So he has been on the sofa all morning, watching all manner of videos and generally feeling punky. I know he's feeling punky because he's only gotten off of the sofa once to go the bathroom. And that's a big deal, because he's usually one energetic boy! Usually his "sitting on the sofa" is accompanied by rolling around and turning upside down and eventually getting up and playing some type of superhero game in the livingroom.
He did watch Leap Frog Math Circus, so I guess that could "count" as school. Somehow that seems a little too militant for though; it is just Kindergarten, after all. Now, if he'd been watching The Talking Physics Factory for an 11th grade credit, it would be a whole 'nother story!

I'm realizing how very differently I'm approaching Kindergarten for Declan than I did for Reilly. For her, virtually everything was fun, fun, fun. Games for everything, writing letters in playdoh and shaving cream, doing tangrams and patterning blocks and all kinds of stuff like that.
For Declan, it's not so much all of that. In a typical day, he'll come in, do a handwriting page or two in his Handwriting Without Tears book, do a page in his Math U See Primer book, and do a lesson from The Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading. Then he's done for the day. When we do science and history on Tuesday and Thursday, he does those with us as much as he can, and really seems to enjoy the way it's going. I give him breaks as needed, usually after we've done science or history because those things take a lot longer, but oftentimes he just works through his stuff without complaining at all and then goes off to play until Reilly is done. Sometimes I worry that he's not getting all the bells and whistles that Reilly got with kindergarten, but then I think that, heck, if it's not broken, why fix it? I'll save the bells and whistles for sometime when he does get bored!

I will say that I've already had several conversations with Reilly about why Deco gets to go off and play while she has to stay at the table and work. It's hard to explain the difference between kindergarten and third grade, especially when she conveniently doesn't remember that she got to do all manner of fun stuff in kindergarten!

Here are just some pictures of waaaay back on our first day of school on the 18th. We didn't have pancakes this year, per my usual tradition because I didn't have the stuff to make pancakes and my kitchen was about to be condemed by the health department. That's what they get for surprising me by wanting to start school early!

Something That I Learned

• Science experiments are more fun if you don't watch how they're done on a DVD first and then try to go and replicate them. Somehow the magic is lost if you know that the top of water is going to stay level when you tip the bottle on its side and it makes doing the experiment yourself a little redundant. The smart thing to do is to do the experiments yourself, then watch the video to make sure that you did them right. Then you can hi-five each other and say, "Way to go, science experiment genius!" and everyone is super-pumped!

There are two things that I added this year. OK, well, three actually, for those literal minded people out there who probably think I probably should count that whole Kindergarten thing with Declan. Anyway, I added science and history and The Kids are just crazy about those subjects! (So far, anyway.) I chose Sonlight Science because the thing that always bogs me down when doing science experiments is scrambling around, trying to gather up 3 feet of copper wire, a dowel, 2 cubes of clay, a soda bottle and a magnet. These simply aren't things that I have around the house and they somehow always seem to be on the list for experiments that can be done with "things you have around the house".

Enter Sonlight! The great thing about Sonlight curriculum is that, while it's a wee bit expensive, they send you virtually everything you need for the experiments and all the books that you need to read! I say "virtually" because I believe that I've had to come up with things like "a container of water" and I think that we can all agree that, as wonderful as the company is, it might be expecting a lot for them to ship that to their customers! I chose a level that is a little bit "under" where Reilly is, mainly because I figure that way Declan can actually keep up and learn along with her. Plus, since this is her first experience with doing science on a regular basis, I figured that it wouldn't hurt to start out a little easy. I'm amazed at how much fun they have, and how much they both learn though, specifically Deco. This evening, he was explaining to Troy how we got water into our house through the pipes. He didn't have it down perfectly, but he had a pretty good grasp of how it worked, especially since my money would have been on him not paying attention while I was reading!!

Oh, here's a picture of the Disasterous Erasers! I want to point out my adorable ear of corn on the right lower side! One of The Kids said, "I wonder if I can make an ear of corn!" and I said, "I bet I can!" and proceeded to make a really cute ear of corn non-eraser! Too bad it didn't work!

Jumping In With Both Feet

OK, I have a gajillion pictures of our first day of school (two weeks ago, on August 18th which was my 33rd birthday, and which was a full week earlier than I expected simply because The Kids ASKED me if we could! Silly kids!) and of our first round of science experiments that we did last week and of all Declan practicing his handwriting and stuff like that, but I have NONE of them loaded on my computer yet. I keep putting off starting the blog for this year simply because of NOT having the pictures to put up, and therefore I'm getting farther and farther behind and now it's piling up in my head and I finally decided that I wanted to go ahead and start writing NOW because, well, it's as good a time as any. I'll get to the pictures later, I'll just caption them well so you'll know when they happened and what in the heck we were doing in the picture.

I know you'll be waiting on pins and needles to see Reilly and Declan doing their Official First Day of School Activity, a.k.a. The Big Bomb. No, we didn't actually make a bomb, lest you think we're getting into Nuclear Physics 101 to kick off third grade and kindergarten, it's just that I decided that we would do a big, fun project on the first day of each school year to set the day apart as something special. It's hard to make the first day of school special in homeschooling because while other kids are going to school in new clothes, finding out who their teacher is and who is going to be in their class, homeschooled kids are faced with the same old, same old. Teacher is Mom, classmates are siblings, schoolroom looks the same. Nothing new.

So, on the first day of kindergarten for Reilly, she got her library card. First grade, we made gum. Second grade, they "planted" crystals to grow, and third grade/kindergarten, they made erasers out of a Sculpey eraser-making kit. The only problem is that, other than the gum, which was alright, and the library card which is still in working order, the other projects have been a total and complete bust. The crystals did not grow at all, and the erasers, while they were fun to make, did nothing but crumble into little bits while smearing color on the paper. I threw them away last week, they were so useless. So I told Reilly that in the future we would just plan on doing a project that was going to totally and completely bomb on the first day of school so that way we can just have fun with really low expectations.

This year has started out to be the most organized year thus far in our homeschooling. I have lesson plans in place for Reilly up until November 1st, which feels really good! Who would have thought that having lesson plans would make things so much easier? Well, except for all those...teachers...who have been doing...lesson...planning...for decades. I think they're on to something! I try to do the calendar each morning with Declan so that he learns the days and months, but in the past it's gotten bogged down when I would realize that we started a new month but I didn't have the new calendar printed. Then it would take me two weeks to remember to print a new calendar and by then, we're halfway through the month and it seemed pointless to continue. It seemed I was headed down this same path this morning when I realized that we had switched to September, but I remembered that I had made calendar "tops" (with the names of the months) up to November back before we started school, so I was able to go and pull the one out for September, figuring that would do for now and I'd just print out the date part later when The Kids were engaged in some type of schoolwork. Imagine my surprise when I pulled it out and realized that I had had the forsight to print out the actual calendar as well! I are smurt.

One last thing: I believe that if I just let Declan continue to watch Leap Frogs "The Talking Words Factory" he will teach himself how to read. Heck, it was "The Talking Letter Factory" that taught him the letter sounds, so it seems conceivable that it could happen. He practically has the video memorized and I was listening to him quote parts of it in the car tonight as we drove home from the house of some friends. I told Troy that I should convince Leap Frog to come out with a whole new line of videos because I believe te possibilities are endless! I know that "The Talking Calculus Factory" and "The Talking Physics Factory" would be a huge hit among the homeschooling set!

As a homeschooler...

...I just had to share this part of an email that my Momb sent to me. (No, that's not a typo. She's my mom, and I like to call her Momb...I don't know why!)

"Let's face it - English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren't invented in England or French fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat.

We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig. And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham?

If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth, beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2 indices? Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend? If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it? If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught?

If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell? How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?

You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which, an alarm goes off by going on. English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race, which, of course, is not a race at all. That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.

PS. - Why doesn't 'Buick' rhyme with 'quick' "

Anyway, I KNEW there was somthing hard about teaching Reilly to read! I just couldn't put my finger on it until now!

WOW! - A tiny boast

Back in April, out homeschooling co-op offered IOWA testing for those who wanted to participate. Although our state doesn't require any standardized testing at any grade level, I decided to have Reilly take them just so I could get an "indifferent" opinion of how she's doing. Long story short, I was amazed when I got the test results! In the reading area (comprehension, usage, etc.), she's at a 5th grade level and in most other areas tested she was at a third grade level. (We just finished second grade) The only thing that she was "low" in was math, and I expected that to be the case because MUS doesn't do math like the school system does it. Even with that, it was at an "early" second grade level.

Anyway, I've always said that I think that homeschoolers feel too much pressure to have kids who are advanced academically, as opposed to just average, so I'd have been perfectly happy with everything just showing at a second grade level. But it's nice to see that whatever random method we're using for school is working, and working well!!

AARRGH!!!

Sometimes I swear that I'm going to pull my hair out by the ROOTS!!!!

I think that oftentimes, Reilly sets out to simply be as stubborn as she possibly can. To look at things in the most obtuse manner available. We had a very simple exericise the other day: look at the picture and put an X next to the sentence that best describes the picture. The picture was of a child in a bed with a mom standing over with her hand on the child's forehead. The sentence choices were
1.) Jenny had a cough so she went to bed
2.) Dan is a tough little boy.
3.) Dad sanded the wood because it was rough.
4.) She had enough candy for one day.

Reilly chose "Dan is a tough little boy." When I asked her why she chose that sentence, her reasoning was because, despite the fact that it was obviously a picture of a child in BED (which would lead some to the sentence with the word "bed" in it) the child in the picture didn't look like a girl and why would someone go to bed just because they had a cough? I mean, she doesn't go to bed when she has a cough. What?
I have such trouble teaching in moments like that because it's all I can do to not just look at her and say, "Are you KIDDING ME?!? LOOK AT THE STINKIN' BED, for crying out loud!" It is so unbelievably frustrating! I know that being detail oriented is a good thing, but how on earth can I teach when someone is so detail oriented that it gets in the way of LOGIC?!

And I deal with things like this on a daily basis, where I just want to scream because I'm faced with a child who is SO literal that she has a hard time getting things done because they don't make sense to her.

AAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Yeah...no title. Because I'm THAT interesting.

We're kind of winding down things here at Morning Star, actually. Reilly is still (yes, I know...still!) trucking along with Red Book and I'm so proud of her. Yesterday, I realized that she would need to do an average of three "lessons" a day instead of two in order to completely finish the curriculum by the end of the year...otherwise, we were going to have to go into the first week of June. So, I showed her the calendar and told her what was up, and she readily agreed that she wanted to finish by the end of May and didn't have a problem with doing that many lessons each day. Now, it remains to be seen whether or not that will stick, but the nice thing is that as long as she averages three lessons a day, there will probably be at least a few days that she can do just two, or even one lesson. Regardless, she is really doing great at working on her own which makes me very happy. The added bonus is that she's starting school earlier than we used to, which means that we're not getting done at 2:00. Today she started at about 8:45 - we got a bit of a late start this morning because we were all cuddled up together, watching Carrie Underwood on YouTube! - and she got done just before 11:00!!

Today, I "officially" introduced Reilly to addition with carrying and had her do some worksheets from a 2nd grade workbook that we got from Sam's at the beginning of the year. I really felt like I was beating a dead horse with all the flashcards and things we've been doing to practice math facts and I think we were both getting a little tired of it. She knocked it right out of the park and completely understood what she was doing. Yay! I've not decided yet if I'm going to start Beta in this last month of school, or just introduce her to different things out of the 2nd grade Sam's workbook. Oh, we did some basic money counting, too. I tried to introduce this concept at the beginning of last year, I think, and it's amazing to see how much more she understands it now. Last year, it was impossible for her to switch from counting by 10's to counting by 5's and 1's and today, while it took her some thinking power, she was able to do it.

Poor Deco! He's just getting lost in the shuffle lately! He is so good about going in his room and playing that I tend to just let him do that so I can concentrate on Reilly. He knows all the letters and letter sounds, all his shapes and colors, all of his numbers by sight, so I'm a bit at a loss as to what else to teach him that's preschool! The only thing that he's lacking is writing skills, but he knows how to do a fair amount of his letters and I've just been putting that off as a kindergarten thing to do next year. Oh well, I don't guess he'll be any worse for the wear!

He loves playing with the magnetic letters and a cookie sheet and yesterday, Reilly told him he should make some of the words that are in the book he was looking at...so he made "people" with the magnetic letters! I said, "That's the word people!" and he said, "OH! Like the people of Ninevah!" (It was a Jonah book!) Funny guy!

School Stuff

I don't know why I feel like I need to title each post, even though the posts are about...school...seeing as this is my homeschooling blog!
Nothing really fantastic is going on right now. (Other than the fact that I'm apparantly choking on a pretzel!) How's that for an update? Ha ha, just kidding.
Sorry, this has become less of a post and more of a stream of consciousness....

Anyway, Reilly is doing really well with being more independent in doing her schoolwork. I decided the other day that we were going to change our morning schedule a bit. Previously, we would have breakfast, The Kids would do their Morning Routine (dress, make bed, brush teeth and hair) and then they would play while I showered and got ready for the day. The problem I was facing was twofold. First, we were constantly starting school at 10:00, which just puts us being IN school later, and second, despite giving a "we're starting school in 5 minutes" warning, Reilly would almost ALWAYS complain that she had just started whatever it was that she was doing, and then she'd be in a bad mood and school would start with an argument. Blegh! Not a good way to start the day.
So I decided that, given the fact that she's able to do her work much more independently now, we would go straight from the Morning Routine into schoolwork. She can get started on Red Book or something like that while I'm getting ready. It's been going pretty well so far, although I'll admit that we've only done it for two days.

I'm a little frustrated with math. Not the program, because I still think that MathUSee is awesome, but just with the fact that we're not progressing faster. I mean, she certainly has a better grasp on addition and subtraction facts than I did at her age, but I'm really, really TIRED of doing addition and subtraction facts!! I'm tired of reviewing them, I'm tired of trying to come up with new and exciting ways to practice them, I'm tired of having to re-explain for the five bajillionth time how to subtract 8 (or 9) from a bigger number. I'm ready to move ON, already!

OK. I'm going to stop now. This is just turning into a complaining post!

Today...

...we had a good, if short-ish day. I had to go to a store meeting this morning, which means we were all up and out of the house by 6:15. Once we got home, at about 8:30, it was a little bit hard for me to get up the gumption to start school. It's kind of cloudy and misty here today, and I would much rather have stayed in my jammies. But that wouldn't have gone over well at the store meeting.

But, we ended up doing school.

Each book in our language arts program lasts for 20 lessons...or is it 25?...I can remember. Anyway, the books are several chapters long and each chapter lasts for 5 days of lessons. At the end of each book, the kids do a project, the last of which was a diorama that Reilly made about the farm. Well, today we finished "In, Out, and About Catfish Pond" and I decided to break away from the project ideas that were given in the book because 1.) I didn't want another diorama sitting around and 2.) Reilly didn't want to write a sentence about each character and those were the gist of the ideas given in the book.
So, I told Reilly that she could make a movie poster as though the book had been made into a movie and she jumped all over that idea, although she decided that it would be a poster for a play instead of a movie. She cut out the pictures and colored them, put a little blurb under each of them on the poster (example: "Try on Beaver's new shoes...and meet the cast!" "Will Duck tell Turtle's secret?) and she made "coupons" at the bottom of the poster - one for a free popcorn and box of candy, one for a free kid's meal. She had such a good time putting it all together! If I get my act together sometime soon, I'll try to take a picture of it for the blog.

OH! And we always start out school with prayer, each of us taking turns giving our day to God. This morning, Deco says "Lord, some people trust in cherries...and even bananas or apples or even horses, but we trust in the name of God!" Somehow I think he misunderstood his Sunday school teacher just a smidge, but he's got the right idea!! (For those who may not know, there's a verse that says something along the lines of how some may trust in horses, and some in chariots, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.)

I'm a Horrible Homeschool Blogger!

I don't know why I've found it so hard to post lately! Maybe it's because I continue to feel like we're not doing anything worth blogging about. No big projects, no exciting unit studies, nothing. It's just sort of...school. BUT, in a continuing effort to keep all three of you updated, I'm going to try to do better.
So here goes.
In a handy list format.

• Reilly is chugging along in Learning Language Arts Through Literature (aka Red Book). I realized that we were only on Lesson 15 (or was it 13?) of 36 lessons, so we've really picked up the pace so that we can finish by the end of the year. The lessons are divided up into five days for each lesson, so she's now doing two days each day and we're up to Lesson 18. She's also working much more independently, simply because I finally said, "OK, you can read the instructions. So read them, and do what they say, and then we'll talk when it says, 'Discuss with your teacher', OK?" It's working pretty well! The last section of the book is really intended to get them ready for the third grade book, which is much more independent.
• Math is not going as quickly as I thought it would. We just seem to be stalled with subtraction and I'm fighting not panicking because I really thought we'd at least be in the second book by now. I keep trying to tell myself that moving along is pointless if she doesn't know basic addition and subtraction, but we've not really done any money lessons or time or fractions...it freaks me out a little.
• On the math vein, I started doing addition flash cards every day, just to keep those fresh in her mind. I made flash cards on 3x5 cards so that we'd have all the problems, not just half of them like our other cards had. (For example, the ones I made had 5+3 and 3+5 so she'd get even more used to seeing the commutative property at work.) Well, I wrote on the cards with Sharpie, problem on the front, answer on the back, and we were just going like gangbusters. One day last week, she did all of the flash cards in seven minutes! We were ecstatic!! We called Troy, we made a huge deal about it, he took her out for ice cream that night. It was huge!

This week, I realized that she could actually see the written answer through the card. That was how she knew them so well. I was so mad at her! I understand that it's human nature to want to take the easy way out, but I was so disappointed that she hadn't done what she knew was the right thing and told me that she could see the answers. Oh well, she's just seven...I guess this doesn't necessarily mean that she's going to develop into a pathological liar or anything. Plus, after seeing how angry I was, I don't think she'll pull anything like that anytime soon!

• Declan is doing fabulous with the amount of school he's able to do when I'm not dealing with his sister. He can read (well, sound out) almost any CVC word that you put in front of him, which is fun. We do a lot of stuff with magnetic letters and our cookie sheet. I need to work on lower case letters with him, though. He can easily recongize 10 or so, so that's good, and he can write his name in all caps. I want to work a bit more on handwriting with him, but it's sometimes so hard to extract myself from Reilly needing my help!

All in all, things are going well. Reilly was actually sick today, so we didn't have school. She's finished all but the cover of her book for the Reading Rainbow Young Authors and Illustrators contest. I think I'm going to scan it before we mail it, so I'll see if it posts well.

Thanks for continuing to read my drivel!!

Back in the Saddle Again!

Well, Troy has been on vacation for two weeks, so we didn't have "official" school. The great thing, however, is that we did do enough educational things that we aren't losing any days! Yippee! We went to the zoo, we went to a children's museum, and we did Reilly's science project for the homeschooling co-op science fair that was last Thursday.


She did an experiment that we got out of a book, involving using the 5 different senses to try to identify fruit while blindfolded. Our subjects were Mrs. Harris, who isour neighbor, Nani Kay, and Troy, and Reilly did a great job explaining the procedure to them and recording their responses. I'll save you all the boring details and just get on with the pictures.

There is, of course, the obligatory picture with Supey. Because he just loves having his picture taken! Then there's Reilly, looking like Kilroy over the top of her display. Then there's Reilly, talking with the "judge". Now, the actual judging portion of the fair was for fourth grade and up, so Reilly's project wasn't actually judged. But they did have mom's who had volunteered to go around and talk to the un-judged kids about their projects and give feedback to them about their projects.

I was so proud of Reilly, mainly because she said, more than once while we were working, "Wow, this is harder than I thought it would be!" but she just kept chugging on. She did 90% of the project herself, with help from me coming in the form of me showing her how to make the titles on our computer and helping her with the wording of certain things that she wrote.

Now she's working on her story for the Reading Rainbow Young Writer's and Illustrator's Contest. She's got it written, and I showed her how to type and print it from the computer, and she's going to add illustrations next. Fun!

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OK, so here are some random pics for you! First we have Supey the Supercat, terrorizing the farm animals in Reilly's diorama. Oh, and a video to go with that as well. Then we've got a couple of pics of our 3rd Annual RFHG Valentine's party. You know, the one that I took Reilly to while she still had the plague? Yeah, you can practically see the germs swarming in the pictures!

OK, now I'm literally sitting here, falling asleep at the computer, so I'm going to call it a day!

Vay-cay!!

Well, my dear and wonderful hubby is on VACATION for the next TWO WEEKS!! Yippee!

I planned for us to be completely off for a week when I was making out our calendar for the school year, but then he had to take two weeks in a row - a first for him! - so I imagine we'll do some educational things while he's off. That way we won't be "short" on days this year...although, that's not really a huge concern of mine. The way I see it, homeschooling is like undiluted apple juice straight from the can - because of the one-on-one setting, the school that we do is more concentrated than what she would be getting in a public school setting.

Yesterday we went to the zoo for a good portion of the day - it was such a beautiful day!! I took about a bajillion pictures, but right now I'm feeling too lazy to go and get the camera and download the pictures to my laptop! Suffice to say, everyone looks completely, ecstatically happy in every picture, as thought they're having so much fun their eyes are about to pop from their heads. OK, well, except for one picture where Reilly had just fallen down on her knee when she was Heely-ing . She didn't look too happy in that picture!

Today, we went and got the display board for her science project because the science fair is next week, and we got some books on the senses from the library. We'll start getting everything put together for that over the next few days. I'm excited that Troy will be able to help with that! Oh, and we all went to the grocery store together...I'm sure that was educational in some way!

I think that we might go to a children's museum sometime, and we'd really like to go to visit Troy's grandmother while he's off, just for the day. Those things will probably happen next week, seeing as I work quite a bit this week.

Rollin', Rollin', Rollin', Keep That School A-Rollin'...

Here's a quick recap of our last few weeks of school, seeing as how I somehow always forget to post anything about school on my homeschooling blog!

• Reilly has written a story for the Reading Rainbow Young Writers and Illustrators Contest. At one point, she said"This is harder than I thought it would be!" She actually wrote down the first half of the story herself, but then I let her dictate the last half; she seemed to be getting bogged down in trying to spell everything just right and make sure her words were spaced just so and I figured that the most important thing at this stage of the game was just to get the story on paper. She'll have to rewrite it anyway when she puts it in book form with the illustrations. I'm so proud of what she wrote, not really because it's a fantastic story or anything, but just because the story is hers. I gave a small amount of guidance so that she was able to stay within the 300 word limit, but that was pretty much my entire contribution. I'll make sure to post pictures when she's done with the whole thing.
• The week before last, we went on a field trip with our homeschooling co-op to a farm and home store. It was fun, but not quite what I thought it was going to be when we signed up, because I sort of read the sign up sheet wrong. I thought we were going to Ockmeyer's FARM, somehow missing the "and Home Store" part of the sentence. So imagine my surprise when I realized that it was...a store. "Oh well!" I thought to myself. "It will probably be a really big store and we'll learn all sorts of things about what is needed to run a farm!" Ummmm....no. It was about the size of an average Ace hardware store. And the lady running the tour talked about animal feed. I mean, she was really nice and all, and it was a fun day because we rode up there with the Sheppard family, but it wasn't the huge, educational experience I thought it would be. Oh well. You can't win 'em all!
• We were off for an entire week last week because Reilly was sick with some sort of mild flu that left her just lying on the sofa with a fever for seven days. OK, well, she was actually only lying on the sofa for 6 days because I actually thought she was better on Thursday and we went to the RFHG Valentine's Day party...and she came home with a 101.5 fever! Oops! So she was back to the sofa for Friday and Saturday and was finally fever-free on Sunday. Poor girl!
• On Monday, for review, we did addition flash cards. She was able to do all the addition problems, from 1's to 9's, in 9 minutes! I am so proud of her!
• On Tuesday, we had school at Hibdon Tire because one of our tire's was leaking and I needed to get it fixed. Aaaah, the flexibiliy of homeschooling! I love it!
• Yesterday we had a Teamwork and Home Economics Day. What this means is we worked together to clean the house because if I had to look at the dust and clutter any longer, I was going to go crazy! And that would have not been productive at all. We dusted, vaccumed, sorted, de-cluttered, and folded clothes. The only thing that Reilly didn't get to do was Swiffer the kitchen floor, so I may see if she wants to do that today. It was a good day, and I feel much less stressed out now.

So, there you have it!

Computer Skills and Science Fair Projects

Our homeschooling co-op is having a science fair in mid-March and Reilly was very excited to sign up. She's not old enough for her project to be judged - that will come in 4th grade - and I was very proud that she wanted to participate anyway. She's so competitive that I could easily see her not wanting to do a project if there's not a chance that she could win a ribbon.

We got lots of books on science fair projects from the library, and she decided on a project about the senses. This morning in school, we figured out how to make a form where we could write down all our "data" from the experiment and I guided Reilly through how to make it on the computer. Then we got three "subjects" - Troy, Nani Kay, and Mrs. Harris from across the street - and blindfolded them. They had to use their different senses, one at a time, to try and figure out which fruit was in various containers. They started by shaking the container to see if the sound helped, then they got to touch, smell, taste, and see the fruit in that order.

It was a lot of fun to do, and I really enjoyed watching Reilly guide the experiment and ask the questions. I've tried really hard to let her do most of the work on this project and sit back and offer advice and guidance when needed. I can really see how easy it is for a parent to want to step in and make everything look neat and perfect and I'm fighting that urge a lot. But it doesn't make much sense for her 2nd grade project to look like an adult did it. So, while I talked her through making the form and what we would need to have on there, she actually did the lion's share of the actual work on the computer. Same with the experiment itself; I guided her through how to ask the questions, but she recorded all the information herself. Knowing how competitive she is, I'm hoping that she will have the most satisfaction with the amount of work that is hers when we're all done.

Speaking of competitive, I've realized that sometimes playing games to practice math facts can backfire because she begins to get upset if she thinks she's not going to win. She won at hangman this morning, but began to get mad when I started getting some points on another game we started to play. The idea of "it's just a game!" is completely lost on her and she kind of struggles with finding a balance between competetiveness and having fun.

Well, sometime when I get them loaded onto the computer, I'll get the pictures up of our experimenting! For now, I'm off to BED!

In Which I Compare Homeschooling to An Ugly Medical Condition

Well, things have gotten better as we near the end of this week, I'm thankful to say! While we had a bit of a rough start Monday and Tuesday, yesterday and today could not have gone better.
I switched things around with how we do spelling and I think that helped a lot. I used to do the pre-test on Monday and have her do part of the workbook work, and then on Tuesday and Wednesday she'd choose five words each day and write them in sentences, as well as finishing up the workbook sheets. At some point, we'd have the final test and then we'd move on.
The sentence writing was, more often than not, a huge ginormous struggle, so I pretty much did away with them for this week and found other ways for her to practice the words. I made a crossword puzzle - thank you, God, for the internet - and did some things on the whiteboard, like I'd write the list of words and misspell them and she'd write them correctly. MUCH less struggle - YAY!

Here's my theory: I think that there's something about school that could be compared to a boil. I mean, things tend to build up and build up until we have some type of blowout and then things are better. So, I'll keep praying taht I handle the blowups better, because when we have days like today, I really realize how great this is!

Hello! It's Me Again!

Well, after a really, really loooong Christmas Break due to the 9-day power outage, we're back in the swing of things with school. Yay! I love the break, but it is nice to return to our regular schedule.

Last week was pretty hard, though. In fact, if I had had to make a decision on Tuesday if I wanted to continue homeschooling or wanted to send Reilly to public school, I would have chosen to send her to PS. Yes, the day was THAT hard. But, we got through it - with a lot of prayers and some crying thrown in for good measure...her and me both - and forged on and I really think that this week is going to be great!

Thursday was the hardest day of all, but in a way completely unrelated to school. We had to take our little dog, Joey, to the vet and have him put to sleep. It was very sad for me and Troy, and for The Kids as well, although I think their sadness was mainly because of seeing their parents upset. I wrote a post about Jo over at my other blog, if you'd like to read. So, when we got home, I didn't really feel like teaching a whole lot, but I felt that at least trying to keep to our routine would help, so Reilly made a diorama as part of her Learning Language Arts Through Literature lesson. She had so much fun making this diorama that it completely made up for the bad days we'd had earlier in the week.
She was to color and cut out the little pictures of the characters from the stories she's been reading and then make some kind of scene with them. Now, as you look at the pictures, I'll admit that I came up with the idea for making the barn, and I showed her how to use little cardboard strips to set up the figures, but she did everything else on her own. She was so proud of her work that she took it to karate that night to show it to her friends, The Cox Girls.

Then, of course, Supey had to get in on the action!

"La, la, la...I'm an ejookated kat. Look at me, ignoring you..."

"Oh, hey, are there any ducks in that pond?

"

So, there's the final product! I was so proud of how well she worked and the thought that she put into it. (Now I just need to figure out what in the heck to DO with it!) Our homeschooling group is doing a science fair and Reilly really wants to participate. I'm looking forward to watching her work on her project for that. I'm pretty sure she's going to have a lot of fun!

moar funny pictures