Week 5 Recap

So the last couple of weeks have been a bit rough.  No pretty way to put it.  We've had some good days and some bad days.  Our schedules did change a bit last week with the addition of some activities, so we had to adjust.  Audrey just wasn't in learning mode so much.  We had a few meltdowns - and yes, I said, "We".  Mama's not proud, but it is what it is.  I'm better now.  :)  I will say that this week has started out MUCH better!

Despite the ups and downs, we did accomplish some things.  She continues to do well with her reading.  She lacks motivation when it comes to spelling.  She can spell most things phonetically, but that's a problem when it comes to double consonants and sight words.  Couple that with her lack of love for handwriting and I had to get creative.  I wrote spelling words all over the room for her to copy - on the chalkboard, whiteboards, paper plates, paper, etc. with different writing tools. It seemed to work.  She was more enthusiastic about copying and working on her words.

We spent awhile on Lesson 8 with math on finding the unknowns.  But, we did start Lesson 9 at the end of last week with adding by 9's.  We'll review another couple of days and possibly move on to adding by 8's the end of this week.

She loves history!  Last week we learned about the Vikings.  We learned about where they lived, what they did, what they ate, etc.  Audrey made her own Viking Longhouse.

We got through her Read Aloud early again.  We were reading My Father's Dragon.  Cute book!  We finished a few days early so I found a cool Lapbook for it online.  We aren't completely finished with it, but I'll try to remember to post pictures when we do.  This week we're reading The Hundred Dresses.  I'm not familiar with this one, but she's enjoying it so far.  Because she enjoys books so much, we picked up some books on CD at the library.  She has already finished Beverly Clearly's Beazus and Ramona.  We'll start on The Secret Garden tomorrow.  They're perfect when she's working on copywork or waiting for me while I pick up Maddie or something.

Confession - we haven't been working on science as much.  We had some experiments that we needed to do with the sun, but we had a week of rain and overcast, so it has fallen behind a bit.  No worries - we'll catch back up!  Same thing with our additional Bible Study.  I love the study, but we're a little overwhelmed right now.  We're still doing our daily readings in the Egermieres Children's Bible Stories and a lot of our literature is based on the Bible.  Additionally, we're working on her Sparks verses and stories.  We'll pick back up with the Apologia's 'Who Is God?' in a few weeks.

We started back to Awanas the 7th.  Maddie is old enough this year, so she is a Cubby.  Audrey is enthusiastic about her verses.  She's doing well!  We also started Children's Choir the same week.  Maddie is now old enough to participate.  :)  She loves it!  I'm teaching 2nd grade choir and love it.  Here are a few pictures of what we've been up to.

Art project - Painting with string

Audrey's Viking Longhouse

So proud

Had to throw one in there of our new student ;)

Day at the park

Good times!

In Our Class

Here are a few pictures of things we're trying this year.  So far they're working pretty well!

These are our workboxes.  I fill each box at night with her daily assignments for the next morning.  She works through them one at a time.  It lets her see what she has accomplished and what still needs to be done.  It helps me organize all of her assignments and make sure that we get through everything.  The boxes are just the right size to hold her books, worksheets, supplies, etc.

These are our rules.  I had an old frame and left over material from recovering her desk chair.  I just put the material in, printed out our classroom "rules", and taped them on!

This is our reward system.  We bought some colorful rocks from Michael's.  I already had a cute glass vase.  She sets a personal goal she wants to work for (right now she's working towards a new game for her V-Tech).  She earns rocks for completing her assignments &chores,  for not whining, for going above and beyond, etc.  Once she fills the vase, she earns her new game.  I figure she'll earn something once or twice a semester.

One more thing we do that I need to get a picture of, is a red/yellow/green light for behavior.  I just cut out a circle of red, yellow, and green cardstock and glued it to a black rectangle cardstock to look like a stop light.  I laminated it.  (I made one light for each girl.)  Then I took a picture of each girl and laminated them.  I added velcro stickers to the back and attached it to the "light".  The goal is stay on the green light.  If we have issues throughout the day and their picture makes it to red, they lose their outside play time with neighbors.  (I'm sure the consequences will change, but right now this is the "biggie".)  Yellow is seen as a serious warning.  So far nobody has made it to red!  =)

Week 3

Just sitting here eating some singed angel wings.  Ever had those?  They're just toasted angel food cake slices.  Yummy!  Anyhoo... gonna admit something gross.  I've got the pink eye  :(  I'm praying I didn't pass it along to 100 other choir members at rehearsal last night.  I've never had it before and thought I just had a clogged tear duct.  I woke up this morning with an incredibly unpleasant feeling in my blood shot eye.  I went to the doctor and she informed me of the "very contagious pink eye".  Great!  I felt pretty miserable this afternoon.  However, after my second dose of eye drops this evening, I'm finally feeling some comfort.  =)

Schooling is going well.  Man, am I grateful for the flexible schedule!  I've had to work in a few doctor appointments between Maddie's allergic reaction to a topical cream, my vertigo and pink eye.  We've been doing school throughout the day.  It breaks up the day nicely though.  She's doing pretty well, too.  She still has some aversions to writing anything, but we're working on it.  How do I encourage her to not be sloppy?  I'd love some suggestions!!  She can do her work, but she doesn't care that it's a mess.  And, she loves to doodle on all of her papers.  I'm ok with that except that I'd prefer that she not curly q all of her "g"s until I know she can write them correctly.  lol  As for math, we've sailed through to Lesson 8.  I think we'll be spending a little more time here.  It's definitely a new concept for her (and quite frankly, it seems pretty advanced to me for this young), but she's starting to catch on.  The manipulatives have really helped!  The concept is finding the unknowns.  (Think of finding X in an algebraic equation.)  I'm fine staying here until she's ready to push forward.  She's progressing well in her reading materials.  I just wish I could get her to want to read for fun on her own.  :/  She LOVES for me to read to her, so I do not discourage that.  We've moved on and added a lot to our reading list. 

Maddie started preschool Wednesday (Monday was orientation).  I think she's loving it.  She's going to the same Christian Academy that Audrey went to - and has the same teacher.  She loves that she has to take her lunch to school.  ;)  Here are a few pictures....

Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo

Any of you ever heard of Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo?  Well, after 3+ years of a spinning world, it appears I have been properly diagnosed and treated.  When I first started experiencing vertigo, it was ear issues.  I just assumed that's what it always was.  I'm usually sensitive to my left side and tend to "spin" when I lay on that side, turn my head too quick, etc.  A few months ago I went to the doctor because it was really bothering me and I just figured it was inner ear issues again.  Instead, my ears were perfectly fine and the doctor suggested it was Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo.  She referred me to Physical Therapy for it.  Who knew you could get PT for vertigo?!  Let me tell ya though - it has worked!  Granted, the PT was NOT pleasant.  (Is PT really ever pleasant?)  Remember those little hand held games where you tilt it around trying to get the little silver ball in the holes?  That's what the therapist likened the treatment to.  She had to move my head around, make me dizzy, and readjust some things.  So far so good! 

First Field Trip

Friday the girls and I went on our first field trip of the year.  Audrey finished all of her lessons a day early, so we took a trip to Gainesville, GA to INK (Interactive Neighborhood for Kids).  We went last year on Audrey's only kindergarten field trip.  She loved it!  Maddie had not been so this was fun for her.  We actually bought a year family membership and will be able to visit a variety of Children's Museums across the country.  There are some in Atlanta, Knoxville, and Chattanooga that we'll easily be able to go to.  Looking forward to it.  Here are a few pictures from our day:

Serving in the diner.

Playing in the Vet Hospital.  (BTW, turns out we know that little boy's parents. Small world.)

Maddie weighing the dog.

Captain Audrey

Co-Pilot Maddie

Maddie loved digging in the garden.

Milking a cow!

She even added the boots.  :)

Grocery shopping (Mommy is the cashier)

Just her size.

She loves the Salon.

My little actress/model playing in the dress up clothes.

Actress/Cheerleader =)

Week 2 Review

I know, I'm jumping the gun a bit.  The school week isn't over until tomorrow, but we're really finished with the bulk of our stuff.  Tomorrow will be a good review and finishing up of some things.  We've been a little more flexible with our schedule this week.  The days were a little longer than the first, but we threw some extra "recesses" in.  ;)  Maddie starts preschool next week, so this is her last full week at home every day.  The girls have enjoyed playing.  No worries, we have gotten all the essential information in and even added a few things of our own.

Audrey has thoroughly enjoyed The Boxcar Children (ok, mommy has, too), so we jumped a week ahead and finished the whole thing.  She made her own diorama of the boxcar.  I was very proud of her creativity!  We also finished her reading assignments a day early.  She has done very well with her reading.  We've been talking about similes, commas, short a sounds, and double consonants this week.  We finished up with a creative writing assignment about her family.  It's always fun to hear what the kiddos think about their family!  =)

In our history core, we've looked at ancient civilization and Egypt.  We did some virtual tours of the Pyramids, learned how to mummify a person (which she thought was very cool, btw!), and made some Egyptian neck dressings.  Fun stuff!

The kid is going through math quite easily right now. She's a little bored.  So, we just touched on lessons  2-4 and started 5 today.  I have a feeling we'll be moving through to 6-8 next week.  I realize that most of this is review for her for what she already knows.  But, this will give us more time to get into the new stuff more in depth and not worry about not having enough time this year.  I think she's going to be fine.

Handwriting is still a bit of a struggle - an attitude struggle, that is.  I've done less "lessons" in writing and just made the corrections as needed through copywork in other subjects.  I have noticed an improvement already in these past two weeks.  :)

She's still not overly excited about Science, but we did work with the planets a little bit more.  We made our own mnemonic for learning and remembering the order of the planets.  (My Valentine Eats Mommy's Jellybeans Says Uncle Norton.)  We attempted a model clay solar system, but that was a project FAIL.  They looked pretty good, but wouldn't stay on their strings to hang.  Mommy clearly doesn't do well with some of these projects.  We're all suppose to be learning here, right?

We are continuing our reading through Egermeier's Children's Bible Story Book.  I really like it!  Audrey is retaining the information well.  I've found some great supplemental work to go along with it - like coloring sheets, puzzles, quiz sheets, etc. 

Derek started teaching Audrey Tai Chi today.  (Yes, dear, I know that is not the proper spelling, so feel free to comment with the correction.)  ;)  In September, D will be with Audrey on Thursday mornings while I sing and participate in our Women of Worship Bible Study at church.  D agreed to add this to their time together.  I think she enjoys in.

Did I mention we got a dog this week?  Yeppers - she still doesn't officially have a name.  Her original name is LuLu.  Her shelter name is Tootsie.  I don't particularly care for either, but we can't seem to agree on anything else.  ;)  She has enjoyed school with us this week, as well.

That's it for this week's review, though I will leave you with one funny.  Since we finished with the Boxcar Children a week early, we started reading The Secret Garden.  I had been reading to her for a while when she decided she needed to get up and do something.  She says, "Can you pause it?  I'll be right back."  Love that kid!

Math is much easier with a doggie on your lap!

The Boxcar Children Diorama complete with grass, real pine straw beds, Jessie & Violet, a clothesline, waterfall, swimming pool, and fire pit.

Daddy is a great teacher!

Week One Done

Well, we survived our very first week of homeschool!  Yay!  We had our ups and downs, but mostly ups.  I'm learning more about my child and her learning styles.  She is a pretty smart cookie if I do say so myself.  :)  But, she's also pretty darn stubborn when it comes to things she doesn't like..... handwriting.  We'll make it through though.  I did notice that she's singing her handwriting technique songs she's been listening to this week.  Maybe they'll help more than me standing over her telling her over and over how to do it.  :)  I thought I'd share a few things that I have learned this week:

1.  Be flexible!  I heard this over and over at the conferences I went to, but this week I discovered what it truly means.  A pretty little schedule written out neatly in an organized binder looks nice, but that doesn't mean we're going to stick to it exactly!  If she says, "Read me more", than by all means I'm going to keep reading!  If she wants to build more math problems and work through our science block - we'll do extra tomorrow.  :)

2.  Be prepared!  I did a pretty good job this week of being prepared, but one day I spent a little less time and it was the day that was the least productive.  It is important that I know exactly what needs to be done and have everything ready to go.

3.  No TV before school!  One morning I allowed her to watch a cartoon before class so I could get a couple of things done.  Not a good idea.  It immediately gives her an unproductive mind set and it's hard to get her back into the groove.  It's important to start school as soon as possible.  She did a good job sticking to her morning "Busy Bee's" routine.  We just have to jump into class afterward so we don't lose momentum.

4.  It takes time!  I spend a lot more time at night than I thought I would preparing for the next day's lesson.  I'm sure in time I'll have the hang of it and won't have to spend quite as much time preparing.  As for lessons, it takes us about 4 hours a day to get through everything.   Gives us a full afternoon to have fun and spend time together.

5.  Be creative!  Take every opportunity to teach.  It's about making the lessons come to life.  If she finds a bug and wants to know about it - run with it!  Turn it into a lesson and find out as much as possible.  If  something isn't working, do something different.  Teaching her without her knowing it is priceless.  ;)

6.  My kid is cool!  Not that I didn't know that before, but I've really enjoyed spending time with her this week in this capacity.  She's a smart little girl and she really enjoys learning.  I love watching her get excited about learning.  And, I'm grateful for the opportunity to share along beside her and not miss out on her education.

So, that's the wisdom for this week.  I'm sure there will be many more insights and "ah, ha" moments this year.

Happy Copywork =)

New roller paint and rainbows.

Prepping the box for our Solar System activity.