3-2-1 Blast Off!

On Wednesday we hurried through our school day so we could end 15 minutes early. At 11:48 we watched a rocket launch. This wasn't just any rocket, it was the rocket that held Uncle Matt's company's new satellite. We spent a bit of time talking about the earth, moon, and orbits so they had an idea of what was going to happen. Before the launch they had an animated clip that explained the entire launch sequence and what happened at each phase after takeoff to get the satellite in it's correct orbit. We counted down the launch and watched it take off live. We also watched for the next 20 minutes while they tracked each step and verified that it had been successful. After that it would be 9 hours until we knew if it arrived in it's correct orbit and was able to work. So glad to report that it all went perfectly and is now a working satellite!

Just another reason I am loving the idea of homeschooling. We can take time for these special events and enjoy them and learn from them together. So blessed to be on this journey and I know it's right where God wants me!

Reward Day!

The girls finally filled up their star chart for doing a few weeks worth of activities with good attitudes and no melt downs. That chart really was the key to getting past Brin's perfectionism and is continuing to work well! As their treat I decided to take them out to get Ice-Cream. They hardly ever get Ice-Cream so it truly was a treat and they enjoyed it so much! After that I asked them if there was anything else they wanted to do and they said they would love to go to the park, so we spent the afternoon at the park where they ran around playing with a group of other girls they met. I'm so glad we were able to make time for that and that they felt rewarded for their hard work in school. Now I just have to figure out what they'll get in a few weeks when they finish their next chart!

Unfocused

I'm kinda feeling all over the place this week. I pulled my upper back and neck really badly over the weekend and still wasn't able to situp for more than a few minutes at a time on Monday. I started the morning by putting on a leap frog educational video. After that I had the girls bring their Cubbies books as well as a few library books upstairs. While lying on my back we did their Cubbies lesson, Bible Reading, and then read a few books together. I felt so bad for missing yet another day of school, but was happy to have at least accomplished a little.

Aside from the bit of chaos in our school schedule... I'm having trouble keeping focused and using my time well. I feel like I keep starting things but not finishing them. I have a school schedule, but the rest of my day feels unorganized. I'm struggling to keep the house cleaned and orderly... I'm making meals at the last minute without much thought... and I have so many side projects going or needing to get started that I'm just not being productive.

I'm sure what I'm feeling is normal, and I'm focusing so much on school that I'm letting all the other areas slide... I just have to find a way to balance it all so I'm doing the other things well. I'm think I'm going to try to get through this month and then make a few changes come November!

Oh Charlie!

With the start of school, and our weekly library visits I was itching to read some chapter books to the girls. I had no idea how they would do and if they would be able to focus without pictures. I thought it would go well though so I figured we would give it a try. A few months back I had DVR'd the old school Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and we hadn't yet watched it so I figured that would be a great first book. We spent about 2 weeks going through it. We read it a bit during our 30 minutes of reading time for school, but we often just curled up on their beds at night to read a few chapters before bed.

The girls actually did much better than I expected. Av would get a bit fidgety from time to time, but that's just how she is and she was always paying attention so it didn't seem to matter. Each day before we read any new chapters I would ask them questions about the previous chapters. I wanted to see how well they had understood and remembered what we read, as well as remind them where we were before starting off again. I was kinda surprised at how much they grasped. They always knew the answers to the questions and would often ask me smart questions or think aloud as to what might happen next.

They absolutely loved the book and looked forward to it every day. It was especially fun to finish because we got to watch the movie together with Daddy for Family Movie Night. We had pizza and piled on the sofa and watched the movie together. We talked a bit throughout about what was different from the book. They started pointing out things they noticed and it was fun to watch them compare and contrast on their own. I'm so glad we did this and I'm already looking forward to the next chapter book we read!

Survived!

This past Sunday my sister, dad and I pulled off the ultimate surprise. It was my mom's 60th birthday and we were able to completely surprise her with a huge party of over 70 of her friends and family from all different parts of her life. She had absolutely NO idea and was in complete shock. You seriously couldn't have faked the look on her face. We weren't quite sure how to plan a party for the ultimate party planner... since my mom is her own Martha Stewart, but luckily my sister and I inherited her party planning genes and I think we did a pretty good job. We've been planning and working on all the details for months and it was so fun to see it all come together. As soon as we get the photos back I'll be sure to share some of what we did.

It's been absolutely crazy trying to get involved in our new church, doing school with the girls, having time with the family, cooking, cleaning, running my photography business, and trying to have a bit of a personal life all while planning a huge party that basically equates to a wedding without your mom's help. ;-) We did it though and it's now off my plate and I can breath again! Phew! But... not without a little break from school. We ended up taking Monday off since my sister was in town for the party from Ohio and I thought it was more important to spend the day with her rather than doing school. It was also Columbus day so I figured it was a holiday for some people anyway so why not us too? We go to Bible Study on Tuesday, so we didn't have school today and then we'll be taking Thursday off again to spend time with my mom for the day. I plan to cram 4 days of activities into Wed/Fri this week and we'll call it good.

Day in the Life

I feel so blessed to have found a wonderful inexpensive online PreK curriculum at Confessions of a Homeschooler. I've been able to take her worksheets, ideas, and lesson plan schedule and tweak it to best fit our needs. I love the way she lays out her day and so I thought I would share my take on it which is very similar. We do 2 hours of PreK on M/W/Th, and the girls go with me to Bible Study on Tuesday's where they have a 3 hour program for the kids. Friday's have become our Friday Funday where we play games (learning games) and then read for about 45 minutes.

Our normal daily schedule looks something like this:

9:30 - Cleaning Time - The girls are given a 30 minute warning and they have to have the downstairs picked up and ready to go. Since the playroom is shared with the schoolroom we can't have it messy for school so they have to have it cleaned. If they aren't done by school time then I take away whatever has been left out. So far it's worked like a charm and they have yet to leave it messy.

10:00 - School Starts

• Pledge
• Prayer
• Weather Chart - We open the front door and go outside to check it out each day.
• Days of the Week - We talk about what day was yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Then we talk about the date of each day on the calendar. We sing the day's of the week song, and then the months of the year song.
• Letter of the Week - We go over the letter of the week on the white board and talk about the sounds that letter makes. Then we review a few words that start with that letter. We switch between singing the alphabet song and the vowel song.
• Music & Movement - Each day I play one of the songs from the CD I downloaded Songs Kids Really Love to Sing which is a collection of church songs. The girls love dancing and doing the motions to the songs. On Mon/Fri we do a movement song from the CD Kids in Motion. This is the same CD the girls gymnastics coach used so they were already familiar with some of them and just love it!
• Bible - Since the girls are in Awana Cubbies we use their Cubbies book as their Bible curriculum. We read through the lesson and then I put the verse cards up on the wall each week. Every day we go over the verse of the week as well as the Apple Tree Review verses. We spend one day doing the Apple Tree Activity and another doing the Bible Reading off to the side.
• Writing - Since this is where the girls seem to struggle the most we make sure to do a writing activity every day.
• Sight Words - Last week we began learning sight words. We review our sight words every day and I add the ones we have completed to the white board so we can review those as well.

11:00 - That usually takes us about an hour so we break for our snack around 11:00.

• Math - We haven't done much focus on numbers in the past so we do some sort of number practice or recognition each day.
• Reading/Phonics - As we prepare for the girls to begin reading we work on our phonics, sounds for our letter of the week, and word building.
• Language - We spend every day working on a few Spanish words as well as Sign Language words for our letter of the week. We learn the words on Monday and then review them for the rest of the week.
• Art - We don't do art every day, but I try to include something at least 2 days a week. Sometimes it's cutting or pasting practice, motor skills activities like lacing cards, painting, or when I'm feeling adventurous a full blown craft I've prepared for us to do.

11:45 - 12:15 - This finishes us up with our school activities so we sit down for at least 30 minutes each day to read together. We go to the library every Tuesday after Bible Study and the girls pick out 5 books each and I usually grab a few extras for us to read throughout the next week. I've just begun going through chapter books with them so we either read the next few chapters in our book, or they each pick a few of their library books for us to read together. We bring the books into the living room and all curl up on the couch together to read. This is one of my favorite parts of the day and I'm loving this time with them! I've started pausing in our reading to have them read the sight words as I pass by them. They don't love this so I usually do this for just the first book so they can begin to get familiar with those words as we read.

12:15 - Lunch! I make us all lunch and we sit down together and eat and then they are free to play, read, color, or go outside if the weather is nice.

A few of our recent activities: Math worksheets, Write the first letter of the picture, Word Ladders, Writing Worksheets, Sight Word recognition, Number Puzzles



Number worksheets, Sight word practice, Fill in the Missing Number, Cutting Practice, Snack Time, Shape and word tracing, and Letter Worksheets

Checked Out

One of the things I'm loving most about our school day is reading with the girls. We've always read together, but having a set 30 minutes a day (or more) set aside to read as part of our school day, and the fact that they are new books from the library each week... it makes it that much more fun! It's fun to watch the girls walk around the library searching the shelves for their perfect stack of books. They are of course looking for princess books (which seem to be few and far between) but they have pulled quite a few fun stories from the shelves.

Last week we ran across a cute little book called "What's the Magic Word?" It's about a newborn little bird who gets swept around a farm meeting all the animals. It was a cute little story and fun to read.

It's Pun-kin Month!

Last night in preparation for school I changed out the calendar month. I had every intention of changing out the dates so they were cute and October themed... but the time got away from me and it was already 1am and creating a new month card was about all I had in me. Today when we were going over our days of the week and talking about what events happen in the month of October, Brinley got really excited and exclaimed, "It's the pun-kin month, it's the pun-kin month!!!"

As her teacher I know I should have corrected her... Pum... Pum... Pumpkin. But as her mommy, the one that is noticing how grown up her girls are getting... well, I just didn't have it in me. I promise I've been good about fixing the way they pronounce things lately, but I just had to let my adorable little punkin slide since this will probably be the last year it happens. I just can't believe they are almost 5!

Happy October everyone and enjoy your little punkins while you still can!