See this box of petit fours?

It used to be full when it arrived last night.  Now there are 10 holes in it due to the one and only Tom Thumb. He's the ultimate petit four thief!

An interesting place to be...

A lot has happened over the last month.  Red has suddenly shown lots of interest in doing school related things --- playing Rightstart math games (she loves Go to the Dump), doing reading lessons (we just finished lesson 122), and reading aloud to me.  It's a whole new world of cooperation and I'm loving it.

School is going well.  Red is concerned already about going to first grade next year.  I told her that we'll cross that bridge when we come to it and not to worry herself. 

I'm in preparations for Christmas.  While I'm done with buying gifts, I still have to wrap every single thing I've purchased.  *sigh*

For your amusement and entertainment, here are my friend Maureen and I with the 20 "gingerbread" houses we made from graham crackers for Red's class holiday party.  I was expecting about 2 hours of work and it became a 6 hour tour.  Never again!

Red and Tom Thumb with Santa

Merry Christmas to all!

Halloween and everything else...

Halloween was much fun this year.  Here's our Tom Thumb Dragon getting ready to trick or treat.  I tried to upload some other photos, but my blog is refusing to load them...maybe later.  Halloween was loads of fun.  That night "The Sugar Sweet Fairy" came and picked up their excess candy (we let them each keep 5 pieces) and traded it out for a Tangled doll for Red and a Percy train for Tom Thumb.  Well worth it as far as I'm concerned.  We're trying really hard right now to keep a cavity at bay for Red.

School is still going well for Red.  We're still plugging away at OPGTR and we're at lesson 113 now.  Yay!  We're doing some writing practice and a wee bit of math.  I wish I had more to report, but we've had some sickness going around in our house that has been holding us back from doing much. 

Happy November to all!

Coming up on Lesson 100 in OPGTR!

Yesterday we finished lesson 98 in The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading, which was about the long O sound of OA .  I feel really strongly that reading is the most important thing Red should be doing academically right now.  Since she is going to 1/2 day afternoon kindergarten five days a week, we have dropped doing math and writing at home (except for practice work that is sent home by her teacher).  We have continued plugging away at OPGTR for about 15 minute per day.  Although she doesn't come to the lesson enthusiastically everyday, we are making progress and she's fighting me about it less and less.  There are 231 lessons so I'm hoping we finish it by the end of her kindergarten year. 

I really can't say enough good things about that book!  What I love is that it systemically teaches phonics in an order that makes sense and is easy to understand.  The only bummer is that so many "easy reader" books that are out there depend on the child's ability to memorize sight words in order to read the book.  My plan right now is to keep working away at OPGTR, and then when we finish it to have her start reading to me 10 minutes per day from a book of her choice.  Currently, Red has no interest in reading aloud to me.  She will do so when asked, but not of her own choosing.  On the other hand, she will sit there and listen to me read all day.  Today she stayed home from school because she was feeling ill.  She took a two hour nap this afternoon (she napped?!?!  That's when I definitely knew she was sick).  She watched some television, but over the course of the day I must have read aloud to her for about three hours.  We finished reading Charlotte's Web (what an outstanding book!  I can't wait to read it to Tom Thumb when he's older), we read a whole bunch of Mr. Putter and Tabby books including this one (love 'em!), and started Twenty and Ten.

School overall is going well.  I signed on with another mother to be co-room parents.  Our duties are to plan crafts and activities when there are holiday parties at school.  Red can't wait to go to school everyday.  She's only had to sit at the "peace table" (AKA the naughty spot) twice so far---yay!  My only complaint is that the teachers haven't really hit their stride as far as organization goes yet, but I think once they get that all worked out it should be fine.  One thing I really like is the "Friday Folder".  Every Friday Red brings home a folder in which the teacher includes comments about what she's working on currently and her behavior.  It's nice to have some sense of what's going on on a week to week basis and not just hearing about it at parent/teacher conferences--- which by the way are coming up around Thanksgiving.

Tomorrow the kids start back to swim class.  Tom Thumb will be a Tadpole (the first level after Parent Tot classes) and Red will be a Sunfish (her first time in the lap pool learning how to do the crawl).  While Tom Thumb can't wait to go tomorrow, Red is very scared about not being able to touch the bottom of the lap pool.  There's no shallow part.  The shallowest area is about 4.5 to 5 feet deep.  It's just shallow enough for me to have my shoulders above the water and I'm 5' 11".  Red is only 41" tall.  Our regular babysitter Colleen who is also a lifeguard there is going to meet us a few minutes early so she can help Red get acclimated to the lap pool before her teacher takes over.  Luckily, the teacher is Colleen's boyfriend so we already know him.  I hope that helps matters.  We'll see how it goes.  Fingers are crossed that there's not too much crying.

Tom Thumb is 3, a princess tea party, and Old Car Festival!

Last week Tom Thumb turned 3.  Yay!  It was such a great day.  He was so happy and loved all his gifts and his Thomas cake.  We bought him a big set of Magna-tiles which he adores, as you can see here:

It was a pretty big week.  Red also went to a friend's birthday party,which was a princess tea party.  We took a pink limo to the party (the mommies were invited), the girls had their hair done and got to wear ball gowns, participated in a fashion show, and ate ice cream sundaes and other treats.  This all happened while a group of women dressed like princesses and ladies in waiting sang and danced.  Needless to say, the party was over the top!

Here's the princess welcoming them to the party!

Here are all the little princesses.

And introducing Princess Red!

And just to top off another busy week, we took the Model T to Old Car Festival. 

We had a great time driving around the car, seeing friends, and participating in car games.  The funniest one was the Chinese firedrill when Red got out of the car and just kept running to the finish line instead instead of getting back in!  We stayed for the fireworks and dancing to 1920s music that night, and Andrew danced with an older woman.

...and danced with Natalie.

I also drove the car for the first time and very appropriately won the slow car race. 

Cheers to another great week!

Our First Day of Public School and forget China

Red started public school this week.  She only had two days because our district had off two days for Ramadan, but so far she really seems to like it.  What's working for me is that she always required a lot of extra attention while Tom Thumb was down for his extended afternoon nap.  Now she's not here.  It's like a 3 hour break when I can actually do some housekeeping and stuff.  Have I done that yet?  No, but I have good intentions.

One thing that does bother me though is that she will not tell me what she did at school during the day.  It's probably a control issue on my part.  When I've asked her what she did, her response has been, "I don't know" or "I forget".  I told the Cobbler that I'm just going to start grooving next week with what I originally planned to do (i.e. our read aloud list, OPGTR, Rightstart A, a bit of Getty Dubay A) so have some idea what is actually going into her little mind.

Now as far as our studying China plan went...well, it didn't really go.  We did watch Big Bird in China, which the kids really liked.  We read a couple of books.  Then, when I took out something else to do that was Chinese the reaction was, "Another thing about China? (sigh)"  I guess I learned my lesson.  When the path of study is not child led, it can be too much especially at age 5.  Now that I'm writing this Red just walked in with a piece of paper and said, "Look Mom--- I wrote in Chinese!"  And she had!  She copied characters out of one of the library books about China.  Then she said, "What do these say?"  Of course, I have no idea and really no way to find out.  (Big sigh)  I guess something did sink in.

What's the big deal about "Stuart Little"?

That's right, people.  I thought the book Stuart Little stunk.  I hardly ever say this about a book, but I liked the movie better.  The book was very disconnected, the characters weren't very likeable, and even Stuart made some decisions that I completely didn't understand. 

In the spirit of full disclosure, I saw the movie with Geena Davis first.  I thought it was cute and heartwarming, a bit cheesy, but overall a good family flick.  The only parallel I can draw between the movie and the book is that the main character in both is a mouse who lives with a family named the Littles.  That is where the similarities end.  In the movie, Stuart is adopted; in the book, he's born to Mrs. Little and just happens to be small and look like a mouse.  In the movie, a main plot point is about Stuart's parents and what happened to them; in the book, the main plot point is Stuart pursuing his friend who is a bird.  They are nothing alike! 

One very weird part in the book is when Stuart comes to a town during his road trip in pursuit of the bird and he asks a 2 inch tall girl who happens to live in the town out on a date.  When his plans to take her on a canoe trip are thwarted when some kids ruin his souvenier size canoe, he throws a fit and doesn't even want to hang out with the girl so she leaves.  The book ends with him driving off into the sunset (okay, actually he's driving north) still looking for the bird Margalo.  That's it.  Did E.B. White just get bored with writing the story?  That's how I felt when it ended.

We had a Trumpet of the Swan lined up to read next.  I had some qualms about it after the Stuart Little experience, but we read through Chapter 2 yesterday and so far so good.  Let's just let it be known that I'll read Tom Thumb Charlotte's Web and I'll probably read him Trumpet of the Swan (based on what we've read so far), but we'll pass on Stuart Little as a read aloud.  Bring on the movie and some popcorn.

This week science---next week China!

Red is in science day camp right now.  She was in it last week and this week.  She seems to be having a good time, but I'm convinced that she won't be doing it next summer.  Going the full day seems to be too long for her (she's kind of crabby around dinner) and she really wasn't into going at the beginning of this week.  One week probably would have been enough.  Too bad they didn't offer that as a choice.

We bought a pass for the month of August to our city's recreation center so we can use the pool.  Red has been scared of water for quite a while, despite the fact we had her taking parent-tot swim lessons at 6 months old.  She has taken swimming lessons fairly consistently since then and still has a lot of fear.  We have set up with our regular babysitter (who also is a lifeguard at the center) to give her lessons twice a week for the next three weeks so we can work through some of her issues.  We've gone swimming there three days in a row now and she seems to be a bit more comfortable.  She actually put her face in the water yesterday!  That's a HUGE improvement.  Her first swimming lesson is next Wednesday so we'll see how that goes.

Unfortunately, we're not jetting off to China next week; however, Tom Thumb and I went to the library this morning to check out some books on China. We'll be doing some reading, DVD watching, crafting, and cooking this coming week. I'll put up a more detailed post once we get underway.

Now that Red's going to be home again all week, I want to get back in our groove.  My plans are to have breakfast, go to the pool, come home and have a snack, do some housekeeping, have lunch, put Tom Thumb down for his nap, and in the afternoon do some fun projects with Red.  I'm hoping to do our geography stuff (can't wait to cook!), some reading lessons, a bit of math (I want to cruise along a bit so we can get to some more math games in the book), and work on lowercase letters.

On a separate note, I have gotten mixed reviews from friends and family about our choice to have Red attend 1/2 day afternoon kindergarten.  My family (who were skeptical of homeschooling) has obviously been very happy.  The reaction of my friend who is a homeschooling mom of seven was "OH NO!"  Most of the other responses have been somewhere between those two extremes.  My stand on it is we will take it one day at a time.  I do not view it as a permanent decision and we will see how it works.  If it doesn't, I am strong enough to bring her back home.  No qualms.  If it does, I'm not going to let what other people think influence our decision.  What I have learned through this process is that I am not going to let my personal pride get in the way of what will be best for each child in our family. 

See you in China!

Some changes--- what am I doing!?!?

So this week has been very tumultuous.  Here's the story:

On Sunday, I was approached after church by a mother of one of my friends from college.  Here's, in essence, what she said:

So Katie told me that you are planning on homeschooling in the fall.  I think that's great, but I wanted to let you know that I'm coming back as principal at the Montessori school and there are open slots in the afternoon kindergarten.  There will only be ten kids in the class.  Of course, it's free and the kindergarten teacher is fantastic.  I thought you might be interested.  If you are, let me know.

That short conversation sent me into a tailspin.  The Montessori school she is referring to is public and is usually the most difficult school to get into in the district.  They hold a lottery every year in April to see who gets in.  I have never met a single person who has been unhappy with their experience there.  Quite the contrary, everyone seems thrilled to be getting what they perceive to be close to a private Montessori experience for no money.

The top three reasons I decided to homeschool for K were that I didn't want full day kindergarten (every public school in our district is full day except this one), I was concerned about class size, and I was concerned about teacher quality.  Everything she said neutralized those concerns.  Red has been asking to try kindergarten and go with her friends.  Her two closest friends from the neighborhood lotteried into the afternoon kindergarten class there.  I had told her that she couldn't go with them because she couldn't get in.  That's not the case now.  I have trouble keeping her busy in the afternoon usually because Tom Thumb is asleep from 1-4ish usually.  Kindergarten would be from 1230-330PM.

The Cobbler and I talked it over.  He said, "I don't see a downside.  And if it doesn't work out, you can pull her out."  It all seemed to be coming together so perfectly.  Then why was I unable to sleep at night?

I had planned to be her mother and her teacher for so long.  I had spent hours researching and selecting curricula not just for this year but for future years.  I had put together a list of books we would read for our geography study.  My whole plan was in jeopardy.  If I'm not homeschooling her full time, who am I? Am I now a public school parent? What?!?! That doesn't feel like me.  It was then I had to stop and think---who is this really about?   I didn't want to let her go to school because my identity was at risk.   

I was going crazy and at the time emailing back and forth with the leader of the homeschooling group that I'm in about whether or not I could or would stay in the group.  Here's a quotation from one of her emails.  In that moment, it helped me so much:

You are still a homeschooling parent- you have a preschooler at home to work with. Don't forget that. And just because she is going, doesn't mean he will. I have had to deal with that a lot with both kids- one may want to school the other may not, and you might always be homeschooling one, or you might have a year or two off of it, who knows. I really think, in the end, you just have to revisit it every year, and it sucks for planners like myself, and probably you, who want to have it all planned out in advance, but parenting just isn't that way, nor is homeschooling, if you are going to follow your kids lead, and do what is best for them- and that's what you are doing. You aren't following any dogma, and it's harder I think at times to do this- well, no, I KNOW it's harder to parent that way- but it's worth it. You teach them to fly this way.  I wouldn't try to get caught up in the labels (public school parent/homeschool parent, etc.). Just be their mother- that's who you are. That is what matters, none of the rest of it.

So we're going to let her go and see how it goes.  Sigh...   We're going to do what I planned too, but be flexible about it and do things as they make sense.  I'm not going to be a slave driver.  It's kindergarten for goodness sake! 

Will she stay in public school for first grade?  We'll cross that bridge when we come to it.  For now, we're still homeschoolers afternooning as public schoolers--- ha ha!  I'm done with playing the label game.  I'm going to do what makes sense for our family and see what happens along the way.

"Hello! I'm Stavros from Greece."

"Greece!?!?  Like grease?"
That was Red's first reaction to that sentence.  We've been reading The BFG by Roald Dahl and in it the giant mentions that the only country they don't eat humans from is Greece because they are so greasy.  I guess it's all tying together nicely.  Ha ha.

To make school a little more fun, I'm starting to formulate some ideas for geography units studies for when we officially start in September.  For now, I bought a globe, a world map, and a map of the United States at Target.  We're reading some books from the library about maps and children of other cultures.  The books we've read so far are Children Around the World by Donata Montanari (the book with Stavros in it!) and Wake Up, World!: A Day in the Life of Children Around the World by Beatrice Hollyer.  These books were both great introductions to what life is like for children in other countries.  Wake Up, World! is a photo book about a day in lives of eight children in different parts of the world so it led to Red asking a lot of questions about their dress (or lack thereof!) and their lifestyle (Cidinha gets to sleep in a hammock in her house!?!?).  We also took a moment to find each of their countries on the globe.  Children Around the World is illustrated and had more general information about what life is like for twelve children of different countries.  Great introductions!  I can't wait until we get more specific.  I'm hoping to be able to read some books, do a craft, and cook a meal from each country we investigate.  I hope to find some good age appropriate DVDs to watch too.

Tom Thumb is currently obsessed with having me point out where Niagara Falls is on the globe since we just got back.  I get to hear "Where Niagara Falls?" while he is vigorously tapping the globe over and over and over. I guess he's learning something about geography too. :-)

Wordless Wednesday

Vermont

We're back finally!  We got home on Saturday and I'm still buried underneath dirty laundry, miscellaneous camping gear, wet towels (yes, ick!  I forgot them in the van until today), and a bunch of red reusable Target bags full of who knows what.  I was lucky enough to leave it in there until today and pretend that my house was still clean after vacation.  Well, Red's friend wanted to come with us to story hour at the library so it all had to come out so I could set up the third row seat for her to ride in.

Vermont was nice.  It's so hard for me to get into vacation mode anymore.  I'm always thinking about what needs to be done at home, what we need to do next schedule wise that day, what we're going to make for dinner that night...ugh.  I wish I was better at living in the moment and sitting still, but I'm not.  I'm hoping that one day I can be all Zen and just wash dishes to wash dishes. 

We stayed in the rented house which was fine.  Nothing special, but a place to lay our heads.  It was a "camp", which means no insulation and the tap water came untreated directly out of the lake.  Don't want to be drinking that stuff!  We had a good laugh about the appearance of the neighbors' yard.  Picture a shed made of unpainted plywood with a burnt out Budweiser sign hanging on it.  Next to that is an old refrigerator with the door open with an empty bottle of liquor on top.  All this loveliness was surrounded by a ton of pieces of wood with an axe sticking out of it.  No grass either.  It was all on top of a pile of gravel along with a Bobcat and an old trailer.

We ended up spending most of the time at the campground anyway swimming and hanging out.  Red overnighted at the campground every night, splitting her time with her grandma and her aunt and cousin.  She loved it so much she cried and cried the night before we left.  My mother-in-law is already trying to get us commit to going again next year and staying on the campground this time.  I told her we'd think about it.  I told the Cobbler that in order for me to be comfortable I need somewhere to pee at the campsite (I'm not walking 10 minutes down to the bathroom in the middle of the night.  Ever since the kids, I have to pee 1-2 times in the night.  A chamber pot?), I'd need earplugs and a sleep mask (I wake at the drop of a hat at home and sleeping outside I'm sure would be louder than my own bed), and we'd need to work out a cooking schedule and menu.  Every night someone would be making something that someone else couldn't or wouldn't eat and I felt like we were wasting so much food.  It definitely could have worked out better.

Besides the normal campfires and S'mores making, we took a day trip to Bennington and Manchester.  Good times.  Here are some photos:

About a third of the crew at my mom-in-law's campsite for a campfire.

Catching salamanders with Auntie Sandra

After riding the Minniehaha Steamboat on Lake George

All wet from riding the Maid of the Mist in Niagara Falls on the way home.  Even with the ponchos on we got soaked!  That's what a little wind will get you.

Now on to the rest of summer! 

Back from Tennessee. On to...

...Vermont.  We spent last weekend at a fabulous family reunion in Tennessee at my cousin's HUGE house.  There were nine of us staying there as guests (everyone else was in hotels), but they could have fit a lot more.  Red and Tom Thumb had a grand time bonding with their cousins, running, jumping, skinning knees, swimming in the neighborhood pool, and generally keeping me awake at all hours.  On night #1 (we stayed 3 nights), Mr. Thumb and I were supposed to be sharing a full size bed while Red was on the air mattress on the floor.  He kicked and slapped me so many times in his sleep that I ended up on the bare floor covered up with a bath towel for the night.  Not much sleep was had.  Luckily, I brought another air mattress with me so he got the bed to himself for the rest of the trip.  So much for sleeping with a two year old.  Ouch!

So we leave for Vermont on Friday or Saturday for another family trip.  This time it is to camp with the Cobbler's family.  We opted out of the camping part and are staying in a cottage just outside the entrance to the state park that everyone else is in.  I'm not quite ready to take the plunge into tent/lean to camping yet for a full week.  It should be a good time once we get past the 11 hour drive there.

Here's some of our family reunion photos:

Reading to her little brother...

Doing the happy dance!

I keep on posting about how great things are going because I want to remember these times for when things are little more difficult and I need encouragement.  So...with that...
She read Green Eggs and Ham today FLUENTLY, with hardly any assistance from me.
 I could have burst with joy!

A Math Breakthough in Lesson 22!

During math lesson today, Red added numbers in her head!  I couldn't believe it!  Rightstart is working---yay!  We learned today about partitioning the number 5 and she was able to work out several simple word problems in her head and using the abacus.  It was an exciting moment.  I know everyday won't be like this so I'm relishing it!

She read an ENTIRE BOOK!

I am just beside myself.  Red read an entire book today!  Yay!  Granted, I was on hand to assist with the more difficult words, but she did it.  We ended up reading almost every book in the library bag today (and it's a BIG bag.  See the number of books on the Read Aloud page with a completion date of today.  And that's not all that we read!  We read a big chunk of Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh too.) because Tom Thumb was being a turkey this morning and I pulled a muscle in my back while wrestling him into time out. Thus, we couldn't go anywhere, which ended up being okay because we were under a tornado warning most of the afternoon. Thus, lots of book reading. 

I had checked out the Dr. Seuss book Fox in Socks at the library this past week.  Red brought it to me and asked me to read it.  I told her, "You know these words.  Why don't you read it?  I'll help if you get stuck."  It's a pretty sizeable book for an easy reader.  It took us quite a while --- maybe 15-20 minutes to read the whole thing with pauses to figure out unfamiliar words.  She's on around lesson 80 in OPGTR so she hasn't had lessons about "ee" or "-ough" or "ea" or "ew" or "ow" so we had to stop and learn some phonics rules as we went along.  The last few pages were a struggle because she was a little weary, but she wanted to finish so we plowed though and did it. 

Daddy was so proud that he suggested a Dairy Queen run as a treat so that's what we did.  Cones with sprinkles all around!

Our Summer Display and a party to boot!

We changed our display over for summer on Monday (the first day of summer by the way!) so here it is:

All the cards are from Red's 5th birthday which was yesterday.

As you can see, we changed over the cloth to something a little more vibrant, our beehives and butterflies are out, and we have one lonely mushroom.  The coneflowers broke off our new plant I just planted in the yard, thus, our lovely floral display--- ha ha!

Red's birthday party involved walking with her four friends to 711 for Slurpees, followed by lunch and running in the sprinkler.  Here are the results---

It's great to be five!

Making tile patterns

We were supposed to be dividing piles of tiles into groups of ten, but my little artist had to do something else---

Our Spring Display

After going through a hardcore Waldorf phase a couple of years ago, one of the things that remains is our seasonal display.  Also called a nature table in Waldorf circles, it is customary to decorate your display with colors to suit the season, items collected from outside by the children, and figures and other symbols of the season.  Here is a photo of our spring display before it gets changed over on Monday the first day of summer:

We made the wool fairy for our summer display last year, but Red insisted that she needed to come out early.  She found the bird's nest at Greenfield Village today outside the Edison house.  When we got home she filled it with some of her sidewalk chalk eggs.  The flowers are from our trip up north, as is the wee bird with nest candleholder that I bought at BeeDazzled.  Can't wait for the summer display!  And here's Red swinging today---

I love summer!

Enjoying the last days of spring...

We did some finger painting last week. 

Then we went to my parents' house in northern Michigan for some outdoor fun.  The kids caught a toad.

and a newt...

And we did some swinging at the park with Papa.

Good times!

Yay--- counter clockwise circles at last!

Red successfully wrote a zero and a nine today with counter clockwise circles.  I thought I'd never see the day, but I did!  Yay!  There's always something else to work on (now it's keeping her pencil on the paper instead of lifting between each part of a letter or number), but it was nice to see progress.

She's finally well, but still getting up several times in the night.  It's been really rough on me because I'm a crab cake if I don't get enough sleep. 

On a separate exciting note, Tom Thumb spent his second night in a big bed last night.  Woo hoo!  Granted he still wants to sleep in the crib for nap, but it's a move in the right direction.  I'm trying to train him to sleep .
in a bed prior to our July vacation since he no longer fits in a Pack and Play and there won't be crib where we're going.

I love when I have good news to report!

Slowing down for summer

You can tell it's getting to be warm outside because we've been slowing down a bit with the lessons.  We're still reading at the speed of light because Red has been sick the past few days.  We finished The Boxcar Children in a flash and every other book in the library bag!  I think we'll probably read some of the other Boxcar Children stories at some point.  Right now we have The Red Fairy Book on hold at the library so that will probably be our next long term read aloud.

Reading lessons are finally going well.  We're at around Lesson 70 now in the Ordinary Parents' Guide to Teaching Reading which is reviewing long vowels made by adding a silent E to the end.  There's no review during these lessons.  You're just supposed to focus on whether or not the child is getting that concept.  Thank goodness she seems to be getting it--- yay!  We're going at about two lessons per week in terms of pace and that seems to be working out just about perfect for her.  By the way --- I have firmly decided that My Little Pony puffy stickers can work miracles!  After we complete a lesson, she gets one (or two) and that seems to be a great motivator.

We're doing 1-2 lessons per week from Rightstart Level A.  There are some things she's getting (entering numbers on the abacus) and some things that she's not (combining two sets of tally sticks into one number), but we're definitely making progress.  We're up to Lesson 13 and I'm feeling pretty confident.

Then, there's writing.  I have to just keep telling myself that she is young and her fine motor skills aren't there yet.  Her grip (unless she's reminded to hold her pencil "like a princess") looks like a mangled claw, and counter clockwise circles (which are the building block of a lot of lower case letters) do not come naturally to her at all.  She doesn't like practicing writing either so I only make her do a couple of examples of each thing we're working on, which usually end up not looking very pretty.  I know we'll get there.  She's only turning 5 in a few weeks.  I know I need to take it easy and not worry about it.

And finally---I need to schedule time to do the things we really want to do together, like art, crafts, baking and games.  As we get into the summer months, I foresee us doing a lot outside.  I think one craft we're going to tackle is to make little markers for our herb garden that we're working on.  Last year we kept all our herbs in pots.  This year we're prepping an area to put them all in the ground.  I think it would be a lot of fun to paint either rocks or signs with the names of the herbs. 

Most importantly, I hope she's well tomorrow.  I'm finally well.  I want everyone else to be healthy too.  Crossing my fingers and saying a prayer...

Reading Eggs

We're currently on a trial basis with http://www.readingeggs.com/ and Red LOVES it.  It seems to be a step up from http://www.starfall.com/ in that it doesn't allow you to have every word read to you.  She likes earning the eggs to buy things for her avatar (in her case, it's a fish with sunglasses wearing a cape).  She wants her next purchase to be a "gas blower" (i.e. a lava lamp)--- ha ha! 

We're four days into the new schedule and it seems to be going really well.  Today is supposed to be HS group/outing/game day.  Since I had my procedure with the doc today (it went well) not much happened until around 4PM when I was finally up and around.  She and I played Can Do Kangaroo and had a grand time until it was time for dinner.  Tomorrow is supposed to be Craft Day.  She wants to make chess pieces out of stuff you find outside.  She found it in a nature craft book we have out from the library.  And no, she does not know how to play chess.  This ought to be interesting...

The New Plan

After getting suggestions on The Well Trained Mind forum ranging from bribe her to completely stop doing anything, I've decided on somewhere in the middle.  I bought a bunch of new art supplies (i.e. finger paint, tempera paint, colored pencils and crayons) and some stickers.  My new plan is to make each day of the week a theme day --- Monday is Art, Tuesday is Library, Wednesday is Baking, Thursday is Outing/Games, Friday is Craft.  So far this week we did a decorate a book bag craft at the library, went to story hour, finger painted, and baked banana bread.  We also managed to do one math and one reading lesson.  The strategy now is for now to do one 15 minute lesson each per week (with the reward of glittery Tinkerbell, puffy My Little Pony, or Dora stickers) or more if she asks.  She's only going to be in Kindergarten.  I need to focus most on play and habit training, followed by creative and imitation activities, THEN any academic work.  I think I (and a lot of other homeschooling parents from what I've seen) feel like their kid needs to be producing something in order to feel like their making progress.  It's just not the case.  We'll see how this goes.  The Tale of Despereaux has been AWESOME.  We'll probably wrap that one up tonight.

And we press on...

I continue to be ill on and off.  I've been poked and prodded by doctors and will be poked and prodded more over the next week.  It has made "doing school" more difficult.  Not to mention, Red has been pushing back on the 15 minutes of reading and 15 minutes of math instruction we've doing on a daily or every other day basis.  I'm trying to decide right now whether to back off (she is pretty young still and I wasn't planning on doing formal lessons until she was 6 anyway) or forge ahead armed with stickers and M&Ms to entice her to do it.  The temporarily abandoning ship plan and starting summer early is looking more and more appealing as my illness goes on.  We'll see how it goes. One area that is going great is reading aloud.  She will listen to involved chapter books (e.g. we just finished Through the Looking Glass!) with no problem  We just started The Tale of Despereaux and she begged for one more chapter TWICE.  I posted to the Well Trained Mind forum an S.O.S. on what to do.  I'm hoping to get some opinions that will help me decide our next steps.

An art reminder for me!

I'm trying to pick an art curriculum right now and I found this great link that works with the book Drawing with Children by Mona Brookes.  In case I buy the book later, I don't want to forget where this link is!

I finally placed the order!

I've had an ongoing illness that I'm still battling, but even being down I've managed to drag myself to the computer to place my long contemplated Rainbow Resource order.  I tried to buy our Rightstart math curriculum used from someone in one of the homeschooling groups I belong to and it didn't pan out.  There don't seem to be any used complete (complete is the operative word) Level A sets out there.  I saw one on eBay a month or so ago and didn't realize what a good deal it was at the time.  The bottom line is I finally just sucked it up and bought a new Level A starter set, the generic Rainbow Resource version of the manipulatives I needed for the Level B add on set (I already bought the Level B lesson book on eBay), some pencil grips, and three books by Stan Tekiela --- Wildflowers of Michigan (got this one on eBay), Trees of Michigan and Birds of Michigan.

Why did I buy both Level A and B?  First of all, Rightstart has a placement test and Red kind of straddled A and B.  I read some starting with A vs. B debate on The Well Trained Mind Forum, and it seemed to me that the folks who started with A were happier and thought their kids understood the concepts better.  Some parents even said that their kids raced through A in a few months and were able to go right into B.  That's why I decided to buy both and hopefully save myself some $$$ on shipping costs.  It seems to have very good resale value so if it doesn't work out I'm not worried.

I bought the Michigan field guides because I would really like to start doing some nature walks.  I thought it would be nice to be able to identify what we ran across.  I considered getting the accompanying CD for the bird book that has all the bird calls on it, but I figured I could always buy that later if birds really become our thing.

Finally, I got a couple different pencil grips for Red to try to hopefully correct her grip --- this one and this one.  I'm really hoping they accommodate my request and send purple and pink grips to make her happy. 

One more thing--- I have a book recommendation----> Carolinda Clatter by Mordicai Gerstein.
It is such a magical legend that this author wove.  We loved it!

More soon after the box arrives!

It's nice to be well!

After having the stomach flu 3 non-consecutive days over the last three weeks, I think I'm finally well.  I HOPE I'm finally well.  I'm just so relieved that nobody else got it. 

Today, I'm just tired.  Kids were up early.  We made the long trek to meet up with our homeschooling group because I knew the kids be at each other all day with how grey and dreary it is outside.  I managed to launch nachos all over the front seat of the car on the way home.  I know, I know.  I shouldn't try to eat and drive at the same time.  It has just been one of those kind of days.  And I'm tired now.

I just realized that if we used a 5 day plan for doing the lessons in OPGTR, we'll be finished in 37 weeks or so.  That seems like a really long time.  Not like I'm trying to rush it.  Maybe I should not have tried to think about the long term on a day I'm wiped out. 

I can see now why sticking with a curriculum is so hard in homeschooling circles.  Someone else you know always has something that's better or cooler or more creative.  In speaking with Calesta today in group, I felt that way.  She is always so excited about something new.  Then that gets me excited.  I'm just way too excitable --- ha ha.

Hopefully, I'll have my math curriculum in my hot little hands sometime next week and I'll have something new and interesting to post about.

What's a marshmallow drop?

If you want to see where we were today, click here to get all your questions answered.  You can even see the back of my head in one of the newspaper's photos--- ha ha!  We left the camera in the car by accident, but the kids had a blast and it was quite the site seeing all the marshmallows falling out of the sky.

Big improvement today...

We spent this morning with our homeschooling group at the park.  Another gorgeous day!  Red and Tom Thumb frolicked with the other kids on this giant play structure.  I think lil' Tom went non-stop for about two hours! 

When we got home, Red and I did a 15 minute only reading session and she breezed through both the lessons she struggled with during the frustrating 30 minute marathon yesterday.  This was definitely confirmation to me that sticking with the 15 minute lessons is the best bet in terms of keeping her attention.

We probably were outside today for about three hours again.  Not bad for a bunch of rookies trying to get back in the being outside game after being cooped up inside for 4 or 5 months.  After dinner we went to a skating exhibition at the rink.  Red was thrilled to watched the synchronized teams.  Tom Thumb was more interested in the zamboni.  Typical boy :-)

The Cobbler's off work tomorrow so hopefully we'll have another fun day.

We made it nearly 3 hours!

Yesterday was so deliciously warm (yay!) Red and I were outside from about 1-3PM while Tom Thumb was taking his nap.  We spent sometime swinging on the neighborhood communal swing set.  Then she jumped on the ever popular dead willow tree for a while.  Then she proceeded to lose one of my rings (just an old silver pinkie ring) inside said tree.  Luckily, we were able to retrieve it.  We raked our yard for a while.  Little did we know that we weren't supposed to do that since it had just been fertilized the day before.  Oops!  She also played outside for about a 1/2 hour while I was making dinner.  Then, Tom got up and we played for another 1/2 hour while waiting for the Cobbler to get home from work.  Overall, a successful day in terms of outdoor time.  We're moving in the right direction for sure.  Four to six hours, here we come!

On an unsuccessful note (well, I guess it's not unsuccessful, it's just I learned a valuable lesson), I pushed little Red too hard on her reading lesson.  I was trying to do the two review, one new method and it ended up going way too long and definitely beyond keeping her full attention.  It dragged on for about a 1/2 hour when I would like to keep it at 15 minutes.  It ended up being frustrating for both of us.  Lesson learned.  From now on I set a timer when we start.

T Minus One Day and Counting Until...

...it's time to start reaching for our outdoor time target of 4-6 hours per day.  Where do I get this random number of hours?  From my spiritual guide Charlotte Mason.  Just kidding!  I do, however, think her philosophies are so right on in so many ways that I definitely want to follow this one.

"I make a point, says a judicious mother, of sending my children out, weather permitting, for an hour in the winter, and two hours a day in the summer months. That is well; but it is not enough. In the first place, do not send them; if it is anyway possible, take them; for, although the children should be left much to themselves, there is a great deal to be done and a great deal to be prevented during these long hours in the open air. And long hours they should be;  not two, but four, five, or six hours they should have on every tolerably fine day, from April till October. Impossible! Says an overwrought mother who sees her way to no more for her children than a daily hour or so on the pavements of the neighbouring London squares. Let me repeat, that I venture to suggest, not what is practicable in any household, but what seems to me absolutely best for the children; and that, in the faith that mothers work wonders once they are convinced that wonders are demanded of them. A journey of twenty minutes by rail or omnibus, and a luncheon basket, will make a day in the country possible to most town dwellers; and if one day, why not many, even every suitable day?" (Volume 1, p. 43-44)

Thursday is April 1st.  We'll see what I can make happen.  Maybe I should do a running tally on here of how many hours we spend outside.  That might be kind of entertaining...okay, maybe not that entertaining.  I think it would interesting though to see how many hours we can clock outside in a season.

Today we were outside from about 1PM until about 3PM because it was in the low 50s and sunny.  I thought we did pretty good, considering Tom still takes a nap and Red had ballet class that we had to leave for by 430.  We'll get there.  4-6 hours here we come!!!

Neither deceptive nor delicious...

I recently purchased the Deceptively Delicious cookbook by Jessica Seinfeld on the recommendation of one my friends whose children refuse to eat vegetables.  My children don't refuse, but are picky.  And who couldn't use a few more vegetables in their diet, right?

Last night I made the banana bread recipe which includes a 1/2 cup of cauliflower puree.  It should have clued me in when the baking bread had a distinct scent of cauliflower.  The Cobbler and I tried it last night and had a good laugh.  Granted, it wasn't completely horrific if you weren't thinking it was supposed to taste like banana bread.  This morning Red ate it and said, "Why does this not taste like banana?  Next time put banana in it, Mommy."  (Keep in mind that there were TWO bananas in it)  Tom Thumb ate it, but insisted that every piece was doused in honey.  So much for the cookbook.  I wonder how the brownies are with spinach in them...maybe not.

I want to remember this blog post FOREVER!

I just had to link to this blog post by Susan Wise Bauer.  It is brilliant and an excellent reminder to us all to just let our kids be kids and develop at their own pace.

One long tired week...

After spending two days this past week (unfortunately not consecutive) with the stomach flu, I have some perspective.  I hate how it takes getting ill to make you relax about life.  I had literally been flitting here, there, and everywhere trying to get my curriculum choices firmed up for fall.  For a five year old...seriously, how much really should I be worry about this?  I need to CHILL OUT!

Fortunately, my choices are made.  First, for teaching reading we've been using The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading by Jessie Wise.  Red's on lesson 37 or so.  We skipped the first 26 because they were about the sounds consonants make, which she already knew.  We're learning right now how to read CVC words.  We've gone through short A, short E, and short I.  We're mid way through short O.  I'm trying to do a lesson per day.  We quickly review the previous two lessons and then start a new one.  We don't always make it through a complete new one.  It might take a couple of days.  I tried to sense when she's getting tired or frustrated and quit before we hit a wall.  Then I let her play on http://www.starfall.com/ for 15 or 20 minutes after as a treat.  I'd like to keep doing this until we finish the book...hopefully by the time she turns 6.

I'm going to get Rightstart Level A and B.  That way I can start with A, but if it's going to slow we can switch to B.  Otherwise, I'll already have B for first grade.  I bought the B teacher's manual on eBay, but I'm waiting to hear back from another homeschooling mom about selling me her A set used before I buy it new.  No hurry on this one.  That's what I have to keep telling myself because buying homeschooling stuff is like buying Christmas gifts for me.  I want it now!

I have Getty Dubay Italics Book A, but I don't know if I'll even use it this year.  Maybe...I don't know.  I really don't know if Red has the manual dexterity yet to handle writing.  I know her grip is funky so we're working on correcting that.  I'm about to buy her some pencil grips from Amazon that I heard about on the blog Satori Smiles. 

And I think we've discovered that she need breaks between chapter books.  We picked up On the Banks of Plum Creek from the library a week ago.  We made it through 4 chapters over the course of the week before she decided, "I don't want to read that one anymore because Laura got in trouble with Pa."  I don't really think that's the reason.  I think she's just fatigued from the long book.  Maybe her maturity level isn't ready for the story.  I think I'm ready to table the Little House books for now.  Aaaahhh...the beauty of homeschooling.  If something isn't working, you can just stop for a while.

Choosing a math curriculum

Choosing a math curriculum has been one of my biggest struggles so far.  I really wanted to choose a curriculum that gives my children a great math foundation based on actually understanding what they were doing and not just repeating back facts to me that they memorized. 

I initially was very committed to Math U See.  The Cobbler was also very enthusiastic about Math U See because he liked how Steve Demme (the program's founder) teaches the concepts in an easy to understand way on a kid's level on the DVD that accompanies the program.  He also liked the plastic colored manipulative rods that are used with each level too.  I was all on board and ready to buy it until I heard from a couple of users I know that the kindergarten level (Primer) was boring for their children and they could have gotten the same results from a workbook purchased at Wal-Mart. They were, however, very pleased with their kids progress using the Math U See first grade level and beyond.

Then I saw Rightstart Mathematics at a friend's house.  I had read about it online, and my friend gave glowing reviews about how she felt her son was really getting math with this program.  I also liked that there were lots of games to be played and not a lot of writing required in Level A (kindergarten).  Perfect for my little Red!  When I read all the reviews I could find about this program, the only complaints I could find were that it requires a lot of teacher prep (although people using it commented that it wasn't so bad once you got rolling with the program) and if you have a kid who wants "just the facts" and doesn't like games then the program isn't for him.  Well, I'm not afraid of some extra prep if it will help my kid "get it" and Red LOVES games.  No problem here!  The Cobbler was a little hesitant because the main manipulative is an abacus and for some reason that he can't put his finger on he doesn't care for it.  After discussing it more, he decided that for the other reasons I cited earlier that Rightstart would be a good fit for Red too.  As far as Tom Thumb goes, we'll have to cross that bridge when we get there.

I went to a used curricula sale last weeked and was unable to find Rightstart Level A or B.  I did find the Level C lessons and worksheets for $5 (SCORE!) and the math card games book for $7 (Score again!).  Even though I can't use Level C until 2nd grade, I knew I would never find it at that price again.  And I can always sell it on eBay if we don't stick with it.  I'm now on the hunt for the levels I actually need.  There's mixed feeling amongst people who are using it now whether it is worth starting with A or not or if you should just plow into B.  Apparently B reviews everything that is in A just at a more rapid pace.  I guess I'll see what I can find on eBay or amongst my fellow homeschooling friends before I buy new.

Putting Scripture in Our Children's Hearts

Although I'm not planning on using a religious based curriculum (mainly because I want to make sure my children are taught what our family believes, not someone else's interpretation), it is important to me that our children are exposed to Bible stories in our home.  I think this is important not only for their spiritual upbringing, but to also be exposed to great stories with flawed heroes and heroines who have to deal with real problems.  Whether the people rely on God or not is their choice, and we get to see the outcome of their actions.

Charlotte Mason wrote: “Now our objective in this most important part of education is to give the children the knowledge of God. We need not go into the question of intuitive knowledge, but the expressed knowledge attainable by us has its source in the Bible, and perhaps we cannot do a greater indignity to children than to substitute our own or some other benevolent person’s rendering for the fine English, poetic diction and lucid statement of the Bible. Literature at its best is always direct and simple and a normal child of six listens with delight to the tales both of Old and New Testament read to him passage by passage…” (CMSG, p. 99)

I think Miss Mason makes an excellent point in that somewhere along the road we thought we had to dumb down Bible stories for kids to understand them. I have found that is clearly not the case.  I don't plan on reading from the King James version (I know some people do and more power to them!) because I find the language difficult to follow myself, but I think reading from several translations of the Bible will be helpful to their vocabulary and their long term language skills.

During the 2010-2011 school year, I'm going to use Penny Gardner's Highlights from the Old Testament and Highlights from the New Testament lists for daily episodic Bible reading.  I'm not exactly sure if we'll do one from the O.T. and one from the N.T. or just do one a day chronologically or alternate O.T. and N.T.  I guess we'll have to see how it goes when the time comes.  I'm hoping that this daily reading will help make God an important part of their daily routine and help them learn about the Bible in the context of history.

2010-2011 Read Alouds

I feel like I've been working on this Read Aloud list FOREVER!  I started two years ago using the Ambleside Online Year 0 Book List.  I printed it as an Excel spreadsheet and started bringing it with me to the library every week.  Red would pick a few books and then I would pick a few books from the list.  She actually ended up liking many of the books on the list.  Even some that I didn't expect.  I really didn't think Robert McCloskey's Time of Wonder was going to be a big hit (especially based on my initial look at the illustrations) but amazingly she loved it. 

My Read Aloud plans for this year include working our way through the rest of the Ambleside Online Year 0 List (based on what our library has available), and combining that with the read alouds scheduled in the Sonlight K curriculum and the Hillsdale Academy kindergarten curriculum.  We're also going to include daily Bible episodic readings and poetry from The Real Mother Goose.  I'm going to list them below and then later update this post as we complete them.  I'll also give a review of what we thought.  Aahhhh, this makes me wish I had done this so much sooner.  We have read so many great books over the last couple of years that I wish more folks would read!  Right now, we're reading Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House books.  We read Little House in the Big Woods last year.  We tried reading Farmer Boy, but she just didn't care for it.  I think it might have been because it was about a boy and not a girl.  We didn't even make it half way through it.  We're nearly done with Little House on the Prairie so she's all ready to check out On the Banks of Plum Creek from the library since it's the only one of the books that we don't already own.  So over the summer, I think we'll probably finish the whole series if she wants to.  If she's bored with something, I don't insist that we press on so we'll have to see.  I might dip into the list before September if that happens.  I'm making the read alouds a separate page entry at the top of the page.  It might take me a few days to get all the books listed so please bear with me :-)