Sunday, April 18, 2010

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!

Thursday, April 15, 2010

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!

Thursday, April 8, 2010

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.

Friday, April 2, 2010

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.

Thursday, April 1, 2010

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.