Weekly Report, Week of August 25th

This week flew by. I have quickly learned that all of the activites, books, crafts and outings I plan each week are not getting done. Don't get me wrong, all of the important areas like math, reading, and writing get done on a daily basis. It's when the 3 R's are combined with breaks, playing outdoors, snacks, lunch, the occasional outing, and "behavior management", there isn't much time left for things like making a Japanese Hinu doll or doing our science experiments. Luckily, with no set school hours, we can squeeze in an extra story before dinner or save our science experiments for when daddy is home on the weekends. I'd love to have time every day to dedicate to hands-on activites, because this is what D thrives on. In the upcoming weeks I will try to tailor our schedule to accomodate this goal by planning ONE crafty thing per day and lessening my overall expectations of what can realistically be accomplished. That being said, when I look at what we've done this week, I see that we are covering quite a bit of material and am really pleased with D's eagerness (albeit unfocused, silly, moody, and non-compliant at times) to learn.

• Math: Singapore EB1 ~ Lessons 8, 9, 12; Power Math Unit 4
• OPG~ Lessons 32-35 (He's having trouble with the short-e sound, continually mixing it up with the short-i sound. We need to practice this more over the weekend); Reading Bob Books
• ETC~ Lesson 5
• Handwriting~ Ww, Xx, Zz
• Religion~ Lesson 3-Adam & Eve; Mirror craft, Made up a thank-you prayer to God, copywork, and drew a self-portrait
• Literature~ Winnie-The-Pooh stories (1) In Which We Are Introduced to Winnie-the-Pooh and Some Bees, and the Story Begins (2) In Which Eeyore Loses a Tail and Pooh Finds One; Aesop's For Children (selected tales)
• Geography~ Japan- Read: The Crane's Gratitude, How the Sea Became Salty, and Momotaro; Mapped out Japan on our large world map and on the globe; watched the video "Big Bird in Japan"
• Science~ Read more about the weather and seasons; will do experiments this weekend about air pressure and/or the rotation of the sun
• Extracurricular~Spent the day at the Children's Museum of NH followed by a picnic at the park. Hopefully I'll have some pictures to post soon.

Wave to the School Bus!

Today was the first day of school for our public school district, and we watched the bus drive by in the morning to pick up the neighborhood kids and again this afternoon to drop them off. If D were attending school this year, he'd only be in Kindergarten and wouldn't be taking the bus. Even so, I felt a bit of a disconnect as I watched the big yellow bus noisily chug by. Homeschooling the boys is exactly what I want to be doing right now, but that doesn't erase the twelve years of memories of my own education, especially those of my early elementary years which I remember fondly. It's easy to let doubt creep in as the questions start invading my mind... Will the boys be happy? Will they make friends? Will they feel like they missed out on things? Will I be able to teach them? Will... What if.... What about... ???

After taking a (very large) breath, I was able to reflect on our day and how we did an entire days worth of lessons, AND made a trip to a playground (filled with kids to play with), came home and rested, read a few stories together, played outside and cleaned D's bedroom. All before the big yellow bus noisily chugged by this afternoon.

Weekly Report, Aug. 22nd

Our second week of school and we've already learned one very important thing.... homeschooling allows for flexibility. This week was filled with appointments, from dentists to minor day surgery, as well as a few final summer activites like going to the beach and learning how to fish. Somehow we managed to keep up with everything on our schedule, which is amazing considering how little time we were actually home. It's such a nice feeling to be enjoying the sun on a beautiful summer afternoon and not worrying about "being" anywhere in particular.

D still accomplished a decent amount of math lessons (estimation, weight), phonics readings (short i and short o vowels), a lesson on Creation, a few books about weather and a handful of experiments (making thunder; evaporation; condensation), and even the memorization of the poem "Rain" by Robert Louis Stevenson. A nice way to hold onto the last dyas of summer while still making a dent in our lesson plans.

Weekly Report, August 15th

D had a great first week of school. He accomplished more than I had planned for math and language arts, but we didn't spend nearly as much time as I would've liked on science and social studies. He did complain a little about having to do math again, but as long as he knew we'd follow-up with some sort of arts-and-crafts project, he'd focus on what needed to be done.

Language Arts: This week we learned how to read words with the short-a and short-o vowel sounds using OPG (Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading) and books 1&2 of LSLF (Little Stories for Little Folks). D shows a real excitement for wanting to learn how to read, and once he sets his mind to something he typically doesn't back off. In this case, that is a great thing. He completed Lesson 1 in ETC (Explode the Code) which was a reinforcement of the short-a vowel sound.

I decided on using the Getty & Dubay ITALIC handwriting series because I really like the style of the lettering. Advancing to cursive is a smoother transition than with the tradition method with all those time-consuming loops and swirls I was never fond of. We practiced writing the lower and uppercase letters Ii, Jj, and Ll this week.

I have been reading aloud stories from Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling. Although some of the stories seem a bit advanced at this point, D is being exposed to the sound and flow of language and seems to be enjoying them nonetheless. He did a narration on "How the Whale Got Its Throat". Other than the LSLF booklets, D has been reading the beginning Bob Books aloud and earning a stamp for each book he reads. Once his chart is filled, we will take a trip to the bookstore where he can pick out a book as a reward. I like the idea of giving him incentive to read as much as possible and to make trips to the bookstore a "totally cool" experience.

Math: We covered greater-than and less-than, more and less, size, and patterns this week. D seems to enjoy math but gets easily frustrated when he doesn't immediately understand a concept. Oh how I can relate!!

Religion: We covered the Holy Trinity in lesson 1 of IOG (Images of God). D needs to improve his attitude about learning/talking/thinking about his religion, and IOG does a good job of keeping stories short and interesting while covering the important underlying catechism. He particularly seems to be enjoying the colorful cut-outs and craft projects this series has to offer.

Science: We read about time-zones and the weather this week. He demonstrated with our globe how the children in Asia are sleeping when we're awake and how the sun doesn't move, the earth moves.

Social Studies: We are focusing on learning about maps and directions this week, using the Rand McNally Geography and Map Activites book. He made a compass rose and although he's got North, South, East and West down, he needs more review with NW, NE, SW, SE. We made "People of the World" stick puppets and the boys proceeded to put on a silly puppet show for me.

Fine Arts: We listened to classical music, painted, and did a rainbow cut-and-paste project.

First Day of Homeschooling

D had his first day of school yesterday, and was beside himself with excitement. I put together a bag of supplies for both the boys, filled with brand new crayons, markers, watercolor paint, notebooks, folders, glue, scissors, a ruler and a stash of new pencils (one which says "Homeschoolers Are Cool"). The highlight of the morning was seeing how thrilled D was that his new "school shirt" had arrived. Over the summer I ordered a set of t-shirts for the family with this year's logo printed on it with the intention of wearing them to field trips and other homeschooling-type outings. D saw me designing them on the computer and immediately said "Can we get those for my school?" and requested they come in dark green. How could I resist? Obviously I couldn't, and they arrived just in time for the first day of school.

I wasn't quite as "with it", due to B's sleep issues we've been having this past week. I wake up in the morning feeling like I have a newborn in the house, getting about six hours of very broken sleep at night and trudging through the days in survival mode. Luckily, I had the week planned out and all I have to do is follow my schedule instead of trying to wing it.

B didn't know what to make of our focused attention during D's lessons, and proceeded to climb all over me like the monkey that he is. Luckily I found a chunk of free time in the afternoon to devote to B, who wanted to sit in the new chair and work at the big desk in one of his new sticker workbooks. It's going to be tough to juggle the attention B needs from me with the time I need to give to D. I'm sure it'll all smooth out over the next few weeks.

Weekly Report

D completed 4 lessons in his math workbook this week. Today we were supposed to have our "Back To School Brunch" but I decided to do it on Monday, which is when our first day of lessons begins. It would've confused the boys too much to have a party on Friday and then have to wait two days to actually begin school. This way, we can do some lessons Monday morning and have a little party after lunch. And to add to the fun, D's friend Joey will be joining us for cake. I found the cutest back-to-school cake idea in an issue of Family Fun magazine last year and just knew I'd have to make it for D's first day of Kindergarten. I'll share some photos on Monday and let you know how everything went.

Facing My Fears

One method of overcoming an intense phobia is to face your fear. As most of my friends know, I am deathly afraid of BATS, ever since our first "houseguest" back in 2001. That was the one hidden behind the television stand, where my cat Max was hovering just minutes before. The bat with the apparent scratches on its wing as if something (Max) had scratched it. And the realization that just moments earlier Max had scratched me (unintentionally, while we were playing). We called our vet and his reaction sent me into a tailspin of anxiety, the type of anxiety you get when you overreact to something you have literally no control over. DH had to drive the bat 30 miles away to get tested for rabies, and I had to wait 24 hours to find out the results. The phone call came around 9am the following morning....negative. It was one of those moments of relief that you never quite forget. The whole experience was enough to make me feel sick at the mere MENTION of the word "bat".

Well, much to my dismay we were visited by four more bats over the next two years, and each "houseguest" was increasingly more awful than the previous (minus any more rabies scares). We finally found the source, a tiny space above the air conditioner *just* big enough for a bat to squeeze it's way through. I should also mention that the air conditioner was in our bedroom window. Which was right next to our heads. Ugh.

Fast forward to 2008 and an extremely loud screech that woke me out of a deep sleep. I tried to ignore it, figuring it was a june bug or a figment of my imagination. That is, until I heard the sound in my room. I woke up DH and we sat listening, when all of a sudden SWOOSH!! By the light of the alarm clock, DH spotted the bat flying around right in front of our faces. I dashed out of the room and into B's room (he was standing in his doorway wondering what all the excitement was about) and left it up to DH to catch the sucker. He contained it, and set it free in the morning, but not before D could sneak a peek at it.

D came inside to tell me just "how cute" the bat was, "like a kitty-cat with sharp teeth". It wasn't enough to convince me that bats were cute, but something happened later that same day to help me realize I wasn't *quite* as freaked out anymore.

We were watching a video about wild, misunderstood creatures, and the bat was one of the highlighted features. They showed a few pictures, and the little brown bat just didn't look all that horrible, at least not as horrible as my memory had made it out to be. They explained that bats are actually quite clean, grooming themselves regularly with their sharp claws. Ok, I'm listening. Then they showed a baby bat nursing on its mother, with it's wide face and big pointy ears, and I found myself saying "Awwwww, how sweet!" With a little research and an open mind, I found myself coming around to a greater understanding and even an acceptance of these little upside down flying mammals. Just not in my house.

Weekly Report

Next week D will begin doing math lessons, as well as a few read alouds from the Ambleside Online curriculum (Year 0). I am hoping to slowly ease him into our new routine, which will officially begin next Friday with a "Back To School Brunch" and with lessons starting the following Monday. D loves routine and structure, and he may find it difficult adjusting to our new daily rhythm. I figure by stretching out the transition over a couple of weeks instead of all at once might just help him accept it more readily.

One of the things we'll be doing on a weekly basis is using Wednesday as our "fun day", with only math and language arts scheduled for lessons and an outing planned for the remainder of the afternoon. I am excited to visit the new Children's Museum of Dover which just opened last week. It was featured on NH Chronicle the other night and it looks fantastic. Lots of hands-on exhibits (including a dinosaur dig), lots of color, and a lot of activities for the kids to participate in. If they enjoy it, I am thinking of purchasing a family membership so we can go anytime we want and get our fill of it while they're still young.

The schoolroom still needs some work, but it's nearly finished. Yesterday we bought a black adjustable chair to go with our desk, so at least we have the basics covered. I'd really love for it to be DONE before we begin on August 11th just so that I don't have to think about it anymore and so that the room has a cohesive, inviting feel to it. I've got my work cut out for me this weekend!!