Paulson Family Homeschool

I'm Moving My Homeschool Blog

2011-07-11T10:19:00.000-07:00

Homeschooling is our life. It really is. When you homeschool, it is not like "now we are schooling" and "now we are not". Homeschooling happens every waking moment of our lives. It has been more difficult to separate my posts since Brooke started public school. That is when I noticed a bit more of a challenge in deciding whether something was "homeschool" or not. So I think it is best to just post everything on my main family blog. So please check us out here!

Signing Videos

2011-04-19T16:42:00.000-07:00

I found out from another blog that Signing Time is having a big 10th Anniversary sale on their videos. The videos are only $10 today and tomorrow, I think. I absolutely love the Signing Time videos. We watched a lot of them with Sophia when she was little and she used to sign all of the time. The next two, not so much. But I do take Em and Grace to sign language class in the fall. So our family really enjoys signing so I ordered a bunch of videos. Their web site must be overloaded because it took a long time to get from page to page. But I still got it done. So, if you like signing videos, now is the time to stock up, go check it out!

Sophia's Favorite Teacher

2011-04-03T21:25:00.000-07:00

I had to take Brooke in to get her sports physical on Wednesday morning. I was very thankful that Josh was home so number one, I didn't have to drag everyone with, and number two because I left him to do Sophia's phonics with her. I got everything ready and laid out for him and gave him a brief description of what needed to be done. Well, when I got home she was all done with her work. But, I was very surprised when I looked at her worksheet. Sophia always has really nice handwriting. She is pretty good about staying where she is supposed to be as far as the lines go. But on this day, she was making the letter J. Her lower case J's were awful! So I asked her what happened and she just half smiled and shrugged. So I asked Josh about it and he looked at it and pretty much said he hadn't really even looked at what she did. He did have her erase them and rewrite them. I thought it was pretty funny though. Well, the next morning when I was getting Sophia's phonics ready she told me, "I like when you do my school better." I wasn't sure I heard her right so I asked her what she said and she repeated herself. She said "I like when you do my school cause dad always weaves." Meaning leaves! Ha ha, sure, he says what has to be said and then gets up and leaves. That is why her handwriting was so bad, he left her to do it herself. It just cracks me up because I really can see it driving him crazy to have to sit there and do that lesson with her, much less have to sit there and wait for her to finish her writing! Oh I'm still thankful he did the lesson with her and I certainly would ask him to do it again. He means well and tries to help. Sophia I am sure wouldn't complain too much. But really what it comes down to is that she would rather ME teach her. THAT is all I needed. It's kind of nice to be chosen over daddy once in a while!

A Couple New Books

2011-04-03T21:13:00.000-07:00

I ordered a couple new books for school and they arrived on Friday. Nothing like starting something new two months before school is out! Can you say "summer school"?

This first book is a new phonics book I ordered for Grace to work through. It looks really easy so it shouldn't take her long to get through it. We obviously quit the Vo-Wac we were doing. Life is so much better since we quit! Anyway, I do think there are some important rules in this book that we may have missed so that is what I'm hoping to accomplish by using this book right now.

This second book I am pretty excited about. Brooke saw it up in the cupboard and said she loved working in this book so I just had to order one for both Emily and Grace. The book is set up as if you are working at a newspaper. They will learn all sorts of things from writing a column to a news article to sale ads. I haven't decided yet how to work it along with the Writing Strands book they are both working on. Maybe alternate days or weeks? I think we'll just dig right in to this tomorrow and see what it entails and go from there.

I also have Grace all tested and set up to use the Spelling Power program. She seems fairly happy with it so I hope it will help her. She tested at a much higher level than I expected her to so that was a nice surprise. She has been learning!

The girls did start their science experiment book this last week and they enjoyed doing an experiment. The vocabulary words the second day, maybe not so much but they did it anyway, knowing if they didn't that they wouldn't get to do any more experiments.

Homeschooling My Little Girls

2011-03-29T17:18:00.000-07:00

This picture shows what a good homeschool morning looks like at our house. Typically when Sophia does her phonics we try to involve the other two little girls. When we do the letter flashcards, Sophia says it first, then Allison copies what Sophia said. Then I simply show the card to Lydia and say the sound and she repeats it to me. I think they are really picking up a lot with just this small activity. Then while I finish Sophia's lesson, Allison and Lydia draw on mini white boards.

After our lesson on the letter J today, the girls did a coloring page. More than the coloring, they really enjoy cutting their pictures out and gluing them on construction paper. We also looked up a Jellyfish in one of our Encyclopedia's so they could see a real one.

Sophia and Allison made these puppets yesterday for school. We were a bit late because they were supposed to be done with the letter E. But I had them all printed out and I thought they were cute so we did them anyway.

Getting It All Done

2011-03-28T19:29:00.000-07:00

We had a pretty good day today as far as school goes. I think I need to make a list the night before of everything that should be done though. Because I feel like I was busy the whole day and that we got a lot done, but when I look back on it I realize that I forgot to do spelling with Grace. There are probably more things I didn't get done, but I can't think of them right now. I guess Allison's little school is another one. I couldn't get Sophia's math done because I needed to make some copies for her assignment and our power was out for a couple hours today. But I did get up on time and did my back stretches. Then I had breakfast with the girls and sent them off to do their morning chores while I got ready. It was pretty much school in the morning and then lunch. Lunch was interesting today since I had planned on making spaghetti so Josh could have the leftovers before he went to work. But with the power out, we had to make due. We are completely out of peanut butter, which is a tragedy at our house. We only had one can of tuna left and 2 slices of turkey. But we made it work along with some leftover salad and tortilla chips. After lunch we picked up the house and Lydia and Allison went down for their naps. I read some of our read aloud book to Emily, Grace, and Sophia. Then, as usual, I fell asleep. Reading after lunch makes me so sleepy and a little snooze is so nice! But when I woke up I realized that I had forgotten about feeding Josh something. Thankfully Grace saved the day and made him one of her famous cheese omelets. I visited with Josh a bit and then he left. The time after that is fuzzy, he he, which means I probably didn't accomplish much. I seem to remember a little bit of watching tv, but not much so I don't really know where the time went. Next thing I knew, supper was in the oven and Rhonda was over for Grace's piano lesson. Then we had supper and cleaned up the house yet again. We washed the little's sheets tonight so we had to make up all of the beds. It made for a busy night. Thankfully Brooke read to the littles for a while so we could get the beds made. So now the chatting is quieting as they are all falling asleep. Except Brooke of course although I'm sure she will be hitting the sack pretty soon. She is hoping to actually get to go to school tomorrow. So anyway, at the end of the night, here is where Emily found me venting:

She thought I had lost my mind. But in this spot I was able to vent my frustration at the lack of time I have for exercising. It always comes down to either I forget about exercising and have a day like today where I accomplish a lot as far as schooling and cooking goes. Or, I make exercising a priority and then it always seems to mess up everything else that needs to be done. I know it may look crazy to be talking out loud to the wall behind the couch. But I promise this was not me completely losing my mind because...

Brooke was behind the couch, sitting in the corner!

Summer School

2011-03-23T20:06:00.000-07:00

Yes, that is what we are going to be doing all summer long if I don't get my butt in gear and get some more schooling done! I don't know how I can do so good for a week or two staying on schedule and then something happens to distract me and we are just so off for a couple weeks. I'm almost a month behind on Sophia's math again. Not sure how far behind we are on phonics, but definitely not where we should be. I have done some major reworking on Emily and Grace's school. I took off all of their History and Science. We are working on some ND state history, learning the states and capitals, and learning some map skills. It is so much more enjoyable. They like it and I like it so we are all happy. I pulled out one of Brooke's old science experiment books and we are going to try to do an experiment once or twice a week. I'm going to look in my "Well Trained Mind" book and refresh my memory on how to have them do a write up on a science experiment. They will love doing the experiments. Brooke always loved that. The write-up part not so much. But I do feel like her learning that has helped her tremendously with her upper level sciences. I also have been doing some writing projects from "Writing Strands". This is another program I did with Brooke and I really liked what it taught her about writing. I can see that Emily and Grace really need this. Their program right now has a lot of writing projects, but it doesn't really teach them the process of writing. I have completely scrapped Grace's Vo-Wac program. Ugh, I just can't do it anymore. I actually despise it. Seriously. I know the schools do it. I know it is supposed to be such a great program. I know it probably would be good for Grace. But I just have to go with my gut. If I actually despise a program, it probably just isn't the right fit for us. So I think I'm calling it quits and I'm going to order her a Modern Curriculum Press Phonics book to work on for the rest of the year and maybe over the summer. Grace certainly isn't complaining, she never really liked the Vo-Wac. I'm also looking into other options for Phonics for Sophia for next year, too. I just wish it wouldn't cost so much money for these products. It gets spendy and it really stinks if you end up not using something you paid a lot of money for. So far for next year I have Math figured out for sure. Em and Grace will try teaching textbooks. Sophia will do Saxon. For Science, we are going to use Apologia. I will order one program and do it with all of them together. I'm really excited about this program as I have heard so many good things. I am pretty sure we are going to use Susan Wise Bauer's "The Story of the World" for history. I will be able to do that with all of the girls, too. I've heard it is a very good history book that both kids and adults enjoy. So I'm still somewhat stuck on how to cover everything in Language Arts. This will take some careful planning. There is so much involved: writing, spelling, grammar, handwriting, reading, phonics. It is a lot to cover and so many good options. But I am definitely narrowing it down so I should know by the end of the school year. I think that pretty much covers it.

A Case for Homeschooling: Is There a "Biblical Model" for Education?

2011-02-28T11:35:00.000-08:00

This article is so well written and very interesting. It looks at the Greek model for education verses the Hebrew model. It's very interesting to see the connection to today's ways of educating.

A Case for Homeschooling: Is There a "Biblical Model" for Education?

That Time Of The Year

2011-02-26T21:13:00.000-08:00

Yep, it must be that time of the year again. I'm feeling it. Really feeling it. I, shall I say, strongly dislike my curriculum. It always seems to happen this time of year. Or maybe I usually am all together tired of schooling at this point. But no, that's not it this year. Right now I am just dissatisfied with where Em and Grace are at on certain things, namely writing. By writing I mean essays, reports, letters, that kind of thing. But it isn't just that. We are having a bazillion computer problems lately. Emily has to work at my desk to get her school to work on her computer. I am extremely frustrated by many of the lessons in both girls' school. They read their lesson and I would expect that from there they should be able to do the problems. That is how the school is set up to work. But then they ask me for help, I get frustrated because it is supposed to be self explanatory and I am busy doing Sophia's school, so I have to tell them to wait. When I finally do get a chance to sit down and help them I read through the lesson and I barely understand it. So I have to read through it with them slowly and work out the problems. For example, in math they will do a whole lesson and have only one sample problem. It is ridiculous...and frustrating. History and Science are no better. They study and study only to score lower than a C on many of the quizzes and tests, which means I make them redo the lessons and the quiz or test. It ends up being a lot of work and it takes a lot of time. Many times when I look at some of the questions, I really wonder how they are supposed to keep track of all of it! Then there was this science lesson Emily was struggling with. It had to do with the periodic table. I helped Em with one lesson earlier and it seemed ok. Then the next lesson I was busy and Brooke said she would help Emily because she loved doing the periodic table. So she, a sophomore in high school that gets A's and high B's in science, read through the lesson with Emily and informed me that the whole lesson and problems didn't make any sense! I knew when she said that that something is obviously not right with this. So anyway, now the really hard part begins...deciding what in the world to do with them next year. It is going to be hard to go back to lesson planning and grading everything. My curriculum we have been doing does most of that for me. So I'm not looking forward to the extra work. But I am looking forward to trying some better things that will really help these girls learn what they really need to know. Both Emily and Grace are tired of the computers and ready for something different, too. I do have math figured out, I think. I am pretty sure I am going to be using Teaching Textbooks for math next year for Em and Grace. They are supposed to be self teaching and were made specifically for homeschoolers. From what I have read on their website, it should be a good fit for them. Everything else is pretty much up in the air right now. It is a lot to think about. Especially with Emily going into seventh grade next year. This is when it gets serious. I can't mess this up, you know? Atleast things seem much easier with Sophia. I will probably continue with the Vo-Wac Phonics. Not so sure about the spelling though. I'm just not impressed with their spelling program. Or at least I think there are better spelling programs out there. For math we will stick with Saxon until third grade when she can start the Teaching Textbooks if we find out we like them. So anyway, that is where we are at. Don't worry, it's not all bad on the homeschool front. We've been keeping busy and trying to do more fun schooling, too. I took the kid's swimming this week in Williston at the indoor pool. That was a real treat for them. I've also pulled out some of Brooke's old writing programs and have been doing some of that with Emily and Grace. They seem to like it. Well, they haven't complained too much anyway. Well, that is it for tonight. I need to hit the sack. Hopefully soon I will have time to post again. I've been wanting to share some books that I've been reading lately!

A Valentine Party

2011-02-26T20:42:00.000-08:00

For Valentine's Day I took the girls down to the One Room Schoolhouse for a little party. They were so excited to go see their friends at the school. We arrived right after lunch and the fun began. It started with Mrs. Castro setting them up to write a joint story. It was quite the Valentine's tale! (If you want to read the story, click on the picture and it should come up larger for you!)

While they were working on the story, they took turns going to the other room and putting their Valentine's into everyone's boxes. After everyone was done and the story hit the end, they all got to go see what was in their Valentine's boxes. They had so much stuff, all the boxes were overfilled!

After everyone settled down a little bit from the excitement of looking at all of their goodies, Mrs. Castro had another fun game planned for the kid's. They played Musical Hearts! Everyone had a great time with this game. Even if they got out right away, they all continued to cheer and dance along to the music while the others were still in the game.

After the game was over, the kids had a cookie that the girls had made for Valentine's Day and then we got ready to go home. We still had Lydia's birthday to celebrate and the school kids needed to get ready for the bus. It was a great time for my girls and once again we have to thank the kids and teachers at the One Room Schoolhouse for another great get together!

Valentine's Boxes

2011-02-26T19:55:00.000-08:00

Grace's hearts.

Sophia's bear.

Allison's bear.

Emily's monkey.

Obsessed With Dot Art

2011-02-26T16:54:00.000-08:00

I'm beginning to think we are going a bit overboard with the dot art lately. But my friend emailed me a link to a website where you can print all these different dot art printable pages. The kids really liked the Octopus that I printed out for them to do. We also had extra kids here for school this week. We were watching Jeff and Macy while their parents were on vacation. They just joined right in with our school. Here they are all working hard on their pictures.

Allison and her octopus.

Sophia and her octopus.

Jeff and his octopus.

Macy and her octopus.

Grace's Winter Poem

2011-02-26T16:26:00.000-08:00

Grace had a school assignment to write a poem. She made it even better by copying off a picture of our beautiful winter scenery and then writing her poem beneath it.

Letter G Projects

2011-02-08T21:04:00.001-08:00

Dot-Art

2011-02-08T20:43:00.000-08:00

Lydia just wanted to eat the dotter. I really did try to stop her. But I turned to help her sisters and when I looked at her again, the damage had been done!

Allison has been asking for days to do Dot Art. It's not like it's a big deal to do this, but it seems like she keeps asking at bad times, such as meal time or nap time. So today I finally took the time to set them up at the table to make some pictures. I figured we could turn this art time into a little letter G reinforcement. So I drew a Letter G on their paper and let them put the dots on there, saying G /g/ as they worked. Finished product in the next post!

Sign Language

2010-11-23T19:52:00.000-08:00

Tonight was our last night of sign language class. This is an adult education class that I signed myself, Emily, and Grace up for. We took it about three years ago, too. Brooke was able to go with us then, but this year she is busy with Strings that night. So for two hours a night for 10 weeks, we meet at the local high school to learn sign language. It is such a fun class! It is a lot of work for me to set up babysitting and make sure we are ready to go to class on Tuesday night. But once we are there I am always so glad that we did it! The girls and I really enjoy our teacher, she makes class so much fun! We have also gotten to know quite a few people through this class. It was nice to go back this year with some experience. We were able to pick up a lot more this year to add to what we learned the first year. I do wish we could spend more time practicing and using sign language in our daily lives. But when it comes down to it, it is hard to have the patience to wait for someone to sign something and then try to understand it! But it is still a great class and I am so thrilled at what we have picked up from it. Will we go next year? I'm not sure, it is quite a time commitment so we will just have to wait and see how busy we are next fall. But even if we go every 2 or 3 years I feel like it benefits both the girls and me!

Farmer Brown and Tag

2010-11-20T22:51:00.001-08:00

Relay Races

2010-11-20T22:27:00.000-08:00

Wipeout!!

Mrs. Castro and Grace

Emily and Flint

The winning boys!

The group getting ready for round two!

Phy-Ed At The Hall

2010-11-20T22:05:00.000-08:00

One person on each team was blindfolded...

One person on each team was then to give directions...

And the winners found all three balls first!

On Friday we met up with our friends from the little country school for some Phy-Ed fun! We met at our new township hall for an hour. It was so much fun for the girls to get to see the kid's from this school again. It is cool how perfectly it goes when we get together with these kids! Their teacher and I were discussing how each of us on our own doesn't have enough kids to do much for games, but when we get together we can do so much more with them. And yet, it isn't too many kids where things get chaotic or overwhelming. Mrs. Castro had brought some balls to use in relays and ideas she had found on the internet. The kids (and Mrs. Castro!) did some relays, Farmer Brown, and Tag. We are hoping we can get together once a month and have this phy-ed class together. I am so thankful to be able to do this with the kids!

Swimming!

2010-11-12T20:33:00.001-08:00

Today we went swimming with the kids from a little one room schoolhouse. My friend, the girls' fiddle teacher, teaches there. Last month we went with them to the fire hall for a tour, out for pizza, and bowling. Today was just as much fun as the last time. I tell you there is something wonderful to be said for a little country school. If I didn't homeschool, this would be where I would love to send my kids. These kids are so polite and friendly. These kids and my girls all get along so well. They hardly know each other, but they started right up playing games together in the pool. We spent three and half hours there swimming. We did take a little break for some pizza, but as soon as they were done eating, they were right back in the pool.

Here is a picture of all the kids together.

Sophia enjoying the water.

Emily and Grace smiling for the camera.

Sophia, Grace, and Emily warming up in the hot tub.

Allison loved the water, too!

Other than this fun day, nothing exciting going on here as far as school goes. We are actually on another four day weekend. This following the public school schedule is actually kind of nice. The kids were off on Thursday for Veteran's day. The school then just gave the kids Friday off because with it being deer gun season, they realize that most of the kids won't show up for school on Friday anyway. Yep, we have our priorities straight out here in the country! I am enjoying this, though. Maybe this is the key to preventing burn-out?

Snow Day!!

2010-10-27T18:03:00.000-07:00

School was canceled for Brooke today. I jokingly asked Josh if that meant that it was a snow day for the rest of us. Well, the snowstorm somehow knocked out our internet and guess what? The girls' couldn't get into their computer school without being connected to my computer. So we all got our snow day!! I was very excited. I slept in and it was so nice. The kids slept in, too. Well, not Allison and Sophia. For some reason they were up bright eyed and bushy tailed at 7:30. But Josh was up so he got them their breakfast...cookies and milk! I am sure they want me to sleep in every day that dad is home now! It was a very nice and lazy day at our house. I ran on the treadmill this afternoon and then Josh and I drove to town for a bit later in the afternoon. The kids watched a movie and played outside in the snow for the afternoon. We picked up some KFC for supper and now we are planning on getting everyone to bed and having some peace and quiet for the evening. But, it's back to the books for us all tomorrow!

Back To School

2010-10-25T19:48:00.000-07:00

Wow, a four day weekend was just what I needed! We managed to get a lot of housecleaning done. I had time to catch up on my school grading and planning. I even made out a new schedule for the week. I would love to post our daily schedule, but I don't know how to do that on here! Here's the basics:

We are getting up at 7:00. I run first while the older girls get ready and get the little ones ready. Then Em and Grace take their turns on the treadmill. Having them run in the morning is such a great thing. It especially helps Grace to get some of that extra energy out right away in the morning. It seems to help her through the whole day!
I have basic school scheduled in the morning and all the leftover stuff after lunch. That would be things such as reading out loud to the girls, having Sophia and Grace read to me, and any other projects that need to be done.
Music practice comes after school and after nap time. Then we have some time for some daily house cleaning.
Then it is pretty much supper and evening chores and bedtime.

Today didn't go as planned exactly because I had to run into town for a chiropractor appointment and I took Grace in to get her new glasses. But, as long as we are able to finish the major school things in the morning, then an afternoon here and there of missed school isn't such a big deal. I'm looking forward to tomorrow and hoping for a feeling of accomplishment by the end of the day!

B Is For Banana Splits!

2010-10-20T08:16:00.000-07:00

One Good Thing About Homeschooling

2010-10-19T20:05:00.000-07:00

I have a minor cold that is really knocking me down. It doesn't really bother me all day, but by the middle of the night my throat hurts, I cough a little, and my head just pounds. My head was pounding so bad this morning that I just couldn't get myself out of bed. Poor Emily kept coming in to tell me what time it was because I kept saying to come back in a half hour and wake me up. Then I would send her out again to check on me in another half hour. Finally, I woke up on my own around 9:30 and my headache was feeling better. Thank goodness! So another late start to the day. I guess I titled this post one good thing about homeschooling but now I guess I have a couple things that are good, that I was reminded of today:

How wonderful to be able to sleep when not feeling well and know that the little girls will be taken care of. I didn't even have to ask or tell them, it just happens that way. The morning went on as usual even with me sleeping. They started school by 8:30 and had the little girls fed and ready without being told. I do love that part of homeschooling!
The next good thing I realized today as the girls and I were taking a break and watching one of the Duggar shows. It was about two of the daughters and a trip they took together. We watched as they interviewed and followed these two girls on their trip. We learned how close in age they are and how good of friends they are. After watching a while I asked the girls, "Who does that sound like?" Emily and Grace were thinking the same thing. They are close in age and they really are best friends. They do have their arguments and times where they don't get along. But really all in all, they are so close to each other. I don't think if they were in public school that they would get along like they do, because really public school is so completely the opposite of that!

So I guess the good point to all of this is that it makes me realize that no matter how far behind I am on our school work sometimes, I am still so glad we homeschool. There are more important things in life than doing schoolwork and getting good grades. These kids are learning about real life, about caring for others when they don't feel good, about pitching in where it is needed just because it needs to be done, and they are learning to be best friends, not enemies. Those are the things that really matter in the end if you ask me!

A Short Week

2010-10-18T21:02:00.000-07:00

Well, since we now have a public school student in the house, we are pretty much following the public school schedule. On the bright side of that, Brooke has Thursday and Friday off of school for teacher's convention, so the rest of us get it off, too! I am so looking forward to the days off from school. I wish I had the time to just relax, but I am leaning more toward having a couple of house work days. I am so far behind on everything around here, or at least it feels that way. So I need to do some thinking and figure out what I would like to accomplish. I wonder if the kids will be as excited as I am about this!? Hee hee!!

Anyway, nothing new on the school front, other than having a short week here. I am consistently behind on correcting school, but that is nothing new. I wonder if that will ever change or if I will eventually just accept that this is who I am?

Field Trip

2010-10-15T20:25:00.000-07:00

Today was very exciting for the girls because we got to go on a field trip! My friend, the girls' fiddle teacher, teaches at a little one room school house. She has three boys and one girl in her school. She thought it would be fun for her school kids and my kids to go on this field trip together...and she was so right! We met them at the fire station at 11:00 for a tour that lasted almost two hours, thanks to a great fireman and kids that had a lot of great questions! After that we all met up at Pizza Hut and enjoyed pizza and some great conversation. Then we were off to the bowling alley for a quick game. It was a fun time for all of the kids, they all seemed to enjoy each others company immensely. We are hoping to be able to get together atleast once a month for a field trip or some phy-ed. I only wish we were a little bit closer so we could do more activities together. I forgot to get a picture today, but hopefully Mrs. Castro will send me one soon so I can put it up on here and you can see the kids in the fire truck!

Curriculum

2010-10-14T20:15:00.000-07:00

Okay, nothing exciting to note today so I thought I would just let you know what we are using for curriculum this year.

Emily - Emily is using Switched On Schoolhouse sixth grade this year. We actually had to buy the curriculum this year because Brooke didn't start SOS until 7th grade. But atleast I know I will be able to use it for Grace. The money savings with this curriculum is so great. Emily also has a composition notebook that I would like her to write in twice a week, but we are lucky to get in once a week. I have her write atleast half a page about anything she wants and then I correct grammar and spelling errors. This was a great idea I received last year from another homeschool mom. It really shows me exactly where she needs improvement. I just started having her do a Bible Copy notebook, too. I would like her to write in that twice a week also, but again I am lucky to have her do it once a week. I am hoping next week to be more organized in this area, ha ha. So what I am doing the Bible copy for, other than the obvious of learning the Bible, is handwriting because I decided not to order formal handwriting books this year.

Grace - Grace is using SOS 4th grade this year. I am also doing a separate phonics and spelling program with her. I just feel that she needs some(a lot) of review in phonics. So I ordered a program called Vo-Wac. The public schools around here use it and I think it worked well with Brooke having had it in public school in K and 1st grade. I did have to go back to second grade with this curriculum though because it is pretty hard to throw them in to the middle of it. But it has been very good for her to learn these rules and sometimes easy is a good way to start. Grace is also doing the composition and Bible copy notebooks.

Sophia - First off I have to say that Sophia LOVES school. She is so disappointed when it is the weekend and we don't do school. I am using Vo-Wac phonics with her, too. She is already learning to read some and just loves it. She is doing Saxon K for math. That has been going great. I really disliked that program with Emily and Grace, but I seem to enjoy teaching it to Sophia. I am glad that I had saved the teachers manual and only had to spend around $10 on the meeting book.

Allison - I can't leave Allison out. Last Christmas, my mother-in-law bought her some Kumon workbooks that I had told her I thought Allison would like. I don't think she was quite ready for them yet at that time, but she sure is ready now. It literally takes me less than ten minutes to do a page in all four books and it makes Allison feel so big to be able to do school like her sisters!

Lydia - I guess you could say Lydia has some school, too. I have been trying to do some "blanket time" with her each day. Which really means a couple times a week. I love blanket time because it teaches her how to stay where I tell her, how to play quietly, and how to sit still. She isn't crazy about it but she does get really excited when I tell her all done. She gets right up and starts picking up her toys and even carries her toys to her bedroom to put them away. Now Allison actually asks everyday if we can do blanket time and Sophia even wants to join in. It works good for me because it helps Lydia to see her sister's sitting nice. It just helps her to know what is expected. I guess the other thing Lydia does for "school" is get the "Lady With the Alligator Purse" book read to her. That is her favorite book right now.

It's Me!

2010-10-13T19:46:00.000-07:00

The big smile says it all! Allison came up to me this afternoon and she was so excited. She was saying "Look, it's me! It's ME!" She was so proud of herself because she drew a picture of herself on her magna doodle. I thought she did a great job, too!

On the school side of things, I stayed up until 1:30 in the morning last night so I didn't get up until 7:30 and I let the girls sleep in even later because I knew Emily hasn't been feeling all that great. So I spent most of today trying to convince myself that I don't really need a schedule. We function just fine with this "get done what we get done and call it good" philosophy. I think I spend way too much time worrying about how to do things instead of just doing them. Is there hope for me? Probably not. I mean I've been this way as far back as I can remember so why would I change now. So anyway, I did manage to get school done with Sophia today. Emily and Grace did their SOS school. Grace did read aloud to me. I got a lot done on reformatting my blogs, yeah that's important. But all in all, if I look back, I would have to say that it was good enough. There's always tomorrow to catch up on things!

Not Such A Good Plan

2010-10-12T16:20:00.000-07:00

We did it. We actually all got up at 6:30 this morning. It was nice. School was started by 8:00 so goal accomplished. I think most of the computer work was done by noon, too. You would think I would be happy. But after lunch when it came time for me to read aloud to the older girls, well, I guess you can see what happened in the picture! We all fell asleep! Well actually in this picture we are fake sleeping because we woke up when Josh came out and I had him take a quick picture of the sad mess we were! So needless to say, I'm pitching the 6:30 idea. Tomorrow we will wake up at our usual time of 7:00. But with me showering at night, mostly because Brooke and Josh use up all the hot water in the morning, I am out earlier and able to keep the kids moving. So starting school by 8:30 should be doable. It was a pretty good day though. We got quite a bit done. I guess the only thing I didn't finish that should have been done was helping Emily take notes on her History lesson. But I bet it will still be there waiting for us tomorrow! And I should have time to help her during the little ones' naps because hopefully we won't all fall asleep again!

A New Plan

2010-10-11T19:57:00.000-07:00

That's what I do. A new plan, a new schedule. I just can't seem to ever get it "perfect". So the new plan this morning was to skip morning chores and get right to work on school. Well it seemed like a good idea until after breakfast when I realized that we absolutely have to do morning chores. I will go crazy if I have to sit all morning in a messy house. So tomorrow we will try to get up at 6:30 so we can all be ready for school by 8:00. My purpose for this is to be done with school everyday by noon. Doesn't that sound wonderful? That will leave the afternoons for projects, music, exercise, cleaning, or whatever we feel like doing! We used to get done with school by noon every day. But that was back when it was pretty much just Brooke and she was SO easy to homeschool. Now with Em and Grace it is a bit more work and Kindergarten with Sophia is fun but it also demands some time. Of course not to be left out, Allison is now getting to do some fun Kumon workbook stuff with me. So the good of this is getting done with the serious school by noon. That will be a relief. The not so good? Well, it leaves no time for exercise for me or the kids in the morning and it means getting up much earlier than I like to. So I guess it'll have to do for this week. I'm sure by next week I can think up a great NEW plan for us!

Traffic Lights!

2010-09-09T06:16:00.000-07:00

Sophia is learning about the letter T this week in her school. So yesterday morning I surprised the girls with a Traffic light snack. They had a lot of fun with this one. It's just a graham cracker with frosting and the M&Ms for the lights. Sophia and Allison sorted out the M&Ms so that was great for them to learn to sort and to learn their colors. I can't take credit, though. The idea was in Sophia's Vo-Wac phonics book.

In A Panic

2010-08-25T21:08:00.000-07:00

What am I doing?? I think I am crazy. I was so excited when the UPS man showed up today (do you think everone loves the ups man?) with the box containing our new phonics and spelling books for Grace and Sophia. Just so very excited! We put it on the table and opened it all up all of us very curious about the new books. Then I started taking the products out. Teacher's manuals, letter cards, picture cards, dry erase boards, and so on. Sophia just kept asking how soon we could start. I told her not until Monday. A good decision on my part because it didn't take long for the excitement to wear off for me. One peek into those teachers manuals and I could feel the panic rising in my chest. How am I going to do this? I am not a lesson planner. I am not a read from the book kind of teacher. Heck, I don't even consider myself a teacher at all, the older kids have been learning from a computer for a few years now! I'm not even sure how I am supposed to fit all of this teaching stuff into my already full day. So that is where I am at. Not a good feeling. I managed to look through one whole lesson for Grace this evening. Great, we can get a lesson done on Monday. Now how am I going to find the time to plan the rest of the week for her and Sohpia, too? Oh I know deep down that it will get done and everything will be fine. I am sure after a couple of weeks we will cruise through the lessons like we have been doing them for years. But for now, I can't seem to get rid of this panicky feeling.

Back To School...Kind Of...

2010-08-20T13:39:00.000-07:00

So here's the pics of our new homeschool set up. Em and Grace at the wet bar counter with their computers and the other three at the table in the family room. Good thinking on Josh's part to keep that table for that room, huh? It was a good first day or sort of first day. I actually decided at 6:00 that morning that we would start school. As of the night before we were going to start on Monday. But I was up at 6:00 and just couldn't fall asleep so I decided we would just get ready and start. The computers were set up and I figured we could use a couple kind of practice days anyway. But Sophia hasn't started yet. I need to get to Sidney to pick up her teacher manuals from a friend and then get some lesson planning done. Hopefully I will be ready on Monday because she is very impatiently waiting! I did get the older girls caught up on their immunizations...Brooke needed hers to start public school. But while at the clinic I realized that I had completely forgotten about my statements of intent. I have to send them in to the superintendant of schools. I am supposed to have them in to her office two weeks before starting school!! Oops! Need to get those together this weekend and have them ready to mail on Monday. Thankfully we have a great superintendant that shouldn't mind. Of course if someone had a fit we would just add on two weeks of school at the end...I mean really...whatever. So I'm ahead on many things but very very far behind on more things, ha ha. That is just the way it seems to go. It does feel good to be back to schooling though. There is just such a sense of accomplishment at the end of the day when everyone gets their work done.

Week In Review

2010-02-19T21:32:00.000-08:00

Here are a couple pictures of Sophia and Allison painting one morning. It was funny because for some reason I decided when I set them up to paint to tell them not to mix the colors. So I gave them three colors and three paint brushes and explained to them that there was one paint brush for each color and that the colors were not to be mixed. Where was reality in that moment to remind me that I was telling a three year old to not mix the paint colors??? Yeah, hello Shelly, are you really thinking this is going to work? Of course, I no sooner sat down at my computer and Sophia was furious because Allison was mixing the colors. Duh mom. So I ended up eventually giving Sophia her own palette of paints because she was so mad at Alli for messing them all up! Nothing like passing on my perfectionism! In the end, I was given more beautiful paintings by my little sweeties! Is there really any better artwork than that?

So, we really did have a very pleasant week in our homeschool. We managed all their music lessons, speech practices, and daily work. I even got to attend a local homeschool meeting. I love to attend these meetings and hear what others are doing. I am glad I am settled enough in our homeschool to be confident that what I am doing is the right fit for our family. In the early years it was easy to listen to others and think I was never doing enough. Now I have learned to be content where we are and when I hear a great idea that I think we can actually implement, I write it down. Sometimes we actually even try it! At this meeting one mom was sharing about the journaling that her kids do. By the way, I happen to just love this particular homeschool mom! :) She has always been an inspiration to me. But anyway, I picked up a composition notebook for Emily and Grace so they can start doing some journaling. We did start out the year with some journaling on their computers, but we haven't done that in a while. But that was more for a creative writing purpose. This time I want to do more of a spelling and grammar approach. I know Em and Grace need more work in these areas and hopefully journaling will be a fun way for them to do this. I also picked up a couple extra notebooks for Sophia and Allison so they can feel like they get to participate, too! Also discussed at the meeting was testing. Brooke and Em were required to be tested last year so I went ahead and tested Grace, too. I have decided to have Grace tested again this year, since we held her back. I am really looking forward to the results of this testing. I am hoping we see a lot of improvement in her test, to reinforce what I think we have accomplished this year by keeping her back. But, that won't be until the end of April so we have a bit yet. Well, I think that is all we have been up to this week. I certainly hope that next week will be another great one!

The Perfect Homeschool Day...Well Morning Atleast

2010-02-15T21:14:00.000-08:00

Yes, that is right, we had a great morning this morning. If I could dream up my homeschool world, this morning would be every morning! I managed to crawl out of bed at a decent hour (7:00 in case you are wondering) and onto the treadmill for a quick run. Then a little breakfast, a shower and ready for my morning chores. All the while the kids were up, in good moods, getting their chores done. Things just went so smooth! The best part of it all is shown in these pictures I took. I even had time to make up some banana bread with the bananas that have been waiting for a very long time to be used. But what was great was that while I was mixing it up, Lydia was busy eating crayons in her high chair, Allison was coloring and helping me, and Sophia was working hard in her workbook. The older three were quietly working at their desks in the bedroom. I only had to go in to answer an occasional question for them. This was the morning that homeschool dreams are made up of and the reason I choose to homeschool. I need to make this happen more often. We also managed to have lunch at noon, read for 20 minutes today to the little ones, and read to Em and Grace from the book we have been trying to finish, topped off with a 20 minute nap! :) I enjoyed a little computer time in the afternoon, followed by some pretty major housecleaning by all of us. Roast was in the crockpot, made by Grace after lunch, potatoes in the oven, thanks to Brooke. We finished up our day with a nice supper with Josh and our evening chores. My big discovery for the day...put Allison to bed and down for naptime in my room...amazing. Okay, I admit, there was a little bit of craziness with the cleaning and phone calls about our house(which we are selling), and I didn't get the girls' school corrected. But all in all, it was a great day!!

What we've been doing...

2010-02-14T21:30:00.000-08:00

Things have been so crazy busy here. But then again, when are things not crazy busy here? I feel like I'm always a few steps behind. Whether it is with the laundry, the cooking or the school work, always behind. But slowly I am learning to let go and relax a little bit. Because this is what life is. It is not perfect. That would be boring. It is messy, as it should be. It is full of excitement, stress, and busyness. But it is good. And isn't that what matters most? Life is good. Even on the bad days, it is still so good here. :)

Brooke: Ah, the teenager. She should be getting her license this spring and we are so excited about that! Life will be a little bit easier when she can drive herself to a few things. Right now we are running to Alexander twice a week for Speech practice. That is a lot of time out of the day, but she just loves participating in speech. She is looking forward to their first meet next weekend. School is going good for her. Her grades are great and she seems to be managing her school along with her once in a while cleaning job, Speech, and violin practice. I remember those busy days!

Emily: School is going good for Emily. It is just the usual. We are quite excited about a new guitar teacher for her. He actually comes to OUR HOUSE!!! Does it get any better than that? A very nice young man who seems very excited about teaching guitar! He told her if she practiced really hard on what he taught her last Monday that he should be able to teach her a Taylor Swift song at her next lesson. Now that got her practicing hard this week! Emily is also continuing with violin lessons once a week. But next year she will probably have to choose one or the other. It is quite expensive for all these music lessons!

Grace: School is going so wonderfully great for Grace this year. She is just having such a great year. Holding her back this year is a decision that I think we will never ever regret. She is confident and feels smart! Her grades are great this year and it has helped her so much! She just started piano lessons last week at my neighbor's house. She is really excited about that. I think she just really likes having something just for her. It will be interesting to see if piano is something she really likes and will practice.

Sophia: I hate to admit that school has been pretty nonexistant for Sophia this last few weeks. I do try, it just seems so easy to get busy with other things and put off her work. Which really isn't fair since she always wants to do her schoolwork. So that is something I need to work on this week. She is working in three workbooks right now. One on lowercase letters, numbers, and alphabet games.

Allison: For Christmas, Allison received some cute little workbooks that I have been trying to work on with her. Fun things, like coloring, cutting, folding, and pasting. I haven't done much with her these last few weeks either. Okay, I promise to work harder with the little ones! I need to get back to story time with them to. My goal is to read to them 20 minutes a day, either before naps or before bed. I know that is not much, but it is a good goal time for me!

Lydia: I have scheduled in some signing time video time in the morning, in hopes of making myself sit with Lydia and Sophia and Allison for a half hour a day so they can learn more signs. Lydia is at that perfect age to start learning the signs. She has taken a couple steps here and there, but is nowhere near fully walking yet. We can wait for that, she is quick enough already!

I have been reading "Peter and the Starcatchers" by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson to Emily and Grace in the afternoons. It is a great book and I highly recommend it for a read aloud. There are more books after this one, too. I think this book is what leads up to Peter Pan. Some days we can't stop reading, but most days I end up reading for a while and then falling asleep!

Well, that about sums it up for us. I'm off to bed, goodnight!!

Valentine Crafts

2010-02-14T20:58:00.000-08:00

Thank goodness I have a good friend, Brandy, that loves to do crafty projects. First it was the advent baskets and now she found this great idea for Valentine mailboxes. All we had to do was show up with some extra scrapbook paper and she had everything else all ready for the girls! They had so much fun making these cute projects.

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Here is the finished project. Now Emily and Grace each have a special mailbox on their school desks just perfect for holding notes they write each other throughout the day. Aren't they cute? Thanks Brandy!!!

Daddy Taught Lydia To Color!

2010-01-31T21:43:00.000-08:00

I saw that Lydia got a hold of the crayons on the floor so I asked Josh to pick them up before she ate them. Did he? No, even better. He taught her how to use them. Okay, so the big scribbles are his from showing her what to do. But she actually did it after he showed her how! I just love how he thinks outside the box! I am an inside the box person, inside the lines, don't mix the play dough colors! ;)

We finally finished our workbook!

2010-01-31T21:38:00.001-08:00

This is a bit old, too. So much to catch up on. But, as you can see, back in November Sophia finished her first letters workbook. Wow, we actually accomplished something. She was quite excited to recive a special certificate for it.

Advent Craft

2010-01-31T20:44:00.000-08:00

This is a bit old, but I just had to put up the pictures to this Advent activity that my friend Brandy brought over for the kids to work on one evening while the guys watched football. Emily and Grace had so much fun folding these little paper, ugh, what's the word, holders? baskets? Hmmm...my brain is not working right now. Oh well, anyway, the little kids had so much fun just playing with the extra scrapbook things that we had out. So after folding them, you hang them and fill them with something. I filled ours with hershey kisses and little sheets of paper with something fun to do on them, like read a book, watch a movie, and such. Each day the kids pick one out, counting down until Christmas. I would love to say I was dedicated to it, but we missed many days and they got a lot more candy that fun family activities. But we did more than we have in other years and hey, we were able to tuck it away for next year.

Emily's Essay

2009-10-27T06:58:00.000-07:00

Emily had to write an essay for school. It was supposed to be a descriptive paragraph about her experience with language. She chose to write about when she uses language to tell Allison bed time stories. I enjoyed it so much I thought I would share it.

When Allison Goes to Bed

by Emily Paulson

When Allison, my little sister, goes to bed, sometimes she will ask if I can read a story to her. But when I tell her a story it is not out of a book. I always imagine things in my head and form it into a story.

Allison is a very good listener. When I tell her when something bad happens in the story she always gets a worried face! That is how I tell that she is listening. Sometimes my other sisters even like listening to my stories.

But when my story is over it is time for Allison to go to bed. I tuck her in and give her a kiss and hug. Sometimes she wants me to tell her another story, but I tell her that we have a lot of nights left for story telling time.

Emily's Poem

2009-10-27T06:46:00.000-07:00

When you go outside there's a touch of breeze,
But it is not winter so you will not freeze.
The birds sing a lovely song,
It makes you want to sing along.
The bees are out, forget the sting,
That means it must be spring.

Emily Paulson 6-1-09

Can't forget the other two...

2009-10-27T06:40:00.000-07:00

Of course, seeing her sisters have their pictures taken with their projects, Allison wanted her turn so here she is with here bear. Lydia is just busy playing with all her little toys. This is what she spends most of her day doing. It reminds me of those if you give a pig a pancake books, if you take a kids picture, the other sister will want a picture, too. And if you take the other sisters picture, you had better take another sisters picture...

More Creations

2009-10-26T19:02:00.000-07:00

Sophia painted a mini pumpkin.

Grace's name picture made with oil pastels.

Emily's Name picture made with oil pastels.

Brooke had a project today to help someone in need and then write an essay on it. So when Grandma Linda called and asked if the girls would come and help get apples peeled and ready to freeze, it was the perfect opportunity for her to help out! So the three oldest went up to Linda's for the afternoon and worked on apple crisp filling. Then Brooke baked up an apple crisp to bring over to our neighbor who had provided the apples and isn't feeling very well.

Emily And Grace's Creations

2009-10-26T18:51:00.000-07:00

Emily's Unicorn

Grace's Bear

Emily's Nutcracker

Grace's/Emily's

Finally posting those paintings I said the girls had been so busy working on. The big painting phase must be over now though because they haven't been painting like this lately. I sure have enjoyed the beautiful pictures. I was just informed as they are watching me type that they "haven't got the time". Hopefully that will change sometime here!

Sophia And Allison's Creations

2009-10-26T17:33:00.000-07:00

This is one of Sophia's first real people pictures. I just love the bright colors.

These are the fall trees that Sophia and Allison made at storytime at the library.

Last Friday Sophia and Allison made scarecrows at storytime.

This is Sophia's newest drawing of me today. I now have eyelashes!

Here I am with lipstick and a pretty dress.

What we've been doing...

2009-10-26T15:16:00.000-07:00

Brooke: Overwhelmed...that about sums it up. I was a bit relieved to hear from another homeschool mom that her daughter is feeling very overwhelmed with her freshman year, too. It seems like Brooke is constantly doing her school work. She is also spending a lot of time at the high school for drama. Her classes are much harder this year and besides the four basic classes, she is taking home ec. and phy ed. Phy Ed is an online class that consists of weekly lessons, quizzes, and logging three hours of exercise a week. Home Ec requires a lot of projects beyond the daily work, quizzes, and tests. So her housecleaning job is on hold for now and so is any babysitting. Oh and violin practice is almost nonexistent. Her drama meet is the first week of November and I hope that after that is over things will get easier.

Emily: School is going good for Emily right now. We had a tough time for a bit there with failing quizzes and tests. Josh has helped her with some of her studying and note taking and it has helped. She still retakes a lot of quizzes, but I think she is finally getting what she is supposed to study. She is really enjoying her history right now. She is learning about the thirteen colonies.

Grace: School is pretty much a piece of cake for Grace this year. I think I probably could have started her in the middle of third grade. But it is so nice to see her like doing her school. She is getting great grades and she feels so good about it. I was just thinking the other day how nice it is to see her happy about school. What a relief. Another homeschool mom made a good point the other day that she has never heard anyone regret holding a student back, but many that regret not holding them back.

Sophia: We are almost done with our capital letters workbook! I am so excited about that. Then it is on to the lowercase letters workbook. Not bad considering I'm lucky to work with her twice a week on her letters. But I have been really dedicated to reading for twenty minutes a day to Sophia and Allison, five days a week that is. They just love it. Sophia's favorite book right now is called "My New Toy" and it is so funny! It is great to hear her in her room at rest time"reading" it out loud. We have made it to all but one storytime I think. That is our Friday outing. I guess sophia has been busy lately drawing people. They are so cute. I'll have to see if I can get a picture and put it up here.

Allison: Not doing much with Allison, other than the reading aloud to her and Sophia. Allison loves storytime at the library. She actually loves anything that consists of leaving the house! Potty training is still a work in progress here, but it does seem to be getting better. She is back in whining and screaming mode again. Oh and crying and screaming at bed time. I really need to get on top of that again. It sure makes bedtime miserable!

Lydia: I swear this baby gets cuter every day. I am just so in love with her. Even when she is crying it is so cute. Oh, she just has been melting my heart these last couple days. Being so cute and funny. She is rolling all over the living room and getting so close to crawling. It won't be long. She is finally eating food now, both baby food and table food. She loves graham crackers and bread.

Fire Safety Week

2009-10-26T14:59:00.000-07:00

Our neighbor is the fire chief and he is nice enough to remember us during fire prevention week every year. He stops in with hats and coloring pages for the kids and answers any questions they have about fire safety. I think I do most of the question asking though. I was quite surprised at how much Em and Grace had forgotten since the last year. Sophia really took an interest and kept asking if there was a fire here how would we get out and here and here. She also liked learning the stop, drop, and roll drill. The embarasssing thing for me was that last year I believe I promised to fix our fire alarm situation. I about died when we checked them and I realized that NOT ONE alarm in the house was working. That is so scary! Well, I will be ready for him to come back next year. We are now set with working fire alarms, a carbon monoxide detector, and a fire extinquisher. Let's just pray we never need to use them!

Swimming

2009-09-10T20:33:00.000-07:00

I really want to post some pictures of what Emily and Grace have been painting, but maybe I will get a chance tomorrow. So anyway, today was open swim for the homeschoolers. At the beginning of the week I told the girls that if they got all of their Thursday work done, that we could go to swimming on Thursday. Grace managed to get her school done. Brooke would have been able to finish this morning. But Emily was just overloaded. By bedtime last night, she still had to finish taking notes on Science and had a History quiz to attempt again for the THIRD time. And that was still Wednesday's school. I didn't have anyone to watch Allison, which would have made swimming difficult. I mean, I'm not big into everything having to be fair all of the time, because I am rather mean, but I just couldn't see letting everyone else swim and making her stand there and watch for an hour. So as of last night I decided we just couldn't go. So this morning (I woke up to the smell of pancakes made by Brooke, by the way!) I thought I would let Grace bake cookies to make up for not going swimming since she had worked ahead. All was well. But then I remembered that I needed to get dog food and a prescription refilled so I decided we would go swimming. I was going to take Brooke up on her offer to stay home with Sophia and Allison and let Em and Grace go swimming. So into the shower because we leave in an hour. Okay, so out of the shower and I discover Emily and Grace haven't even made their beds yet. After a more critical look at things, they hadn't done a very good job on their other chores either. So as much as I didn't want to, I told them no swimming. Tears. Guilt. Alright, meeting in the living room. After a big discussion and some added chores, we are once again going swimming. Maybe I am getting soft, I don't know. In then end things went as scheduled. Emily and Grace made it just in time for swimming and had so much fun swimming with their friends. I was able to visit with some moms I haven't seen in so long and even meet some new homeschooling moms. Of course my favorite part in being around other homeschool moms is that I can bring up something I am struggling with in our schooling and someone always seems to have some idea to try that I just can't seem to think of myself. So, I left with new ideas on how to help Emily with her quizzes and tests. Some things are so obvious, I don't know why it take someone else saying it for me to see the answers. In the end I was glad I decided to go. Of course by the time I got out of Wal Mart (Remember the starving dog?) Emily and Grace were arguing again and all of their promises of good behavior were forgotten. And now as I sit here tonight I don't even remember what chores they promised me they would do! Oh well, so it goes. Atleast we came home to fresh baked chocolate chip cookies! Doesn't that just make everything okay?

We Started!

2009-09-03T09:16:00.000-07:00

School has started. Somehow we managed to be up and going with all the computers ready for our starting date. So now we are two and a half weeks in. As you can tell, Brooke has not blogged yet. Oh well. The ringer is off, though. That was the best idea I have had. I seem to get a couple journal topics in a week for Emily and Grace. It is really fun to read what they have to say on things. The first two weeks I was dedicated to spending time everyday with Sophia doing preschool things. This week hasn't gone so well on that. But I am hoping I will get back on track with that. She just loves to do school work. So much right now is dependent on how well Lydia is sleeping. When we have a good night it is easy to get up at 7:00 and keep on our schedule. However, that doesn't seem to happen very often. Many days it seems I am not up until 9:00. Thankfully the kids manage to get going on time so they don't get behind on their school. It is really hard for me though to start my day late. I feel like I am behind all day long. And of course that leads to a crabby overwhelmed mom. :) But I like to remain positive that it will get better, that Lydia will start sleeping through the night, and someday my schedule will be successful!

Some of the fun things we have done:

We took a field trip to the running track in Sidney and did a timed mile. Brooke needed to do one for her Fitness Fundamentals class. Brooke, Emily, Grace, and I all did a timed mile. It is crushing to my ego that I am running fairly consistently and Brooke doesn't exercise at all and she was only 10 seconds slower than me in the mile. Oh that hurts! Brooke and I also got our body fat measured. Obviously I am not going to post that on here! Let's just say there is work to be done, and oh how I miss those younger years! The only other fun school thing I think is that the bookmobile comes almost right to our front door now! That is really nice. Sophia and Allison just love going to pick out books there.

Brooke: I just love Alpha Omega Academy! Brooke is getting used to new classes and new teachers. Things seem to be going well so far. There is some difficulty with new teachers and understanding what they expect of her. But she is adjusting. Most days she is done with her school by noon and has plenty of time to work on her assigned projects. I know as the year goes on, the work load will get harder, but it is nice to have a slow, easy start to get her used to it.

Emily: Fifth grade is going good for Emily. The hardest thing for her right now is learning how to take notes in History and Science. It is very time consuming for her. But something has to be done because she has such a difficult time with her quizzes. Emily probably spends the most time of all the girls doing her schoolwork. Someday it seems to take all day for her to finish. Thank goodness she is not a complainer. She just sits and works until she is done.

Grace: We decided this year that Grace should do third grade again. She has struggled so much with school. It seemed that if we were going to do it, now was the time. Now she is redoing it and getting such good grades that I wonder if we should have moved her up! But, I know it will get more difficult for her as we get into the year more. It is very good for her ego right now to be doing so well. I think she needs that confidence booster. As Josh said, it is better to have a third grader that feels really smart than a fourth grader that feels, well, we'll just say "not smart".

Sophia: Sophia is working on learning how to write her capital letters in a workbook right now. Then I have a lower case letters workbook after that and am hoping to get to the preschool workbook this year. We are also doing Pre-Math-It. That is basically just dominoes. Right now we just match up the squares and are learning about zero.

Allison: I am trying to do some reading with Allison. She also helps Sophia and I with the Pre-Math-It. Her favorite though is at the end when I line up the dominoes and she gets to knock them over.

Lydia: She is sitting up now! We've been working on clapping, waving bye-bye, signing milk, and of course saying ma-ma.

So that is what is happening right now in our homeschool. The journey continues...

School Is Starting!

2009-08-12T11:29:00.000-07:00

Well, school is set to start on Monday. But here I sit with just one computer ready. Grace is all set to start school. But Brooke and Emily's computers are still getting fixed up at Radio Shack. They are waiting for some more memory to come in for one of them. I am really praying that I get them by Friday or there is no way we can start school on Monday. Why in the world would I wait until two weeks before school starts to take in their computers??? Even getting them by Friday doesn't mean I will get them up and running by Monday. If I have any problems at all I will not be able to reach customer support until Monday. UGH!

Okay, so anyway, I am looking forward to starting and getting back on schedule. I always start the year with such high hopes. I have the perfect, organized schedule for our days. I plan on turning the ringer off during school hours this year. We will see how that goes! I also have high hopes for all the extras I want to get done on top of the basic school. I would love to have the girls journal atleast a few times during the week. I have a computer music theory program that Emily and Brooke really should do. Math Blaster is my new program to help Emily and Grace with their math facts. That one will be easy since I've already installed it and I can hardly keep them away from it. Then there is typing, and teaching Emily how to email. Brooke is supposed to blog about our homeschool on here once a week. That one I really hope we stick to!

So with that all said, I am going to turn this blog over to Brooke to run. I hope to also get on here once in a while with updates on our schooling!