Rainy Day Blues..

I don't know if it was the rain or what but today was not a good day for us! The girls could either not sit still or were being lazy. There was no in between. I had no patience. So after attempting to have school for about an hour I decided it was time for us to take a break! I was to the point of tears. I thought maybe working out, taking a shower and getting some lunch and then trying to start fresh might help us out. And it did..for a few minutes. So, we finished what we were working on at that time, packed up and called it a day. I haven't been feeling the best and neither have they, so maybe we all just needed a sick day. And you know what I've realized now 5 hours later? That's ok. There is no point in all of ending up in tears over something that we can just do tomorrow or the next day when everyone is feeling better. I was really doubting myself there for a while today. But then I remembered how well last week went..and how few bad days we've had since we've begun homeschooling and I felt better. Kids are human too..kids feel the Monday blues too and that's perfectly fine. Tomorrow will be better. The sun always shines after the rain.

I came across this today..and it just fit so well. It's from the following website: http://homeschoolblogger.com/afternooncoffeebreak/691969/ and this is what it says.

"Sometimes you gotta laugh or you’ll cry.

Sometimes crying is a good outlet.

Sometimes it helps to just take a deep breath & smile.

Leave the room for just a moment. When you return, look at each child’s face & remember how you felt the moment you met that child for the very first time – upon his or her birth or adoption.

Smile. Thank God for this awesome opportunity he has placed in your hands.

Give them each a hug & take a recess for the day."

Fall is here!

Update: Week of 9/20-9/24

We had a busy but very fun week last week! Since Thursday was the first official day of Fall we celebrated all week long! In addition to our normal school day (math, phonics, Bible, science) we also baked homemade sugar cookies with homemade buttercream frosting. We decorated the cookies to look like leaves, pumpkins and apples. We sang fall songs and told fall jokes! We made a homemade fall wreath to go on our front door. I have planned to take a field trip this Friday to a local pumpkin patch. We just simply had a GREAT week!









The girls had their first math "test" on Friday! It consisted of 20 addition problems and it took them less than 10 minutes to complete. I'm happy to report that Nevaeh got every single problem right on the first try and Shaylie missed one problem, but when she took a second look at it got it right immediately! I must say I was one very proud Mama that day! :)

The Science unit we've been working on; Little D's Nutrition Expedition, is still going well. The girls still really enjoy it and are always asking if we can "feed Little D to make him grow". There are 10 lessons in the unit and each lesson has a story with it. The stories are really fun and have portions that the girls can act out. So far we've covered the dairy food group and the meat food group and they've really learned a lot! They enjoy the characters in the stories and the activities that go along with the stories. Part of the unit involves making a dragon on the wall. It started with just his head and you add a portion of the body for each food group that you study. In the end he will end up being about 5 feet long! Yes, this is stretching across a wall in our living room, but hey it's fun and educational!! Right now he just has a head and two segments of his body, but he's growing each day! Pics will be posted at the end of the unit!

Late post..

September 6th-11th we were onboard the Carnival Fantasy! We had so much fun! We sailed to Freeport and Nassau, Bahamas. While in Nassau we managed to squeeze in a field trip. We visited the Atlantis Resort and toured the aquarium and learned about some of the history of Atlantis.

The girls had a blast. Their favorite animals were the sharks and a very cute black and white polka dotted stingray. I must admit he was my favorite too! :) They were able to touch sea cucumbers and starfish. It was a really great experience, just the fact that we were in the Bahamas was awesome!! I'm assuming this will be their favorite field trip all year! I don't know of any other Kindergartners who take a cruise to the Bahamas for a field trip :) Ahh, the benefits of homeschooling! BUT, they may have become just a tad bit spoiled...Shaylie insists she is asking Santa for another cruise for Christmas ;)

My poor poor neglected blog. Why is it that I just can't seem to keep up with you? Well actually I can't seem to keep up with anything at this point. The past month has been CRAZY to say the least. We've had the girls a birthday party in VA, a birthday party in NC, a Bahamas cruise and I've had a co-worker out at work, so I've picked up quite a few extra shifts....pure chaos is what we've had lately. Oh and my husband started school full-time, which takes up the majority of his time so I've been flying solo with homeschooling. AND Shaylie has started soccer and has two practices and one game a week!

Homeschooling is one thing that we haven't neglected though! We are still trudging along. The girls are breezing right through Math and Phonics. They really seem to have the hang of addition. We are having a quiz on Friday! They are both reading one syllable words and are learning different blend sounds. It amazes me to watch them learn new concepts. On Friday we will also be learning our first sight word- "the". Shaylie informed me today that she has known that word "for a while now"..LOL. So I guess we won't need much work on that one. In Science we've started a "Being Healthy" unit and are currently working on Nutrition. I found an awesome unit entitled Little D's Nutrition Expedition on this website: www.nutritionexplorations.org%2Feducators%2Flessons%2Flittled%2Flittled-main.asp%3Ftab%3D1&h=2912d Today was our first day and we all loved it. I definitely recommend it! It says it is for 2nd graders, but so far the girls aren't having any problems with it. If I have to adapt some areas, that's ok, but so far so good!

I've realized while reading other homeschooling blogs that maybe we are doing too much "book work". So I'm integrating some new activities into our days (crafts, cooking etc.) We are also working our homeschool schedule around my work schedule, so we aren't doing Monday through Thursday anymore. Now we're doing 3-4 days a week, but it might not be consecutive days. That's the beauty in homeschooling. FLEXIBILITY. I love it.

I have some fun activities planned for the rest of the week and will post more on those (with pics!) later!

Week of 8/9/10- 8/13/10

We've finished another week!! My how fast it went! The past two weeks we've been schooling 5 days a week due to a very busy end of Aug/ beginning of September. So now we only have 5 more days to do until the end of August. We are all very excited about the upcoming weeks. On August 27th we will be traveling to Virginia and having the girls a birthday party there on Sat. 8/28. The following Saturday, September 4th, we will be having the girls birthday party here in NC. AND on Monday 9/6 we will be leaving for a Bahamas CRUISE!!!! We are SO excited. My husband and I have been on a cruise, but this will be the first for the girls. I think I'm more excited to see their reaction than anything else.

We had another great week of homeschooling. Here is a quick review of what we did:

Math- More addition, more number lines. The girls really have this down now. We ended the week with a few word problems and Mind Benders.

Reading/Phonics/Writing- We learned letters T and L and learned how to blend the letters with all the vowels we know. They did awesome!! I love seeing them learn new things!

Science- we began the A Beka science unit "God's World". We talked about God's Plan for us and the world. I'm really enjoying this book.

Social Studies- We continued our community helpers unit. This week it was a Baker and a Firefighter.

The girls are continuing guitar. Shaylie is showing much more interest than Nevaeh. Scott has also taught the girls how to play checkers and Nevaeh is loving it. She even beat her Daddy yesterday!! Shaylie on the other hand just doesn't really have the patience for checkers. It amazes me how completely different they are.

Each day we read a book they picked out from the library. My favorite thing this week was yesterday we read The Bearenstain Bears Count Their Blessings and after the story, I asked the girls to tell me some of their blessings. The answers just melted my heart. I honestly expected to hear them say things like toys and candy and they did say those things, but they also went much deeper without any prompting from me. Shaylie told me she was thankful for shooting stars, God, love, the Cross and our Pastor to name a few. Nevaeh said she was thankful for playing checkers with Daddy, her great great Grandma cook (who died almost 3 years ago- I didn't even know she remembered her) and cars to go places. Such sweet sweet little girls. They make me so proud!! I recorded everything they told me on our white board and of course took a picture...and here it is:

Awesome Valedictorian Speech!

This girl was the valedictorian of her senior class and spoke out about the public school system. I do believe she is a future homeschooling mommy! :)

Watch

And on to month two...

It's so hard to believe that we have finished 5 weeks of homeschooling and are now well into our second month! Time is flying, but it's going great! The novelty has yet to wear off and the girls as well as Mommy and Daddy are still having fun! Just a quick update on what we have covered during the past few weeks:

Math- We've mastered even/odd and ordinal numbers. We've begun addition and some very basic geometry (patterns). We also introduced number lines and how they can be used.

Reading/Phonics- We have learned all of our short vowel sounds. The girls have done awesome with this. Last week we had our first phonics evaluation (A Beka uses periodic evaluations- which I love!) and both of them passed with flying colors. Last week, we started consonants and began with the letter T.

Social Studies- We began our Community Helpers unit. We learned all about Pastors, Teachers, Policemen, Salespeople, Farmers, Vets, Doctors, Nurses, Dentists and Mailmen. We read books, watched videos and even took a field trip to the post office. The girls made cards and mailed them to their Great Grandma Betty in Virginia.

Science- We completed our Seasons unit. The girls really had a lot of fun with this unit. We watched a few videos and had a few craft days. We watched a video of The Very Hungry Catepillar and made a ziploc baggie butterfly. Fun fun! :) I learned that piecing together your own curriculum is VERY time consuming and can be stressful, so we decided to purchase the A Beka science curriculum also. It's entitled God's World and we begin it next week! The lessons seem to be very good and I'm sure the girls will enjoy it!

Lapbook- We finished Meet Kaya and learned all about the Nez Perce culture and life in 1674. The girls have really shown an interest in the American Girl series. We have moved on to Meet Felicity which takes place in Williamsburg, VA in 1774. We hope to plan a trip to Williamsburg sometime this fall. If the girls continue to show interest in the American Girls, I would LOVE to take them to the American Girl store/restaurant in New York City! :) That could be a field trip, right?!

Guitar- The girls are continuing to learn to play the guitar from their Daddy. The progress is slow, but they seem to be picking it up and are excited to start playing real songs!

Bible- The first few lessons in our Bible workbook are really about character development and teaching how God wants us act. It has some really cute stories that the girls enjoy.

In July, we had school the first 3 weeks and then took a week off and went to Virginia to visit my family. We just love the flexibility and the oppportunity to spend so much time with our children. That's about all I have time to add right now, but I promise, posts will be coming more frequently!! I really do want to document this journey as much as possible! :)