School of Noodles

Lattice Multiplication

2011-11-04T12:06:00.000-07:00

I'd inadvertently downloaded a lattice multiplication app a couple weeks ago and thought "Huh?" when I looked at it. But yesterday I watched the Khan Academy video on lattice multiplication and now I'm sold!

I'd never heard of it before, but I think it is a really nice way to do multiplication of multi-digits. Better than remembering the 0 in the standard way--so nice to do all the multiplying then all the adding. Plus it's kind of fun. It feels like it is too tricky to actually work, but it does.

We are really liking Real Science Odyssey: Life Science

2011-09-29T20:25:00.000-07:00

I got an MS in Zoology, so it's a favorite subject of mine, but I have a hard time sharing my interest with my kids (besides catching bugs, having lots of pets over the years and reading National Geographic...) This year, on some recommendations from a couple of people here, I got Real Science Odyssey for Life Science. I have really liked it, and the kids have, too. So far we have done some good observational activities (outside doing a plot study and studying the parts of an egg) and some fun models (jello models of plant and animal cells and this week a karo syrup based model of blood). I love that the lessons are one page of text. I feel like it hits the key points of the material, plus gives a good explanation, but keeps it short enough so the kids stay interested. We've been supplementing with relevant Bill Nye videos and the Discovery Ed streaming stuff (the kids dig Slim Goodbody) and I feel like it's a really good curriculum for my kids.

Anyways, just wanted to share as I've seen lots of science threads pop up lately. You can download a pretty good sample at their website. I'd looked at the sample before, but it didn't win me over. Really doing it, though, has made me a fan.
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still chugging along

2011-01-24T20:47:00.001-08:00

So I started working part-time from home in mid-October (the astute among you might notice that that date coincides with the date of my last blog post here), so it hasn't left a lot of free time for blogging. Yes, I do set my own hours, but with money always managing to find uses for itself, I don't spend a lot of free time blogging or otherwise enjoying the internet like I do when I'm not working.

Homeschooling is going well, though. I introduced "Independent Folders" to each of the school age kids, into which I put any of the stuff for the day that they should be able to do without my assistance. It has really helped us get started more smoothly in the mornings, as they can just open their folders and get to work. Then I can jump in between assignments if I want to do some of the work they need me for. Right now, Spud only has math, a maze (for fine motor skill development plus some fun), handwriting practice on a lined white board, and Explode the Code in his folder, but it is enough to get him going. Then we do reading time and a computer program for reading together.

Noodle has her math, cursive, Latin worksheets (2 per week), spelling, and sometimes math or Latin flashcards in her folder. She also does her piano practice and independent reading time on her own as well. I work with her on grammar and writing, and we all do history and science together.

I am feeling pretty good about our current curriculum setup. It is always a temptation to see if the grass is greener on the other side of some hill, but there is SO MUCH OUT THERE that I find it is better not to look for something new unless there is a legitimate reason to do so. So, I try and not look for problems. I am trying to figure out an approach to geography, though, as I'd like to do more of that.

We've started working with Sprout to learn his ABCs, and he seems really interested. he calls letters "ah-ees." I made a simple ABC book that I'm having printed, and I also compiled an ABC playlist on youtube. Youtube Playlist It's my hope that with a lot of exposure he might just kind of "pick up" on reading a bit more than the other kids have. It has been quite a bit of work getting the other kids to learn to read, so anything that makes it easier I figure is worth a shot.

happy reader(s)

2010-10-13T22:39:00.001-07:00

So Noodle was a bit late to the whole reading game. A year ago at this time, we were diligently working through beginning chapter books (like the Rainbow Fairy series) by having her read aloud to me for a while every day. It was quite tedious at times, but I felt that she just needed to keep practicing to improve her skills, more than more phonics work, so that's what we did. Now she is at the point where she really does enjoy reading, and she is skilled enough that she does okay reading on her own. She started Scout, one of the Puppy Place books last night at bedtime and then finished it off today, all on her own! I was thrilled! I will continue having her read as part of our school day, but it is just so rewarding to think of the progress she has made over the past 18 months.

Spud is also doing really well with his reading. He is really getting his beginner books down solid and he is much less intimidated when encountering new words. He is working through Explode the Code book 1, and I think that is a really good way for him to practice & review.

Hooray for books!

Term A, Week Three

2010-10-03T17:43:00.001-07:00

Highlights from the week:

We have been getting together with some homeschooling friends in the neighborhood one or two mornings a week for some "P.E./recess" type fun, and this week we biked down the River Trail to Utah Lake. I had never biked out there before, and it was really fun and beautiful. The kids did great. It was 4 miles round trip but nobody got too tired or complained (I think that's an advantage of doing these things with friends). It took a couple of hours, and we didn't get started doing "school" until after 1, but it was worth it.

On Friday we had arranged a field trip up to Tracy Aviary with the Boys Club I coordinated. It was a follow up activity to our owl pellets a couple weeks ago. David was able to come with us and we had a great time. My favorite parts were seeing the birds in the bird encounters (a red-crested turaco and an American Crow), seeing the HUGE Andean Condor basking with his wings open (very zen-like) in the sun, and hearing the family of five kookaburras laugh and laugh and laugh. I don't know if I knew (if I did, I'd forgotten) that they are called Laughing Kookaburras.

Kookaburra

Red Crested Turaco

Kookaburras have long been one of my favorite birds. I think they are just so cute and chubby. I learned that older offspring often stay around and help care for their younger siblings. David said he read that on a couple other bird species' signs, too. So neat! The kookaburras at the Aviary were a mom and dad and their three youngsters, all hatched this past spring. The chicks were already full-sized, though.

In other news, Spud is doing really well reading his beginning reader books. We have quite a number of Bob books, which he likes okay, but he really likes the Clever Critter books by Nora Gaydos. We only have the Advanced Level One set and one of the Level Two sets, but I am tempted to get more because he likes them so much. I think I should probably just check out other first readers from the library and save the $. I've reinforced to him over and over that if he doesn't know a word he can either sound it out or ask me (or both), so he has stopped doing his, "Uh, uh, uh.." pathetic thing when he gets stuck. That is big progress!

Noodle finished her math on the Green Track (I'll explain more later) so she was able to earn the cute hedgehog she'd picked out at This is the Place Park gift shop, plus an extra four dollars. The idea is that she controls how quickly she moves forward with math and if she can master the material faster, and have a Green Level Effort (finish with minimal mistakes in an appropriate amount of time without needing reminders to focus), she can earn rewards. If she moves at our old pace, one chapter a week with many "focus reminders," that's a Red Level Effort. In between is a Yellow Level Effort. Probably sounds a little more complicated than it is. Anyways, her math covered some new ideas the last three weeks and she is doing well at understanding them. I think she needs to solidify her add/subtract facts, though, so this next week we are going to do review and drill. I'm hoping that it will be easier for her to stay on task when the small tasks that make up the problem can be completed more automatically.

We are using Prima Latina for Latin this year (only Noodle and I, though Spud does listen in some), and I am really enjoying it. I think Noodle enjoys that we are learning it, though she kind of grumps when it is time to do it. As we learn a bit more vocab and can talk "secretly," though, I think the allure will be stronger. But I'm enjoying it a lot!

Week Two

2010-09-23T22:12:00.000-07:00

So, I don't think I have it in me to maintain an exhaustively detailed update of everything we do. Especially since I am kind of cutting back for now, seeing what we can handle, and then will add back in "extras". Some notable things from the week, thus far:

Spud has done REALLY well this week with his lessons. He has only had one "poor attitude" incident, and that was today. I tried to help him shake it, but in the end, I asked him to go to his room until he felt ready to continue with a happy voice and happy face. He came down and did just fine after that. I talked to Noodle about the importance of responding to him with kindness, as I think her rudeness earlier in the morning had put him in a bit of a funk that he just wasn't shaking. During lunch prep, we had a nice conversation about how you can always look for things to be angry about. I said, "You could wake up every morning and think of a new thing to be upset about, and NEVER run out of things." We went through a number of examples, mostly ridiculous like, "Today I'm upset that I don't have my very own horse to ride," and "Today I'm going to be angry that I don't get to eat all the chocolate I want," but I think it made the point. Not that they'll remember it, but I plan to revisit the lesson in the not-too-distant future. I said that we can also look for things to be happy about, and told them how people who look for things to be upset about aren't as healthy because their bodies spend so much energy dealing with the bad emotions that they get worn down.

One thing that seems to work really well with Spud is explaining the why behind some of the parts of his schoolwork that seem pointless. He is definitely not a kid to do busy work. Also, when he asks me if he has to do something a certain way, or at all, I will explain to him what the idea is, and allow him to do it "his" way as long as it accomplishes the same goal. For example, in his Explode the Code book, yesterday he said he couldn't read the sentences because they were too small. I am pretty sure that his eyes are fine, but I know that smaller print can be hard for beginning readers, so I didn't push it and allowed him to skip that page. I asked him if I could type the sentences up and print them larger so he could do the page, and he said he thought that would work. So I did, and he did the page without problem today. Also, today he was supposed to "X" the box that went with the correct sentence, but he only wanted to do a slash instead of a full X. Since this is something that obviously doesn't matter, I allowed it. Also, I haven't been requiring that he do the pages where you have to write the words out, since his fine motor skills are not quite there yet. But he has chosen to do them, after asking me if he has to write in lowercase letters. I told him that it is preferred, as most of our writing is, in fact, in lowercase letters, but that he can use capitals or a mix of capitals and lowercase if he wants. I figure this isn't a penmanship exercise (no way I'm touching that right now), so it really doesn't matter. He is sufficiently exacting upon himself that I really don't feel the need to be at all critical of his writing attempts. He has been very good at asking how to write the numbers he doesn't know, and has been amenable to my gentle suggestions that he might find it easier to do them in such and such way.

Today we did something that I've been wanting to do for a looong time and we've just not really done it before (at least not quite so thoroughly). Noodle picked up the most recent National Geographic magazine that was on the counter since it just arrived this week, and asked about something on the cover. We started looking through it, and we looked through THE ENTIRE MAGAZINE together, reading photo captions, answering questions, etc. It was awesome! And it was interesting to all of us. We learned about the oil spill in the gulf, talked about kids born with cleft palates (there was a Smile Train advertisement in there), talked about mountain climbers on Everest, a paternal mouth brooding fish, Jane Goodall and what she's helped discover about chimpanzees over the past 50 years, prehistoric animals of New Zealand/Australia, and problems of overfishing in the ocean. Pretty fabulous science/geography/current events lessons, methinks. I know they won't remember all or even most of it, but I love the analogy of the grammar school years giving kids "pegs" to hang future information on. They need exposure to a lot of information, and they will be able to start to organize it and develop interests. I am actually amazed at how much they do remember.

One last thing, then I've got to get to bed. Noodle is doing a karate class with a couple of friends at a local charter school two afternoons a week. After talking to David, I realized that I really need to give Spud more attention. So on Tuesday, after Noodle left, he asked (as he always does) what he could do while she was gone. He's usually hinting around to watch extra cartoons and such, but this time I said, "Why don't we start reading your Captain Underpants book?" He was pretty excited about that, and he chose to read it up on his bed. We read the first 14 chapters (they are short chapters) and the next day he was so excited to read more. On Wednesday, we also went on a walk to collect cans from the neighbors and came home and made pudding to eat after our reading. It was a lot of fun to spend some quality time with him, and I look forward to continuing it. Captain Underpants is a pretty fun series. Noodle started reading it at bedtime tonight because she wanted to be in on the story, too. I'm a fan of all things that promote reading!

Week One - We survived!

2010-09-17T19:19:00.000-07:00

Monday was rough, as it seemed that whenever I was in the middle of something with Spud or Noodle, the only thing that kept Sprout happy was wreaking massive destruction. The older kids did well on their lessons, but I was beyond frazzled by the end of school that day.

Tuesday was good but crazy and not super productive. We hosted Boys Club that afternoon, so we had the house to tidy and things to get set up in the backyard for that. It turned out really well, so I'm excited. The plan is for the Boys Club to have an activity and a field trip together every month. I am so glad it all came together, as it was hard to organize something with a bunch of people that I'd not met before. I think it will be a good mix, though. All of the parents who came seemed like pleasant, agreeable, fun people. Spud seems to me making connections with some of the boys, which is my primary goal, so hooray!

Wednesday was AWFUL. For reasons unknown to me, Spud is the sort of kid who really needs expectations spelled out explicitly. David and I had talked about this, and I was trying to implement a system of using a script to spell out expectations with our various school activities, but I didn't have one for one activity, and I don't know what triggered it, but he kind of went nuts. I could re-post what I wrote on a homeschool forum I'm a part of, but I don't feel like rehashing it. Suffices to say, he was very determined to NOT do a certain part of the lesson/exercise, and went crazy, screaming that I was torturing him. Then, after getting to the point where we finally completed the lesson, we had another explosion during lunch preparation. So, a couple people recommended a book called The Explosive Child, so I ordered it used from Amazon. It's gotten a lot of good reviews, so I hope it will have some specific strategies that might help me. Most of the time, Spud is really easy-going, but when he gets "stuck," it's terrible.

Thursday and today were both good days. We discovered today that Noodle definitely needs to do her math in the morning, as today a single assignment took over an hour, and she made a lot of errors. Most of the week we'd been doing it first thing, so I think we'll set that as the standard.

For Spud, here's what we are doing for Kindergarten:
Explode the Code Book 1 - I am requiring a page per day, but I think somedays he will voluntarily do more. One day this week, he did three. I think ETC will work well for him because it allows him to learn/review some material on his own. I did get the teacher's manual (I didn't have it when Noodle did Books 1 & 2, but found it was useful when I ordered it when she started Book 3), so I do hope to be able to do short instructional lessons with him (if we can avoid future meltdowns), but it's nice that it is fairly independent. His writing ability is really lagging, but I'm not worrying about that at all. He is trying to write, and doesn't seem too bothered by the fact that he can't make all his numbers/letters correctly, so I'm not going to stress it. I did print out and make a handwriting exercise book for him. I'll see if I can interest him in it eventually. We are doing Treasure Hunts from this book, though I've typed them up and made my own. We do one every morning, he earns a sticker, and at the end of the week, he can trade in his stickers (though I don't actually require him to give them to me, as we put them in his sticker book) for a "Mystery Car" (a hot wheels wrapped up in decorated butcher paper). He really likes these. For the early ones, there are a lot of pictures, so they don't actually HAVE to read, but he is learning some new words and being willing to try sounding them out, so I figure it's a major step forward. We are also doing Math U See Primer, a page a day. Finally, we are doing "Reading Activities," which is a bin I put 5-8 different activities in (beginning readers, flash card sets, things from Happy Phonics, Talking Words Factory DVD, Phonics Concentration (a simplified version of this game, and other stuff as I find/come up with it). He can pick 1, 2 or 3 activities. Two activities/day puts him on the "Yellow Track," three/day puts him on the Green Track, one is on Red Track. For Yellow or Green (or in between) he can earn a special prize at the end of three weeks. For Red, nothing special. I am doing a similar thing with Noodle's math to help her feel motivated to work independently and at an increased pace. He has been quite cooperative with the Reading Activities, so that's been nice. He is also doing lessons on Road To Reading, and he likes those as well. I figure we'll keep working on those as long as he is interested and enjoying them.

So, that's our Kindergarten. He also joins us for Story of the World, Vol. 2. We didn't start Science this week, but he'll join us for that as well.

I'll post Noodle's studies later. I'm tired of thinking about school.

First Day of School, take two

2010-09-10T23:50:00.000-07:00

So, after a less than auspicious beginning a couple weeks ago, I decided to bag it all until after my niece's wedding (where I was the photographer), wait for David to come home to help me strategize some things, and just let the kids enjoy the tail end of summer. So, we start afresh on Monday. I'm frantically trying to finish the last of my preparations, mostly some motivational things and whatnot to help them track their progress and stay on course. I'm hoping to get Noodle taking more charge over her math and hopefully coming to like it more. We'll see.... Main goal for Spud this year: READING! As soon as he feels confident and/or sufficiently motivated, I really feel like he'll be able to take off like crazy. It's just a matter of finding that motivation.

starting off with a whimper

2010-08-24T12:58:00.000-07:00

Well, I'd hoped to start the year off with a BANG, but it is turning into more of a whimper. Sprout has been sick since Saturday night, we were up from 3:30 to 5:30 Sunday morning, I didn't sleep at all Sunday night, and the fever/crankiness continues. Yesterday was one of the worst days in memory. Not because of the kids, really, just because there were enough little things that I couldn't handle in my sleep deprived state. We did have a nice walk along the river trail, though.

Last night's sleep wasn't much better, so when Tina came in this morning to take Sprout, I slept until 10. Then after I got out of the shower I saw that I'd missed a call from a friend. I called him, and he told me that our neighbor had been killed this morning in a plane crash in Nepal. The kids and I went over to hug them and give them our condolences. It's devastating.

So, we've started some things this week, but a lot of it will probably wait until next week. I ordered Explode the Code book 1 for Spud, and I think he will like it. He seems to really like doing the same stuff that Noodle does. He is enthusiastic about his math work, though, so far, so I hope he keeps liking that. I wish I could help him feel strong in this whole learning to read process. He is so worried about making mistakes that he gets worked up about even trying sometimes. It's hard.

Today they were both working on their math assignments (yay!) but then started fighting at the table. I thought, "Seriously? This is how it's going to be?" ::sigh:: Their fighting drives me to the edge. But they seem less affected by it than I am, and I need to figure out how to keep it as their problem.

update

2010-08-22T15:14:00.000-07:00

So, in case you are curious, what we ended up doing for summer was this:
Noodle continued reading aloud (some Encyclopedia Brown books and others) a few days almost every week, did a couple weeks more of Writing With Ease and a couple chapters of Math. Spud kept working on his Progressive Phonics flash cards and stories. Other than that, we've had a lot of unstructured time, so it's been good.

A few months back, we started checking out books on tape/CD for the kids to listen to at night, which Noodle absolutely loves. I think Spud falls asleep too fast most of the time to enjoy the stories much. Noodle just finished listening to all four books in the Dealing with Dragons series, and she told me last night that when she is ten, she wants to read all the books by herself. I think she chose age 10 because it seems far enough in the future that she feels like her ability will be up to it by then. I thought that was great, and I was so happy that she is so excited about the books. Books on tape have been great because I have a hard time carving out read-aloud time with them. We can usually get two or more picture books in during the day when we are "in school," but after history and the other reading I do with them, I'm tired. David typically reads a chapter to them at night from a book (they've done all the Chronicles of Narnia a couple times in Noodle's lifetime and are presently reading the 3rd Alcatraz book). But, her love for these Dragons books has really shown me the power of books on tape. She is so interested in them, which is awesome!

we are still alive!!

2010-05-04T14:13:00.001-07:00

Just busy! Homeschool stuff is going well, though I've kind of streamlined down to the essentials for now. I'm not getting a lot of "extra" books at the library for science or history, but we have consistently worked on our math and language arts. We are still doing our science and history, but without so much accessory stuff. Especially as the weather is nicer, I prefer to give the kids a lot of unstructured time. Plus, the first weekend of April Noodle got her new puppy, which she named Orbit. She wanted a space name, which I think was inspired by our current study of the Solar System and outer space. It's a great name for him, especially since he can and does run circles around the rest of us. That's been both fun and a little crazy.

I'm in the process of forming a boys' activity group. Last month, Spud's best friend moved to Colorado, and another family from our homeschool group (with 2 boys) moved to Idaho. Our group has kind of dwindled now, and it was small to begin with, so it either needs an influx of new blood or I've got to figure something else out. But the guy needs some more friends. There aren't a ton of boys his age in the neighborhood, really, and he is the sort who doesn't really feel comfortable just going places alone to play. I have gotten quite a few responses of interested moms, so I'm hopeful we'll be able to get something fun going soon.

Other than that, Noodle is now reading and enjoying the first Encyclopedia Brown book, which is fun for me since I really enjoyed those books as a kid, too. She and Spud have been playing Detective on and off the past week.

I'm trying to figure out what we'll do during summer. I know I want to keep Noodle moving forward on her Writing With Ease lessons (we started Book 2 last week) and the math, but I think we'll largely take a break from formal history and science. We are nearly at the end of Story of the World 1, and I think I'd rather just start Volume 2 in the fall. Maybe I'll get motivated during the summer and really prepare for some cool "extras". I'm not sure what we are doing for science next year. I think we might do Life Science, since I never did a formal thing with Noodle and Spud will be at a great age for that. I still need to do some research.

And here's Orbit, for your enjoyment.

Term D, Week 5 Report

2010-03-15T14:24:00.000-07:00

We had a pretty good week last week. I hadn't gone to the library to get the extra books for our Science & History topics, but I figured it was not going to kill us NOT to learn extra. But since we were learning about Buddha, and I like Buddha a lot, I picked up some books near the end of the week, and we'll read those this week.

Noodle has been reading Rascal, a book from The Puppy Place series. (She finished it today.) I'd read her the first book in the series a couple of years ago, but we opted to start with this one (#4 in the series, we don't have #2 or #3), rather than reread the other one. She liked it, and I thought it was good because it actually has some training pointers. Since she'll be getting a puppy for her birthday this summer, it seems like a good idea to read some puppy related books. There weren't any pictures inside the text, but that didn't bother her too much after the initial disappointment wore off.

I also asked the librarian a couple of weeks ago for a selection of books at the level of the Rainbow Fairies and Puppy Place books, and the librarian was so helpful. Last week, I picked up some "graphic novel/comic book" style books for her to try. Today she read from Fashion Kitty versus the Fashion Queen for a half hour during Reading Time. That is something we started last week, too. We didn't do it every day because of some other schedule constraints, but we did it 3 times. I started with just 15 minutes, but soon bumped it up to 20. I think we'll stay at 20-30 for now. Spud looks at books or listens to Noodle read, and I read a book silently to myself, but I'm available to help Noodle with any words or meanings she needs explained. She was not super keen on the idea of MORE reading, but she seems to be warming up to it very nicely. I sure like it. I'm making steady progress through Jim Trelease's Read-Aloud Handbook, and he's the reason that I felt okay getting Noodle these comic-type books to read. She is such a visual/picture-oriented kid that it seemed like a good fit. And Mr. Trelease says the most important thing is to get the kids hooked on books, even if those books aren't classic literature. If they develop the skills and stamina required, they will eventually be interested and able to read the classics. I read scores of Babysitters' Club books in grade school, and it didn't ruin me as a reader, so there must be something to that notion.

Oh, two weeks ago we attended a Lego Party at a homeschooler's home in the next town. I didn't know either of the other families who attended, but the kids had a great time and I really enjoyed talking to the other moms. We oddly had quite a bit in common. I guess similar types are often attracted to homeschooling. It was really fun, and the hosting mom said she'd like to do it again. The kids were introduced to Bionicles, which they now think are the coolest thing ever.

Last Saturday we went to a St Patrick's Day activity at a local learning center/preschool. Even though we had to wait quite a while for the "premier" attractions, the balloon guy and face painting, the kids had a fun time and I was glad we went. Plus, we found out today that Noodle's name was drawn in the drawing for a prize!

So, things are going well. We are trying to get outside on the warmer days. It gets up to low/mid-50s sometimes lately, so that's been nice.

Term D, Week 3 Report

2010-02-26T16:10:00.000-08:00

Yeah, so I guess I missed Week 2.

This was another rough week, as I started out by getting absolutely NO sleep Sunday night. So, we spent the week kind of in survival mode, rather than Productive Mode. We got the basics done, though. We did manage to do one day of science and we finally got around to doing history today (it was originally scheduled for Tuesday!). We are studying Rome, and we learned about gladiators today, as well as about Roman construction/building. I had no idea that gladiators were slaves/POWs/criminals. Nor that they were so specific in their different types of gladiators. Nor did I know that they went to "gladiator school" in essentially a prison environment. All very interesting. Oh, and did you know these gladiator fights went on for SEVEN HUNDRED YEARS!?! Sometimes, when I think about the history of our own country, and how many people think we have gone so far astray of our founding, I have to think about the other nations/empires/etc that lasted so much longer. I wonder if the incredible advance of technology has sped up the process of weakening our national fiber. If we marched along more steadily in our advances, rather than in leaps and giant bounds, would we be able to keep more in line with our founding principles? Anyways, I digress.

So,we agreed to set aside some of our tax return for homeschooling materials, and I actually went down to the bank today and set up a separate account, just so I can track expenditures better. So now I am faced with the fun, but kind of daunting, task of deciding what we want most. We are planning to start Latin either this summer or next fall, so that is a definite. I also will need the next level of Writing With Ease. Oh, on a reporting note, we started doing the WWE1 lessons 2 per day, so we can get through the material faster. I guess Noodle should really be in WWE2 (and probably a bit further along in math) now, as a 2nd grader, so I think we will continue through summer with language arts and math, probably just 3x/week. I am sure other homeschoolers experience a similar "floundering" as they try and figure out what works best, and I know people's pproaches and methods evolve over time and depending on the child, but it can be unnerving to feel like you are trying to reinvent the wheel, but not just ANY wheel, a customized wheel tailored specifically to your child's unique gifts and abilities.

We have read a bunch of chapters of Inkheart the past couple of days. We started it over a year ago, and took MANY months off. I want to watch the movie with the kids, though, so we have recommitted ourselves to finishing it. Plus, I've started reading up in the playroom, so they can do other stuff while they listen instead of just sitting on the sofa. I think that makes a big difference for Spud. It's a good story, but I don't recommend it for a read-aloud simply because of the length. The language is quite descriptive, and the chapters are often long, and there are a lot of chapters. I think it would have a much better pace as a silent read.

Did I mention Noodle started the Math U See Beta book? I am excited for her to learn addition and subtraction of large numbers. I think that is kind of fun math to do. It's very orderly, but you do have a sense of accomplishment at the end because you have been dealing with BIG numbers! I told her as much this week. We'll see if I can spark some enthusiasm from her. She's not a big fan of math right now, which I think is too bad because it comes to her rather easily. Though she does like it now that I set a timer for 30 minutes, and if she finishes her math work in that amount of time, we will play a game of her choosing for 10 minutes, plus whatever time is left out of the 30. I've been teaching her to play Racko.

Noodle finished the last (seventh) Rainbow Fairy book this week, and while we have some of the Pet Fairies from the library, we are taking a fairy break and reading Rascal, from the Puppy Place series. It seems appropriate, since she is going to be getting her very own dog in a few months. She's enjoying it so far. We own a few of them, so it seemed like a good choice.

Term D, Week 1 Report

2010-02-12T20:35:00.000-08:00

This was a ROUGH week. We had a couple different activities going on (Noodle had Imagination Club on Wednesday and we had a homeschool co-op President's Day party on Thursday), and silly me decided to get creative at the last possible minute and make up little Valentiney things. We made bean-bag hearts for all the kids in Imagination Club, and Teddy Roosevelt valentines (he was our selected president to share information about) for the co-op kids. So, we did very little actual "school" on W/Th.

Other than that, we started our Space half of our Earth Science study. Hopefully we can have some fun with it. Space is always so fascinating to kids.

In history this week we did the People of the Americas. The Story of the World does a good job to point out that the reason we don't know much about these people is because we don't have written records. I guess some of the Central American people did keep written records, but we don't know how to read them. It was kind of an epiphany to me to realize that. Yeah, I should have thought of it earlier, but it hit me in a different way. I guess that's why we are encouraged to keep a journal....so our existence is documented. Hopefully the internet and Google are here to stay (*wink*) and my blog will live on after my demise....future generations can read my random thoughts, I will speak like a voice from the dust! Or whatever.

Also, Sprout had about a five day streak of TERRIBLE nights. By Wednesday, I felt like the living dead. I ended up going to bed at 8:30 Wednesday night, and I felt human once again on Thursday. Then David had to go to bed at 8:30 on Thursday night. He seems to be over the worst of it (he had a fever for a couple nights and a horrendously runny nose). So, hopefully next week we will be back on track.

I have been reading the Charlotte Mason series in Modern English and while I don't think I'm likely to go full boar Charlotte Mason, there are some things that I would really like to incorporate into our homeschool. I want to have a more rich literature environment. To that end, I made a goal for us to read 100 books this term. Seeing as we are one week into the term and only have five books read (remember how this week kicked my trash?), this might have been a bit ambitious. Heck, the kids and I have been puttering our way through Inkheart for over a year now. David reads to the kids every night (unless it's a late movie night) from novels, so they are a bit slower pace than required for our book list. And I read various poems and stories from compilation books and the like, but those won't count as full books for this chart. So you can see that it is going to be a bit of a stretch. Oh well. And we already lost the chart and I'm printing a new one. ::sigh:: Such is life.

I am trying to prep the "spare room" for David's sisters to move in at the end of the month. Which has not been easy, since it was my craft/sewing room, plus it's where we keep Sprout's diapers and clothes. I'm not sure where his stuff will go. My stuff has been moved down to the office or will go out to the garage, which means some garage stuff needs to make it's way back to the shed. I'm also trying to purge stuff, which is a painful and slow process for me. I'm getting better...

Oh, one other thing that was crazy this week: some homeschooling mom friends and I decided to do a Preschool Activities in a Bag swap, and even though we met the end of November and divvied it all out, I was working on things up through the very last day. But I did finish them. I'm actually quite excited for the activities, as I think they will be fun for Spud, even though he is kind of advanced as far as "preschool" goes. I think he'll like the hands-on stuff, though he doesn't need the letters/numbers so much.

Oh yeah, I started teaching Spud (and Noodle since she likes to join in) a Skip Counting by 2s song to the tune of Row, Row, Row Your Boat. You go up to 30. This blog has song suggestions for different skip-counting songs.

Noodle finished Math U See Alpha at the end of Term C, and the rest of our Beta materials came this week, so we will be delving into that next week. She told me that since math is her least favorite, she'd rather do it last. Then she thought about it and said she'd rather have it first so it would be done with for the day. Smart girl. In order to promote doodle-free and dallying-free work, we have started playing a quick game (Racko, Blink, Guess Who?, UNO, Mastermind, etc) if she finished her math assignments in a set time. Anything she doesn't finish, she will need to do later in the day as "homework". After sitting down and thinking about just how much time I thought we should be spending in the different subjects each day, I decided it was silly that it seemed to take us so long to get through things. I know there are interruptions (especially with Sprout), but I wanted to get things a bit more streamlined. I timed a lot of our subjects this week, so I have a better idea of how long things take. I'd like to be finished with the main stuff by lunch, and only have Science or History to do after lunch, and maybe her piano practice.

Well, this is a long and rambling post. But maybe it makes up for my absence the last, oh, forever. I don't think I blogged a single update during term C.

One more thing I want to do once the weather turns nice: I think I'd like to have a weekly day "in nature", and I think I want to spend it up the canyon. We have some great parks. The kids can take their scooters (our bikes won't fit in our widdle car) and we can go on the trail and have a picnic...I think it would be a lot of fun. I tell myself it is too far and gas costs too much, but I think it would be <25 miles round trip (and quite a bit less, depending on which park we choose), and even at $3/gallon, that only would work out to be about $3 an outing, since our car gets about 30-33 mpg. So, totally worth it! And cheaper than most other things we could do!

bad day gotcha down?

2010-01-26T22:19:00.000-08:00

Reading this and knowing that she wrote a whole BOOK on homeschooling makes me feel like we are probably doing okay. :o)

grammar worksheets

2010-01-18T19:44:00.000-08:00

For grammar, we use the text First Language Lessons, but occasionally it is nice to have a worksheet for a little extra review. Here are two good worksheet sources:

Worksheet Works

Scott Foresman Reading Teacher Resources

good intentions...

2010-01-18T19:30:00.000-08:00

I keep WANTING to post to this blog. We are having school! It's going well. The first week back after the break was a bit rough, but not too bad. Two more weeks until the end of our 3rd term, which means we are half way through our year! Whoo hoo!

Last week I hosted a homeschooling moms support group. We had a really good turn out, and I think that the women found it useful and enjoyable. I am planning on meeting every other month.

I've also been doing some intensive clutter-reduction and such, which is what has taken most of my free time. So I don't know that I'll get the updates done for the past two weeks. We have been learning more about the Greek gods & goddesses, and I have to recommend this great book by Aliki. Nice pictures, good information. I learned (maybe relearned) a lot, and Noodle really enjoyed it as well. We also watched Jim Henson's The Storyteller about Greek Myths. That was fun, too.

We are wrapping up our Earth Science study (soon moving on to space) and I am trying to figure out some activities for us to do as earth-saving folks. I got a book that has a bunch of ideas for kids to do, and we already do a lot of them. But there is always room for improvement. I do know that I want to start a regular habit of taking a grocery bag with us when we go on walks or to parks so we can pick up litter. I hate seeing trash in beautiful places (or anywhere, really).

So yeah, there's the two minute update. Better than nothing!

good ideas!

2010-01-02T20:09:00.000-08:00

Articles at Magical Childhood

I came across this page and skimmed a few articles. Some great ideas, both schooling related and some just general mothering/parenting stuff. For example, in the "article" Simple ways to make tonight special, it says "Go outside and teach your toddler (or older!) to howl at the moon," also, "Serve some chocolate milk or juice in fancy goblets and sit and talk for a few minutes at the table as you sip from them."

I don't know if you've ever heard of Sark, but I own a lot of her books. (You've probably seen her posters, titled such things as "How to Be An Artist" and such.) Anyways, I used to feel so creative and alive, and I loved her books and ideas on how to "live juicy". I feel like I totally suck at this now that I'm a mom. I don't want to feel like a stick in the mud. I want to feel ALIVE!! Every once in a while I capture it, and I have some sense of really living, but it's hard. I'm working steadily to get rid of STUFF. I feel like if I have less stuff to take care of, I can spend more time on what I want to do. It's a hard process for me, though. Baby steps, I suppose.

Anyways, one of my goals this year is to be more ALIVE and have more fun with the kids. I don't want to wait until I'm a grandma to be able to enjoy kids more. I want to do it more now.

well, we DID homeschool this month....

2009-12-30T15:43:00.000-08:00

The Sunday after Thanksgiving, Noodle and Sprout got sick, and then it spent the next 3 weeks cycling through the rest of the family. We started Term 3, though, and did our first two weeks. Things went pretty well, but we didn't have a lot of extra energy due to the sickness and me having a severe shortage of sleep that entire period due to Sprout's illnesses. I think he had one, got over it, then caught another. Blah. So grateful to be healthy again! And we were healthy in time for the holidays. In addition to school, I was finishing up the handmade Christmas gifts for the kids, so that took pretty much all of my spare time. I'd hoped to spend our off week before Christmas doing crafts and such, but I was so behind on my sewing that we didn't do much. I think the kids enjoyed having extra time to play, though. We did part-time school for the 14th-18th, then took the whole week of Christmas completely off, since family came into town and it was also Spud's 5th birthday!!!

This week we are doing a little bit--Spud is doing his computer school every day and Noodle is reading and practicing piano. Next week we are back full-time, and I'm trying to get things together for that! I was lax in filing papers into the kids' notebooks, so I had about 8 weeks of stuff to file! Maybe I'll try and do that every 2-3 weeks now. It'll take less time to sort & organize. Every week would probably be the best, but that seems unlikely!

Anyways, just wanted to post at least ONCE this month. We are still alive & looking forward to getting back to our regularly scheduled HEALTHY life next week.

what we do & how we do it

2009-11-29T13:19:00.000-08:00

In the interest of full disclosure (I get uncomfortable with others thinking I have things figured out, when my life is very much a work in progress in every area) and on the off chance that someone might find it helpful, I'm going to share some of what is working for us, and especially, me as I try to plan what we do and what we hope to accomplish each week.

I have come to be a BIG, no, a HUGE fan of "open & go" curriculum. I do love the idea of planning creative things to teach every subject, every day, like games and songs and all that. But it wouldn't happen. Or if it did, it would last about a week and then I'd be drained of creativity for at least four months. Thus, the love of "open & go" type stuff. Here are the things we use that fall into that category:

Math U See (MUS)
I really really like Math U See. I didn't know what to choose for a math curriculum, and a friend was using this with her kids. I looked at her stuff, requested their free instructional DVD, and then decided to get it. I haven't regretted it. Noodle seems to pick up on the concepts we've done thus far without too much difficulty, and she doesn't always use the blocks much. But I really like the idea that the kids will have a concrete & tangible relationship with numbers and math. What makes Math U See open & go is that the DVDs teach the lesson for you, really, so we watch that together on Mondays, then I'll do more instruction if needed from the teacher's manual, and then we'll do some problems together on a white board so I can see if she is having trouble with the concepts. Because I know we will go over the DVD lesson first, I often don't even look through the teacher's manual until right before we are going to start. Nice. We do one chapter a week. Each lesson has 3 pages of practice (A,B,C) and three pages of cumulative review (D,E,F). We introduce the lesson on Monday (watch DVD and do page A on the white board), Noodle does pages B & D on Tuesday, C & E on Wednesday, no pages on Thursday unless she needs a bit more practice (in the future she will probably do some online drills on the MUS website) but we do flash cards, and test on Friday.

Just as an FYI, the materials for MUS are rather pricey (though I don't know how it compares to other programs, but it's pricey for me!), so this year we started doing the workbook pages with overhead transparency sheets and wet-erase markers. I clip them on to the top of the page with two small binder clips. I scan the tests in from the test booklet and print them off for our binders and to keep a record of the work done.

Writing With Ease (WWE)
We are doing the first book with Noodle right now, since we didn't really do any writing skills last year, and she came a bit late to the reading game. You could do the Writing With Ease approach on your own just using the textbook, but you would have to get your own paper and choose your own sentences for copywork. The Workbook has the questions and the paper and sentences all prepared. I almost opted to save the money and do my own passages and copywork, but I can definitely say it has been worth the money to use the workbook! Quick & painless. Plus, I had my workbook cut in two, spiral bound the instructor pages and scanned the student pages into the computer so I could print them out as needed and not have to buy them again for future kids. (They allow copying for use within the family.)

WWE has four lessons per week. We do them M-Th, taking Friday off. Each lesson takes less than 15 minutes to complete. I know some people double up and do a narration and a copywork each day, but for now I like the pace and the short lessons.

First Language Lessons (FLL)
This book is grammar for years one and two. We are still in the second half of year one because I didn't do as much as I should have last year. These are scripted so you don't have a lot of preparation to do. Occasionally there is something like a map to get or to make sure you have a pencil and paper for both student and teacher, but it is pretty quick. I look over the lesson(s) the night before and see if they are short enough that we'll do more than one and get anything I need ready. Takes less than 5 minutes to prepare. We do these lessons 4-5 times/week. Lessons are really brief, about 5-10 minutes each.

Story of the World (SOTW)
Lessons are written in story form. We do one chapter a week, typically on Tuesday and Thursday. Most chapters are split into two parts, so you could read one part on T and the next on Th, we usually just read everything on Tuesday because the kids like to listen to the stories. A workbook/activity book is also available, and I highly recommend it. The workbook has questions to ask, book suggestions for further reading, activity ideas,recipes, plus lots of maps and coloring pages. I did the same thing with this book as I did the WWE workbook -- split it in half, had the teacher part spiral bound and scanned in all the student pages. This is not quite open & go, but pretty good.

What I have been doing is planning out the entire 6 week term of history (& science) lessons before the term starts, and then going to the library and getting all the books I needed. (You can check things out for 3 weeks and renew once, so it worked okay). I've decided that is too many books to try and get on one trip (it was usually 40-60 books) so from now on I'm going to try and do three weeks (a half term) at a time. Though with Christmas break, we only have two weeks of full school before we break, so I'm just doing two weeks this time.

Science
We have been doing one of the suggestions in The Well-Trained Mind. They recommend getting the Usborne First Encyclopedia of Our World and the Usborne First Encyclopedia of Space and using those as the backbone of a topical study. So I've been supplementing these two page spreads about topics with other books from the library, and, when available, Bill Nye and Magic School Bus episodes. I have found some books that went along with different units that had fun experiment ideas. I think this has been a decent exposure to the different topics, and the kids seem to enjoy it. I'd like to be able to do "fancier" stuff (I think I covet those experiment kits you can subscribe to), but I remind myself that we don't have to do everything all the time, and most elementary school science stuff is just fact-based. We do science on Monday and Wednesdays, finishing up on Fridays if necessary (it usually isn't). We do one topic per week, though I have lumped topics together from the book if I felt they went well together or were similar enough that I wouldn't want to spend a week on each individually. We do a "Science Notebook Page" about the topic, which means for Noodle that she usually draws the environment we learned about (Deserts, Grasslands, Rivers, Oceans, etc) and I write in some key facts.

Planning:
Since we use the workbox system, I have found it helpful to try and plan out the "extras" that will be in the workbox during the week. Extras are non-typical things like books, videos, games, crafts, etc that I add to the usual mix of school stuff.

Here is what is in Noodle's workbox every day (click to enlarge):

Here is where I write down what additional things I want to do during the week:

Here is the planning sheet I use for both Science & History (two weeks fit on each page, or you could do Science on top/History on bottom). I use this page to write down the books and the call numbers from the library website before I go to the library so I can expedite my book finding once at the library. I have been doing these pages before the term, but now will do them both before the term and at mid-term:

I am working on incorporating more geography study and fine arts study into our curriculum. That is a work in progress. I'll update when I find an approach that works for us.

If you want doc files of either of the planning sheets, just let me know. They are not fancy, but nice to have. We went through a couple of iterations before I found something that had enough detail but left enough general space for stuff.

Oh, with Spud right now we are reading picture books, doing crafts or other activities, and he joins us for History and Science, as well as any geography and fine arts stuff. We use his workbox to put the picture book we'll read as well as any materials for the activity or craft, but he isn't in full-fledged workbox mode yet because he is "in preschool". (Which I've decided, for us, means "too young to have to do school unless they want to!")

So, that was probably much more detail than you could be interested in, but on the off chance that it would be helpful, it seemed worth sharing.

End of Term (Term B, Week 6 Report--kind of)

2009-11-28T11:02:00.001-08:00

So I think I'll just have to accept that I probably won't get the Week 6 Reports done, at least not with the same detail. I'm too relieved to have a break that my "homeschool brain" shuts off and I can't bring myself to sit down and type up what we did. We did celebrate the end of the term with another Fun Friday Dance Party, though, which was fun. We didn't do dinner this time, which was nice because it was a bit less crazy, and we shortened it to 2 hours.

I taught the kids the line dance to "The Hustle" and we also played some games, including Twister and a game where all the kids laid heads together in a circle and tried to keep a balloon up in the air by kicking it with their legs. It was fun.

We took this entire week off. I had planned to have Spud do his computer school a few times (he did it once) and have Noodle read from Sunny the Yellow Fairy (also happened once), but oh well. Spud did read some books to his Aunt Jenn who is in town, which was good, and Noodle did pick up a couple of picture books to read. And they had a great time at a cousin sleepover Wednesday night and all day Thursday. We also had a Thanksgiving activity with our homeschool group, so they got a mini history/geography lesson on the Pilgrims.

Oh, one cool thing that happened during week 6 was we spent about 30 minutes or more watching a female ring-necked pheasant forage in our "backyard habitat" (aka The Giant Weed Patch that we hope to eventually turn Back into a Garden). It was really cool. We got out my binoculars and also enjoyed watching her disappear with her amazing camouflage. We talked about why female birds are less colorful than the males (it seems to bug Noodle that only the boy birds are pretty, and she hasn't yet seen the beauty in the brown), so it was neat to see how she could "disappear" by standing still, even in plain sight.

Here is a picture of her out in the open.

Can you see her?

She's in the middle of the picture in front of the fence.

How about this one?

She's in the center of the picture, a little bit left of the green pool thing.

Here are the turkey crafts we made this month.

This is a cute picture of Spud doing Play-doh letters after we read the book, The Worm Family.

the right motivation

2009-11-17T16:40:00.000-08:00

I think I've mentioned the sticker charts I do with the kids. Noodle gets a sticker for each page of math she does (I was tired of hearing her complain about doing math when it really isn't difficult for her) plus two if she gets 100% on ] her weekly test, and Spud earns stickers through reading or doing phonics lessons with me. But it isn't something I want to require that Spud do every day, or even really on a regular basis. Today, though, I mentioned to him that he might want to read some books to get some stickers on his chart, as Noodle would have hers full in a few days. "Okay," he said. We pulled out the beginner books and he ended up reading three books from the Clever Critters Level 1 Advanced Set (The Hot Yak, The Big Cub, and The Fox Begs, and re-reading the BOB books Sam and Mat. (I gave him 4 stickers for each "new" book and three for each "re-read".) He needed very little help, I was so proud of him! He filled up his chart (16 stickers) in one fell swoop!

Of course, then I had to figure out a way to let Noodle finish up her chart today, so she did today's math pages, plus tomorrow's, plus an extra one, and then took her weekly test. So, happily, they both earned their prizes. And now Noodle is done with her math for the week! (We'll do computer drills and flash card reviews, but I thought it was funny that she was willing to plow through so much.) It's all about motivation, I tell ya!

Term B, Week 5 Report

2009-11-16T15:49:00.000-08:00

It was a good week. I already reported about the happiness on the reading front. Noodle got 100% on her spelling and math tests, so that was happy stuff, too.

Spud and I read a book called Moon Rabbit, and then sewed a rabbit for him (and then one for Noodle) based on the story.
I made a quick pattern and they were a fairly quick project (though I wish I'd have taken a little more time to ensure a better symmetry on the white bunny). After having a hard time with brown bunny's mouth, I utilized an online video directory of embroidery stitches for the white bunny's mouth, which turned out much nicer. It was good practice for the Christmas projects I'm making.

For science we learned about deserts and read some good books. While we were finishing up reading the book Cactus Hotel, Spud made this saguaro cactus out of Magformers. I thought that was pretty cool.

In history we learned about Crete and the story of the king who kept the minotaur under his castle in the maze and fed him Athenian children every year until Theseus (prince of Athens) killed the monster. I am trying to remember to do some geography with the kids, so I used our Children Just Like Me book and also a cool book I got from the library called How People Live and on Friday we read about modern day people in Crete. (They are called Cretans, which made me giggle.) That was a nice tie-in, I thought.

We also did read from Lives of the Musicians about Mozart. Did you know that if you played all of his music back to back it would go for 202 hours?! That's almost 8 1/2 days! I can't remember if I linked to this website before, but it has some great resources for music/composer study. We like to color the composers in lots of crazy colors and patterns. They kind of look like tattooed rock stars.

We also did a fun turkey craft that I got from here. I will put the pictures up next time I upload my card.

So, yeah, that's about it.

I'm a sucker for pretty things...

2009-11-13T08:46:00.000-08:00

So I'm blogging about this contest to win a very cute "hostess apron." How cute would I be then?

Spelling It Out

2009-11-12T20:11:00.000-08:00

So, you (and by you, I mean me) get lists from here (they also have word scrambles & alphabetizing worksheets for the lists)
Have your kids practice their spelling words here
And print out any extra stuff pages you might think of yourself here

Piece o' cake!

Yay!!

2009-11-12T19:35:00.000-08:00

So today I included an extra book in Noodle's workbox for her to read, in addition to her Amber the Orange Fairy reading. She read the first page, and I was sure she would complain about having to read the whole thing (it was fairly long), but when I offered to take turns reading pages with her she said, "No, I want to read it!" I could have done a happy dance! She read the entire thing, and didn't get tired or complain! I was so proud of her! I really think that working through the Rainbow Fairy chapter books is boosting her confidence. We've also been doing better at reading scriptures (instead of just working on the ones we memorize), and I'll have her read a verse. She's doing really well at that, too.

I don't know if she would have "bloomed" faster in reading if she'd been at school, but if not, it makes me happy to think that she hasn't ever had to feel "slow". From everything I've read and from talking to teachers, kids develop at wildly different paces when it comes to reading, but often by about third grade even the late bloomers have caught up. When I think of how Noodle was struggling last May and how much improved she is now, it's really encouraging.

Oh, and this is happening more often: Noodle will pick up a picture book or one of the baby's board books that are lying around and read the whole thing, either to herself or Spud or Sprout. Yesterday she read this book, which I have to say I just love. A very cute story of a boy whose mom won't let him get a dog, and his clever plan to convince her that dogs are pretty good pets to have around.

Term B, Week 4 Report

2009-11-09T20:20:00.000-08:00

We didn't do anything fabulously exciting. Spud needed to finish up his sticker chart so he could earn a prize the same day as Noodle, so I told him I'd give him 3 stickers for each BOB book he read. He read Mat, Sam & Dot with hardly any trouble. Just goes to show what a little incentive can do. He seems to be enjoying our new "relaxed" preschool. Every day we read a story and then do something that (usually) goes along with the story. We read this hilarious book called Ugly Fish. Then we drew our own versions of Ugly Fish and the other fish in the story. I should scan Noodle's in when I find it, as hers was quite good. Here are Spud's and mine:

Who's Who pages

2009-11-03T17:58:00.001-08:00

We only started doing these a few weeks ago. A couple of times I have gotten one out for Noodle but not Spud, figuring he won't want to do one. Then he asks for one, which makes me happy.

This week we are learning about Babylon and King Nebuchadnezzar. Both kids wanted to do their page on his wife, Amytis. I write the information (though today Spud really wanted to write on his page, so he did) as I want it to be a non-stressful activity for Noodle. Plus since we do History at the end of our school day, I don't think she has it in her to do any more writing or copywork.

Term B, Week 3 Report

2009-11-01T10:00:00.000-08:00

This is going to be a really short report.

This week we did Wetlands for Science. There isn't a page for it in our science "text" (Usborne's First Encyclopedia of Our World), but I thought wetlands merited some attention. Plus, we had BOTH Bill Nye and Magic School Bus episodes about wetlands. We read a book, watched the shows, and made a page for our science notebook.

History this week was on the Assyrians. We learned about Ashurbanipal and the fighting strategies of the Assyrians. We "reenacted" their two-man basket shield & arrow-shooting technique with markers and a laundry basket. We also built an Assyrian Siege Tower out of Legos (I'll add pictures later today, hopefully.)

Other than that, Noodle made good progress on reading Ruby the Red Fairy and was delighted to be able to create her own fairies on the Rainbow Fairies website. She and I also had a drawing together time, where we both drew pictures of fairies. I freehand drew my version of Ruby from the cover of the book. Since I'm not an artist, I was pretty pleased with the result, and I think I might enjoy drawing more fairies. Lately I'm finding that I can do okay if I have a picture to look at, and as long as it isn't supposed to look real. Cartoonish style is much easier for me.

We had a really full non-school week. We ended up taking Tuesday off, as we had some errands that we had to do and we also needed to get a present ready for Spud's friend's birthday on Wednesday. We checked out both Dollar Tree and Robert's Crafts looking for gift ideas (being on a very tight budget). We ended up buying a recipe box (as both kids thought the friend would like to have a box) and then making him a very cute Sculpey clay dinosaur and painting a peg doll like a caveman for him. We also made a little clay fire and Spud made a snake. Spud also painted a dinosaur magnet for him. We cut a piece of green fabric and put that in the box also. We also made him a necklace out of a circle of wood (we painted his initial on one side and a cool pattern on the other) and some beads and strung it on a leather string. I wish I'd have taken a picture. It was fun to work on together, and great because we had all the supplies already at home. I'd like to get more ideas for homemade birthday gifts and try to do that more often.

Noodle had Imagination Club on Wednesday, also, so we spent a lot of time out on Wednesday as well.

Thursday was a nice, regular day. Very productive!!

Friday Noodle took her Math test (100%) and spelling test (missed one, but easily fixed the mistake when I had her look at the word again), and did her reading and writing assignments. We hosted a Halloween Party for our homeschool group, which was fun. I wish I'd have planned things a little earlier, though. I think it went well, but I felt a little frazzled trying to do too much prep at the last minute. C'est la Vie!

Oh, we started on the subtraction chapters this week, and Noodle did so well on the first subtraction chapter on Monday that she wanted to take the test Monday, too. She did and didn't miss any. She has her addition facts down very solid (and is getting quicker as we keep doing the flash cards--she got 18 cards in a minute this week!) so I think that makes a big difference. I think we'll do two chapters a week for a while if she keeps sailing through them.

workboxes, update

2009-10-25T08:45:00.001-07:00

I still really like the workbox system. We use it for Noodle's school everyday. Most days she does all 12 folders, but maybe once or twice a week we only have 10. With Spud, I have been adjusting his preschool "work" so now we are only using about four of his folders, and I fill the rest of the chart with the stars and take out the unused folders. I made his box with the intent that he'll grow into using more of it, anyways, so I'm okay with not using it all that much right now.

After 8 weeks of workboxes, I think the primary benefits have been:

1. I am forced to plan our day beforehand when I get the workbox ready the night before (and even earlier when I am more on top of things). I made a "Workbox Extras Sheet" which is just a simple table with Monday-Friday down the left hand side and the kids' names across the top. I jot down in the space for each day what extras I want to put in (e.g. flash cards, books for reading, read-alouds, mazes, coloring pages, history or science stuff, games) and then it makes the process of actually filling the workboxes each night much quicker. Also, I have found it very helpful in typing up my weekly report, as I can just refer to this page as an overview. (I did this last week for the first time and it was great!)

2. Noodle feels like she has some control over her day because she is the one who gets to get the next activity out. She also knows how far along her school day is.

3. Easy to schedule time to do the small and/or fun activities. Along with this, I also like that it is easy to take breaks (necessary to take care of the baby, have lunch, have a snack, help the other child) and then resume.

So, I don't really see us NOT using workboxes in the foreseeable future. In case you were wondering. :o)

two websites full of great ideas

2009-10-24T15:51:00.000-07:00

Raising Olives

Homeschool Your Boys

So much good stuff!! Check them out!

Term B, Week 2 Report

2009-10-23T15:51:00.001-07:00

Oh yeah, I'm on top of things this week. We actually ended a little early today because Noodle had a friend come over so I decided "socialization" (snerk) was more important than more science (which we've already done 2x this week).

Language Arts
Reading
Noodle is nearly finished with the Yesterday's Classics First Reader. It has been a good one and she's enjoyed it. Three days this week, though, she read from Ruby the Red Fairy. It is a bit above her comfort level and is a beginning chapter book, but I wanted to find a book she'd enjoy reading and that would show her that YES she CAN read chapter books. If I'm there with her to help her when she gets stuck on a word (only so she doesn't get too confused trying to decipher the meaning when the words are wrong), she can maintain a fairly decent pace and enjoy reading the book. Earlier in the week we agreed on a "4 page/day" assignment, which seemed a little skimpy to me but I didn't want to push her too much, and today she was so into the book she read 10 pages! She just kept saying, "I have to find out what happens next!" and, "Sorry, Mom, but I just have to read one more page." I was so delighted!

She also read some advanced BOB books that we hadn't done before. And she picked up the Big Dog, Little Dog book I'd read to Spud yesterday and read it all the way through. Since she has not been a self-motivated reader, I am tickled every time she chooses to read something or read more on her own.

We (Noodle & I) also played the Y Not? game from Happy Phonics a couple of times this week after reviewing the Y-ending pages in Phonics Pathways. The first day we played it, she loved it and we had to play it three times. I was happy to do so.

Grammar
We learned pronouns this week. "A pronoun is a word used in the place of a noun."
I, me, my, mine
you, your, yours
he, she, him, her, it, his, hers, its
we, us, our, ours
they, them, their, theirs
She did really well and seems to grasp the concept without much difficulty. Next week we'll do a review page (from the Worksheet generator link I posted yesterday) to see if it is clicking. I think it is.

Spelling
Noodle was struggling with the words could and would when she would encounter them in her reading, so we did a list of regular "ou" words (i.e. proud, loud, round, found, out, etc.) and the three irregular words could, should & would. She got 100% on her Spelling Test today, but then in her reading stumbled over could the first time, but got it in subsequent encounters. Being as visual as she is, I think she has to see the words a lot before they are solid in her mind. My goal with spelling is to reinforce the rules as well as revisit some of the ones we may not have covered too solidly in the past.

Spud spelled some words from some pictures cards, but he wasn't too excited about it. I am planning on taking a break from really requiring him to read anything for a while. I wish I had some sort of handbook that would tell me the best way to motivate this little guy to learn. Te thing I have to remind myself over and over again now is that he hates to do things he can't do
well (as judged by some unknown standard in his mind), but he likes to do things he CAN do well. He hates to be on the spot for knowledge he isn't confident about. So we are shifting our preschool approach to reading books and doing activities.
One of Spud's favorite books is Big Dog, Little Dog, so for our first day of "new" preschool, we read this book and then he colored pictures of items from the story either red or green, depending on whether they went with Fred or Ted. I cut them out for him (because he didn't want to, for who knows what reason) and he glued them on. I freehand drew the dogs, and was pretty proud of myself.

Our agreement was that we would do two activities of my choosing every day (in addition to his computer school) and then we would do "Fun Time," where he gets to choose an activity to do with me for 15-20 minutes. We only started Thursday, but both days we built towers/buildings with blocks in the playroom and then crashed our matchbox cars into them. It was surprisingly fun. I have to keep reminding myself that learning stuff (reading, numbers/math, etc) isn't a race, and it really isn't going to affect them in the long run if they master reading 6-12 (or even longer) months earlier or later. What WILL matter, though, is the attitude they have about learning. Spud is a hard kid to teach, but he's a pretty easy kid to have fun with. So I'm hoping that working on our relationship will help him feel happier and more capable.

Writing
Noodle is doing really well with Writing With Ease, Vol. 1. I like that the lessons are grab-n-go and typically take less than 15 minutes to complete.

History - The Phoenicians
Did you know that the reason purple dye/cloth was so expensive long ago is because it came from sea snails that had to be gathered and boiled to get the dye, and it took a lot of snails to make the dye and it STUNK. Maybe you did, but I didn't. We learned all about the Phoenicians this week. How they lived in land (modern day Lebanon) that was inhospitable to crops or raising animals (due to the whole "no crops" thing), so they became totally awesome goods-makers and traders. They were the first to invent blown glass! They also had the first alphabet and made really nice furniture from the cedar trees there. They set up colonies around the Mediterranean. For our activity we made "Phoenician bread," which is known today as pita bread. No, I don't know if it is exactly the same, but it was one of the suggested activities in our book and we did it. The bread is delicious, by the way. I think we'll make it again sometime. (And I had to include these pictures of the kiddos enjoying the bread this morning!)

Math
Noodle started subtraction this week. She actually did a bit of subtraction in the Primer book last year, so it doesn't seem to be giving her any trouble right now. I suppose we could move faster through the Alpha book, but I feel okay at our current pace and I like that she is getting these basic math facts down solidly. From everything I've read, staying at our current pace she'll be plenty caught up by the end of elementary school. Also, I'm considering doing math through our longer breaks (Christmas & summer) which would help us keep making progress. Ever since I instituted the sticker charts for doing her math work, her attitude has been a lot better. I will say again, incentives definitely have their place! I also found my old addition flashcards so we did those a couple times this week. She earns one Skittle per card correctly answered, as many as she can do in a minute. (She also earns an equal amount of Skittles for Spud. I have him earn Skittles for her, too, some days, to keep it equitable and help them be happy for each other's achievements.) It's great because on Tuesday she got 9 the first minute, 10 the second minute, then 14 the third minute. She wanted to keep trying for more. Thursday she got 14 right off, and tried one more time and had some trouble and only got nine. A book I read about right-brained kids talked about how doing math problems quickly for timed tests can be a challenge since it takes time to visualize the problem, so I'm hoping doing the flash cards will improve her speed in a fun, not-too-stressful way.

Spud can count to 20 very solidly, so we are working on going to 100 now. He will get a "100 Cake" when he can count to 100 unassisted, just like Noodle did, and he is excited about that.
He also does well actually counting objects up to twenty and not just saying the numbers. We are also working on counting by 10s, as I think that will help with counting to 100.

Science - Seas, Oceans
So much STUFF about the ocean to learn. Which makes sense, seeing as oceans cover ~70% of the planet. I had no idea that the Pacific Ocean alone covers 1/3 of the Earth!! Crazy! I think it would be fun to do a longer, more in depth study of oceans sometime, but for now I feel okay with only a week. We did some experiments from the book Awesome Ocean Science. Two addressed how warm water and cold water interact and one was about how the coloring of penguins helps them hide from predators. There were 3 Bill Nye shows to watch (Ocean Exploration, Ocean Life and Oceanography), but we only got the first two done. In addition to our notebook page of drawings/information, I had each kid pick an animal discussed in one of the books we read and we did a coloring page of it. Spud picked an angler fish and Noodle picked dolphins. Spud really wanted a flatfish, but I couldn't find any good coloring pages of flatfish, unfortunately.

This experiment shows how warm water and cold water can take a long time to mix (part of what happens during El Nino). The yellow water was warm and the blue water was cold. Five to six hours after combining the two, they were only somewhat mixed (2nd picture). By morning they had completely mixed. It was really a fun one to do.
For this one, we made a red ice chunk in the bottom of a paper cup and froze it, then put it in a glass of lukewarm water. You can see the cold water carrying the color down, so it demonstrates cold water sinking.

New Activity - Safari
I came up with a new activity for Spud's workbox this week. We call it "Safari" and it means he picks an animal out of our "Wildlife Fact-File" and we read about it, find it's location on the map and then color a picture. This week he picked Desmodus rotundus, the Vampire Bat. We found out that an adult Vampire Bat drinks about 5 teaspoons of blood/day, so we measured out five teaspoons of water and dyed it red. (Though at first we couldn't find red so we did green instead. Then we found the red.) And then the kids wanted to drink the colored water. Sure, they don't really need the food coloring in their systems, but it was a nominal amount and added to the fun.

Music Appreciation - J.S. Bach
We did Vivaldi last week and are just going in order. I'm either going to have to keep rechecking this book out from the library or find another one. (Heck, if I get some $$ I might even buy it.) I really like the one I've been using. We talked about Bach and listened to some of his music. I also got some very simple sheet music from Making Music Fun
It's a little advanced for Noodle right now, but I played it for them and when she has the skills, she can try it. We also colored pictures of Bach. We all did really funky color combinations, which made it fun. Punk Bach.

In other music news, Noodle was assigned to learn a simple version of "We Wish You A Merry Christmas." At first, she was really intimidated by it (it is her first encounter with eighth notes) and said she didn't think she'd be able to do it. Within two days, though, she was in love with playing the song and played it many times a day. Soon she had it memorized. Such a funny girl. I'm trying to teach her to replace her negative "I'll never get it!" self-talk with more positive speeches. Slow going.

Other Stuff
The Hiding Ghosts activity. (They liked it, then Noodle drew one for me to find the ghosts.)

Muffin Tin Monday
Yup, we're still doing it. I've seen some online that are all theme oriented (i.e. apple related or all round). I don't yet have the creative juices for that (nor do I have the money to buy "special" food), but the kids enjoy eating their lunch this way. I have been glad that we often have a variety of cereal opened,as it's good when I run out of other foods.

Fall!
Either Tuesday or Wednesday, we woke up to see that most of the leaves had fallen off our maple tree. The kids had to run out and play (they even raked the leaves themselves to play in!). It was great to watch them and it made me happy that we have the flexibility we do because of homeschooling. Granted, overall there are lots of great reasons for homeschooling, but somedays it feels more poignant than others.

It can be a challenge homeschooling with a baby. His new mobility (he's a great crawler, though still not too speedy) is both a blessing and a challenge, as it keeps him entertained but his capacity for finding the wrong things to play with has exponentially increased. Plus, the diaper changes and naps can interrupt our flow. And it's really hard to do read-alouds if he wants to be held, since he likes to grab the book and crumple or eat it. That said, he's a lot of fun to have around. And he helps us not take ourselves too seriously, and remind us of what's really important.

(Not to mention the awesome power of cuteness.)

awesome worksheet generator

2009-10-22T08:52:00.000-07:00

Seriously, this is so cool! Even if all you wanted to do was make mazes, totally worth checking out.

use this all the time

2009-10-20T19:25:00.000-07:00

I've been using this for to make spelling lists and copywork for our grammar lessons. It's great! (Tip: If you don't have a color printer, uncheck "Show Color" and the lines will print in black & gray.)

fun fall crafts

2009-10-19T09:35:00.001-07:00

Oh how many hours I could contentedly while away looking for fun crafts and art projects to do with the kids! Here are a sampling of ones I hope to get to soon:

Hiding ghosties

Frankenfootprints & other Fun

Potato Prints (So pretty!!)

Fall Leaves Forever (or, Fun with Mod Podge) We did this over the weekend. Awesome!

And I can't remember where I pulled this guy off of, but isn't he cute? I think we'll use thumbtacks instead of golf tees just because I don't have golf tees.

Not fall related, but still fun:
Modern Art

Term B, Week 1 Report

2009-10-19T09:08:00.000-07:00

This is going to be short and devoid of photos. I'll do better for this coming week, though.

We had a good week. I was feeling pretty stressed about our current financial situation, so it was hard for me to be as "into" some of our activities, and therefore it didn't occur to me to take pictures. Also, Sprout was sick one day (Thursday) and the five days prior to that had not been sleeping well, so I was a bit out of the loop.

Some highlights: Noodle finished up the unit in MathUSee, so now she is ready to move on to subtraction. She did well in the subtraction that was started in the Primer, so I hope this won't be too big of a challenge for her. She took both her Chapter 17 test and her Unit Test (2 pages, 48 problems!) and aced them.

I told Spud that his attitude about getting his computer school done in the mornings would directly affect my attitude later that afternoon when he asked to watch cartoons. I also just told him he would be doing it first thing in the school day, since he seemed to just kind of mope around and stall because he didn't want to do it. Usually he enjoys it well enough once he gets going, but when he has all day to get himself in a bad attitude about it, it's that much less enjoyable. So, we laid those ground rules and it's been going better.

Both the kids filled up their sticker cards (Spud gets stickers for doing reading lessons/activities with me and Noodle gets hers for completing math pages & tests) and they got to pick a new little Neopets figurine. (The kids could care less about the Neopets part, they just like that they are cute. I picked up four sets at Shopko back in August that were on clearance, knowing the kids would think the little imaginary creatures were cute. Since each set has 3 figurines, it was a good value and the kids enjoy playing with their figurines together and anticipating earning the next one.)

For History we learned about Moses & the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt. Didn't really do anything special with it except read a story book about Miriam and baby Moses and color some pictures.

For Science we learned about mountains, and while it would have been awesome to go up into the mountains, we didn't. Our car is having a bit of an issue with coolant, so until we get that resolved, we're not making trips of any real length/intensity. Also, gas costs money, which we just don't have right now. We read a cool book, though, called Up On Denali that had a lot of interesting information about Denali (aka Mt. McKinley) in Alaska and mountains generally. The face of Denali is taller than the face of Everest, which I thought was cool. Personally, I think the face of a mountain is a more interesting measure of height than just the standard elevation. I'm interested in the amount of mountain, not so much in the amount of earth underneath the mountain!

I thought these pictures by the kids were pretty great.

Zebramobile, by Spud

Octopus School, by Noodle

Term A, Week 6 Report

2009-10-10T19:44:00.000-07:00

I'm late getting this one up because we have had such a nice week off!

History: The New Kingdom of Egypt
We learned about Hatshepsut, the female pharaoh, and Tutankhamen. Both interesting characters. I printed off a Who's Who in History page and both kids drew a picture of Hatshepsut--Spud drew her fake beard, which was pretty cute. One of the suggested activities was Be an Archaeologist, involving making the kids a map to follow and setting up a "tomb" like treasure that they have to find and then sketch it to document before they touch anything. David drew the map for me and had the kids go around the front yard, around the house a bit, and then around the back yard before ending up in the shed.
So, the rocks were arranged in a circle around their two chihuahua beanie dogs. I'd filled a jar with oversized plastic coins (the packaging actually said "Ginormous Coins") and filled their candy jars with Cocoa Puffs. The wrapped parcel with the string and spider on it was a package of little foam animal puzzles that you punch out and put together. The kids had a lot of fun with it.

Science: Rivers & Floods
We just read books. I had fun plans of doing a field trip to the river, but it was really cold most of the week and not conducive to outside adventures. We had a Bill Nye show to watch as well.

Language Arts
More of the usual. One of Spud's activities was Sound Match, where he had a bunch of items in his bag and the corresponding letter cards. Pretty straightforward, but he enjoyed it.

We also played "Scrambled Sentences" from the Happy Phonics. I think it is a good way to have him read without the pressure of reading a whole book. For some reason, he isn't excited by the prospect of reading books "all by himself." I guess I shouldn't be surprised, seeing as he hates being on the spot to do things he doesn't think he can do as well as others. But the games are a good way to practice the reading skills he does have. We also did the Word House and a game suggested called "Read Me Cards". He liked the house but didn't care much for the Read Me Cards game.

I did the EA Game from Happy Phonics with Noodle this week, too, as a review.

Other Stuff
We had our first Fun Friday where the kids got to invite some friends over. It went really well. We made mini pizzas, the kids played in the yard for a while and then came in to the garage for a dance party. We took a break in the middle of the dance party to have a nighttime sack race in the back yard.
I personally like the blurry pictures better as they capture the movement and lighting, but you can't see the kids that well.

I think before the next one I'll learn some of the "old" dance moves (Mashed Potato, etc) and teach those to the kids along with some of the disco moves. I also really want to learn the Miley Cyrus line dance and teach that to them. The dance party was amazingly fun, even for me. Nothing like cutting loose with a bunch of kids. We might even invite some more next time, now that I know we can handle it.

Spelling

2009-10-07T10:15:00.000-07:00

Lacking the money to purchase a snazzy spelling program right now, I'm going to just keep doing my own thing. I think for now we'll do "word families," which is a fairly standard approach for lists. I'm planning on just picking from this list or similar ones. I want to incorporate the rules of phonics/spelling as I think it will be a big help for Noodle as she continues to gain confidence in reading and as she prepares to do more independent writing.

Week 5 Report (Term A)

2009-09-29T16:46:00.000-07:00

I've decided to letter our terms, so this present week (Week 6) we will finishing up Term A. But here is our delayed report for last week.

Science: Earthquakes and Volcanoes
Watched 2 Bill Nye episodes (one on earthquakes & the other, you guessed it, on volcanoes) plus Magic School Bus Blows its Top. For Family Home Evening, David & the kids built a paper mache volcano, which was painted on Wednesday and finally erupted on Friday (I think). The kids really enjoyed it.

Science: Owl Pellet Dissection
We also dissected the owl pellet we'd found on the river trail. It was neat to see the tiny bones. I was hoping we'd have an intact skull, but we didn't. The lower jaws were really neat, as were the tiny femurs and ribs.

History: The Middle Kingdom of Egypt
I had plans to get some incense to burn (we talked about the Nubians and their use of incense and a lot of gold jewelry), but it didn't happen. Probably just as well as I don't particularly like incense. The smokiness of the aroma gets to me.

I don't know if I have mentioned what we use for history. We are using Story of the World (Volume 1). I like that it is really straightforward, and the story format is nice. You can also purchase an activity book that I think is really worth the money. It has maps and coloring pages, along with review/narration questions and project ideas/recipes. I split ours in half and spiral bound the "manual" portion of the activity book and then 3-hole drilled the remaining pages and scanned them in (which is allowable for use within your own family). So now I just print out the maps and coloring pages as we need them. Pretty nice. There are also CDs of the stories, which I think would be awesome, but they are too expensive for me to justify the price. I know a lot of families really enjoy listening to them in the car and such, which I think would be really nice. Maybe someday...

We did read an interesting book about the Egyptian Gods and Goddesses, though. I was glad the kids didn't clue in enough on the adultery/fornication that was alluded to. Sheesh, what is with those ancient cultures? I guess it is convenient to have imperfect gods if you don't really want to strive too hard with your own morality.

Language Arts
The Happy Phonics set I have has some "flip cards" that change words when you flip the middle vowel. I did these last week with Spud for his reading lessons and he really enjoyed them and didn't grouse at all. So I made five more sets. It was a really great way to get him some reading practice. I don't know why he is so resistant sometimes. Okay, I have an idea why (just hates doing things he doesn't know how to do...I know I've said that a dozen times at least). He was able to fill up his sticker chart the same day as Noodle, so that was happy for both of them. She earns her stickers for doing her math pages independently. I've realized that rewards are a good motivator for these kids. I try not to overdo it, though. We also played The Castle Game from the Happy Phonics set that helps kids identify short vowel sounds in words.

Oh, and he went on an L hunt.

Lion, ladle, letters, ladybug, ladder.

I have to say that I am really pleased with Noodle's progress in reading over the past four months. Last May she was really stumbling over a lot of words , even if she'd seen them many times before. We have done a few things in the intervening months that may have helped. We watched the phonics lessons on The Phonics Page. Then I started working through these Blend Phonics lessons and reading from the Blend Phonics Reader. I think going through these things where the phonics rules are presented so sequentially and individually has likely helped her quite a bit. She's a rule-minded kid. (I'm pretty sure her OCD has a role in that.) We have a few lessons left on the Blend Phonics, and I think we will finish them, I'm just taking a bit of time off to review some of the word sets she's had some trouble with. (I'm using Phonics Pathways a little for the review.)

One cool thing was that I put a Dora early reader book that we've had for quite a while in her workbox. She saw it and said, "Oh, these are really hard. I'm not good at reading these." I told her I thought she'd do just fine, and she practically breezed through it. I think she is really gaining confidence, which is great.

I usually have her draw or color a picture after she finishes reading from her reader, and she drew such a great picture after reading the poem "The North Wind." You can see a little of it in a couple of these photos.Here's Spud making designs on the Geoboards. The kids really like these.

Math
Noodle was doing the chapter about Making 10. One of the activities from the Games for Learning book was a perfect supplement/review of these facts. It's called Pyramid. We are using it again this week for Making 9.

For making 10, take out all the face cards, and make a pyramid of cards (facing up)..., one at the top, six at the bottom, each row overlapping/tiled over the one above. You can only use the "free" cards (the ones not covered by another card) and your extra cards in a deck to make 10s. Try to get the entire pyramid gone. For Making 9s, just take out the 10s. Here's a picture of her playing the Making 9 pyramid.

It might be really obvious to people who play Solitaire, but not being one of those people, it was new to me. She really likes it, though, and it's a great review.

Extras
Spud made a cute hand & footprint lobster from the Just for Fun blog (linked below). I should get a picture taken of it, but I haven't yet. Both kids had fun painting their hands and feet and making prints on the paper. We'll have to do those types of activities again. The blog has a lot of different ideas that involve hand & feet prints, so check it out!

We made stamps for our craft out of small log rounds and foam. We cut the shapes out of foam (also used some foam stickers we had). We finally found our stamp pads today and tested them out, and they work pretty well. It was a fun project, and even Spud got really into it. He wanted to make a rain stamp and a couple of circle stamps, then a fish stamp (with a sticker) for David.

And of course we had Muffin Tin Monday again:
Our other muffin tin is older and less nice looking, so the kids have to take turns having the nicer one. The left column is Desserts.

fun art projects

2009-09-22T20:41:00.000-07:00

On this Just for Fun blog.

Ruth Heller's books about grammar

2009-09-22T15:40:00.000-07:00

I just learned about these today. I'm going to check out this one from the library since we are still studying nouns. Quite a few people at the Well-Trained Mind forum have mentioned they like them. There is a whole series, including Collective Nouns, Verbs, Adjectives, Adverbs, etc.

UPDATE: These books are GORGEOUS! The illustrations are simply beautiful. Spud picked the "Verbs" one out of the library basket the other day to read, and while I don't know that the concept of "verb" sunk in, it was an enjoyable read and, like I've mentioned twice, the pictures are breathtaking. Definitely worth a look. We still need to read the one about nouns. I will try and get it in the workbox soon.

handwriting paper

2009-09-22T14:44:00.000-07:00

I have done a few searches trying to find good printable handwriting paper, so just in case you find yourself looking, here's a good one.

fun phonics game

2009-09-22T11:47:00.000-07:00

Phonics Concentration. We play a little differently, though. We don't keep any of the cards, we just put them in a discard pile after we sound them out. Noodle loves this game and it is good practice for her. I'm going to make a junior version for Spud, as he has played with us in the past (on my team) and enjoyed it. I've printed off her cards before, but last night I remade a set on some mini index cards, then sewed two little bags, one for the starting cards and one for the ending cards, then rather than laying out all the cards (which can take some time and more space than we often have cleared) we can just draw the cards out of the bags.

Week 4 Report

2009-09-18T17:34:00.000-07:00

This week FLEW by! Spud hasn't been doing his workbox the past couple of days, which was good in that it gave me some time to reflect (and consult the folks over at the WTM forum) on what is most important for me to be doing with him right now. He knows all of his letter sounds and is quite good at sounding out 3-letter words. But he is so resistant to trying things in front of people when he doesn't feel confident that he will succeed. He has always been this way. He used to say, "Tant say it," when we'd ask him to say a word that he knew he couldn't. And then, voila! a few days or weeks later, we'd notice him saying the word without any fanfare. And he really doesn't like attention drawn to his new achievements, either. I guess it's some weird variety of perfectionism, but it sure is hard to figure out how to teach this little guy. He was/is the same way when learning his ABCs, drawing, counting, learning new songs, and pretty much everything I can think of. As a total non-perfectionist (I'm perfectly happy to bumble my way through most anything!), I have a hard time relating.

Anyways, all that to say that I'm going to back waaay off the reading stuff and just let him pick things up on his own. I'm also going to do some non-handwriting methods of reinforcing proper letter formation (draw in a pan of sand/cornstarch, playdoh letters, possibly make some sand ABC cards for some of the letters, etc.) as he likes to write letters, but his formation is just not very good and, not surprisingly, he is resistant to practice as that is an admission that he can't do it very well. But, back to the weekly report.

Science
We did Rocks & Fossils this week. We had two Bill Nye Episodes (Rocks & Soil, Fossils) and one Magic School Bus episode to watch. Those are always fun, and I know they help me retain the information more when it is presented entertainingly. Yeah, I know we shouldn't have to be entertained to learn, but that doesn't mean it's a bad thing when it works! We read a couple of books about rocks and fossils, including this one:

We also went to the BYU Paleontology Museum with our homeschool group. Can I tell you that I was delighted how the timing on that worked out? Fun fun. The museum is not huge, but it has a nice-sized collection and is about right for elementary aged kids. We love the one at Thanksgiving Point, but it is HUGE and really more than anybody can take in on a single visit. Plus, the one at BYU is free! (I gave the kids all my change to "feed" the dino skull donation box, though.) I think I'd like to make a point of going to each of the free museums in the area at least 1-2x/year. I think the repeated exposure is good for kids and adults, and you always notice something different.

We also did a rock craft, where we mod-podged fabric shapes on rocks to make animals. Or just a sticker. Or painted the rocks. Obviously we were flexible. We got that idea here. I think it would be fun to do what the blog author does and make enough to tell a story, but that would work better as a multi-part project (cut out all the shapes one day, find appropriate sized rocks one day, mod-podge another day) than a single afternoon.

History
We did Ancient Africa this week. There isn't a lot of information really about Ancient Africa (outside of Egypt) because they didn't keep written records that have survived. They did tell oral stories that were passed down, though, including the stories of the spider/man Ananse. (I've seen multiple spellings, but I'm going with that one.) We really enjoyed reading a lot of Ananse stories, listening to the Ananse song by Raffi, and then we finished up our week Friday afternoon by making our very own Ananse spiders out of Sculpey and wire. My first idea for doing the legs didn't work, so we ended up building an armature out of wire and then building the clay around it. I thought to make a sort of tutorial, but then got distracted by doing it and taking care of Sprout, so it didn't happen. The finished products are pretty cute though, methinks.

Language Arts
Like I said, Spud was taking a break from his workbox for part of the week, which was okay. Something new we added in this week for him, though, was "Letter Hunt." I sewed this polka-dot bag for him (you can kind of see it in the letter P picture) and I give him a letter card to go on a letter hunt. I have to say, I was surprised that we kept thinking of more and more things that started with P. It doesn't seem like that common of a letter, but we finally just had to stop looking (as the kids kept making me take a picture after we added each new thing. Good thing we have digital cameras!) I think he enjoyed doing it, so we'll probably add it to our mix of letter-related activities.

Noodle and I spent 2-3 days on soft "c" words. She also kept working through her Yesterday's Classics reader.

Muffin Tin Monday
I'm on a quest to find more fun things to make the days more enjoyable, and the first idea I came across that struck my fancy was Muffin Tin Monday.
It seemed both simple and fun, so I decided to give it a try.

It was a hit! And really didn't take any more effort than a regular lunch, so hooray! Noodle ate all of hers, Spud didn't quite finish. I think I'd like to find a 3rd muffin tin for me, too! And I think it is funnt that Noodle is making such weird faces in both of the pictures. Little nut.

Math
Still chugging along! Sprout likes the manipulatives. I love that he can make a mess, be happy, and it is easy to clean up.

Other Stuff
We went on a loooong walk on the River Trail this week, too. Both kids are now really adept at riding their scooters, which is fabulous as they can speed around at a reasonable pace for me to kind of keep up with. Their bikes are too fast and with walking they get tired or bored too quickly, so the scooters are a nice middle ground. We had a really nice time and found a partial owl pellet on the trail that we will dissect this next week.

Oh, last week (week 3) there was a traveling "Leo on Wheels" science exhibit at one of the schools down in Mapleton, so we went to the Community Night. It was really cool, and free! I found out about it through the newspaper. I know a lot of people get their news (if they get any) online, but I can always find half a dozen things I'd rather do online than browse the news, and I like leafing through the paper and catching headlines. I don't get it read or even skimmed every day, but I like the connection to the community it affords. /tangent/

So, it was a good week. We have two more weeks until the end of our first term (we have six weeks on, one week off with a longer break for Christmas, and we have six terms in our school year) and I'm thinking of having a Fun Friday for the kids and some friends on the last Friday of the term. I think we'll invite a couple of the kids' friends over and the kids can all make mini pizzas and maybe sundaes or root beer floats and play together for a few hours.

good links

2009-09-17T21:48:00.000-07:00

30 Simple Ways to get your Child Ready to Read
Even if your child is reading, these are still some good ideas, especially if you have a next child.

Very Cute Coloring Pages (Animals)
If you have an animal-loving child like I do, you will appreciate these cute printable coloring pages!

Week 3 Report

2009-09-14T15:22:00.000-07:00

It was a good week.

Science
We studied weather and storms. We watched the Bill Nye episode "Storms" and did three weather related art activities from this book. Here's one of them, Rainy Pictures:

I thought it was so fun that I had to make one, too.

History
We discussed Ancient China this week, and learned a little about dynasties. We discussed the emperor's wife who "discovered" silk, and how making it was a prized secret for a really long time. We also learned about pictograms and painted pictograms of our own to try and communicate messages. We realized there is lots of room for error when you are just drawing pictures, and it would be hard to communicate exactly without written words. We also readwhich is a cute story about a little duck who lives on the Yangtze River in China.

Math
The chapter for this week was largely review, so Noodle did some of it but we mostly practiced more with telling time. She seems to be getting the hang of it now.

Language Arts
Noodle continued reading stories from the Yesterday's Classics First Reader, and I did a couple of Phonics Pathways (PP) lessons with Spud, and then switched over to The Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading (OPG). He didn't like how PP has "partial words" to read, so I think we'll try the OPG "full word" approach for a little while. He is really good at sounding out the words, but I don't know how to facilitate him being motivated enough to want to read on his own. He's so difficult in this way, in that he can't be pushed into doing anything...he has to find it enticing. I'm not so good at the "enticing" part. Noodle's reading has really improved dramatically over the past four months, but she still isn't really interested in reading on her own for pleasure. I'm not sure how to spark that, if I even can. Perhaps it won't happen until she is reading with ease. I know there is a wide range of "normal," and she's still well within that, but I look forward to the day when she is excited to read for recreation.

Extra Activities
One fun one we did this week was an activity appropriately called "Estimate it!" We first estimated the number of Skittles in a cup.

How many do you think there are? Answers below. (Don't try and count and/or multiply...that's
not really estimating. Okay, maybe it is, but as the kids don't have that skill, we don't do it.)

We then estimated the number of pencils in the pencil jar and the number of marshmallows left out in the bag. Noodle got both the number of pencils and the marshmallows exactly right. Weird.

(I think not all pencils are visible...sorry about that!)On Friday late afternoon we went to one of the city parks and had a really nice time. We had an "early out" day, so the kids finished school rather early, played with the neighbor girl while Sprout took his afternoon nap, and then we packed snacks and headed out to the park. We took Daisy (our bichon frise) with us and had a lot of fun playing fetch and running around with her. We even took her to Michael's afterwards and they didn't bat an eye, in fact they commented on her cuteness.

I know I'm leaving out some stuff that is worth mentioning, but such is life!

Answers:
160 Skittles
23 Pencils
48 Marshmallows

Old Fashioned Primer Readers

2009-09-12T15:07:00.000-07:00

I'm pretty sure I mentioned/linked to the readers I bought for Noodle. She has really liked them. On a forum I frequent, someone mentioned using Google Books and searching for "First Reader". There are TONS! So now I'm compiling a "combo reader" of stories I think Noodle will enjoy reading. Then I'm going to print them out and have them spiral bound.

still enjoying our workboxes

2009-09-09T07:23:00.000-07:00

This is week three, and the kids are still responding well to their workboxes. Some of the novelty has worn off, but they are still working through their folders with a general level of enthusiasm. One advantage I'd not really thought of to this system of managing our school day is that it is very easy to take breaks. When you have a baby that doesn't always have your schedule in mind, this is a really big benefit. Also, since most of the work for the kids requires some mom assistance, it is good to be able to switch back and forth. We do most of the stuff in the kitchen at the table, and the kids are getting good at waiting for a few minutes for me to finish up with the other child. I really like that the workboxes take me out of the equation of the kids knowing how much work there is to do. Before, Noodle was always asking if we were almost done. Now she knows how close to "done" she is by looking at the chart on the front of her workbox. It was hard for me to have to keep saying, "No, we still have X, Y and Z to do." Now she doesn't ask, she just does.

Oh, one thing that has really streamlined my workbox prep every evening is to make a 3x5 card for each day with the subjects that will be in the workbox that day. I can refer to the card, put those materials in the workbox, and then add any extras (games, etc) in to fill the rest of the box up. I finally got around to making up the 3x5 cards for Spud's box on Monday, and it has been really nice. Prior to doing so, I felt like I had 9 folders to fill "out of nowhere" every day. Now it's usually only about 4. Much more manageable.

great idea

2009-09-07T20:54:00.001-07:00

Found this fabulous idea today. I already use transparencies in our Math U See workbook (the pages aren't removable), but this is a great way to reuse those tear out workbook pages, plus keep it fresh by offering just a few at a time. I already had some of the folders (got them at OfficeMax for 1 cent each a few weeks ago!), so now I have some of these made up for handwriting practice. Whoo hoo!

Week 2 Report

2009-09-05T15:11:00.001-07:00

Language Arts
Noodle read the following stories from Yesterday's Classics Primer:

The Pancake
Three Billy Goats Gruff
Little Tuppens
Little Spider's First Web

And read The Three Little Pigs from the First Reader.

I had her do a coloring page or a drawing after each one, which she really seems to like. She did a paper craft of Little Spider's First Web that she really enjoyed. She'd asked to do some cut & paste projects like Spud has been doing.

She also did her lessons from Writing With Ease, Level 1 and we did our grammar lessons from First Language Lessons. Spud often joins us for the grammar lessons.* (see below for story)

Spud reviewed his short vowel sounds this week and we started on the "blends" in our Phonics Pathways book. He said he didn't like that the sounds (i.e. sa, se, si, so, su) weren't actual words, so we may need to try a different approach. From his Upstart (computer-based preschool activities) and some of our own activities, I think he is getting the concept of sounding things out pretty well, but he is so reluctant to DO anything that he can't do well. I really don't know how much to try some of the different phonics type activities with him, as he doesn't want to try them. I finally finished prepping the rest of my Happy Phonics materials, so I think we will utilize those this coming week in lieu of the Phonics Pathways and see how he responds.
Here's the awesome Alligator I mentioned before. The kids insisted that he have a body.

Science
We did Seasons this week, and read a couple of books and watched the Bill Nye episode about Seasons. Also did a paper craft showing the different seasons. For our Earth Science text, we are using the First Encyclopedia of our World and doing either a single or multiple topics each week. So far, so good.

History
Ancient India was this week (Chapter 10, I think, in Story of the World Volume 1). In addition, we read One Grain of Rice and are going to read Once a Mouse tonight. The kids really liked One Grain of Rice and how starting with one grain of rice and doubling it every day for 30 days could result in so much rice by the end.

Math
Spud did some number matching again and we also played Numberbow. (You roll the dice and add them up, then color that number on your rainbow. Each person takes 12 rolls, and whoever has the most of their rainbow colored wins. Of course, my kids are so competitive, or maybe just poor losers for now, that we don't focus so much on winning.) I got the big dice at Dollar Tree a few weeks back and they have been a fun addition to some of our games.

He did some pattern blocks and then made his own block "monster".
I told him it reminded me of an owl, but he insisted it was a monster, and then proceeded to add more "monstery" features.

Noodle did her Math U See lesson about doubles and only missed one on her test. She wrote that 30 + 30 = 16, which I think happened only in the writing stage, as she sometimes gets 16 and 60 messed up, as well as 12 and 20. I told her this week that I think it's funny she doesn't like math, as most kids like things they are good at. "They do?" she asked, incredulous. We started a sticker card for her in an effort to make math a bit less of a dreaded thing. She gets one sticker for each workbook page she does on her own, two if she gets 100% on her weekly test and 1 if she doesn't get 100% on her test. I caved and gave her two even though she had the mistake on this week's exam, because once I pointed out the missed problem, she solved it correctly right away.

Piano
Noodle did well on the songs she had a chance to practice and we played the duet version of Ladybug for Leadership School Tuesday evening. She was kind of worried that afternoon because she didn't have it exactly perfect every time, but when we performed it, she didn't miss a single note! And neither did I, thankfully.

I thought this was a cute scene I happened upon one day:
Sprout was clapping happily on the floor while Noodle played Yankee Doodle and Spud played with toys and bounced around on the sofa.

That's all that comes to mind right now. We ended up doing only part of our school day Thursday because Sprout was sick. I just couldn't handle a fussy, barfy baby who hadn't slept well the past two nights (which meant I hadn't either!) AND have the patience/attention necessary to help the kids with their lessons.

Friday we did our lessons and spent a couple of hours up the canyon at the 2nd Annual Homeschoolers Picnic, put on by our friends Nickie & Gove Allen. It was a lot of fun. Spud got soaking wet in the shallow part of the river there (which was fun for him) and Noodle got to play with a neighbor boy whose family is new to homeschooling this year. We are lucky to have a few homeschooling families in our ward, even if we don't necessarily do activities together. At least it makes us seem a little less "weird" at church.

* Noodle (and Spud, apparently) have been learning about complete sentences, and we were all hanging out up in my bedroom one afternoon and Noodle answered some question and Spud said, while dangling sideways off the desk chair in a bored, nonchalant voice, "That's not a complete sentence, Noodle." She was a bit taken aback, and I was surprised, and explained that while it wasn't a complete sentence, and complete sentences are really good to use, we often speak in incomplete sentences and that's acceptable.

Week 2

2009-09-01T16:52:00.000-07:00

We had a wonderful week off last week. I was really glad we didn't try and school M-W, even though we didn't leave town until Wednesday evening, as there was a lot of last minute details to attend to.

I feel like I am slowly getting into a groove with the workboxes. I am hopeful that soon I will be able to plan a week in advance (mostly) and then just fill the boxes quickly (15 minutes or so) every evening, or, better yet, in the afternoon after we are finished for the day. I need to incorporate more crafts into Noodle's box, because she likes them so much. I've been letting her join in with Spud's, but I think she would like to have some of her own.

This week we are doing Seasons in science and Ancient India in history.

A few pictures:

Spud doing his sorting & number match. He likes this because he gets to eat the goldfish at the end. I'm impressed--he can recognize all of the numbers up through nine. Eventually we'll move into the teens.

Making an owl for "O". You might not guess by his expression, but he really enjoys these paper crafts. We made a pretty awesome alligator for A yesterday.

Here are a couple of great resources for letter-inspired activities:
No Time for Flash Cards
Crafty Crow ABCs

Pics of our workboxes

2009-08-21T07:50:00.001-07:00

Usually there are 12 folders in my daughter's box. Today we a have a lighter load, so that's why there are only 10 and there are the 2 stars on the chart to block off the unused numbers.

first & second days of school

2009-08-18T21:30:00.000-07:00

So we started "back" to school yesterday. (I put back in " " because we really only took a week off from doing anything...we had a lighter schedule in the summer, but as Noodle needed to improve her reading skills, we kept with a lot of phonics instruction and did math on occasion, too). I opted to go with a workbox approach this year. I'll get some pictures up at the end of the week. Thus far, it has been a BIG success with the kids, which is great. I'm certain it will take less time and effort from me as I get the hang of it. Honestly, it's Spud's workbox that takes a little more thought, as he mostly just needs activities that have a loose tie-in to academics. They don't really even need that, but it's nice. He has really liked using his workbox, though, and it forces me to be engaged with him instead of just sending him off to do his "computer school" or entertain himself for the 2ish hours I'm doing school with Noodle. So, while I feel pretty wiped out at the end of school time, I feel like it is productive and enjoyable. I'll keep working on coming up with ideas for the workboxes and hopefully that will cut down on the prep time for me. I'd like to have a sort of rotation for him where he has some types of activities he does every week, and then only 2-3 variable ones each day. As it is now, I feel like I'm trying to come up with 9 fresh things every day. Though we do have his phonics instruction/review, his computer time, and "A Label A Day" everyday, so that's three down out of nine.

One minor frustration has been that Noodle was disappointed that Math was part of the workbox, as she thought the workbox was supposed to make school fun. It's funny that she seems to have an aversion to math, as it seems to come quite easily to her. I've been reading up on right brained learners and I have to wonder if it isn't the effort of getting the answers from her head down on to the paper that makes it so tedious for her. So for the second page of math today we did it mostly verbally and I didn't require her to write down the answers. I think I'll try that with her everyday and see if it helps.

Her reading is really improving. I got this primer (and the later books) for her, and I think it is a great book. It had received quite high reviews, and I think it lives up to them. What is nice is that the stories are REAL stories, and likely ones the child is familiar with. There is a lot of repetition, so once the child figures out the words, they have a lot of opportunity to practice them. Plus, with so many words on each page, it feels like they are really reading a story. So, I've been impressed. I've also been printing out a coloring page for her to do after each story, which I think she enjoys. I need to figure out a way to incorporate more art in our week. Mostly, I think I just need to figure out a way to have a bit more energy. I was wiped out after today. I actually had to take a little nap.

in a perfect world...

2009-08-15T12:17:00.000-07:00

I'd have a friend who lived next door who had kids the same ages as mine and also shared my homeschool philosophy, then we'd split the work and double the fun.

A mom can dream, right?

Months & Days

2009-08-13T08:26:00.000-07:00

I think I'll make a better effort to teach the kids their months and days now that I've found a couple songs I like.

Months of the Year

Days of the Week
Sung to the theme of The Addams Family:

Day's of the week
(clap, clap)
Days of the week
(clap, clap)
Days of the week
Days of the week
Days of the week
(clap, clap)
There's Sunday and there's Monday
There's Tuesday and there's Wednesday
There's Thursday and there's Friday
And Then there's Saturday
Days of the week
(clap clap)
Days of the week
(clap clap)
Days of the week
Days of the week
DAYS OF THE WEEK!

ridiculously excited

2009-08-06T22:10:00.000-07:00

about this book, Games for Learning. I think it is just the thing to invigorate our homeschool time this Fall. I am doing a "workbox-type" system, and I really wanted some fun activities to mix it up with the academic pursuits. These are all 10 minutes or less games, and I think the kids, especially Noodle, will really like them. I think Spud will like them, too. At least I hope so. He is doing his "I'm incapable of doing anything that isn't my own idea" thing again. sigh.

And one of the libraries around here (not mine, but in the next town) has her other books. Yay!!

Update on Spud's ABCs

2009-08-03T11:59:00.000-07:00

We did a "quiz" this morning and he only had a slight bit of trouble with G, Y & W.

small expression of gratitude

2009-07-28T22:27:00.001-07:00

We have a ward (church) email list where people can send out requests/offers/etc. A while back I put out a request for paper that had one blank side, and since then I've had people periodically drop off sizable amounts of one-sided paper. When you homeschool AND have a prolific artist in the house, you can't have too much free paper! It really has been a great blessing. Right now I'm printing off these beginner books for Spud and am using one-sided paper. I'm planning to get them spiral bound but figure since my printer really only does one-sided well, I might as well save on the paper cost.

abc master

2009-07-19T21:42:00.000-07:00

Spud knows almost all of his letter sounds! There are a few still giving him trouble, but tomorrow I'll make note of those and hopefully by the end of the week he'll have them nailed down.

New book

2009-07-19T21:36:00.000-07:00

One of the best things to encourage novice readers is high-interest books at below their current level. The problem I've had is that there just haven't been any of high enough interest for Noodle. On Friday I took the kids to Barnes and Noble to use a gift card I'd gotten for my birthday. She originally picked out a single "Biscuit" story (for $3.99), but then we found a collection of 10 stories for $12, which I figured was a pretty great deal per story. She was quite excited about it, and has been reading a couple of stories every day since then. She really loves the illustrations and frequently comments about how cute the various characters in the stories are. And she is looking forward to finding some more Biscuit stories next time she is able to buy a book. I know it is a small thing, but it is certainly notable. She was also reading stories to herself, and skipping words she didn't know but then figuring them out as she went on, which is a big improvement over getting frustrated about not knowing the words. So, yay for Biscuit!

This past week

2009-07-18T11:20:00.000-07:00

We bought this for Spud & Sprout (eventually). (It was only $20 at Wal-Mart.) I've decided that I hope the two boys can pick up a lot of the reading fundamentals on their own, so I'm all in favor of tools that help, and the Fridge Phonics set was recommended by a lot of people on the Well-Trained Mind forum. Noodle continues to improve steadily, so I feel okay about her progress. This week she finished up Ch 9 in Alpha MUS, and Lesson 6 in ETC 3. We are through Lesson 14 in Blend Phonics. She read "The Visit," a BOB Book for four days just to build confidence, and by the 4th day was very quick and fluid for most of it.

Spud passed off his short vowel sounds to me this week. We also did the first two Progressive Phonics books. He can be so obstinate about doing things that aren't his idea, so I'm hoping as time goes on he will acquiesce as he gets used to the routine.

9s addition facts

2009-07-08T14:10:00.000-07:00

We have opted to do the Math-U-See curriculum with the kids. Noodle is in the Alpha book, and today we just started lesson 9, which happens to be 9s addition facts. I wanted her to "get it," but knew that it would be best if it clicked in her brain without me making it too obvious. We watched the chapter intro video, then started doing some practice problems. And it clicked! We drilled the facts by her marching around the ottoman while I tried to build the problem/answer pair with the manipulatives before she could recite the problem/answer, i.e. "Nine plus five is fourteen!" She really enjoyed it and she was fast! We probably did 20+ problems and I was only faster twice.

preschool fun

2009-07-04T21:08:00.000-07:00

So because I have been spending so much time with Noodle (just turned 7) trying to get her up to speed with her reading, it's easy to let Spud's preschool activities get shuffled to the side. He does his UpStart preschool/reading learning 5 days a week for at least 15 minutes, and I can tell he is learning his letters and sounds and making progress. Anyways, on Friday I took the time to do the Happy Phonics Muffin Match game with him. We had quite a lot of fun reviewing the letters, pretending to bake the muffins (the sofas were our stoves) and then having a muffin party with some of the stuffed toys and giving them their appropriate letter. From left to right there is "Beary, Fuzzy, Woggle, Daisy, Spot, Monkey, Rat, & of course my cute C boy. I was happy to spend a bit of extra fun "school" time with him this week. We did a couple of other activities earlier in the week as well.

main goal for summer

2009-06-26T11:15:00.000-07:00

My main goal for this summer is to get Noodle (age 7) reading up to grade level. I think between her OCD and being very right-brained, reading is just a lot of work for her. We recently went through most of the phonics lessons on http://www.thephonicspage.org and what I realized was that having OCD and being all about the rules, she probably really needs a thorough understanding of phonics in order to feel confident enough to read. I was never trained in phonics, and was an early reader as well as a great speller, so I didn't really understand the benefit of or role of phonics. Last night I made up a bunch of phonogram cards (hopefully I'll have some time to put the links up for those this weekend) and then today we reviewed the ones that I figured she knew well enough and worked through some others ("oy," "oi," "ou," "ew," "ui"). We did some spelling and some sentence reading, and one thing that she really liked is having her read a sentence and then illustrating it. We did a page of Explode the Code book 3 (which we haven't done since the beginning of May when we started those other phonics lessons) and then did some activities from the teacher's guide. She also really liked finishing sentence starts, and put special effort into making them funny. So I think those two things (illustrating sentences read and writing silly sentences) will have to be a part of our regular routine.

Gearing up for the year

2009-06-23T21:32:00.000-07:00

I don't have any grand aspirations for this blog, really. Mostly I just want to be able to keep track of things for myself and report on various homeschool endeavors, and I doubt that the handful of people who follow my regular blog would care much about these details. And I've started other blogs that kind of died before they had much momentum, which obviously is no real skin off my nose. But, here it is, and if it works, then great!