Always Organizing Something

 

The Homeschool Cooperative, the hen house, the lessons, the kitchen cabinets, the bookshelves, the entire schoolhouse, the closet, my drawers, the toys, the linen closet, the laundry room, and the space under the bathroom sink.  That is my list of constant reorganization projects.  Mind you, I do not like to feel organized.  I actually thrive better on the spur of the moment snapshots in life. My house in general is so disorganized that it is always in need of a good cleaning.  Still, I find that I do indeed spend too much of my time getting things in order. 

The kitchen seemed to implode and so I began to tackle it.  I looked at it for days.  I kept the dishes going in and out of the dishwasher but did little with the rest of the disaster.  The time came that is had to be tackled.  I could have just cleaned it up but instead I ended up emptying the cabinets and decided they needed a scrubbing (not done in years) and reorganized everything that I have on the shelves. I even have great plans in the next several days to move the plastic storage containers to a new area of the kitchen.  One that will not have it all fall on my head when I open the cabinet. 

My role with the cooperative group is "class coordinator".  I have been encouraging people to think ahead for the fall since the second day of spring semester.  I know that time will pass quickly and the classes will need to be approved, assigned a class hour, assigned a room and hope that it will flow well for the children who will go from room to room.  Yesterday the coordinator group met for four hours to adjust some of this year's plans.  When seven people sit at a table, mostly strangers, on a July afternoon and conceive an idea, somebody should stop them.  As it turned out the cooperative group was unbelievable, especially for the first year.  Now we face a little growing pains and have had to make some pretty business like choices to assure it's success.  I am thrilled with the results and envision great things in the fall.  Yet, it was another case of reorganization that had to take place.

Let us not forget the horrible part of the house that I call "break your back alley".  It is the narrow opening to the area under the bathroom sink.  Items tend to dance around in there at night and so it is a never ending project so that when somebody needs to reach under the sink they do not have to call for me to be present.  They can find what they need without me. 

The schoolhouse is the part that surprises me.  As we try to set it up to be efficient I also want it to feel warm and inviting.  It was OK but not really set up the way I liked it.  Then a wonderful thing happened in the room.  The two girl rabbits had babies.  I guess somebody made an error.  I had noticed for several months that we seemed to always having to clean around their pen much more. That areas of something spraying looked possible.  Needless to say I have found a new spacious home for the rabbits.  They now live in the hen house.  They seem to love it there.  I do not like rabbit hutches unless you are raising the rabbits as a source of food. 

As it turns out the two year old also tends to hit and run.  When Kelley drops off the girls he will play.  He will pull out items.  He will explore them.  He will not pick them up and Kelley is out the door while we are faced with a mess.  Combine the rabbit issue with the Owen issue then surround it with the final weeks of cooperative classes and teaching Grace and Faith.  It becomes a room that is impassable.  It no longer is conducive to a positive learning environment. 

Remember however that I really did not like the room set up as much as I had expected.  So, all items. YES all items were removed from the schoolhouse today and set on the deck.  I cleaned the wall that had be soiled by the male rabbit and I had to clean a carpet that had also been victim to the incorrect gender identification.  Then in it came.  First to go were the bean bags that I had in the reading corner.  Turns out it was not as comfy as I had expected and the bags were very cheap items purchased at Big Lots store.  Desk no longer angled to the girl's design but place directly in front of their large white board.  Then I took the Melissa and Doug easel that I have and put it in the reading corner. I made an area that will better fit Owen for the brief time he is in the schoolhouse.  The easel will be his white board for a while.  Until now, it has been a primary items used for each girl for four years.  I moved the display table. I moved my table. I moved the printer and organized the bookshelves. 

I kid you not, I never have cleaning energy.  Today it became one of those moments that something had to be done so lets start at the beginning.  As my husband came home tonight he checked in on us.  He really liked the new layout as well. Most of all he liked the mess to be gone.  I forgot to mention that after the rabbit issue I got new chicks.  They were in their tub and doing well until spent two days at work.  Upon my arrival home I found that they were now able to jump from their bin.  Just another, not so pretty sight.

So here it is:  The reorganized schoolhouse.  After today I hope that the reorganization comes to an end for a while.  I have tons of things that have been building as we tried to juggle everything the past three months.  OH YES.... that is another item I now need to reorganize.  We must adjust our activities.  OK you know that will not happen. Perhaps we can reorganize what we do with the rest of the day when all the craziness is done.  So here is the schoolhouse as it looks tonight.  You many notice a large structure with exhaust tubes.  I am getting ready to set up the air conditioner.

Now, if you look close out the door you will notice the large trash can.  Believe it or not, only one small trash bag came out of the room but I was prepared.

 

Where Have I Been

I have not made a post for months.  We have gotten so busy that there was simply no time for me to get here.  I could have made time of course but something else would have been put on the backburner instead.  The classroom, better referred to as the one room schoolhouse has been completed.  It has a new computer, a smart TV, a microscope, new desks, new book carts, new bean bag chairs, a workbox system and learning games/manipulates. Seems the TV is smarter than I am but I have great hopes for future use.  I will make a post and get some pictures up very soon. 

For now, I just thought I would make mention of what is going on and get started again in keeping up the homeschooling blog.

More to come later, Happy New Year.

Too Busy to Blog

I know everybody understands the title of this post.  It seems that the past eleven weeks I have been very busy. I don't understand exactly everything I have done as it seems I still have unfinished projects that needed to be completed two weeks ago.

I still do not have us moved into our new schoolhouse. After a summer of mild weather it suddenly got scorching hot and I was unable to get in the room to do the painting. I do have almost all the painting done now but the use of the roller brush has my back aching. Besides, the new Co-Op development has been very time consuming as well.

New Co-Op?  Didn't I tell you about this before. Finally, there is a place that we can go as a group of homeschoolers that I can share ideas with and homeschool in our own style. No specific religious affiliation but also not something that has to include the word secular. When to try to avoid all the limitations and forced ideas from a strict religious cooperative it seems all you can find is the exact opposite.  It meant that there was no place in between. I was not a participant last year in the prior cooperative or participate in the Master's Lyceum for group classes. I do not know the particulars of Master's Lyceum and why the "leader" decided to give it a rest for the fall but I am thankful to the Lord for whatever He had planned.  The closure of ML did lead to a very small cooperative within the group but it seems to be a very closed situation and unless you are a member of the cooperative everything about it is rather silent on the rest of the local homeschool community. Needless to say, it did spark others to talk. Finally, seven of us and eventually about a dozen of us began having weekly meetings as we discussed the formation of a new cooperative.  I knew that I could not be the only person out there that did not see the value of the prior options. Thus the formation of the Collinsville Homeschool Cooperative was completed.

It is stated clearly that we are not a religious or a secular cooperative. We are an educational homeschool cooperative. We honor people from all walks of life with the common denominator being homeschool.  It has opened the way for people form the Catholic faith to participate as well, there was not a reasonable option for them at all.  We will not exclude group classes that are Biblically based but will be sure to include it into the class description. Group classes you ask?

Yes indeed. A church in Collinsville agreed to let us use their facility. When we sat down at the table and began planning classes it was stated that if the only people who come are our own children then we will still be a success.  We put out the information in the social media networks and currently have a Facebook page.  The FB page has 165 members but many are just watchers at this time. The paid membership ended up being for 57 families. We have 21 teachers and some teach more than one class. Every family must volunteer to be part of the cooperative and they go where the need it greatest to make the day a success.  We have four class hours and an hour for lunch. The lunch period is broken up between ages so that the biggest kids can play in the huge gym without the littler ones.  It seems we have a fair size group of older kids which is great for many. 

Our first classes began last week in the co-op. From the inside looking out it felt like small chaos but many commented on the day and were pleased.  If somebody was not happy they sure did not let us know yet. 

I am teaching two different classes but more than once.  Magic School Bus is a popular class and I have two periods that it is offered. The fourth period had a waiting list and another parent stepped up to conduct an added class. So fourth period we have 24 MSB students in two different rooms.  The other class I am teaching is a self made curriculum. I call it Money, Maps and Measurements.  MM&M is a life skills class to teach about maps, trip planning, and cost associated with it.  In order to teach a class like this there are many times that we touch on different geography issues, math is used in most classes. To begin the class we began with a tiny overview of the history of maps.  After a brief discussion we made our own clay and created an ancient Babylonian map. To do this required measurements and measurement equivalents as well.  I hope the class meets my goal.  It continues to be a work in progress as well with the core lessons ready to go.

Oh yes, one thing about this CHC is that we also had a class fair at sign up time.  Each teacher was expected to have a small presentation on their table and the lesson plans available for review.  In the past I have had classes that we signed up for which clearly had not been planned out.  Proposals were provided and actually reviewed by the group (not one person who decides if it meets criteria for a class).  That is a tradition that we think will continue. 

So what about Faith and Grace? How is their school year going so far?  If you ask them you will discover they love the year thus far. That is because we have been so busy with archery classes, trip to the STL Science Center for a special Lost Egypt exhibit, a field trip to The Nature Institute for a class about prairies and math warm up. This week will be our first week of opening our books and getting to the nitty-gritty.  Owen has caught up in his development and Kelley will begin some play school with him. His play will try to be organized a small amount each day to colors, shapes, stacking blocks and such. He is into everything so it is possible that his presence in the school area will be limited.

His favorite activity is to carry a stool to any location that he cannot reach and find a way to reach it. He does not always have an item he is wanting, just the fact that he did it is enough. 

Our Girl Scouts have begun again as well.  To be honest with you, I may have bitten off more than I can chew but I will be a cow and keep at it for now.

I will try to improve on my blog post as we get into gear here.
Have a blessed day.

OH, The Hours I Have Invested

As the new school year approaches I find that it is necessary to finish up much of the planning that needs to take place. I also still look at a room that has gone unpainted, unfinished, unprepared for school. Normally that is not a big deal but I really want the school mess to leave my kitchen and have its own permanent location.  I know that many use their kitchen and living room but I find that it makes for more clutter than I want at the end of my day.  I want to keep projects out so they can be easily accessed and completed. I have the additional space, which many lack, so why not use it?

If you follow my blog you already know that the stringent guidelines of my SCCCHE co-op did not fit well with my values as a Christian.  Apparently there are groups of Christians who do not recall that old saying of What Would Jesus Do.  With that said there is another coop that is forming in our area. I am excited as it is a homeschool coop for all who homeschool.  Can you imagine that we would all some how be able to come together with the diversity of our families and get along?  The distance is further but the time to drive there is the same. We will be gathering on Thursdays and have several parent lead classes scheduled. It is not a huge offering like we had at Master's Lyceum but it took years for ML to grow like it did. BTW Master's Lyceum is taking a hiatus this fall.  I am not sure what all took place but the SCCCHE Master's Lyceum apparently had some theft issues and lack of people to help set up and clean up.  That of course is the rumor as I have understood it but I am sure it is accurate.  I know many who did not do their fair share to help ML be all it could be.  Then again it is possible they too felt left out by the leadership team who had it all together.  OK>>>>I am really getting petty now but it is how I feel and is how I was treated.  I can leave it in the past but that does not mean I have never discuss it when looking forward to the new coop and how different it will be.

I am going to conduct two Magic School Bus Science classes. It is an easy class as all material is available publically online all I had to do was to determine which week I was doing each lesson.  The other class is more of a challenge. I wanted to do a life skills class that I am calling Money, Maps and Measurements.  I have all sorts of plans in my head but cannot get it onto the paper well and the map resources are proving to be more  complicated than I originally thought.  I do believe it is time for me to do a huge road trip and gather maps.

Other items being planned are our St. Louis Zoo Homeschool Classes.  We are signed up for the three in the fall. They will be the second Monday of the month.  We have placed on our calendar the Magic House Homeschool Days which are the first Mondays of the month from October to February.  Traditionally, the Missouri History Museum has program as well on the third Monday of the month.  Hummmm, it looks as if we will only be in our regular homeschool environment three days per week. No wonder children love to be homeschooled.

I am going to continue our KTM routine and fit it in with our Monday programs.  It seems that my MM&M class will conflict with a class Grace wants to attend at co-op so I will conduct the lesson for her and Faith.  Call it a practice run. 

Our purchases this year for curriculum material was only $46.00.  I really overbought last year but with all the medical issues of Owen and myself we did not work ahead as I had planned. Either way we are fine as the girls have a good, solid academic base to build on this year.  It is funny that our school cost is so small. In the local news are more and more reports of the rising cost of school enrollment, book rental, and activity fees.  I have said it for years.  It is cheaper to homeschool than to public school. 

As for Owen, he is doing remarkable well. Since he received his pacemaker life has had a huge change for us.  As a matter of fact, Kelley is going to take on a part-time job.  The cost of living keeps going up around here and they find that an additional $300 per month or so would be of great help.  She will not be working in her degree field but will be in a happy environment, doing a job that should lift your heart as you do it.  Owen is doing well enough that he will go to nursery during the co-op as Kelley's job requires every Thursday and Friday. 

Grace did find the perfect donkey for her birthday but we ended up getting two of them and Faith is going to give it a shot at training it and taking care of it.  I have found a sweet little bunny for Faith when the classroom is finished. She will be very surprised.

Well, I will be off for now. As the year kicks off I will be able to blog more about what we are doing again. Keep your eyes opened for wonderful experiences to be shared.


Oh yes, I almost forgot. I get more readers when I post a picture.  This picture was Faith several years ago. It was Grace's second day at kindergarten in public school. She didn't understand the first day but the second day she had it all figured out.

Mixing Summer with School

I think I am doing a pretty good job at this. I am finding most class time is on the deck, under the huge shade trees, using my new patio table. We seem to have completely forgotten about the desire to have a recess time between major topics but move right through it all so that they are playing for a long period of time.

The obstacles are the two additional children Kelley is babysitting. They are a distraction. I know that many would say....they need to be able to work in distractions too.  But it is more than that. Grace seems to feel very inferior to her friend when it comes to her lessons. It really ticked me off when the friend said "duh that is 13."  I found myself telling her that not everyone is the same and some area Grace has to think on more to answer. I found it a bit revealing however when she wanted to do some of the same math problems but missed more than half of them.  Additionally, she had never been introduced to Roman Numerals yet.  Unfortunately, I could not point this out to Grace as it would not have been the right thing to do.

So we move along. All subjects most days. Our butterflies have emerged and we will release them tomorrow. I am still remodeling a lot and so all is out of structure but we are making it through anyway.

That will be all for now. Faith began a girl scout day camp today and I am exhausted.

Away Too Long

I cannot believe that my last post was almost two months ago. What a wild two months it has been!

No surprise if you look back to other post that we will indeed be "doing" school through out the summer. I anticipated several little breaks with Kelley's high risk pregnancy but I did not anticipate an infection, a baby that did not thrive, several weeks of flu, or this new complication. Kelley, as it turns out, has needed a very extensive surgical repair for an abdominal hernia that was caused by the infection destroying the abdominal wall fascia and "obliterating" the muscle. She is now almost one month post op but has strict limitations and will be wearing an abdominal binder for six months.
So the girls and I are back on a roll again and making great strides in education. It would be impossible to put it all here for the past two months but I can discuss the here and now.

We are back and forth from their home and mine. Doing most lessons at the table rather than our traditional environment. I have a huge remodel taking place and finally will have that one room school house done that I had been dreaming about. Kelley wants the girls classroom to go back to a room for toys that have small parts. That way Owen can be there as well. He is getting all around the place these days.Soon to be crawling.

In school we are observing our caterpillars and keeping our journal. Grace is progressing nicely in math and we still have some frustration moments but if we keep doing it on schedule she does fine. It is those times that we miss a couple of days due to doctor appointments and such. Her reading of course is great. I purchased her entire next years program this week. She is going to do every subject EXCEPT for math at the fourth grade level. Faith is making great advancement as well but I am letting her take it step by step. I do think that she will be moving into the second grade material by November.

Faith is excited that she is joined girl scouts. I am going to be the leader for her Daisy Troop. Not sure where to place her, Kelley decided that the first grade daisy level would be best. It is so hard at times to remember that she is only 5.5 yrs old because she performs at a higher level than that, but then in moments of play it is clear that she is indeed just a little girl.

I am going to stop here and try to get better again at keeping my blog updated. I know Jean is missing the postings.  Now, I will go catch up on my other homeschool friends' blogs.

So Much A Happenin'

So here we are, one week into April and I know that we have months left of school. No worry on my end as I know that what the girls are getting is a top notch experience. So you wonder what we are up to this past week?

Yesterday we did an entire field trip day. I planned it to fill one entire day so that it would not take too much away from our book learning as well. It began the night before with a sleep over at my mother's house. The girls then get to spend time with great-grandmother. Then in the morning we went a few blocks down to a llama and alpaca farm. I was not sure what to expect but found it was by far one of the best experiences for them. The observed two teens (who are home schooled and come there to learn) shaving an angora rabbit. The girls then picked out the leaves and particles from some llama fleece. The learned how it was washed and died and then they saw a young girls with a foot pedal spinning wheel make it into usable yarns. They walked through the fields feeding carrots to each animal and spent time in the barn with chickens as well. The day ended with a craft, it was a walking stick and decorated with beads and llama and alpaca fibers.  Faith was a sweetheart when she noticed the two toes she shared with me that it was an even-toed ungulate but then a dozen mothers asked her age and did not know what an ungulate was.  I laughed and told them neither did I until I had to teach it but I worry sometimes as many of their children were 10 to 14 years old.

Secondly, we went to a friends farm to have hands on time with the new colts. We keep trying to catch the birth but we have been unsuccessful so far. There are still ten more colts to be born in the next month or so. The learned about impressing a human handprint to the new colt. At the end of the day a two day old colt came to Grace with little hesitation. We stood in the corral with seven horses--all trotters-- and four of them had new babies. One had just been born that morning.  While there we also gathered several goose eggs.

It seems our duck eggs are about to hatch. The beaks are visible in the air sacs and there are small vibrations noted. When they hatch we will add the goose eggs next. 

Grace's approach to math continues to be a huge success again. Today she shocked me with some of the independent work she accomplished. She is getting rather bored with he language but still loves to read. I know that the language is helping her as today her sentence structure was great and had some real substance in them. No telling what they will be like tomorrow but I expect consistency there soon.

Faith is doing well in all areas but she is upset that we are not further along in her books. I reminded her that I do not expect to see her go to the next grade level this year but maybe part way through next year. I then remind her that she cannot begin kindergarten until September in the public school. 

Next week will be back to the routine again. Lyceum will resume after a few breaks.  There are only four more sessions of  Master's Lyceum this semester. 

On a final note, great-grandma got Grace a hamster for her upcoming birthday. She is excited!

I feel like a muppet movie

I recall a song with Kermit and Fozzy Bear--movin' right along-chug a lug chug a lug--footloose and fancy free.
Well that is how I am feeling these days. Each girl is moving along in their educational process and filled with joy just like the song. I recall a "fork in the road" and realize we hit that fork often is class as well. When I visualize the fork in the road of the muppet movie I chuckle each time.  Same goes for the forks in the road of our class times together.
Some enjoyable moments of the week include attending a 4-H Christmas party and going to an assisted living center for conversation and cookies. The girls enjoyed meeting the older generation and talking with them. In our classroom we had fun with math graphs and making a game of collecting data for the graph.
The new baby is also a fork in our road was our schedule is off big time. Plans for this week include a trip to The Butterfly House in Chesterfield. I will take G and F but will also take two of their friends who are also homeschooled.
Tonight I plan to create a game to help reinforce the capitalization rules for G. She has completed all nine rules but when she gets them all together it can be overwhelming. So I will make sentence cards that will match each rule. I will let you know how it works.

Can I Take a Math Test, Please?

WHAT?  Did I hear that correctly?  Humm...checking all identifiable birth marks I am certain that G just asked for a test, and not just any test but a math test.  Perhaps I should swab her mouth and be certain she truly is G.  This is a huge turn around and with all the different advise I asked and different things I tried it seems that using the same curriculum and adjusting its delivery just a bit not to mention the patience of waiting until it "clicked".  Ok Ok, so I was not so patient but G was and God was I get the benefit of patience as well. 

So what is different in our methods?  Well I am using lots of hand on time with play money, using my ABeka flash cards more but with her at the white board. The beginning of math is always board time. I review math facts at the board with her but she does the writing. Somebody loaned me some math rods but that was not easy for her and she always understood the concept. I have the abacus available at all times for the moment she feels stuck and she feels comfortable that it is there. The abacus we have clearly enables her to visualize it  too. Generally, she can see the answer before she completes the use of the abacus. The biggest thing I did to help her was to reinforce the same time saving concepts over and over again so that she did not count on fingers and toes.  I worked a lot on groups of ten and five and our repeating number table so that she could visualized better.  I also permit her to add on using a dot system if she does not know the fact by heart. I am comfortable with he level right now. I recall being the same way but when multiplication came it was easier for me to memorize by then.  Her language skills continue to be her favorite classes still.

Then there is F! I have been taking it very slowly with her phonics and reading so that she recalls it better. She is excited to read a story and color the picture at the end so now I find her wanting to finish the story and not be finished after two pages.  I was happy with two pages when done with good effort but she is beginning to push herself. 

My greatest issue now is the stubborn child (F) who is no longer that baby but the middle child.  I knew that the new baby would bring on a change in her but I was not prepared for how big the change would be.  We are all happy to be back into lesson time again.  One thing I am certain of however is that I will not be able to keep the girls doing the same history and science. F's attention to the material is not so great but at the same time she is recalling the information. Still, she is one of  those who look like they are not paying attention but can recall all that you say. 

Home school affords a closeness to a family but it was better displayed this week when the girls were found playing "colonist"  together and "Mayflower". 

So now we have to get back to some lessons

Seems we have been having more of life lessons lately than core education lessons. That is fine of course but I am ready for the calm down.
Baby O was born on 11-20-2011 and is a healthy boy. Mother K is doing well but had a rough way to go from the beginning of this pregnancy to the end. G and F have been clearly making their adjustments and I no sooner announced to them that we could get back on track with school when suddenly an "appointment' came up. OH NO they tell me, thinking we could calm our days a bit.

We have not been in any class for ten days now. This is going to come as a hard one for them as we will be going well in to the summer months to catch up what is now twenty days. I expect Saturday classes to be necessary. Then again, we did decide that we were interested in a break that was a bit into the fall so perhaps that is a natural way to fall into our next  school year schedule.  hehe the pun was intended

Plans for this upcoming week will be more work on our dinosaur lapbook at our KTM format. The girls are really looking forward to this when they realized that there is an appointment with the pediatrician on Monday. No problem as we all ready know that we can do some of this lesson in a car.

We got a cute small tree to put in our classroom and some craft items to make ornaments for the tree. I imagine we will do that Monday as well. Today we went to the Santa parade and the girls were filled with Christmas Spirit.  They told many people Merry Christmas as they passed them on the sidewalk. It became contagious as it was not long that others expected it from them as they passed and initiated it on their own, only to see them passing it on down the road. It was a great day! I really needed it.  The stress of the past week mixed with the excitement and lack of sleep turned me into someone I really do not know well at all.
Feeling revitalized I am excited again to face each day. It has been a rough week and to be honest it is a good thing that we did not get lessons completed as my teaching ability really has been impair during a stressful week.

So next week I will move on with F in her reading as we slowed down for her to catch up a bit with the many new special sounds of phonics. G will move on in spelling and oddly is enjoying all her capitalization rules and finding the errors in a sentence. Our last math class with G was a test day and she did great!

I really do not have much to post about but think next week I should be ready with pictures of the dinosaur study.

Finally a moment to make a post!

What a whirlwind life is sometimes. By the time I get a moment to keep up the blog I am too tired from all of life experiences lately. So it would seem that there is no time for school...but we are still making progress and learning goes on.

G is enjoying math a bit more, it seems we are getting into some newer ideas mixed with the old. She seems to like creating graphs and tally marks.  As we are going places we make a choice of what I want her to observe and she is keeping her tally marks then making her graph.  There is so much available for her right now to enhance her learning and I struggle to keep up with her.  Soon the St. Louis Magic House will have a special exhibit on three of the Magic Tree House books. Additionally another local museum has a homeschool day coming up that will focus on the Civil War. She often asks me what the Civil War was about as our Tennessee heritage home is near Fort Donnelson and so she has been exposed a bit anyway. So today I think I will have her begin reading her Magic Tree House books out of order so she is better prepared for the Magic House display. 

I need to decide if we are going to attend the other museum program on Monday or not. Their baby brother will be born on Wednesday, his due date is actually 12/3/11 but he has been a challenge and it is time for him to stop. 

F has had her birthday and enjoying a new swing set that many tossed in their cash to make it possible.  She has been a classroom challenge lately and I am thinking it has more to do with the baby coming than her core. We has slowed down her phonics a bit as she knows it for the moment but I do not see it being retained like her basic phonics was. So I am probably going to see her working well into next year with her first grade phonics and language (remember she just turned 5).  I want to see her become a strong speller and reader so we will take it as she can handle it.  I love to see her blossom. The other day she made a shopping list and spelled it all herself.  Her list included celery which she spelled  s-l-r-r-y  sure she was far off but I could read it and knew what she wanted. :)

It seems I had so much I wanted to say and since sleep is not in the cards for me I thought I would type out a post but now I discover that my thoughts are rambling and my concentration is poor.  Some days I am more like my students than I care to admit.

We did get started on our KTM dinosaur study yesterday and it was a huge hit. We did some at the kitchen table but much of it was in the back seat of the car while we managed hospital appointments and other baby preparations. This unit is going to be fun but I need to get moving on it as we are also going to the Butterfly House with two of their friends in December to see the thousands of Paper Kite Butterflies that they expect.  I want to do a KTM on a butterfly too. 

K will deliver Owen on Wednesday on way or another. They will attempt to change his breech presentation and then induce or they will take him via c-section. Either way my newest grandchild will be here tomorrow.  K is feeling disheartened as nothing is working out the way she had planned it. I know how she feels but also know that God has His way of reminding us who is in control.  As her mother I do believe she is getting a valuable lesson in this pregnancy and I thank Him for that.

This week is the last day of the semester for Lyceum enrichment classes. It has been a good time!  However, my car was broken into and the dirty thieves took the boxes that held my lesson material and lapbooks for my class. So the project that my 4-6 year olds have been working on have been taken and they do not have anything to show for their efforts.  It is a sad thing indeed.

On a final note, we are indeed blessed with lots of love and joy in our home. We may struggle for other things from time to time but we are never short of love and encouragement.

"break" is over

Oh my gosh, it has been an unbelievable busy month. It was a struggle to get lessons in as there was so much happening then the household became ill, baby O tried to come early and a million other little things that slowed us down until finally we came to a halt.

Tomorrow, Halloween, is F's 5th birthday.  We consider birthdays as holidays and do not have lessons.  That will not be the situation this time. The girls agree that we need to skip the holiday and get some real lessons done. Not the KTM program either but get some other work done. They also want to cut our winter break that is planned short and not take a break when baby O arrives. 

So here I sit thinking about our lessons that need to get done. I know that each time we have a period of time that we slow down it is hard to get moving in the right direction again.  This time we had to halt so I hope they settle into getting some work completed and some traditional lessons done.

Of course, life lessons keep moving along even during a work stoppage. I have lots of great seasonal craft ideas but am afraid we will not get to them as I want to get further along in our lesson plans. 

Today we will bring in another rescue Great Dane into our home. We plan to keep him but he has some serious behavior issues and may not be adoptable to others.  It is my hope that I am able to turn this Dane around. I have not found one yet that I cannot return to his greatest majestic stature.  Yes, I am a Dane lover and would not want any other breed.  This is a male and I generally do not own male dogs. I am talking to God for guidance on this matter. He will be a great little brother for my young girl Allie.  Allie is the nearly perfect Dane so he will have a good teacher.

One week later...

Last time I  posted was one week ago. Not a big deal but funny because I last commented that I need to post often or risk forgetting or creating too long of a post.

Yesterday was Magic House Monday and the girls enjoyed the experience as always. We met a new family last week that homeschools and went apple picking. That was a huge success. The family has girls of similar age and everyone got along terrific. I see future gatherings with this crew.  We got back into the classroom and got some traditional lessons again. We went to the Dolphin Tales movie with our SCCCHE co-op.

F is still a sound it out slow reader but is reading. She does very very good at her phonic testing. G is still frustrated with math but is very capable, thinking of taking her to Sylvan to evaluate this process for us and maybe get her some help and build her confidence.

So that is how things are here in a nutshell and gotta run again.

This has been a busy yet productive week. The girls are really looking forward to another Kitchen Table Monday but I find that it adds to my planning process. Coming up will be taking a large old fish tank and getting it cleaned up so we can make a Rain Forest. Just one more item I came across from the enchantedlearning.com site. I still need to get the plant for it which do not seem available to me locally so we will make a trip toward Belleville but probably end up at the Missouri Botanical Garden shop in St. Louis. It should be a fun project for them complete.

Friday was our second enrichment day and it went very well. My class sizes are not too large and it seems we get a lot accomplished. Additionally, I have only one distracter in each class which is so much better than last year. My helpers are indeed helpful and I think I am doing too little to help out some times. The children think I am a bit weird as I try to get them to act out the story but they cannot seem to do so without feeling uncomfortable. One boy even told me that I was too crazy and he just cannot do that.

G is enjoying her class in tumbling probably more than ballet and loves her other classes of scrapbooking and read a book make a craft.  I have to find other pictures as she will have her first project completed nest week.  F tells me "I just love Five In A Row".  She was very proud to mark the location of Ohio on the large map in the room this week as well.  She first found Illinois then point and said Indiana, Ohio.  "There it is, just to the East of  Indiana that is next to our state Illinois."  (show off).  She enjoys the social aspect that goes along with tumbling, as there is wait time while each child does their trick.  This year the tumbling class has a mother who is also a tumbling instructor so they are double blessed.  The last class of the day is Solar System and K stays in that room to help. F is first grade but young which means she barely makes it as a class participant, for that reason K thought she would be present.  She is glad she did, yes F needs a bit more help with some things and we learned that just because she was doing well cutting we need to be better about adding that into her class plan as it is apparently a lost skill.  That class is large, it is at the end of the day so for a home school student who does not spend a long day at home we find this is a stressor at the end of the day. G does well although she had five class times all together and has to wake at 0645 and hit the road with me by 0730, then she is several class times until 1430 with a 30 minute lunch break.  There are likely a few others who are in the same boat but begin at 0830. Well my point is that this class has many girls who are disrupters.  During the first week that was bad for the room but this week G ended up sitting next to one who had brought toys to class. So now K will be choosing G's seat in the future.  I plan to send an email to the leadership crew and discussing the toy issue in the classroom. 

This week began our second year in the 4H Cloverbud program. I expect it to be a great experience as long as G can hold on that long. It meets once per month at the end of a Lyceum day so it is an extra long day for G. The group is small with only three youths meeting the age requirement.  Then there are three children who are tag-a-longs that for now will participate as well. Our leader Mrs. F. headed up the group last year but her girl went onto 4H, still next year her youngest will be a Cloverbud so she has decided to stay on with the program. Thus the third tag a long. As for G, well she was all giggles and squirmy and a bit disruptive. I can say in her defense that it had been a long day but most of all the group was so wild and out of control last year that she sort of learned that it was part of the process.  I think she will do fine now that she has had it revealed to her that no one else was wild in the room.  I say that like she ran and screamed but she was just a bit --center of attention- mode I guess.  We likely put a halt to it as well as I did have her go tell Mrs. F that she was sorry for being disruptive.  Overall, we know where we are headed to this season and have some project books ordered for G to complete.  I think she will really enjoy it and I expect her daddy to help with this, not for it to be part of what we do in class time. 

Coming up this week is a field trip to THE CITY MUSEUM in St. Louis.  This is a place unlike any other museum. This creative man takes items from Old St. Louis and creates, recycles, it to a fun center surrounded by art with tunnels and caverns and slides. Climbing all around the center even on suspended tunnels made of metal bars all vibrant in color. I will be sure top post pictures of this. IF you ever travel to St. Louis and stay it would be a great day of fun to take your family too.  It is not a museum in the sense of displays and tablets to read but it is indeed a tribute to much old architecture. 

It is Sunday and I am not at work. I had an anaphylatic reaction to something I ate in the cafeteria yesterday and at 0100 today I was still in need of steroids and Benadryl. So now I am at the point of feeling good enough to get a few things done and pace my day.  Head if foggy so it is possible that some of the event yesterday was related to my APS.  The doctor tells me that my chest and face were beet read when I arrived and we both know that means I could have tossed another pulmonary embolism.  A little Epi, respiratory treatment, and IV Solumedrol to the rescue.  I use to do this a lot until I got fully anticoagulated.  Often events show like an allergic reaction and the treatment for symptom relieve is the same anyway.  I checked my INR and I am therapeutic  so nothing more would be done either way.  Our ER doctors are so kind to not drag me into a million tests as well;  they have come to know me over the many years and have seen some pretty odd manifestations.  Oh well, here I am today to tell about it once again.

At the end of the week K will have a 3D ultrasound completed. Should be interesting to see if baby O looks anything like his pictures. 

Well, I think I will head to get some charcoal and plants for out rain forest.  "till next time

Study about a structured homeschool and Mondays

Today I was lead to an article about the success of homeschooling.  It came from Concordia University and another institution that I cannot recall at this time. The point that it made was that a homeschooler who was taught in a structured program scored better than their peers in the brick and mortar schools. That is not a shock but it was a huge relieve to me to read this study and see also a comparison to the unschooling approach to education.

We are very flexible and toss in lots of interesting extras that the girls want to learn but we are also traditional.  I tend to justify this to other home school parents when I meet them. The fact that we have a lesson room and a very specific curriculum that we follow nearly to the letter making adjustments as appropriate for each child. I make sure to tell them that I have a chronic illness and that our family knows all too well how life can suddenly make a change. that we want the girls to be able to more easily step into a regular classroom in circumstances require it.  I do not tell them that this is our preferred way of teaching and seems to be ther preferred way to the girls as well.  If we get too off the strucutre they seem to seek it.  I always feel judged by teaching in an old fashion manner.

The study further identified the unschooled approach scores and they were lower than the public school students in all seven areas of testing. On the other hand the strucutred homeschool student was 2.2yrs ahead in reading/language skills and scored  0.5yr higher in math.  Of course, this is an average and we will all know that exceptional student that the statistics will not accurately apply to. Still, I find comfort in knowing that I can finally rest easy and not feel compelled to justify my methods to others who are more relaxed than us.

Now, as I type this I must tell you that we did decide to change up our structure a little. It seems that the girls want to do some lapbook and additional studies but we just loose our zest at the end of the day when we finally complete our lessons. On Mondays I am very very tired and my feet hurt so bad from working my two twelve hour shifts that it is hard for me to get down the stairs and stand in the room to teach.  So today we did what we are going to coin as "Kitchen Table Monday".  It will be the day that we review any of the work that our Lyceum needs to have completed. It will be the day that we learn from special items I get, such as the rainforest books and printouts that I came with today. It will be a day that scissors will be used, glue and colored pencils.  Today we used several items from http://www.enchantedlearning.com/ .  It has been one of the best $20 I have ever spent.  Next week we will make a rainforest in an aquarium during Kitchen Table Monday.  They enjoyed coloring the Morpho Butterfly today and making a Rainforest Animal Wheel. 

G had some work as did F from Lyceum and it permitted time to do this. As it turned out, G spend a few hours of uninterupted independent work to get her project completed and loved it.

I am having a bit of turmoil about the summer.  I know many homeschooling families take several breaks each year and actually have school year round. Still, I believe that overall that most families attend school in a more traditional form.

With that said I feel bad that G is not going to get a summer break.  So I was thinking that perhaps instead of no break at all I could create a summer math program that would be equivalent to a summer school. Only several weeks and only math but still a break that she can see an end point to. One thing that makes this hard for me personally is the fact that I am grandma. Mother wants the math book to be completed before she goes on to the next.  She understands that the next book will have lots of review but would rather skip that review since she will be basically doing math all summer and begin at what ever level she will test at.  As a teacher it makes sense but as a grandma I struggle.  Either way it is not really my decision. My job as a grannyteacher (my new made up compound word) is to support my daughter and their decision to home school.

OK big sigh!! If you have any thoughts about it please feel free to post a comment. I am open to all comments. 

It seems that I am on the mend from my recent flare and I intend to be in full grandma mode today. Girls are coming over for a play day here but unfortunately it has become cold and wet again. Crazy since it was 90 degrees last week.

Tomorrow I will work feverishly to push the girls to the end of the year. It is crazy, the books themselves do not have new info in them but more reinforcement work. I MUST GET DONE!!!

Passed by the public school and she shouts-------

that's MY school!!!  WHAT?  You mean the school you use to attend! I follow it up with the do you miss it question.  She quickly replies---"ARE YOU CRAZY?". 

Whew!  She had me scared for a moment. Then little F tells her, "I am sure glad we get to be in school together. I would miss you SOOO much if we were in that big building.  How could I ever find you when I need you?" 

So this week we did some math testing on G and she did well.  As I have repeatedly said--g is a learner--not a memorizer. Yet, she is retaining more and more facts quickly but as math goes on she begins to revert to her old self and seems blocked. Suddenly what she knew at the start of a lesson is forgotten and frustrating. Math is only 20 min. lesson time but she drags it on and on.

F is making so much progress in her reading skills this past two weeks. She is a little copy cat of her sister and I found her laying in her bed at bedtime with her old reader and challenging herself. 

Yesterday I pulled out their sandbox and filled it up.  It provided hours of imagination play.  Next week however we will need to clean the sand as they pulled up every dandelion in the yard and made there own garden that was later destroyed by the volcano.

I managed to do more typical lessons this past week but ended up with more delays as my own mother had to go to the hospital.  I have also been working in both homes to get things in order. I will be happy when K is off of bed rest and she can come down to help teach and do her own dishes.  Next week I will go to the city to purchase next years curriculum and K has another ultrasound as they keep a close eye on the placenta hemorrhage and the heartbeat.  Even with that I plan to keep the girls routine more routine next week.  HA ha...as I typed that I recall the physical therapy appt and the orthopedic surgeon appt on Monday. The book display is on Tuesday and the ultrasound is on Thursday. Guess I will get it in when it works and do some traditional lessons on Wednesday and Friday.---OK--- I will do traditional lessons the week after next.  (oh the beauty of home school--learning is as flexible as life itself)  Yet they do indeed learn and do it well.

Now it is time to sit back and watch the May flowers grow, after all we had 19 days of rain in April and almost 8" worth. The river is touching my drive and one neighbor is already stuck behind the line as he did not get his truck out before his drive was impassable.

Today G is seven years old

We have all heard how time flies. It of course does not seem like she could be seven yet.  G is a beautiful soul. She is quick to smile and laugh. She is a silly girl as all seven year old girls should be. She is caring and compassionate and a faithful child. She is very smart and an eager, excellent learner. She is always eager to please and feels deep personal sorrow if she thinks that she has not.  My heart is the only part of me that can express the joy she has brought to my life as no words are adequate.  This picture is from Feb. 2011 and I really like it as it is so expressive of her joy as it bursts out of her.

No more seeds for you!!!

Due to our unexpected break prior to Easter we hit the books today. It was just me again to teach the girls. I really enjoy it when I do not have K's voice doing a different lesson in the background but I also missed her presence as it was of course twice the effort on my end. The girls each get a great one on one attention when we both teach.  I do not know anyone who gets to team teach in their home like we do, which means that the teacher in each home has to work that much harder and plan so much more than I do. 

I must say that it worked out well since G is a pretty independent learning in all subjects but math.  I spent a brief period going over the directions with her and gave her several pages to complete. She did so with total independence and without an error.  I had not really prepared for the day either so tomorrow will be better.

We have had a strange thing happen with our planting experiments. The girls planted sunflower seeds in a pot during their 4H Clover bud meeting.  G's came up just exactly as expected. It was a text book picture. F's began to come up but one seemed to stop. The other seen began to grow as a loop with both ends buried in the dirt until suddenly the one popped up but is tall and weak.  Then there are the beans they planted in the Ziploc bags to observe. G's is once again a text book project with the roots turning downward then the stem going up and finally today it has leaves reaching to the top of the bag and a strong root system.  HOWEVER that is not the story for F's bean. Initially the root began to emerge but then as the sprout was coming the entire thing got mixed up and it is wrapped around itself not sure where to go. It is as large as G's but is in one big ball with roots twisting all around and the green leaves looped downward.  We have joked that F is a little demon sometimes and I held back all the jokes so as to not discourage her and we found a long moment to laugh at both of her plants.  We also told her that she was only going to be permitted to pull weeds from the garden this year as we need that food for our bellies not for the grubs and critters that live underground. 

I have been very busy today as I manage two households right now.  I hope to help keep things flowing well in both homes. M  is working evening shift this week but I still have to be there in the morning or F would not be able to learn in the afternoon as well.

We have had massive storms around here for the past four days. Several tornadoes in the area as well with lots of damage. It even shut down the St. Louis Airport.  My eye is on the river as it rises and think it may be an impassable road to the house soon.

So much to say but no umpf to get it done so I will say good night.

Seeking to slow it down

So last night I was going to slow it down. I did slow the pace but still pack the day and did not get the important tasks completed.

We had planned to take an Easter break beginning Thursday but took today off of school instead. We will do classes again on Wednesday and Thursday.  So why did we take the day off?  I needed G to look at the options I had for her birthday gift.  K(mom) really wanted me to get her a swing set.  Grandpa Roger did not agree with this as he felt that it was then a gift for the entire family and not something special for G.  When I spoke w/ G about a possible swing set she did not seem excited at all but gently told me that she will be happy with anything I give her. In her sweet little girl voice she encouraged me to get her whatever I wanted that I thought she would like.  OH yes, sweet but passive aggressive in a way. I know they could sure use some play items for their new backyard which is vastly empty. No trees to hang in or climb, no stream to play around. Much different from their daily activities at my house when I was providing childcare as well and both parents worked.
Off track am I?  SO Roger and I were out and he saw a teeter-totter that was a shape of an airplane. Sure it too was toy for the entire family but it was uniquely G's first.  Not sure what she thought of it I took her to the farm store today and she went gaga over it before she even knew we were willing to make the purchase.  Now for her surprise gift she will receive the entire collection of the Magic Tree House book collection.

Then we went to the afternoon movie of RIO together, G and F along with K and myself.  It was a calm afternoon.  Now we await storms tonight, tornado already a bit north this evening and storm chasers are around. I am home and headed to the front porch.  I live in the holler so I do not get to see much of the storm as it comes in,  only feel its breeze and enjoy the smell. 

Here is a recent picture of the girls settling in to begin class one morning.  Well we still call 10AM the morning but we do not typically begin class until then.