Animal Actions

November 29, 2012

These boys are so funny. Sweet little man is at that age where you can get him to parrot just about anything. He wants to keep up with the big kids! On this particular evening his brother was making animal faces and noises and he just had to join in.

Sweet little man's monkey impression:

 

Mister W's lion:

 

Okay, so it was just one animal face for sweet little man and then he was all about the "CHEESE": 

  

Mister W's Dinosaur (very similar to the lion, no?):

 

More cheese:

 

...and a tiger (do you see a theme here?):

 

I don't actually remember what this one was, but that is one cute face!:

 

...and I'll let you decide about this one:

A boy and a red furry monster

November 28, 2012

When you are a third child you don't get to make a lot of the decisions about what goes on the television. This third child is a lucky boy because his sister knows that he has a serious love for Elmo and she loves to make him happy. This day she volunteered to watch Sesame Street for her tv time and you can see that sweet little man is so happy. I don't know what it is about that red monster but he's very popular around here!

Homeschool Week 13

Things are going pretty well with homeschooling.

At this point miss L knows her sight words from the Dolch pre-primer list. She can read them easily. The problem is that we didn't work on writing them while we were working on reading them. Visualization seems to be something that is really hard for miss L to do and that seems to be a critical component of learning to spell. So... we are trying to practice our spelling in as many multi-sensory ways possible. This day we used do a dot markers to "write" the words. Miss L has always had trouble with strength in her hands. For instance, she has a hard time coloring large areas or an entire picture in a coloring book and writing can be very difficult for her too. In order to keep her from mutinying completely we try to work on spelling not just with writing, but in other ways too.

 

I find that a critical component of our homeschooling routine is my daily coffee. I'm not gonna lie folks, homeschooling can be downright hard. Sure, I have a teaching certificate but it definitely doesn't cover kindergarten reading. I desperately want to do right by miss L. I know everyone does, but I know that I've made a lot of choices *for* her and I don't want to screw this up. She's so precious and she deserves the best, so my daily cup of caffeine helps keep me on my toes.

 

When I have discussions about homeschooling with any of my homeschooling (and non-homeschooling!) friends the subject of planning seems to always come up. Here is what is working for me. I have an excel spreadsheet that I use for weekly plans. I downloaded the template from the microsoft office website. It has room for 8 subjects per day (or periods I suppose for middle or high school teachers) and room for materials, etc at the top (though I use it to keep track of our activities for the day). I often sit down on Sunday afternoons and plan out for the week, but when I'm able I do a month at a time and even though I have to go back through and change them (it just happens) it's so much easier! 

I keep the week's plans clipped to the front of a file box and I keep our books and materials for the week in that box. I have a file folder with the name of each day for any worksheet sorts of things we have and our other materials fit in there too. It's been really helpful!

 

We use tactile letters both to practice handwriting and to practice spelling. We love these letters!

 

We use scrabble letters a LOT. In this instance we were just spelling in this frame, but often I will print out words with lowercase letters and miss L with match the letters to them or I will draw boxes for the number of letters in a word and miss L figures them out. I never knew how great scrabble tiles were for practicing spelling before this!

 

We also practiced with stamp letters this week. It's just another way to get the words onto paper. Sometimes I give miss L all but one of the letters and she fills them in.

 

We also use yarn letters and magnetic letters for spelling. They say that the first year of homeschooling is about learning your child and I have to say that's true for us. I've learned that miss L hates to fail. She's a first born and she's adopted and as I understand it both of those things feed into the fear of failure thing. If miss L doesn't KNOW she can do something, she just flat out refuses to do it. We started out with me trying to really push her to spell words the way I felt like I was taught and that I felt like she should do it. The thing is, that isn't who she is. Miss L needs a way to spell that works for her and these are some of the ways we've found to do it. I hope it's working!!

Advent Calendar

November 24, 2012

So Thanksgiving came early this year. That basically meant one more week of Christmas at our house. :o) Our decorations came out that weekend including this advent calendar sent by my parents. I knew that the kids would love it, but it seemed that mister W spent the most time pulling the guys out of their pockets and setting them up. I love watching him play like this.

The Polar Express

November 23, 2012

Okay, it wasn't the Polar Express. We've been a little obsessed with that movie over the past couple of years and so that's what we called this train. :o)

As part of our reading curriculum this year we are doing "Five in a Row," a curriculum that uses classic and modern children's books and has you read them every day for five days in a row. There are lots of possible activities for each book that cover social studies, science, math, art, etc. Early this fall we read, "Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel" by Virginia Lee Burton. As part of that book we did some study on what a steam engine is and why we don't really see or use them anymore. With that in mind I was really really excited to be able to take everyone to ride on a real train with a real steam engine. It seemed fun AND educational. What could be BETTER?!

We arrived and walked up to the REAL train station. It was really exciting!

 

I hate to say that we read the sign AFTERWARDS that said, "Do not touch the car. Santa is watching." Ooops!

 

We boarded the train and started moving. The weather was really fantastic. It was a little chilly, but not cold and we were able to open the windows in the train.

 

Santa came around too. This was about as good as it got for pictures of everyone together.

 

When we got to the end of the line the engine drives to the other side of the train. The kids loved watching the engine pass by.

 

I forget how much water they put in the tank of the trains, but it's a LOT. I guess it takes quite a bit of water to make enough steam to move a locomotive. :o)

 

There were all kinds of other activities too. These little carts worked with hand cranks. This is serious awesome work for a kid with SPD. I wonder how much these would be to put in my backyard?!

 

We watched the trains for awhile. The people were amazing there. There were carolers and brass players all wearing period clothing. I love this photo my dad caught of the conductor.

 

...and while Daddy and Pawpaw took the big kids to do even more train stuff, Mawmaw and sweet little man and I explored the shops and waited for them to finish.

 

After that we went to an Amish restaurant nearby. Holy crow I am still thinking about those rolls. And the shoefly pie. Oh my goodness... What a FABULOUS day!!

Ice Skating

November 22, 2012 After Thanksgiving dinner we decided to do something a little different and way fun. We went ice skating! Miss L was beyond excited and I think mister W was really ready to give it a try too. Brad rented skates for him and the two big kids and I planned to watch. It didn't take too long to realize that I both wanted and needed to be out on the ice.

Miss L started right on the wall. She wasn't quite brave enough to let go yet.

 

Mister W didn't quite have his ice legs with him. He would make it around the rink about once and then want a rest. I couldn't blame him! It's hard to keep yourself upright out there!

 

Miss L graduated to skating with her daddy holding hands (and you can see me on the side over there. I thought I'd be a big help. As it turns out I'm not super great at skating...).

 

We made a couple of go arounds with mister W between us.

 

...and miss L (as we knew she would) graduated to skating all by herself. She's so graceful and willing to work at something until she gets it. Good for her!

 

It wasn't very long until mister W declared himself done. He wanted his skates off. He wanted to leave. He was done. Sadly, in a family this size, he didn't get to leave. Luckily, since his grandparents were here, he got to hang out with them!

 

We had a blast. Miss L's been begging to go back ever since. Mister W is not quite so excited, but I'll give him a year or two. :o)