If you don't want the answer -- don't ask the question...

Especially a kid. 

There are some things - if you don't want to know the answer to, you shouldn't ask a kid. 

"Does this look funny?" "How's my hair look?" "Where are my shoes?" "Do you know what happened?" 


Asking a question can be like taking ... well... it can be dangerous.


I asked anyway.


I asked - what would you like to learn about? Or learn how to do? We're on our way to becoming unschoolers... but I'm going slow and incrementally. Usually I'd dive off the deep end of things - but These are kids. I should practice first.


Mini-Me had an interesting list.
She went back and scratched some things off the list. 
She'd like to learn to be a life-guard. But she scratched that off. I'm going to remember it though. 
She wants to learn to scuba dive. 
She'd like to learn how to have a pet parrot. 
    ---- She's hoping I'll buy her a parrot. I bought her a book on how to have a pet parrot.
Violin and Piano are on the list.
She'd like to learn about Sharks and seals, too. 
Shipwrecks. 

I've books coming on shipwrecks. 
We'll study the ocean this year for her - and bonus - The Professor took her to the aquarium on Tuesday. 


G-man wants to learn to do things with his hands.
Carpentry.
Crochet
Guitar
Carving (NOT gonna happen this year) 
Making movies.
Comics.


J-man is still thinking...but he's spending LOTS of time on the 'create your own levels' on LittleBigPlanet. Each of his levels tells a story.  He'll be getting LBP2 for Christmas.


Mini-E (Bubbles) made me laugh and wince at the same time.
She wants to learn how to fold laundry. 
The girl is an artist and a dancer. I'll go with those and let her fold laundry on the side. 


So along with the core of our books....which includes math for all, phonics for 2, grammar for 1 - it's going to be an interesting year. 


Shipwrecks?? 
Told you - if you don't want to know the answer...Don't ask the question.
Nothing says 'I love you' like research.


Except maybe brownies.

In retrospect....

When making a decision for curriculum -- one must NOT read other parent's negative reviews AFTER purchasing. 

The professor was kind. He said, 'You were having problems before so we'll give this a try. If by the middle of the school year, it's not working, we'll switch." 

This from the man who was offering to teach math. 
I should have let him - except that I know that it's not always easy for him to do that...travel, late nights, etc.

Tuesday was not the best of days PERIOD. So reading bad reviews on my chosen math book was just icing on the cake. 

I can not get G-man to focus. It took five hours for one page of math. But he giggled. He rolled on the floor. He .... you get the point. 

Then the wireless router quit being wireless. It's essential to our entertainment hub!!! Our e-book readers, our game platforms, AND my lap top (that I'm using now) are all dependent on our wireless router. 

It's life. To me, life like this is boring. 
At the same time, it's nice for ME to know that not everyone out there has perfect households. 


So - in retrospect ... don't read negative reviews of the product you've just purchased. Give it a try. Maybe the parent who wrote the review was having a bad day that day. 


^_^

End of the year assessments...

Am I the only home school mom who analyzes the school year? I suspect I'm not. My year-end assessments are not always useful though. Sometimes they just bring about a sense of frustration and, often, regret. 

We didn't play enough games.
...go enough places.
...J-man's still having problems with his 'r' sounds.
...G-man has problems focusing..
 ...Mini-Me has an attitude problem ...
 ...I gave up too much ground. 
...I didn't do this -- or that --

I could compile a list until I just want to cry. On bad days, I do compile the lists and I do cry. Today though? I'll refrain. You're welcome.


Just a for instance, I've threatened over this last school year that I'd just send the kids to public school. At least then, I'd have someone to blame for the problems. 
You know, someone other than ME. 


Even in the midst of the challenges, someone comes along and whispers to me that, really you did okay. I did okay.

The kids are still breathing.
Mini-Me's problems are age-related, not mom related.
G-man's focus issues are ... gender related. 
The r's? That just requires him to think about what he's saying. 


I enjoy realizations such as that. Along with the fact that I did more than I didn't. If that made sense to you. Yay you! All in all - I think we've moved forward this year. Sure there were LOTS of emotions at work. And not every day was good - okay -- many days were NOT good. 


Still... we survived. 


All other things (like going places, doing thins) will come into place as the kids mature.


One thing that WILL change this next school year -- we'll be switching math programs. We're currently use Abeka and it's worked for us (with much tweaking) --- until now. 


Now that Mini-Me is in the end of the 6th grade, I'm faced with the stark realization that I can not teach 6th grade math. I mean, I understand it...but to EXPLAIN it to my ANALYTICAL daughter who keeps asking me... BUT WHY??

I need more than what ABeka is giving me to teach with. They really do gear most of their curriculum for a school setting. Franky, it's annoying. I see no reason to subject her to one of their optional teaching DVD's. Because frankly? Doing EVERYTHING from the ABeka math book would be BOOOOORING. And since she's already convinced that Math is boring, I'm not risking it. 

So I'm going to put her in Saxon. We both need the different explanations available. 


My next challenge is getting G-man to focus. Anything... ANY... thing is a distraction for him. Distracting him and turning and thirty-minute project into a 2 hour project. I've nearly decided that I need to sit exactly beside him and WATCH him until he finishes. Sort of have a private school just for him.


There are tears more often than not. 
But - -there are the fun moments. 
Reading about Queen Elizabeth I, G-man found someone he could rather admire. "Mom, she wasn't wanted. She was an outcast but she was Great." 


I love moments like that.
I've nearly decided that he may actually be my unschooler.


I know we'll have summer school because J-man and Mini-E are not where I want them to be, or where they deserve but I'm actually looking forward to the task.


Now, here's hoping that I don't distract myself. 


Oh, yeah. 
I can't deny it. 
G-man comes by it naturally.

I figured something out...

OKay. Homeschooling is not for the faint of heart.
It's just not. 

That said -- Public school is also not for the faint of heart. (There. Equal billing.) 

It's just different stuff.

The difference between Public school and Homeschool - at least in THIS blog post is this:

I can start over.

yup.

I can start over. 

Public school has a set amount of days. Set curriculum. Set ... well..it's set.

I don't have anything set. Except that we're supposed to be doing school.  and on the days we only do 'half days' - the subjects for those days are "Grammar" and "Math". 


We started our school year way back at the end of August. It was a dismal start of the year.
DIS-MAL.
Stress the Mal because, Mal means bad. .... 


Dismal.


Nary a one of us wanted to start the school year, except the Professor. And his theory really was, "Ya gotta start sometime." 


Except he used proper grammar and I think I've got this cowboy thing going for me here....pardner.

I figured out this weekend, that I have the blessing of starting over. 
I don't need to start over in books, I like the books we're using.
What I can start over with is in our attitude and approach. 


Of course, I'm writing this now at 11:42pm on a Sunday night. Tomorrow morning at 7am, my attitude and approach may be to bury my head under my pillows. The kids will hope that I do - because if I sleep late, they play. If they play nicely and quietly together - I sleep. See how it works?? 


Of course, I wouldn't sleep past seven if I weren't such a night owl. It's when I get my best writing done, though. And I don't mind them playing in the morning. We work later in the afternoons. 


The thrill of knowing we can start over in attitude and approach excites me so much that I might just do a jig. 


It's not much of an epiphany -- but In truth it might be. 
How many times have I gotten bogged down...and just needed the freedom to start over? 


That's might impressive if I do say so, myself.
I've gone and blessed myself.

It's helped remind me in a fresh way just how new HIS mercies are every morning. 
Mighty excitin', let me tell ya.

adjusting school

I will confess that my homeschool experience is limited to my own schooling (I don't remember much of my brothers' schoolings) and teaching the kids. We've been homeschooling since Mini-Me began Kindergarten. That was the EASIEST year EVER!!!!

She'd learned to read in K-4 at a local Christian school while I was taking classes. That year, I had Jeremy and Gabriel who was 3 or 4 depending on the part of the year. Then I had Gabriel to teach - but we waited a year. So the second year was easy, too. Sort of.


Lots of issues and changes in curriculum even then.

And that's one of the blessings of homeschooling. Especially here in the state we're living...it's a very homeschool friendly state. Anyway -- Our year for the 2010-2011 year has not started the best.

I didn't want to do it. I wanted to send half the kids to public school. Holy Spirit told me no. The professor told me "It won't be a good idea". So we started the school year...and we got off to a very slow, very rocky start. There were tears. Mostly mine.

The Professor kept encouraging me even if I discounted his encouragement because "he wasn't home during the drama". Then he took the initiative to teach J-man his lessons in the evening. I swear, my husband has the best patience with kids when mine is short.

So ... all that to say We're gaining momentum. Holy Spirit told me one of the reasons we're still teaching at home. (Protection of ideas and securing a future) and he's given me a very Excellent friend who's willing to listen even though she sends her kids to school. She still listens to my crazy and loves me for it. (*waves enthusiastically*).(She knows who she is) (and she'll wave back)

One day when we were out for a much needed sanity break for the both of us, we found the coolest calendars that had a week per page. We both had uses for them. So we purchased.

First Use of Calendar

I bought two. One for Mini-Me and one for G-man. I put their lessons for the day and told them that if the work didn't get marked off, it gets moved to the following day. Then the day after, and the day after until Saturday. Saturday could be forfeit to homework.

Mini-Me who loves schedules loves it.
G-man gets stressed.
There might be more adjustments.
A stressed child is no fun to be around.

In case you didn't know.

A friend talked to me last night and I was expressing my concern that G-man was having problems getting his work done. She told me that his age is perfect for just filling his head with knowledge. She said to ignore the curriculum and go get science books and history books and to let him read. Get him to memorizing facts and poems. Anything.

So this morning, I asked him what he'd like to learn about.

Architecture. Designing. Blue prints. Construction.
I can see the science in this. So we've ordered the books from the library.

He was funny. He told me, "I DON'T want to learn about bugs. They're creepy."

Duly noted.

The little kids are working on Phonics.
I LOVE my post-its for phonics and numbers. Easily movable. Easily adjustable.

Phonics and Post-its

G-man likes to watch the little kids plat at learning. I think he'd often like to go back to kindergarten to play. So maybe we'll make up some games to play for him, too.

Adjusting school means I have to adjust, too.
Hopefully, I'm up to the task.
I'm a dreamer. ... hopefully these dreams are easily doable.
Otherwise...it might not be pretty.

School is never dull...

Except when it is.

I wish I could find that groove that I've been wanting since we began the school year.
It's one of the areas of life that seems to be constantly brought to my mind's eye with the accusation that I'm failing. The professor has been quite steady through it all.

"We'll get there."

I've had day-mares that we've had to send the kids to school and they didn't know anything about anything. And i failed them. It's not a pretty day-mare at all.

Sometimes they just outnumber me. Their needs, wants, whines, bickerings...add to that the house issues of dishes, plumbing, laundry, potty issues, attitudes... Yeah. I get to feeling outnumbered.

Then there are the times when they get it.

They might get it in an odd sort of way - but they get it.

"Mom. The spartans were barbarians." Says a very indignant Mini-Me. "The Penguins of Madagascar would fit right in, though. Since they think 'a friend is an enemy that hasn't attacked you yet'."

I'm still struggling with the whole "write a report" thing in a homeschool setting. Our curriculum schedules them in. I never liked them when I was doing this - never saw the point. Still don't. It didn't stop me from "getting it" when I was taking classes in college. So I'm debating whether or not I should push the whole report thing with the kids. Especially since most formal writing is met with great gnashing of teeth.

Mini-Me's report subject?? Captain Edward J. Smith. Captain of the Titanic.

How many books does our library have on the doomed captain?? NONE.

"Hey, mom" - says G-man, "I read in my health book about manners. I'm not supposed to eat with my fingers." 

I'm raising esoteric and random children.

I guess that should count for something. :-)

Mini-me is learning the states and capitals.

Studies of a big blue variety...

Every so often - in the few weeks that we've been officially "doing school" - I wish I could figure out a way of doing things "Better".

Sigh.

I'm silly.
I believe this was God-ordained for us to use text books this year.
But then I see other people able to do fun stuff in their schools.
Mini-Me wanted to put out food and flour to check for tracks, but I had to point out to her that all we would get would be cats and maybe a skunk. Our neighbor hood is critter poor.

So when she was assigned a Mammal poster/report, she jumped at the chance.
She had to choose a Mammal to report on - and her first choice was the Blue Whale.

AWESOME!!!

We started looking for information -- and found a really good "channel" at National Geographic.
They even have a video of a rare sighting of a BABY Blue Whale - which are RARE. We watched the video -- and I'm nearly embarrassed to admit it....but I cried.

One thing she learned was that a Blue Whale's heart is the size of a Mini-Cooper.

So today, we went on a hunt for a mini-Cooper.
The Salesman I talked to (I wanted to ask permission) was happy to oblige us - even moved the Mini out of it's parking place so the kids could stand next to it.

The kids were thrilled. Especially Mini-Me. -- who stood by a mini-Cooper. :-) and hopefully, that will be a not so mini-Memory.

Can you put the breaks on the Time Flight?

Everyone -- and I mean EvErYoNe -- says "Time Flies quickly".
I've decided that someone needs to pull the emergency brakes on this flight.
Time needs to pause. or SOMETHING.

We celebrated G-man's birthday on Monday. His actual birthday date is tomorrow. During the course of our family get together, Mini-Me started to complain that her birthday was LAST. She has her birthday in October. She consider hers last because it's last on the calendar.

I tried to point out to her the positives. In her calendar (the one that starts with her birth) her birthday is actually first.

She acknowledges this - but then points out that on *the* calendar, her birthday is last.

I tried another tactic. I pointed out to her that her birthday was in October. I asked her how many months was it from now until Christmas?? I was trying to point out to her that she was going to get presents before Christmas came along - but the others weren't.

Sure, we buy them stuff through out the year (My love language *is* gift giving - so this is a, *cough, cough* , given.)

(pun intended)

but the other kids would not get an "official" and wrapped present until then.

It didn't really convince her and it started my brain to thinking.

Sometimes thinking can lead to over thinking and then I'm in a bother.

Okay. Here goes... Am I the ONLY mom that does this??? I can't be.
I may be unique -- but I'm never *That* unique.

If there's only 4 months until Mini-Me's birthday, then that really means there's only about 2 months until we should start school back up (officially). That means that I'm so far behind I'm behind myself!!

My goal had been to do some light summer schooling to keep our math skills sharp and to get J-man ready for Kindergarten. I've done NOTHING. It's been such a crazy month that I've not wanted to do ANYthing - let alone school work.

So I need to get hopping. But we have swim lessons starting next week. They always come home tired from that. And this year ALL the kids are enrolled in swim lessons. ... and ... and ...

If it's 4 months until Mini-Me's birthday then it's really only a bit over 6 months until Christmas - and I don't have the house in order for School -- let alone CHRISTMAS....

And I'm 36. How did that happen??
With all my being behind in the stuff like school work and house work - how am I going to get ahead in the stuff that pertains to ME??

Does anyone have a paper bag???

*hee* *hoo* *hee* *hoo* *hee* *hoo* *heeeeeeee*

So to get ahead means I need to focus on the important things -- and the very important things at that. I'm not totally sure what they are, to be honest.

I have decided that I'll return that one book back to the library - it wasn't any good. And I don't have time to read non-good books.

I'll delete a few blogs off my google reader. They have readers in the hundreds. They make me laugh - but they won't miss me.

I'll trim back some other stuff around the house...and try to get back on our game plan of a cleaning rotation --

but still --

2 months.
4 months.
6 months.

Sigh.

I wish time would stop flying.

Namin' Names ....

40Winkzz asked a very pertinent question on a previous post.
And since we seem to share a love of denim...I'll answer her question.
I'm nice like that.

I'm also assuming a lot. She has denim on her blog back ground.
I had the same denim on my blog background when I first started.
And she has Mr. Potato Head in her side bar.
I had one -- I took him off to conserve space.
Besides, putting him back together after he sneezed just go to be a hassle.
So I'm assuming a lot.

I'm allowed.
It's my blog.

Her question was in reference to my statement about making changes in our schooling.
Now - I just assumed again that you knew immediately what I'm talking about.

(I don't normally assume so much. I'm usually wrong. )

In order to answer her question, I feel I need to tell you my story and name some names.

When we first started Homeschooling, The Professor wanted to come under the "protection" of a school. There's nothing wrong with that. So we went with ABeka Academy. We went with them for the first 2 years. (Yes, they really do teach cursive writing in Kindergarten. Just FYI.)

When G-man was about to enter Kindergarten, there were some things that I knew he couldn't handle in the Academy program. So -- we opted to use Abeka Books instead. I was always on the look out for curriculum that would be awesome and fantastic and FUN!!!

I looked at and bought an entire set of K*n*s curriculum.
Used.
I logged in to the forums to get ideas.
I tried to make it work ... and just couldn't.
I would look at the pages, get my paper out to take notes and make decisions -- and I swear the words would jumble on the pages in front of me.
And don't get me started on the forums.
This curriculum now sits on my shelf for reference.
Haven't touched it.
I felt stupid for the longest time that I couldn't get it - until a very wise mom said, "That curriculum may be for every student -- but it's not for every mom."
Aha!! Perfect phrasing!!!

We looked at SonLight.
What a GREAT Idea!
Then someone mentioned My Father's World.
I REALLY liked the look of this one.
We jumped into the America study. It really is fun. The kids really enjoyed it. I was only using the core for History and Geography. By the end of the school year, we were bored with it - and I just stopped before getting to the western states.
Luckily, I don't think the kids were bothered by this turn of events.

So This last year, we were going to go into My Father's World: Exploring Cultures and Countries.
I was excited. It was going to be fun. It involved things I liked from the Big K curriculum, with the reading as in Sonlight. Sweet deal!!

Until we got bogged down in the library system, over due fees, and my own Little kids.

Trying to read serious, worthwhile books while having demanding little kids around was actually a burden.
(I mean -- they just won't wait to have their diapers changed!!!!! Sheesh!!)
Then on top of that, Trying to find library books that fit both Mini-Me & G-man were also a challenge. Heck, Trying to find Library books that fit the subject matter was difficult.
By November - we were so far behind that I was frustrated.
I was frustrated because G-man, especially, wasn't learning much.
I knew we needed to make a change.

I needed to have an extra set of hands, and since that wasn't going to happen, I needed to quit depending on the Library to provide me with history and geography books.

I read an article written by Steven & Teri Maxwell telling how they had opted for text books. Here is one. I can't quite tell if this is the one I read...but it's close enough. It was like reading something I, myself, could have written -- except maybe more serious and professional.

I can be professional if I absolutely have to. Absolutely.
have to.

I struggled with the idea of letting my kids experience the world... having a classical education (the way I knew it) but in my season of life - it just wasn't happening.

I don't agree with everything that the Maxwells have written, I just want to say that up front. But that article opened my eyes that maybe I just wasn't alone. Many of the homeschoolers I know are not mostly text book driven, like we have become. But I realized, that maybe I was striving to achieve something that was impossible for my household.

My plan was to change up and stop using My Father's World. We were going to start using other stuff in January -- but I decided to switch up early.

It's been awesome!!! Not perfect - but awesome.
Mini-Me especially has had a great time being a semi-independent learner.
She relishes in getting her tasks done.
For her, I switched to Rod& Staff Geography and The Light and the Glory for kids series for history. We were already using Abeka for Math, Grammar and Spelling. For Reading, I let her pick out books from the library. From the stacks. She's also very interested in butterflies. So we're trying to feed that interest.

For G-man, his lessons have changed a bit. I'm now reading to him specifically from an ABeka History and a Rod & Staff Geography. He gets ABeka for Phonics, Math & Spelling.

I may not have it down to an exact science - I am, after all, still trying to break the distractible habit of being distractible -- but right now this works.

I also don't have to chase down a gigling 3 year old down the back wall of the library stacks. Yes, she would get in trouble in the van - No, she didn't care.

Next year, we're just going to start out with ABeka as our majory curriculum of choice. We've already gotten our boxes. In a few years, if this ceases to work for us, then we'll change again. I am not a person that says "This is the only way"...because how distractible and random would I be then??

And I'm not so stodgy that we only use text books. We use sidewalk chalk on the street. Blocks and magnet men -- and hide and seek -- and I'm thinking of using the Hi-Ho Cheerio game for J-man's math. Mini-Me has gotten quite the love of reading and I don't worry that she's not reading for school during her off time - which was what needed to happen previously.

Her favorites are Cam Jansen and The Box Car Children, should you want to know.

Right now this works. It's given me hope that I'm not hopeless.

Oh - An unexpected Perk!!! Now that we're using Text Books -- The professor has offered to step in and substitute teach!!! So when I'm gone, or we need to have Saturday School - I have a substitute teacher.

Another perk!!! -- They like my teaching better!!!

It's become a win-win situation.

School....

I thought, since I homeschool and it is my blog, that I would share with you how school is going.

The best way to share with you - is this picture.

It's going pretty well, don't you think??

I made a shift in school techniques for this next season. I decided to start in January. My goal was to shift for the end of this school year.

I shifted in early because my old system wasn't working.

I love the flexibility of homeschooling.

I love that, as a homeschooler, if a change needs to be made we make it.

And we balance books on our head.
What could be more fun???

Brrrrrr....

It's cold today. In the house and out.

It's supposed to ice. It's raining in teensy drips which is freezing, mostly on the bridges, overpasses and my van.
But it's really cold in the house, too.
This picture was too good to pass up.
School and a fuzzy blanket.
Fuzzy friend is a bonus.

Manic Monday

Other wise titled, "Mom's Cracked".

Sunday night while we were at church, the sleet started. By the time we left church, it was icy in the neighborhood. The Professor likes to drive on this kind of stuff, so he drove us home.

As we drove, we noticed that the sleet and ice seemed to stop. We had pretty good roads until we hit our little 'burb. ICE!!!

Monday, the kids wanted to play in the ice. So I let them. It was during this outings that it was discovered that, despite my previous thoughts, I had 3 children with ill-fitting coats. It didn't stop them from heading out to play. Hats, coats, gloves and they went off sledding and having fun!! So we really didn't have school time until the afternoon.

My giggles started on facebook earlier in the day and continued into school. School work started with Mini-Me working on a geography review. "I can't remember where the coyote lives. Is it the desert or the prairie?"

I tried to have a mysterious, Spanish accent and said, "The Coyote howls at the moon."

"What?"

"The coyote howls at the moon."

Her eyebrows lowered at me, "You're. Weird."

I thoroughly enjoyed her response and laughed.

Then her next question pushed me over the edge.

What she said was "The Grain elevator is in the prairie."

What I heard was "The GREEN elevator is in the prairie."

I started laughing immediately, "The Green elevator is in the prairie?"
Being visual, I could see it! Green = prairie.
"So what? Do they put the silver elevators in the frozen tundras and cold climates?"

"No...The GRAIN elevators..." It's too late. I'm long gone.

"And do they put the blue ones on the coast??"

No, MOM. GRAIN ELEVATORS.

I'm just laughing and laughing -- tears rolling down my cheeks.

She looks at me and says, "You're cracked."

Peals of laughter erupted ...
still makes me laugh.

It was funny.
Still is.

Green Elevators.

*Snicker*

Studying for a report..

Mini-Me is studying to find information for her first ever report.
The curriculum only gave her a photo-copied encyclopedia page. Granted, it's all about teaching her the basics of research and information gathering. I don't have a problem with that.

She has a problem with it.
She doesn't have enough information to use her own words to write the report.
She keeps asking me, "Mom, what about plagiarism?"

The curriculum mentioned it, not I.
She learned about it on Arthur, not from me.
I sighed.

I explained that I wasn't really concerned about it because of the information given to her with the curriculum. I told her that she'd be adding words and thoughts as she wrote the final report to go from one point to another.

But as we talked - she wanted to know more about her subject. More than just a photocopied encyclopedia page can tell her.

The subject is George Washington Carver. He is one of my favorite people to read about. There's a Mott Media book about him, that I thought I owned, but I don't (but will). I wanted her to hear about the scientist that had a relationship with the God who created the peanut and sweet potato.

I had to trust the library to give me something.

I searched via the internet and found a couple. One is written kind of in prose for easy reading. One is a graphic novel kind of thing. Our librarian with a really cool name, showed me three more in our local library (usually our little city library doesn't have much of what I want.)

She's enjoying the books and I'm thrilled. Quite by accident, we discovered a treasure.

"Mom!! Listen this: 'Moses and Mary Carver taught George and his brother Jim to read and write at home.'" (I'm paraphrasing.)

She beamed at me. "He was home-schooled, just like me."

I restrained from happy dancing. It was hard.
One thing about it, she'll never look at a peanut the same again.
And I'm quite okay with that.
Excuse me while I happy dance.

Geography Fun...

Maybe the bears in a previous post were bent on world domination, inspired by our geography game. We were studying the North American region of the world. The game, as suggested by My Father's World, said to have circles for each country.

I made cards - we're to look at the card and guess where the country was by putting a marker on the circle for that country. Let me just say, Mini-Me caught on really fast.

The first time they used whatever counting things we could find. I realized that the countries needed some sort of color to differentiate and help distinguish the countries from each other.

Here's what one looked like after I colored the countries:
I thought it would be fun to use M&M's as markers for the countries - because then we could clean up the game by eating our markers.
But knowing how much the kids wiggle - and how easy it is for M&M's to be scattered - I used magnets and a cookie sheet. This is my game 'piece' - and what it looked like without colors.
It was a fun way to learn the smaller countries of Central America.

Mini-Me won the game, by one marker.

We all won in the end, because we all ate M&M's.

Geography rocks.

I Heart Homeschooling..

I don't know what's up with Blogger. My posts are not behaving normally. So if this goes bonkers, I'm sorry. I don't think it's my fault.

Now to point of my post. I really have one tonight.

I really love homeschooling my kids. There have been days this first month of school, that I've wanted to chase down the school bus on it's way to the school. But I realized the other day that I love homeschooling them.

Where else can you do math like this:


We've been studying the states. Since we've kind of covered American History, we've been spending more time memorizing the names of the states and their location on the map.
I used The Professor's projector and made a really big outline map and hung it in our entry way.

Then I found G-man, Captain Lego, himself singing and dancing a song he made up about the states he remembered.

He did throw me for a loop. He told me, "Where's Mars? We should study space!" I was caught by surprise because we studied space! And I even blogged about it! He didn't remember.

It was really hard to fight that "You're doing something wrong feeling".
Needless to say, We'll probably be studying space. :-)

This year, I've begun teaching J-man with a K-4 curriculum from ABeka. We focus on nothing but phonics and math, which is VERY basic at this point. He's already catching on to the math stuff really fast.

One problem we've stumbled upon was his insistence to hold the pencil incorrectly. He prefers to hold a pencil in a fist-like grip. On top of that, he seemingly can't decide what hand in which he wants to actually do the holding of said incorrectly held pencil.

I was a bit flustered that day. I really don't want to not teach him. It's really not an option. He wants to learn and I should grab hold of that opportunity. I don't have to teach him to write, right now. Which would be okay - with the exception of the ABeka curriculum that will follow. Writing is rather important.

like I said, he wants to learn. The standard store pencil grips were not working. They cushioned the fist-like grip.

So I did a search on "how to teach a kid how to hold a pencil" looking for tips from which I could glean. I found an internet site called Draw Your World, the produce the "Draw Write Now" books. Moreover...that's a fun word to say. Moreover, They sell pencils and pencil grips!!!

So I bought some.

They arrived. I"m so thrilled.

We'll spend some time, paused in the progress of our school, and work on Letter recognition and pencil grips. I love homeschooling for this exact reason! We could not pause in a school setting to work on these things. Granted, an experienced teacher would be able to get him to grip his pencil without the fist, but this sounds like more fun.

I heart Homeschooling.

The logic of being 4.

J-man is a hoot. I'd almost classify him as my class clown.

Yesterday, we discovered, quite by accident, that the PS1 games we own will play on the PS2. This morning, he got up before 5:30 because he wanted to be FIRST awake.

First awake around here means that you get to pick first for the TV. We allow videos first thing in the morning because the kids start their mornings at 6. I choose not to start my morning until actual daylight can be seen. So that means, 7am, most of the time. This morning, he would not be lured back to blissful sleep.

So we got up and made muffins for breakfast. I wish I could say that I started my day THEN, too. Because we'd be finished with school by now. We ran an errand, looked up some stuff on the internet, talked with the Professor.

Finally school came. He wanted to do numbers first.
He was doing really well counting and identifying numbers.
I congratulated him.

He looked at me and said, "Yeah, when I was a little kid, I couldn't do that."

Tuesday was really hard for us, school-wise. So THAT just melted my heart and made it all worthwhile.

A new meaning for Map*Quest

In a homeschooling house, it IS possible to separate the school from the other aspects of life. Around here, we can, but it's not necessarily fun. Or blogworthy. :-)

We have been studying Geography. For the groundwork, we have been studying maps, map language, and how to read/write maps.

On Saturday, we needed to purchase pants. What a better chance to try out our mapping skills - than at the Mall?? We took the Professor who took over the orienteering lesson. (It's one of his skills)

Here he is doling out grid paper and pencils in front of the "Directory".

He told them the number of the store we sought.
He told them what they needed on their maps.

And right about that Time J-man needed to find the potty.
Incidentally, the nearest one was down the escalator.
So down we went.

And came back to find this:

And this:

They had to write the legends down. They needed to note landmarks such as telephones and escalators.

We managed to find the store we sought.
There has been some discrepancy about who's map was best, but we managed to get to the store without too many hitches.

Of course, the Professor didn't bother to tell them that there were little folded maps of the mall right there for them to take.

And they didn't notice.

Signs of learning

J-man is in K-4 this year. We made the decision to go ahead and start teaching him things...and he really wants to learn.

The other day, I was talking to the kids about the Bible lesson we were studying, and he got right in front of me and said, "Talk to me, too."

So I try to have his school with him all at once, at least here in the beginning, so that he can be done for the day. The first 5 lessons in ABeka Phonics and such is the Letter "I" and learning of colors. I remember playing color games with my other kids.

So we got our color signs out, and he went on a color search.
I sent him to his room for the color green.
The color black was the hard one.
Then I asked him where this little Kingon figure should go, and he agreed with me that the uniform was mostly black. so there ya go.


I was a bit surprised when he qualified the Yellow #2 pencil as Orange. Until we added it to an orange group. The yellow #2 is actually orange.

See the brown dog? I told him that the brown dog was lonely and could he go find something else brown for the brown dog.

He looked at the brown dog. He looked at the Red lady bug and he put them side to side.

Problem solved.
No more loneliness at all. For either one.

I was laughing.
Class was dismissed.

Carpe Degrium...

Juggling Paynes over at Homes Spun Juggling has coined a new phrase. "Carpe Degrium!" It means: Carpe Degrium /Car' pe De gree' um/- seize the educational opportunity!

I thought maybe our seizing of educational opportunities were going to be those weird things that typically happen to us. Like finding dead cicadas as we go into office building on Speech Therapy days. Or picking up pinecones (same location). I thought I had it good with the tomatoes I was growing in the back yard. All the kids tasted and only one appreciated the fine taste of home grown tomatoes. Mini-E is much more like me that I care to admit.

Mini-Me started a bug hunt. She started desiring to catch a butterfly to study it up close. But then the butteflies flew away from our really hot weather. It didn't help that the Professor mowed all the clover in the back yard.

So I was surprised when she took an interest in this fella.
See, Mini-Me typically has an aversion to insects of any kind. I'm sure this guy has an aversion to children, too. If he didn't before - he sure will after this.
She was careful and cautious and he was basking in the sun. I'm sure he thought he'd just sit and rest awhile. Silly grasshopper. He's lucky the cat stays inside.
Her only problem came when she accident had the lid upside down. That was quickly remedied and the grasshopper was caught.
We transferred him to a glass jar to better view our captive. I looked up on the internet and found a diagram of the parts of the body for grasshoppers. And she sat down to draw him and study him closer. I was really proud of her.

Here's the picture she drew:

My favorite one was the view on the left. Of course, I've always thought that grasshoppers had funny little faces. She mixed colors - she used creativity and she asked me questions that I had no answers to.

The main one: Is this a boy or a girl?

Um.

yeah.

How 'bout that.

we looked it up and we think it's a girl, but we're really not sure because we let him/her/it go before we could really research closer. I was going to have to pick him/her/it up to find out - because girl grasshoppers have pincer looking things on the end of the abdomen for laying eggs. She was afraid I'd her him/her/it and I could reach in the jar to grab him/her/it with Mini-Me sitting next to me sucking in air everytime he/she/it moved. So I think Mini-Me will call the grasshopper "She" and I'll call him "Lucky."

I drew the line at Mini-me giving the insect a name.
We have enough pets.

Today we cleaned out a flower bed on the side of the house and found a preying mantis. It was cool. She kept at him until she caught him. She took him in and drew pictures of him and then let him go back in the flower bed.

She said, "Mom, will we be studying bugs in homeschool?"

I was proud. She's thrilled about bugs! I told her, "The nice thing about homeschooling is that you can study whatever you want."

She's thrilled. I'm thrilled. This is the first time she's shown an interest in something - I mean, other than a passing interest. So I'll get us something to aid her in her study of insects and we'll study them in Science.
This is Carpe Degrium.
It's fun.