We're baaack. :)

We disappeared for awhile, because we switched Buggy's school after Thanksgiving last year.  It was a great decision and we have no regrets.  She now gets to ride the bus and go to school with the kids in our neighborhood & from our church.  She is more challenged at this school, so we no longer are doing "after-school school".  Partly because her brain is ready for a break when she gets home, and also because she has about an hour of homework each night.  So she comes home, has a snack, PLAYS, and then does homework.  This school has more opportunities for after-school activities and "extras", too, which we love.  Everything feels much more well-rounded, and we are all happier.

We made the decision to keep Lulu home for (3 year old) preschool, at least for the 2013-14 school year.  Buggy's new school has full-day Kindergarten as the default, so I am pondering what preparation Lulu needs for that.  Whether schooling @ home and going to structured activities during the week would be enough, or if she would benefit from some preschool in a school environment.  We will revisit that next year at this time, I'm sure. :)

So I am sorting through all the preschool materials that I used with Buggy, and checking Pinterest to see what other fun ideas are out there.  I am very excited to work with Lulu and figure out her learning style.  So far, we have done manipulatives, patterns, Memory game, puzzles, etc.  Just your basic hands-on pre-math and pre-reading activities.  She is a funny one -- likes to choose the wrong answer to be comical, randomly jumping up and doing a dance, or grabbing the pieces and taking them to the other side of the house to add to her toy stash.  She also is much more outspoken than Natalie, so this will be an adventure!!  She now is more into crafts, too -- we do painting and Play-doh quite often around here.  She was not feeling the Letter a Week program, so we put that on hold for a bit.  I will probably break that out again this summer, along with Buggy's Road Trip USA.

I'm very excited about starting Lulu's education journey, and about getting back to this blog.  Life at home with two little ones is an interesting experience, and putting something in writing about what we are doing helps my Type A self see what we are accomplishing. :)  Because some days? It feels like nothing gets done!!!

Happy Spring!

Rocks!!!

Bug has been learning about rocks at school, so that has been THE topic around here.  We have acculumated quite the collection of rocks and books about rocks.  Hubby took Bug to the Mineral Museum yesterday and she was in **heaven**!! :)  This picture below is of the hoodoo Bug built.

 

 

 

I haven't updated this blog lately, because we aren't doing anything different.. there are only so many things I can say about each state we do or each letter we focus on. 

 

Buggy is still working on the Road Trip USA program - we are on New York, making our way through the Northeast.  She has had more homework lately, so we spend some time each day doing a little of that, too.  Despite school getting a little more in-depth, she still wants to do "school at home" almost every day.  I am trying to keep it light, though.  But, being the mini Type A that she is, she has created her own binder for the state information.  She has re-written everything about each state so far and 3-hole-punched it, and put it in the binder.  I find myself regularly saying: "PLAY!!! You are 6!! Play! Have FUN!" :)

 

And Lulu is doing the Letter of the Week activities when she feels so inspired. :) At her age (2.5), she is spending a lot of time in imaginative play and it is SO fun to watch. 

 

That's about it for us here... :) Happy Fall!

DE & CT wrap-up ~ ME & MD next!

Our road trip through the US continues!! We finished up Delaware and Connecticut last week, and then did a quiz game to test Bug's knowledge.  She did great!!

She even answered a couple "bonus" questions and won a pack of Pokemon cards. :)

We then moved on to Maine, which we both decided is a place we'd like to visit.  Their state berry is wild blueberry so of course we had to make some wild blueberry muffins!

We are currently working on Maryland.

As so many of these states are known for seafood, we headed to Red Lobster for dinner Friday night.  Bug tried some crabcake and crab legs, but promptly decided she was not a fan.  All the more for mom and dad to eat!! :)

Homework started last week, and Bug comes home from school some days pretty tired, so we are just doing these "extras" when the energy and time is there.

Here is what our after-school-school schedule looks like:

"To Do Work" is something Bug does at school.  As the kids are arriving for the day, their teacher has worksheets laid out at each of their spaces.  They go and sit quietly and start their work until everyone gets there and school begins.  Bug *loves* this and is always asking for worksheets... so - following her awesome teacher's lead, I have put together a "To Do Work" folder that I fill each day before Bug comes home.  She heads straight for the folder and gets to work while I am unloading the car and taking care of the little one.  We have been doing this workbook for awhile now, and it's wonderful.  Learning to read maps, what symbols on a map mean, how to read longitude & latitude, etc.  Bug loves it.  I also have some Dollar Store 1-2 grade workbooks that we keep on hand for her to do as she feels the urge.  The girl loves her worksheets!!

She also started getting spelling words last week, so we reviewed those words 2-3 times during the week to prep for the Friday spelling test.  Each day we will do a little of her weekly homework during this time.  Then, of course, the fun stuff - making food, playing games, and reading.

After we finish our after-school-school, the girls go play on the iPad, watch TV, do puzzles, play DS, or just come up with fun little imaginary play games while I get dinner going.  This flow seems to be working really well for us, and I will even go so far as to declare that we are officially in our school year groove. Whew! :)

Letter of the Week

I can't leave out the tiny one! :) Lulu has been doing the Letter of the Week curriculum and we love it!! The best deal I have seen yet on Pre-K curriculum.  For $10, we have a full-on preschool program.  Shapes, colors, lesson plan, letters, matching, etc... it goes on and on! Book recommendations, too!!

We started with A this week, and put up a Chicka Chicka Boom Boom tree.  I ordered it off Amazon... and it's puny. Really puny.  So I need to find something else.  The idea behind it is that as we finish each letter, we put it up on the tree.  I had not read the book before, and it's so fun.  We all love it.  I have caught myself randomly chanting "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, will there be enough room?" while we are out and about.

Here are some pics of Lulu learning about A and doing her activities (she also did some shape matching, pattern finishing, and put some apples on a tree :) ):

A is for Apple - matching with lower and upper case As

Doing a Dot-to-Dot page with upper and lower case A

 



Connecticut

Bug doing her language and math worksheets:

 

After doing math/letters, and practicing writing our address and phone number, we moved on to our tour of America.  Our journey began with Connecticut.  We learned all sorts of interesting things about this beautiful state.  The state bird, flower, fish, and of course... information about CT food!! :) Did you know that Connecticut was the first state to serve a hamburger?? And, the curriculum we got includes a delicious-looking recipe for Connecticut clam chowder.  So, we had to have burgers and chowder for dinner, of course! :)

The clam chowder was **delicious**.  Yum. :)  It was my first time making clam chowder - I usually just go with canned - so I'm learning things too!

 

 

 

We also started reading If You Lived In Colonial Times (recommend reading in the curriculum), and will continue reading parts of that book throughout our time in the Northeast states.  This is a great book - lots of fun facts about what people wore and did back in those days.  Very clear and interesting for little ones. :)

 

Next up: Delaware! 

Road Trip - Animals!

This morning, I put together the Road Trip USA Animals board for Bug's after-school-school program.  It's so cool, I had to post a picture of it here. :) I am so impressed with Confession of a Homeschooler's curriculum. I also got the Letter of the Week curriculum for Lulu (will post about that later), and so far I am very happy with the quality.

So the Animals board -- as you can see, there are 6 categories (mammals, reptiles, etc.) posted.  As we learn about each region/state, we will learn about their animals.  Bug will figure out which type of animal each is, and stick it on the board accordingly.

So. Cool. :)

Road Trip!

I started Natalie's after-school-school today :) I have visions of us spending time learning about different countries, learning a few words in that language, making some food from that region, etc... but first we are going to start small and learn about the good ol' US of A :)  I found this wonderful curriculum on Confessions of a Homeschooler - it goes by region and is pretty in-depth about each state.  We put together the binder today:

And talked about some important parts of our country and history (and my computer does not want to rotate pictures correctly, sorry!):

 

 

Our first region will be the Northeast - first state: Connecticut! :) We had a lot of fun talking about how America started and what "freedom" means, etc.  She is a little sponge and just wants to know everything about everything.  Very fun to teach. :)

I asked her what else she would like to learn about for her after-school-school, and she has requested "learning to write in a different language."  OK then!! :) That should be interesting.... :)