Fairies & Dragons, oh my!

This month has been all about fairies and dragons so far (and of course, leprechauns and pots of gold!). We have been collecting branches and rocks and anything we can find to build a fairy house. We put it together today, complete with a tiny swing that Bug thought the fairies would enjoy. It's all ready to go outside under the "perfect fairy bush" - today is too windy, though, so we are waiting until tomorrow. The rock pile consists of all the rocks Bug has collected for the "fairy path". She has put a lot of thought into this. :)



The weather is wonderful here right now. March & November are my two favorite "outdoor" months in the desert. We have been doing a lot of walking, hiking, and exploring. Bug is getting into running and bicycling, so she has been joining me when I exercise. Monkey is good for about an hour in the stroller, but then shows signs of distress. She wants to run and bike too!

Here is what our learning table looks like right now:


It will be changed over the weekend to reflect a more spring-y theme. We have truly enjoyed exploring the wonder of fairies, though. It's great to see mystical creatures through the eyes of a child. :)

In more school-y news, we are continuing to work on the basics: writing numbers and letters correctly; lots of reading time; and a lot of excitement about school!! We are so fortunate - we ended up getting into the number 1 public elementary school in the area on open enrollment. Despite the longer drive (compared to the one I referenced in earlier posts), we have decided to go there next year. It has a very earthy vibe (a garden out front to work on!! mosaics throughout the campus with messages about respecting everyone and everything!!) and a few perks that added up to be a lot for our family. So it's official - on August 11th, my little girl will start Kindergarten!!!

And also in the category of "Time goes too quickly!", my little Monkey is about to turn one, so I am starting to think about her learning space. It was about this age with the Bug that I started looking into Montessori, Waldorf, homeschooling, etc. and boy have I learned a LOT since then! I have many ideas, and will start working on creating a space for her in the months ahead.

Happy St. Patrick's Day! :)

February & The Future

(Side note: I just looked over and Monkey is STANDING in her playpen!!! On her own. WOW - break to take pictures and marvel at this new milestone.)

Appropriate oohing and ahhing has taken place, complete with Bug running out and knocking the Monkey over. (Cue the story about how I used to do that to my little brother when he was learning to walk... must run in the family!) Bug has been sentenced to her room, Monkey praised some more, and back to your regularly scheduled post. :)

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February always flies by. Probably because it's a short month. :) (How profound!) But also, because it's truly the first "post-holiday" month to me. I am usually back in my groove by February, and then it zooms by.

We really didn't do much in the way of formal learning this month. We did some Phonics, a lot of Valentines crafts, dance class (which is not very interesting to the Bug, so when the session ends in a couple weeks, back to gymnastics with us!), and various worksheets and lots of game playing. So lots of learning, but not a lot of "We will have school from 8-10 today" going on.

We really enjoyed our unofficial game of the month, Monopoly Jr. It's a great practical use of addition/counting/reading, and Bug thoroughly loves it.

The new language-type skill we worked on this month is putting words in context, into a sentence. I got a game on clearance at Kohls, called My First Spelling Bee. It's just a wee bit above her skill level, but the "put the word into a sentence" portion was a hit. We've done that with Phonics words that Bug isn't familiar with, as well. We also randomly ask her to put a word into a sentence and she complies with gusto. :)

I have been giving a lot of thought to what I want our homeschooling experience to be for the spring/summer and going forward. We are waiting to hear if Bug got into an (even better than the one mentioned in my previous post) elementary school on open enrollment. We will find out next week. I'm so excited that we have these options, but also a wee bit sad that we will not be homeschooling. (Unless, as I mentioned before, something unforeseen occurs.) However, I want to continue learning together at home, supplementing what Bug may be learning at school, or even doing things that she is not. I envision a lot of science experiments, crafts, exciting field trips, and learning projects... for many years to come.

So. Here's where I am at on this crazy journey:

Before, I had a plan. Kindergarten this spring; 1st grade this fall; I was creating lesson plans and settling into my role as teacher. Now that has shifted a bit, and I'm still formulating how to proceed here. It took me several months to really get in my groove with homeschooling, and now I feel a bit adrift. I had a plan and a vision, darnit! :) I was all set to be THE educator in Bug's life. I'm pretty Type A and a borderline perfectionist. So when I do something, I want to do it RIGHT. I read all the books, I scour the websites, I take the quizzes ("What type of homeschooler are YOU?" etc). I soak it up and live and breathe it. I don't know if that's a good or bad thing. But it is what it is. :) Now, that role of TEACHER (at least the way I was approaching it -- a formally homeschooling teacher) has faded to the background once again, I find myself returning to where we were before this all began. I think I mentioned in one of my posts that I had an epiphany along the way this fall -- that we have been homeschooling for years. Just not in an official capacity. No forms filed, no grade level assigned... but my role as mom also included teaching my daughter about anything and everything that we encountered. It was organic and it was wonderful.

I am feeling more confident, after taking a breath to regroup and reframe my thoughts, in returning to the "Waldorf mixed with Montessori mixed with our own ideas" way of life we had going on. Maybe it's knowing that I don't have to be SO hyper-vigilant in ensuring that Bug learns everything @ home that she would have in a school environment now? I feel like there aren't any externally (I accidentally typed "eternally" the first time - that too!) imposed requirements or regulations on how we are doing things anymore. Nobody looking over my shoulder and saying "Oh you homeschool her? What is she learning at home this week?" like we have to report to everyone we meet about our progress. That pressure is gone now. (And, btw, I know this is an innocent question, and I love when people get interested in how we have done things -- but because I'm so Type A, I felt like I had to be on top of everything, so that I would feel I was doing it the "right" way and that nobody would judge where we were at.)

Anyway, that's where my brain is at the moment.. moving forward... to March -- Flowers and Bugs!! St. Patrick's Day and Spring!! I'm currently gathering things for us to do. I am also toying with the idea of buying Little Acorn Learning for the month. We used this program when Bug was about 18 months old, and since I'm feeling less "must-teach-everything-and-be-formal-about-education-y" and more "let's-do-this-my-way-and-create-our-own-rhythm-y", I think I would like to try this program again. It has a great rhythm to it and an earthiness that we both enjoyed. There are songs, stories, great crafts, and even recipes. Also a bonus - Caregiver Meditations. I LOVE those, and I have been missing something like that in my life lately.

So. Thanks for joining me on this journey as I figure out what the heck I'm doing!! And letting me be my extroverted self in sharing all my thoughts as they come to me. Whenever I do that, I am reminded of those who complain that blogs are just a vehicle for people to talk about themselves incessantly and then put it out there into cyberspace for all to read. Guilty! :)

ZOO

This isn't really about homeschooling, but it is peripherally related I suppose. It has to do with organizing the kazillion and three stuffed animals that Bug has accumulated.

I was online a couple of months ago, after yet another marathon session of tracking down and putting away all the little creatures my child can't live without (oy), looking for inspiration on how to contain the adorable critters, beyond the usual basket and bin method. Or the hanging net where they would be unreachable and probably just become dust collectors. I found this and immediately fell in love.

But, in the interest of saving money, I decided to be frugal and make our own. So, I took the box that previously housed Monkey's new car seat, turned it inside out, cut a little opening, and let Bug go to down decorating. I added some leftover Valentine's Day wrapping paper at the top to cover up the Safety First Logo, so it's all cute and heart-y. :) Thankfully, it JUST fits all her stuffed animals. Hurrah, problem solved!


I probably should not admit how blissfully happy organizational, creatively frugal projects make me.

So, we spent much of January cooped up inside with colds. Baby Monkey had a cold for a week, and then the Bug caught it and it turned into a sinus infection. So we had a good 2 1/2 weeks where we were at home. We are all social gals, so this was not fun for any of us. However, we did enjoy a lot of learning during this time.

Here is what we did:

Math - We have been working on addition and subtraction. We have really enjoyed playing this game I found at our local teaching store:

Monkey even joined in the fun!


We also have continued playing Frog Pond Fractions and discussing more in-depth about what each fraction means. And, I have introduced money into our lessons. We have talked about pennies, nickles, dimes, and quarters. We play a neat money bingo game I got from the Mailbox magazine.

This month, we brought Monopoly Jr. into our math game rotation, and it's been really neat to see Bug put her addition skills into practice with that game. I highly recommend this game, it's actually quite fun.

Bug can count to 120 and is pretty adept at writing her numbers. We are still working on the number 8, that seems to be a little harder for her.

Science: We are using this awesome box of file folder games I got at Lakeshore Learning. There are games about recycling, parts of the body, climates, food groups, animal habitats... it's really great. And not much work to put together, which is a bonus. Next time we are up at the store, I'm going to get the Gr 2-3 box.

We have yet to put the ant farm together - hubby is waiting until spring and then he and Bug are going to our church, where they have an abundance of ants to collect.

The Chick Life Cycle was SO fun. Every morning, Bug ran over and pulled the egg for the day. She was so excited to see how the little embryo was progressing. We looked online and researched more in-depth what was going on, and found some ultrasound-type images as well. Because of the Great Cold of 2011, we did not get to a chicken or ostrich farm, but we will soon, so she can see the life cycle in person, with real eggs and birds.

Reading/Writing: We have a few more lessons left in the first Kindergarten Level 1 box of Hooked on Phonics. What a great program! It's been neat to see Bug learn how to put words together, and to hear her read the Hooked on Phonics mini-books. Last week at the library, I found some great little books that focus on certain word families. Those are in a workbox for today.

Bug's writing is getting clearer every day. She insists that she is a horse right now, named Buttons. I told her how to spell Buttons, and she now writes it as her name on everything. She also can write her (real human) name without prompting, and some simple words like Mom or Dad. We have been working on lower-case letters this "semester" and so far, she's doing really well. By Kindergarten next year (see news below), I would like her to be able to write her full name, address, and phone number without prompting.

We got some good news - Bug was accepted on open enrollment at a GREAT public school. It's just about 5 minutes from us, and I was so impressed when I went to visit it last year. So, barring any unforeseen surprises, Bug will be officially going to Kindergarten at a school this fall!!!

With that in mind, my focus has shifted slightly to Kindergarten readiness. She is so far ahead in some areas, but I want to make sure that she is up to speed everywhere else. I'm pretty sure she is, but we are going "back to basics" to make sure. With a homeschooling mentality, I haven't been pushing anything, just kind of going where her interests lead us. Part of why I wrote out the list above is so I can have a record of where she is at in relation to the standards. I am going to focus on writing numbers and letters, and keep working on the reading. Otherwise, not much will change through the spring and summer.

I also will keep doing at-home projects with her next year. This Kindergarten is a half-day program (which was one of my requirements when looking @ schools) so we will still have plenty of time to read books together, play our learning games, and doing crafts.

So that's where we are at. I haven't been super organized in defining what February's theme is, but March/April will be BUGS and FLOWERS! :) So many neat things to do with those topics. So far this month, we have done a little bit of Black History and of course, Valentine's Day. The rest of the month will be more Black History and President's Day, and finishing up any winter-type activities we have.

I hope everyone is healthy and having a great winter! :)

Kindergarten!

We officially started Kindergarten on Monday! :)

This month we are learning about the life cycle of a chick growing in her egg. We are on Day 4 of that, and it's very exciting for Bug every day to open the next egg and see what is happening in there. We also look online to read about what is happening on the microscopic level. A visit to the ostrich ranch (couldn't find a local farm with chickens that we could visit, so this will have to suffice!) is planned in a couple of weeks as well.

We started Hooked on Phonics, Kindergarten Level I, and last night Bug read her first book!! What a great program, and it makes me all verklempt to see her reading whole sentences on her own. We all enjoy it, even the Monkey. When we are doing the DVD portion of the lesson, she rolls over and just stares at the TV. Maybe she will be reading by the time she's 2. :)

We are also looking at our state and learning about neat things going on throughout. I think we will plan some visits to some state attractions this month.

Here is a picture of Bug working on her puzzle, with the workbox set up in the background. The puzzle was the last thing we did, so the bins have all been put into the big basket for the day. The way it works -- Bug takes her number from her strip (we are just doing 6 boxes, so she has 1-6) and velcroes it to the number of the bin she is going to do first. She takes out the "work" in the bin and does it, and then tosses everything into the basket.

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The Monkey likes to roll around on the ground and scoot (she has chosen to do a two-armed, one-leg body pull instead of crawling) to various toys and just hang out while we do school. Her favorite thing is to scoot over to the workbox shelves and pull it around on the tile, making a delightful noise. :) Here she is sitting at the little table with us:

I hope everyone had a fabulous New Year!! My new year's resolution is to update this blog more! I want to look back at the end of this school year and get a real picture of how everything went.

Hubby and I did a mid-year check-in with each other and we both agree that homeschooling has been wonderful. Bug is thriving - she isn't socially awkward or emotionally stunted. She makes friends easily and is quite the social butterfly. She soaks up new information so quickly, and has such a thirst for knowledge. She has been changing a lot over the past month - she now seems like a 5 year old. We still have 5 months to go until she truly is 5, but I can suddenly see this shift in her appearance and her behavior. She seems more and more grown-up every day.

And for me - I feel like I have gotten a handle on things more and have more realistic expectations for how my days will go. I have created a binder with pages for each section of the day, with an outline of how things should go ideally - a morning rhythm, afternoon, and evening. It helps me keep perspective. I also have dropped the mentality of "We will do homeschool when I get this house clean/work done/yada yada yada". Life is always going to be messy and in the way, so this week I have been focusing on doing homeschool during our "homeschool time" (as dictated by the aforementioned binder :) ), doing my work-work during work-work time, and housework during housework time, etc. AND RELAXING during relaxing time. :) That is one of the important components!!! It's very hard to sit and put my feet up while the house is still cluttered. But I'm getting there. I never thought that would be something I strive for, but there you have it.

I feel on top of things this week and like I have a healthy balance. I need to remember that feeling and bottle it up!! That's why this blog helps. I can look back and see what I was thinking/feeling that put me in that space at the time.

One last thing I have started doing - writing down what we do each day. This is partly for my husband so he can see what we are doing, but mainly so I can keep a record and on the days I feel like I didn't get anything done, I can see that I did. Even if it felt chaotic and cluttered and frenzied, I can see that we spent some quality time together. I'm just writing down the "school" stuff we do, including any park or dance/gymnastics time - that counts as PE right? :) Here is a picture of our week so far:

The binder says it's time for a walk, so a-walking we must go! :) Happy Thursday.

Snowmen!! (on paper at least)

We finished up the Pre-K Handwriting Without Tears letters today. They were all capital letters, and Bug has really done a great job mastering all of them. We had 5 letters left, and she just plowed through them this morning, along with a couple supplemental pages to reinforce each one. Now we just have to finish working on writing #6-10 and we will be officially finished with the Pre-K HWOT book, and ready for K!

We also did a thematic unit today, which is always nice. I like having a package deal sometimes, where there are several activities within one theme. This one was FREE, which made it even nicer. :)

The theme was "Brr it's cold!". Even though it's not cold here (mid-70s), we like to do activities with snow and snowmen. :)

This unit had shapes and numbers:



Beginning word sounds:



And patterns:



Very fun. And easy on me! :)

As I mentioned in my last post, this past month has been rough. Trying to find our groove with this whole homeschooling thing has been harder than I would have thought. My home office has been re-organized to better suit how I use it nowadays. I've basically done an overhaul of the way I used to be set up, based on what I learned during the first two months of homeschooling. My approach now vs. my approach on 9/13 when we first started is a complete 180.

For anyone out there reading this who is considering homeschooling, my biggest advice would be to go easy on yourself at the beginning. Dive in wholeheartedly, definitely, but also know that things will not go the way you expect. I started out trying to re-create a preschool classroom in our home. That does not work for us. I thought it would all be neat and tidy and there would be "regular" time and "school" time. That is not the way our days go.

Every moment throughout the day can be "school". We have been homeschooling since the day Bug was born. Sometimes deliberately, through activities found online or through learning toys. But usually? Just through the way we talk to her and the places we go. When this clicked for me, that continuing into pre-K and Kindergarten was just an extension of what we were doing before, and not some brand new beast that I had to conquer, I felt that "click" of understanding. An "a-ha" moment, if you will.

My Type A self is learning how to approach all of this in a new way that keeps the chaos at bay, but also allows me to be less than perfect. And this isn't just with regards to homeschooling. Adjusting to two kids has been challenging. At the end of the day, the dishes aren't always going to be done and my house isn't always going to be put back together. Even just typing that sentence is hard for me, but my expectations have shifted, and by aiming for a little less than perfection (ha), I find I am happier. This translates into homeschooling, too. I don't have a checklist of what items Bug has to learn each week. I know where she is in relation to the standards for Pre-K, K, and 1st grade. I know how she likes to learn, what types of activities work best for her. I focus on those things, and use activities within the range of where she's at, and we have fun with it. With increasing frequency, there are moments when I see her grasp a concept, or when certain activities suddenly become too easy for her. Those moments are my "checklist".

This got long and rambly, but as an extrovert, it helps to get that all out there. And at the end of this "trial year", I can look back and see where I was at this point in time.

Thanks for reading! :)

Still here!!

Holy moly have I been overwhelmed!! The holidays started, the Monkey has become more mobile and doesn't like to take naps, Bug isn't napping at ALL anymore, I have been working a LOT, and I'm tired. :) But -- I am still here and we are still homeschooling. I just have not updated the blog in over a month. I have been struggling to stay on top of everything and get us into a rhythm. I am seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, so I hope to have time to update the blog sometime this week.

We will be starting "Kindergarten" in January, after the holidays. Bug has mastered all the Pre-K level Standards so we are moving on up. We are working on addition, and I'm going to expand our horizons in the Science area. (Bought some AWESOME math & science stuff at Lakeshore Learning last weekend. *LOVE* that store. Even got an ant farm... eek... leaving set-up of that one up to the hubby.) We also will be working more on reading. Not forcing that one too much (this is one of the areas that I'm a fan of letting it come naturally when the child is ready), but we have been working with sight word flashcards, and Bug seems to have fun with that. When I read to her, she loves to scan the page for words she knows and then pointing to them excitedly and yelling them out. So we are getting there! :)

I'll be back soon... :) Hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday season.