Goodbye Van - 3/29/11

I feel like the day got rolling and took off like a flash but left my brain in the dust for awhile! It was a couple of hours later before I finally caught up! I was scrambling to get everyone fed, get activities out, get myself ready for the day, do the usual carb counting and bolusing for Jem's breakfast, and then on top of that I had to get the van cleaned out before the tow truck came - all before 9:00. Now if you know me, you know I should still be deep asleep at this time of morning! Still adjusting to my new schedule :) Anyway once I started doing the van clean-out, the kids started realizing that the van was really going bye-bye. Scout's OCD started kicking in BAD! She does not like getting rid of things. She gets attached to everything from furniture to candy wrappers. We got this van when she was a baby. She has made comment before about how she never wants to get rid of it. Knowing that it was getting towed away today just about broke her heart. She had to go in and be in the van for awhile and take pictures of it, and cry in it. :(  It was a hard morning for her. She mustered up a smile for this picture, but you can see her eyes are puffy from crying.

After that drama we went in to try to get some school done. While Jesse listened to her History lecture, Freddie and Flossie worked on matching color word and picture cards. Then Jem "read" them a couple of books. Again these were books he has memorized, so he is comfortable feeling like he can read them.

From there everyone moved on to some individual work. Freddie went on the computer and played Blues Clues Kindergarten. Jem worked on his spelling words and his reading book. He is using Learning Language Arts through Literature - The Blue Book this year. It is really working for him and he is slowly but surely learning to read! K worked with me on some parts for her Bears Lapbook. We did the 123 Count With Me cards, the Size Sequencing bears, and the Bear Anatomy minibook. Scout worked did her Caribbean geography online quizzes. When Flossie and Freddie got done they did some tracing at the light table. Then they traded places so that they each got to do the same work and have one on one time with me. Freddie got finished early so he wanted to practice some more with the Unifix cubes and pattern cards.

In what I thought was pretty brilliant timing, the tow truck man showed up right about when we were done!
Of course everyone had to stop and watch the excitement and wave goodbye to our beloved, wounded, dirty, and so I have been told, stinky, van.

THAT drama over, it was time for much needed lunch and naps! While they slept, Scout and I did spelling. We're using Phonetic Zoo spelling form Institute for Excellence in Writing. I love the program so far. We are only on Lesson 2, but so far so good. She seems to like it too. Jem worked on his math. He did another Evan-Moor math center and worked in his Singapore Math workbook. He is working in the 1A book this year, and it has been a good fit for him so far. Scout did some reading for History and both did their Calculadders.

Overall it feels like we are getting into a rhythm.  My sleep cycle hasn't adjusted yet, but our school days feel like they are normalizing. The key has been trying to be organized and stay one step ahead. That isn't always easy. My day goes no-stop from 7 to 7 and by then I am ready to veg out for awhile. Staying up late to do planning, printing, organizing has to happen sometimes, but that can get sketchy when you add in middle of the night blood sugar checks and a natural inclination to sleep late!  But, so far, it's working. I'm tired, but I'm doing ok, better than ok really. We're getting good school done, and that's a good thing!  :)

So while the weather is still nice we decided to walk down to the "grass park" at the end of the block for picnic and  storytime. We read Jamberry by Bruce Degen and Jesse Bear What Will you Wear? by Nancy White Carlstom  and Illustrated by Bruce Degen.

After that, the kids just had fun in the park, skateboarding down the hills, playing ball, and running around like nuts. My kids have grown up in this park. They have all learned to ride their bikes down these hills and have watched the seasons change here. The trees have grown so big. I'm thankful for this little private piece of nature.

But here's my favorite part of this afternoon:  I talked Jem through doing his first carb bolus all by himself. This is a BIG step. Someday he is going to have to manage is diabetes all on his own. Not anytime soon of course, but these baby steps are an important part of his independence. He was so excited and proud of himself.

Have Ride - Will Bowl - 3/28/11

     Well today didn't happen quite like I planned it. Last night my husband took my oldest out to practice some turns so she'd be ready to go get her driver's license today. Unfortunately, the night of practice ended in a car accident :(  Luckily both of them were ok. Of course lots of scenarios run through your mind when something like this happens. But trying to stay focused about being in the NOW helps. None of those awful things happened. So there is no point in dwelling on them. Of course I am concerned about what this will mean for the future, but none of the stories I am imagining in my head about the future are real. There is no point in worrying about them or wasting time and energy dwelling on them. Best to just deal with the moments as they come. As for now, I had 4 kids who wanted to go bowling and no car!

   After some scrambling around and some offers by various friends to help, we ended up getting Grandma to come over and give us a lift to the bowling alley. That made for 4 happy kids!  Before we left though we were able to get in a little bit of school. BUT, first things first! J needed a site change for his insulin pump. He only had 3 units of insulin left so he had to get a shot for breakfast, so we needed to get that done asap.

After that Jem and Scout worked on their handwriting and did watercolor pictures. Flossie and Freddie did watercolor paintings too. The good thing about us doing preschool now is that my big kids will get more art time. It is something we have done less and less of just because we have been needing to get more school subjects done, but art time is so much a part of preschool, that I know my kids will love joining in :)

Freddie and Jem worked side by side with pattern blocks.  One of the cool things about homeschooling is mixed age grouping. Sometimes you can get this in some schools, but not often. Today I got to see this in action. Jem has been working with pattern blocks for a long time and loves making intricate designs. Freddie saw what he was doing and sat down next to him and then copied his design. Then he went on to add to his own design . The ability of a child to observe and copy the work of older kids and then to move on and expand their work with their own ideas is an invaluable benefit of mixed-age classrooms.

 After that Freddie and Flossie did a little bit of table work on color pattern cards that I printed from here using fruit and farm animal sorters. Freddie also wanted to do a letter B worksheet from Tot School.  We know how he loves his school!

By this time Grandma's taxi service had arrived! Diabetes supplies packed. Car seats installed. Water bottles all around. Off we went.  The bowling alley was offering homeschoolers 2 hours of free bowling plus shoes rental. They had it all set up for us with bumpers and light-weight balls. They talked to the kids about bowling etiquette, and how-tos. They were really well organized, friendly and helpful. We of course got some bowling alley food and the kids had lots of fun. Freddie got a strike on his very first turn! Flossie needed help at first, but by the end was saying she would do it by herself and was doing just that. By the end of two games we were all pooped out and ready to head home for lunch and naps!

While the little guys were napping, Jem worked on his math. After working in his Singapore Math workbook, he pulled out an Evan-Moor Math Center. I love these because he can do them on his own once he knows the directions. He like to do them again and again and they are good for continued practice on a particular skill. Today it was subtraction.

Scout listened to her History lecture. We do History at Our House. We LOVE it! We have all learned so much. This year the subject is American History. The half hour lectures are given every day except Friday. On that day she does History of the Americas where she learns about the history of Mexico and Canada. On Thursdays the lesson is a History through Art one where they study a history related painting. On Wednesday she joins the group in the live phone lecture. The other days she listens to the recorded lecture.

After that both kids listened to their Music at Our House lecture. This is a new program this year. We are also enjoying this program. It is given twice a week. They are being exposed to music they would never normally hear, and are learning the history of the progression of music. Today we were listening to and comparing Renaissance music. Very cool!

After naps we had storytime. We re-read Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See? and Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What do You Hear? by Eric Carle. Preschoolers love repetition. They love to be able to predict what will come next. It gives them a sense of accomplishment and builds their self-esteem. It is also great for early reading skills when you can point to the words in a book they have already memorized so they can see the words and seem to be "reading" it. We also read Bear Wants More by Karma Wilson - one of J's favorites.

Mesa Arts Center 3/11/11

I just wanted to take a minute to jump back into last week. Some friends invited us to the opening of a light and sculpture exhibit called Amococo ate the Mesa Arts Center . The news was going to be filming a segment on the opening of the exhibit and they wanted some homeschoolers with theater experience, so we showed up. It was a really cool exhibit where you could walk through this blow-up hive-like tunnel that was lit by outside light only but was full of bright colors on the inside. Hard to describe but very cool.

After that we went through the art gallery there. Jem had been begging for quite awhile to go to the art museum so this got me off the hook for awhile :) The kids took pics by some of their favorite exhibits. When we left there, there was an activity set up where they could weave strips of material along the fence that surrounds the top of the gallery.  Pretty artsy day :)

Of Salsa and Dragons! - 3/25/11

Today was a full day out!  I knew we wouldn't be home to do school, so learning my lesson, I warned Freddie ahead of time that we wouldn't be doing much school today because we were going on a filed trip!  Our Girl Scout troupe had planned a trip to a salsa factory. Only problem was that it started at 10:00am and was about an hour and a half away, so I had to have everyone loaded up, including lunches, snacks, school to do in the car, video games, waters, etc, by 8:30. All went pretty well. We were actually the first ones there! That was unheard of! The little kids traveled really well. I brought some of their Tot School worksheets in page protectors with dry-erase markers and erasers attached to clipboards so they could work on them on the way if they chose to.

 The salsa factory was fun, but kind of short. They got to go into the cold storage area and wear funny hats. The highlight was getting to go home with their own tub of salsa and bag of chips which we all chowed down on  on the way home!

From there, we headed to our homeschool park day. On this day we had a special program called Deb's Dragons visiting to talk to the group about reptiles and insects. The kids got to hold snakes, Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches, a Bearded Dragon, a Blue-Tongues Sink, and a Tarantula.

   After the reptile show the little kids went home, and my kids and I stayed for our regular park day for a couple of hours. Then it was off to Winnie the Pooh rehearsal and then Family Night with our whole big family. A long full day, but a fun one :)

Back on Track - 3/24/11

Today I knew we had to be out a little bit, so I made sure we started off the morning with school!
They started off with some free play with peg board puzzles and color sorting bowls and bears. I think I am going to start a lapbook with them. I haven't decided exactly the theme yet, but I printed a few things that will work with whichever theme I choose, so I started them on a few things for that and had them work on those. Then we worked on some letter B materials from this great site I found!! I am so excited because it looks like a goldmine of ideas and printable materials.  It's called 1+1+1 Tot School.  So far, the kids have enjoyed the materials I have used from there, and it looks like they have plenty for them to grow with.

 On Thursday's we meet "Gramps" for lunch. He is my grandpa, the kids great-grandpa. We go somewhere different each week. My cousin and her two kids usually go with us. Sometimes other family members join us. This week my dad met us. We went to Peter Piper Pizza. The kids had fun. So did Gramps :)  I'm so thankful that my kids will have good memories of spending time with their great-grandpa.

 Our next activity was to go to the park and join our homeschool "Tenders" group (Ten and Unders) for some old-fashioned games at the park. We played "Red-Rover," "Button-Button, Who's Got the Button," and "Duck, Duck, Goose."  Freddie got right in there and participated. Flossie was a little more hesitant. She was willing to be there and be part of it but didn't want to take a turn in any of the games which was fine. She was the youngest one who was actually playing. I think they both had fun playing games with the group.

  From the park we went home for short naps and then the kids had time for a little bit more "school" play. Freddie put together a free-form Lego puzzle. K did some work with Unifix Cubes and pattern cards. It took her a little while to figure out the idea of continuing the patterns, but she was getting it by the end. This is something we will keep working on. Sequencing and patterning are important for later work in reading and math and in developing thinking and problem-solving skills. I found some other great ideas here that we'll use in the weeks ahead.

"We Didn't Do School You Know!" - 3/22/11

Today was one of those long days out for us. Both kids had doctor appointments at Phoenix Children's Hospital. This was our first day of having to take Flossie and Freddie with us to our doc appointments. Snacks were packed, as were video games and entertainment for the car and entertainment for the waiting room. Of course, this was the day Joshua's doctor had an emergency so she was almost 45 minutes late to her appointment. I don't know if I was feeling stressed or just tired from lack of sleep. It also could have had to do with what I was there to talk to her about, but I ended up getting teary during his appointment. Luckily Scout was done with her appointment by then so she was entertaining the kids in the waiting room by then. Anyway, the long and well, LONG of it is the kids did great and were really good even though we had a long drive there and back and they had to wait there almost 2 hours. I am thankful for waiting room tv and snack crackers!!!

    We had lunch in the car on the way home. Everyone was starving and needed to eat by then.By the time we got home, it was time for the little kids to go down for their nap. While they slept, I got some school done with the older kids, and when they woke up, it was time to drop my oldest off at work. That was another 20 minute drive there and back. As we were driving home, Freddie, the 4 year old said, "We didn't do school you know," with a disgusted frown on his face. I could see he was ticked about being in the car all day. This wasn't what he signed up for. There was no way I could explain that some days are just like this. He wouldn't understand or even want to hear it. I said, 'Well, we had to be in the car a lot today and I'm sorry. We'll just have to do some car school today."  With my big kids, we often do car school when we are on the road. It usually involves me quizzing them on spelling words or math problems. Sometimes we do geography or history questions - whatever we are working on at the time. So, that's what we did. With Flossie and Freddie I asked questions like "Name one word that starts with B. "What sound does a cow make?"  "Name one animal that lives in the zoo."  "Let's see how high you can count."  "Tell me your mommy's name." 

     As we pulled onto our street, we could see their mom's car waiting for us in front of the house. "But we didn't do school!" Freddie grumbled. I rushed in to get him some "homework" hoping to make up for the lapse in his school day, but it was clear that nothing would really make it better. He left that day with a frown on his face. Now I know I am going to have to make sure to get some "school" in every day no matter what else we do, or at least make sure I warn him in advance!