What we're doing now ...

Doodle has hit a difficult area at the moment. Apparently he is a "strong willed child" which typically come from strong willed parents and who would have thought I was stubborn strong willed... Nah, I'm way too easy going ...

What this is meaning for us in schooling is that he will hit a wall and be done for the day, often with no warning. Some of our projects go unfinished. Some never are attempted, but that's OK. We do what we can and we allow him to do what he wants. We focus on things bit by bit and fit in learning where we can.

Lately I've been trying to pay more attention to numbers and being able to "read" the teens and twenties. One way I've found this is work is to print out the calendars from here ( http://www.childcareland.com/free.html ) and have him trace the numbers for writing practice, and then we play "bingo" where I call out a number and he covers it with a sticker. The kids love it. Everyone wins and it's a fun way to help them become more familiar with numbers, order, and counting. I'll often call out a number and then turn it into math and ask if we add 1 more to the number, what will it be, etc. Lots of vocabulary.

I also had picked up an exercise trampoline in early January for the kids which has morphed into an AWESOME learning tool. We can count by jumping, or we can use it in out obstacle learning games. To encourage Doodle to read more I've created a CVC game where doodle picks a CVC card, reads the word, and then goes and jumps on the trampoline while spelling the word to me. He loves being active, he loves the fun, and it often leads to a longer focus time for him and a longer time after where he can play quietly on his own.

win win for everyone!

We are still trying to find ways to slip in more hand writing practice, so I've found a valentine's worksheet with writing lines that allowed the kids to write their names and then decorate. I also found some vocabulary cards which I am encouraging the kids to copy the words. MissyMae was excited to write doctor and teacher while Doodle ignored the cards and asked how to spell coffee instead. As long as they're getting a little practice in writing the letters correctly and in the right order I'm happy to let them spell any word they think of.

Sensory Fun

 

 

 
 

 


 Chocolate pudding mixed into old frosting for a unique finger painting experience.

December

We're slowing down in December to focus a lot on the holidays and what they mean to us. We're making presents for our friends and family and learning about the Christmas story.

Of course when I stumbled on this activity pack I couldn't resist printing it for Doodle.

Download:  http://christianhomeschoolhub.spruz.com/downloads.htm?display=B284615B-095D-4E47-9CDC-22C37883D4E9&act=get&guid=515B70AD-22DE-450E-BAB1-7DFE468262C7

I've adapted it so that instead of drawing stockings Doodle puts stickers in the space equal to the number being focused on. It's helping him count and a one to one correlation. It is amazing to me as I back off the forced routine every night he asks for this pamphlet and goes through a few pages on his own. He's reading numbers, counting on his own, and generally jumping into this themed pack with two feet.

Happy December! Hopefully come January we'll back fully back in the swing of things. ;-)

Love this

Our Mornings

Confession. I am not a morning person. I despise mornings. I stay in bed until the very last possible second and then add another minute or two. I just don't DO mornings.

This does cause some issues in our day and our routine. On the rare occasion I am up at dawn I feel we get so much more accomplished in our home. But I just don't have the motovation to get up until I absolutely have to.

Thus we've create some uber simple morning routines in our home to allow me the extra time I need to wake up while drinking my coffee before I can jump into "Mom" mode and handle the day.

First, we write.




Now Doodle is getting better about writing, but he is still hesitant. So for Doodle all I want to see him do is trace the letters as above. No real need to push him to do anything else, although he is encouraged to write them on his own if he feels like it.

MissyMae, however, is ore advanced on her handwriting and so she is asked to both trace and write her own letters on her mat.




MissyLou is given a mat and a marker and allowed to do whatever she feels like.



After writing and eating, I have dishes to do. And the kids aren't quite ready to leave the kitchen. So we transition into a sequencing activity. This day we did the ABCs.




We have regular flashcards for letters and numbers as well as a few other home-made options that help the kids learn how to put things in order and think about placement. MissyMae is by far the better sequencer, but the other two help as much as they can.



And just about the time that they finish, my coffee is gone, the dishes are done, and we're ready to get dressed and clean for the rest of the day.

It's OK

I have to tell myself that often.

It's OK ...

that my house does not look like the cover of Martha Stewart Living.
that I forgot to shower today. And yesterday.
that I don't have life figured out.
Or that I still have yet to finish X or Y or Z ...

I am seeking contentment in my life. In my home. In the people I love and live with.

I want to be able to be proud of my home, which is difficult at the moment. Three young kids, two dogs, two cats, and a husband who works 9 - 5 leaves me the responsibility of caring for the house, kids, and pets and running a business. It's seems my work so often comes last on the list of my responsibilities but in truthfulness my work is the reason I am able to be home to care for the kids and house and pets. Without my photography, I would be in a 9 - 5 career path lacking the flexibility of being available to the kids. Contentment.

I don't have the bank account to buy the furniture I want. Instead, I have the time to spend at home to teach our kids the morals, values, and education we feel important.

Contentment.

And authenticity. We are busy. Life is hectic. We are rarely home and our TV collects dust. My house should work for us. It should work to minimize our work inside the home and make it easy to keep tidy during the days.

As I focus this week on purging items from our house which are extra, unnecessary or just unwanted, I am trying to keep focused on the thought of reaching authenticity in our home set up. And finding contentment with what we DO have.

Where have I been?

Living.

Thoughts to share -

Being active is important to us. Especially since so many kids are overweight, and with Doodle being a boy, the husband and I feel is so vital to introduce Doodle to appropriate physical play outlets for his energy and to get exercise. We have found our local YMCA offers 8 week "seasons" for sports and this is perfect for us and Doodle's attention span. We keep him rotating through 4 different sports during the year and he loves it.

Doodle is reading CVC words easily. We've not spent much time on sight words yet, focusing more on phonics, but we have started to examine where to bring in sight words in a fun, stress free way that encourages learning by play rather than learning by command. I am thinking some type of Bingo style game would be best at this point.

Math is centered on learning the "teen" number family. We're getting there. Doodle and MissyMae are both learning to understand that 19 is not just a 1 and a 9, it's a whole nother number. I believe reading has helped them understand the concept.

Science is whatever nature activities we happen to stumble into. Not stressing on it. Doodle asks lots of questions, and we try to answer them best we can.

More and more we feel that homeschooling is right for us. We've also located a few co-ops where kids can attend classes in a building two days a week so there is still some teacher lead instruction, but they're not being faced with peer pressures and introduced to peer culture before WE feel our kids need to be. I love the idea. Most places appear to be about $350 a month which works out to be the same cost of Doodle's daycare. This is something we are seriously considering. I have long felt one of my major issues with public school is the number of hours a week the kids are in desks away from home. Having my child in a desk two days a week is reasonable to me. Even three days a week I can get behind. I just can't see how a kindergartener or early elementary needs 5 full days a week to teach some of these basic learning ideas.

Off soap box.

For phonics we stumbled on this wonderful book : http://www.homeschoolingsupply.com/carson-dellosa/language-cd-104290.htm

Doodle loves it. It's put together in a test format that allows Doodle to quiz himself with minimal parental direction. It's become our perfect dinner time distraction.

Our days now look like this

Morning, pre breakfast, Doodle does handwriting which is just a simple ABC tracer page right now.

After breakfast is clean up, dressed, and play time. Generally around 10 we transition into logic play with puzzles and games, and before lunch we're back at the table working on worksheets. Some I print off the internet, some are from workbooks we've collected. Most of what we do in the mornings does not take a lot of "teaching" from me. The kids pick it up easily once I've read the instructions. We also listen to some CDs I've found which have "circle time" style songs, days of the week, months of the year, etc.

After lunch I usually encourage some free play time while I clean. It is at this time I will find myself sitting down with Doodle and we'll do some math on the computer or work on something new, read a book, focused learning is how I would describe it. Learning that takes a lot of my direction to explain and teach it. Again, at Doodle's age we only work in 15 - 20 minute spurts throughout the day because of his attention span.

Quiet time comes whenever Doodle is fussing over having to focus and I don't push him. Some days we only work for 5 minutes, others we'll get nearly 30 solid minutes.

After quiet time is more free play, some general picking up, dinner prep and we'll pull out the phonics book at this time. Or do a craft or coloring activity.

Since relaxing my approaching to Doodle's learning he has actually picked up in his interest. The less I made charts and lesson plans, the more I just had the next lesson ready to go and waited for Doodle to ask for it, the easier things have gone.

More Seasons

Speaking of seasons and weather, I thought I would share how we work on these concepts here.

Weather is fairly easy for Doodle to grasp. We talk about if it's sunny or not, cold or hot, and he understands these basic ideas. We have paired them up with speaking about the seasons and done informal conversations about the temperature during different seasons. Hot in summer so we swim, cold in winter so we wear gloves, etc.

A few weeks ago I saw these magnetic dress up dolls and I realized this was a perfect way to really help drive home the concepts of seasons and weather. This weekend we spent some time in the mornings playing with the dolls and selecting clothing for different seasons. I'd tell them to pick out a summer outfit and they'd put something together.

Seasons Days & Months

I've been thinking about how I can better teach Doodle the seasons and days and months besides just silly songs and some workbook pages. Today I stumbled on this idea from Michaels and I think it's *perfect* for helping a younger student learn about seasons and days and even months.

In the craft video the woman explains how to make this, and my adaptation is to have the tree leaves change with the season, maybe using velcro?, and under the swing having the days of the week and maybe on the other side the months of the year.

Another thing I'm excited about with this tree is how moveable it is. No matter what room we work in it can be set up anywhere with minimal fuss.

It also just so happens that I bought some leaf crafts awhile back which I can have the kids help me with for this tree. It's going to be an exciting craft weekend here!

Math | PreK+

I've been meaning to write about our Math choices because I think Math is one of the harder areas for me to pick what to give to Doodle.

We started using a Math sticker book to beging to formally introduce the numbers to Doodle. It allows him to interact with the pages and do activities without needing to write a number which is important to me as he's still struggling with his handwriting. The less I can pressure him to write and the more I can allow him to do without writing the more excited he is about learning.

Enter our Math sticker book. You can buy it off Amazon but I assume I bought it at Staples or Target or some other such place as we'd had it awhile before we used it. Doodle loves this and we've adapted it to help him learn so much. The first set of pages is one number per spread (2 pages) and it asks the child to place the sticker with the number in a box above the number word, then place an equal amount of star stickers in a designated box and finally on the other page the child is asked to color a picture and add stickers to it equal to the number being worked on.

Usually Doodle and I will do the first page and talk about the number he's putting on, count aloud the star stickers and finally i'll have him jump up and down while I count to the number again. After the number 12 the book starts to work on some basic Math functions. "Count the animals in the box" and again it's all done with stickers.

This is important for me because it shows me that despite Doodle's handwriting issues, he is still learning his numbers and math skills by using the stickers and placing them in the correct spots.

We also use learning cubes for our math time as well. Legos would work just as well, as long as they stack together easily and can be counted individually.

I've recently introduce Tracer sheets into our math time as well to match the number we're working on that day. Doodle is getting more excited about learning how to write and it's allowing him to feel more open about learning and working together. The other day I asked him out of the blue to write "12" on our easel and he TRIED. He wrote it somewhat backwards and slanted but he TRIED and I was thrilled to see his confidence growing so quickly.

Of The Week

Doodle has been displaying a reluctance to practicing writing his letters or any organized writing activity. I'd hoped over the summer he would outgrow this but it's not happened and it has forced me to really look at what could be causing it. He is a bright kid and loves to learn but refuses any suggestions at writing letters or numbers.

After thinking for some time, I stumbled on the thought that maybe his being a very dominant lefty was causing problems in him learning how to manipulate his writing utensil. I paid close attention and sure enough during our days when we came to hand writing he shut down emotionally and refused to try. I did a little research and I found some great sites talking about learn to write left handed and the obstacles that kids face in a right dominant world. This has really made me look hard at my kid and realize that it is so very very important for me to focus on giving him confidence in learning how to write well left handed. I feel so strongly about this, in fact, that I've decided to take this fall semester to focus heavily on learning to write before we jump into much anything else at the kindy level. Despite him being ready for it, so much of the curriculum I'd looked at requires Doodle to write at some point in time. (numbers for math, copy words for learning to read, etc) and if he is not confident in his ability to write he will continue to hold back in learning and refuse to grow.

So what do I do now? I take my neatly organized and planned curriculum and I decide to rearrange it in a way that makes sense on how to teach a kid to write. Again, although Doodle knows his alphabet, I'm working on helping him learn to write it which means we will be focusing time on turning letters into shapes and learning how to create those shapes first with hand held manipulatives and then followed on paper with a writing utensil.

Week 1 - August 30th - September 3rd

Letter - L

• Tracer Page -  Put into a sheet protector Doodle and I will take turns learning how to go through the motions of writing an "L" with fat dry erase markers. The sheet protectors allow us to reuse this page daily by wiping it clean after completed. (Other tracers available here.)
• Lacing L Craft - Part of learning L will also be phonics related and serve for our art time. We will be making collages and coloring letters and talking about the sounds and words that start with the letter/sound/etc.
•  Letter(word) Search - Always looking to encourage focus and logic this will be a fun new activity for us. Doodle will search for the "L"s on his own and then I will work with him to continue and find the words as a whole. Good opportunity to work on sight words with him as well. Likely will repeat 2 or 3 times during the week.
• Lizard Puzzle - 6 piece puzzles for some "fun" computer time. 
• L Book - I'm not sure if we'll use the one here or just make our own but I am enjoying the idea of a week long "Letter Book" project with a new theme each day/page.

Word - The

• Spruce Up Sight Words - While I like the phonics approach over sight words, I do think some sight words are good to learn on their own early on, even if done on a phonics approach. I love the way this site turns them into a craft to introduce the words with in a low key approach. I'll be doing a few weeks of 'review' words to see how Doodle takes to the weekly word format. 
•  Sight word memory match game - I will use flash cards of the words in various informal games to force Doodle to read.

Numbers - 1 & One

• I would really like Doodle to learn to read his number words this year. He's easily recognizing numbers up through 12 so we're going to continue with counting and sequencing through 20 but also go "back" and work on number words as well.
• Puzzles - Gotta love a perfect find!
• Patterns - Doodle hasn't shown a huge understanding of patterns so I'd like to help focus him on a new pattern each week and gradually increase the complexity.

Crafts

• Handprint Lillies

Fall Begins

School has started here in our humble home. That means 6 workboxes a day, chapter reading at night, and dedicated craft time each week.

What's in our boxes this week?

Box 1 -

 Every day we do a new page on scissor skills. This workbook starts out with simple straight lines and gradually increases the complexity of the cutting involved over 50+ pages. I typically let Doodle cut the lines and then paste the pieces into an old notebook on his own. A great morning activity for him as it requires little help from me and lets me sip my coffee slowly before jumping into helping.

Box 2 -

Critical Thinking skill.

This morning was a Night vs Day sorting worksheet. Tomorrow will be tall vs short, etc.

Box 3 -

Lately we've been finding sequencing puzzles to work with. Workbox numbers are GREAT sequencing tools for PreK kids. Doodle is learning how to put 1 - 12 in order much easier AND starting to become better at "seeing" the difference between 6 and 9 due to the repetition. Another few days and we'll start to focus on counting marbles to match the number on the number cards.

Puzzle Break - Doodle has shown a new interest in puzzles so we typically reward him in the middle of the boxes with a puzzle break. Target had some awesome puzzles in their $1 section this last week which has increased our home puzzle library this year.

TBC ...

Finished

We finished the Boxcar Children book this evening. The kids LOVED it and really want to read more in the series. I think I'm going to need to be on the lookout for the next books available.

I also am going to put together a study guide for other PreK students. The same questions we used and some of the activities that went along with our book reading.

Next up is likely Stuart Little.

We've also been making leaps and bounds on our reviewing using the Stair game. I dont remember where I first read this, but essentially I have the kids sit at the top of the stairs and I hold a flash card. It could be a letter or number, and each kid has an opportunity to say the name of the item on the card. If it's a letter, we go a little further and have them also say it's sound and if it's a vowel or consonant. Kids are LOVING it and it's become so much more effective than any of the other worksheets I've been trying to use.

Currently Reading

One of the activities which I started to do with Doodle last spring is introduce him to Chapter books. While he obviously cannot read chapter books, he IS learning to focus to longer stories and remember previously read chapters. We typically read a chapter or two before nap time, at night time, and I've even begun to bring the book with us into the car when Mark drives so I can read to the kids. Everyone loves it.

In the spring we read James and the Giant Peach and then followed up our finished book with a family moving night watching James & the Giant Peach. Now that Doodle is back home we've decided to try out the first Boxcar Children novel. The reading is light and moves quickly and the descriptions are simple and easy for preschoolers to remember. We picked The Boxcar Children series also because of its gender neutral story. While Doodle is my primary student, I also wanted something we could continue to read while his sisters were here.



After each chapter we finish I ask three or four questions about what we just read to the kids and have them answer. These questions are simple and not meant to be tricky or hard to recall, but simple to force the kids to think back over what was just read to them and see how much they've retained. I love hearing their answers and how sometimes they've give double the details I was wanting to hear.

We've nearly halfway through the book after just one weekend but I'm so excited to see how well they've been enjoying it. It's also better for ME because I can only do so many of the picture books before I need something a little longer and new to focus on.

Go to girl hairstyles.

Here is one of our regular daily styles that the girls ask for often. Half up pig-tails.



I really enjoy keeping some of the hair down and being able to see if I can. But practicality means that it needs to stay out of faces. This is a perfect compromise and a big hit on our end.

Likewise sometimes I get a request for just a ponytail, but we're going out somewhere and I want it a little more special. This is the perfect compromise for us.



I'll take 4 small sections of hair near the hairline, braid them back, and then just tie it all up.



It seems to add just enough texture to be perfect for church or a day party somewhere but doesn't require a lot of time or hair ties.

Organizing Curriculum

Since this is our first "official" year - although I like to think we're a year-round home-school - I'm going to be looking at designing our PreK Curriculum month by month. Instead of traditional 5 day school weeks, we'll focus on breaking up our learning through each day of the week to make it easier and more age appropriate.

Today we did informal letter, number and phonic assessments of the three kids. While Doodle is my official "student" I want to have skill appropriate activities around for the Missies to do when they're with us. I'll continue to do monthly assessments of Doodle throughout the year just to see if we're going in the right direction or not.

As stated previously, August is a heavy review month for us. Lots of going back over the numbers (1 - 20) and the basic phonic sounds of the letters. I also will start to introduce some blends and work on sorting vowels, etc. I also am going to spend some time with puzzles and logic activities. We're also trying to spend some more time on days of the week and the months. I found a fun book about how to tell time so that will be added in at some point this year as well.

Some people have asked me why I'm "skipping" preschool. The short answer is that Doodle is somewhere between PreK and Kindy. He knows his shapes and colors and basic logic concepts. He knows his letters, usually remembers their sounds, and is nearly there on his numbers.

Now with my going back to school things will be hectic, and I'm assuming I'll need to be uber focused and organized. I plan to have it based on a "Letter of the Week" idea but make it more "Sound of the week" oriented.

Back to school...

Life always has twists and turns.

It wouldn't be the same without them. On a whim of sorts I've decided to be forward thinking and go back to school. I want my BA.

And so I'm now meeting and applying at UTA and going with the flow. Life is grand. Minus the loans.

Goodbye Summer

Over a month. Sheesh. What in the world could have been taking place?

In a nutshell learning. Living. Growing.

Doodle spent the summer with his grandparents, multiple sets of them, in Michigan on farms in dirt and riding tractors. For three weeks he was parent-less learning by exploring his world and experiencing what it's like to play outside all day everyday getting dirty and wet and mosquito bitten. Things which we don't have the opportunity to do much in Texas where it is often 100+ during the day.

Of course this is going to mean this fall we're extending our PreK wrap-up and going to be spending a few weeks going over the letters and basic phonics in the fall when we get back into the swing of things. :)

Forever and a day

It's amazing how busy you can get without realizing it.

Doodle and I are enjoying our summer. LOTS of swimming time and outdoors fun. We've abandoned the garden idea due to our seedlings frying in the summer heat.

I've also made the decision to abandon sight words all together. After researching some more, I realized how I would much rather Doodle learn phonetically than by sight words.

And lastly, Doodle is prepping to be gone from home for 3 weeks starting next week. Eek.

Progress

The past two or three days Doodle has been waking up in the morning and asking to do his workboxes, without prompting from me. He is understanding that I am setting them up for him each night so he can do them in the morning. I love this.

I love that I can stay in bed for an extra 20 minutes because he's busy working on his first drawer or two which are normally activities he can do on his own. I love that he's learning how to do things on his own without my help and that he has the interest and initiative to do them right away in the morning. We're still only doing 6 boxes a day but they're really helping keep us organized on our steady progress this summer.

At the same time, our garden is coming along well and we even added two blueberry bushes this weekend. While I don't anticipate much fruit from them this year, Doodle does love to walk out there each day and pick off the few ripe berries and eat them straight from the bush.

I KNOW I should be taking more pictures of things, but if I'm honest there are times when it just seems such a hassle to pull out my camera. When I read through my entries I feel I'm missing out not having pictures to go with the stories I'm telling, so I hope to be able to spend more time getting back in the groove of taking pictures of our daily activities.

Mark and I have found the spot where we're going to plant our garden seedlings in. Now just to frame it out and fill it with dirt. :-D