Life Is A Classroom

A new year already?!?

2011-08-14T19:23:00.000-07:00

Ok, not really. We've actually been doing school since the start of July. I know, I'm a total slacker with the blogging again. You should see the family blog. Poor neglected dusty thing......

Anyway. Gracie is in 2nd grade and Ian in Kindy this year. One of the biggest changes in my life this year will be having every Friday all to myself. I have no idea what I will do, probably sleep and eat chocolate although I probably should clean and do grocery shopping. I'm looking forward to it, over 7 years of being the primary care giver for at least one child deserves one day a week off, right? We have switched to a different Options location this year and I am pretty excited about it. It's larger, has a nicer facility, offers more classes, is only about 5 minutes from James office and it's on Fridays like our last location which was kind of a must for me at this point, I really like Options as a kick off to the weekend.

So, what are the kids up to this year?

Gracie's classes

Math:
Mathmatics Grade 2 by Scott Foresman/Addson Wesley- Not what I would have probably picked. Not what we'll probably do next year. I wanted something more hands on and visual because I think she needs that. She wants a work book she can speed through as fast as possible with as little explanation as possible. I went with her wants this year because Math U See was a battle last year and this was free through Options. So far it's not terrible but I don't really feel like she's learning concepts as much as she's just filling out answers. I liked Math U See better but it's not always about me, right?

Grammar:
Easy Grammar by Wanda C. Phillips- Easy day by day exercises that introduce grammar without being too intensive. I like it, she likes it. Win-win.

Spelling:
Spelling Connections 2 by Zaner-Bloser- I like this system because it integrates writing, vocabulary, grammar, reading, and thinking into each unit without it seeming like it is. Sneaky sneaky. Again so far we both like it.

Science/Social Studies/Reading:
Moving Beyond the Page Age 5-7 by Epiphany Curriculum- This will be new for us starting this week. We started with Scott Foreman Science and Macmillan/McGraw-Hill Social Studies from Options. I didn't like either of them last year and neither did the kids really but it was free and I didn't really have any other curriculum in mind so I just went with it. The biggest issues with both those systems is that it's meant for teaching a whole classroom and at least for me I just couldn't get it to translate to home schooling well at all. I was supplementing a ton from the start which is fine but adds a lot on my plate. And the kids thought it was boring. And then Gracie started having major jealousy issues with Ian because I have to read him everything from his books because he doesn't read yet and she didn't understand why I was focusing on him and having her do her work quietly once I got her started because she can read and follow directions. That didn't make sense to her though and she thought it was really unfair. All of this came to a head by the end of July. I had learned of MBTP after we had started and had filed it away for next year but after all this I decided maybe just biting the bullet and purchasing it would be for the best. I decided to go with level 5-7 because then we can do all of it together, as a team. These are the classes that take us the most time during school and working together will be good for us I think. Plus in each lesson there are generally 2 options for each activity, one that is easier and one that is a bit more challenging. This works perfect for us, two activities on the same topic, one geared towards Gracie, one towards Ian, and only one lesson plan for me to have to follow. Finally having them 20 months apart is paying off!! After doing our plans for this coming week I am totally sold on the system and can't wait to do it with the kids. It's literature based and right up our alley.

Health:
KidsHealth.org- I'm pulling stuff off of this website for a once a week health talk. I figure it's a good thing to talk hygiene and stuff. Before they get all big and smelly.

Art:
Atelier Art level 3- We did level 2 last year and it was great. The projects are great, there is also fine art to observe and discuss. It was designed for homeschoolers which is nice.

Other stuff:
This fall Gracie will be in a new choir in Parker and playing soccer here in Elizabeth. As long as rehearsal doesn't clash with practice it will be all good. She'll also hopefully be taking Karate at Options but that's not for sure yet.

Ian's Classes

For the record I had no intention of Ian doing much school this year. I didn't make G do anything for kindy and she turned out just fine (so far) so I had the same plan for him. He, however, had other plans. My kids always have other plans it seems. He has been very very very excited about school and being in school and doing school and learning. He's turned out to be quite academic which is a pleasant surprise. So I'm going with it. (Are you catching a theme here? I do what they tell me. If they ever figure this out I am toast.)

Math:
Math U See Primer- Ian was itching to do this all year last year. He LOVED the blocks and was always playing with them when Gracie did math. It was an easy choice for him this year. And then guess what? When I went to pick it up they said he doesn't need blocks. I was like WHA? He was like WHA? I asked if they were sure, they said yes, so off I went with a crying boy. But by lesson 9 you do need the blocks, they are in the video and everything. So they are getting me the blocks. Ian is happy. The end.

Language Arts:
Sing, Spell, Read, Write- I had no idea what this would be like but it sounded good and again, it was free, so I went for it. Ian really likes it, he likes that he gets to cross stuff off his train track and he can't wait to get to the race car level which I think is for next year. If we finish early we'll start it this year because he's crazy to be a car instead of a train. Go figure.

Science/Social Studies/ Reading:
If you don't know what he's doing for this you obviously didn't read what I said Gracie is doing and shame on you.

Health:
Same as Gracie.

Art:
Same as Gracie.

Other Stuff:
He's also playing soccer here in Elizabeth this fall and will hopefully be doing karate at Options.

So those are our big fat plans for this year! What are yours? If you have a blog link hook me up!

We are done!

2011-05-19T23:01:00.000-07:00

Well. Gracie is a second grader now. And at some point I'm going to have to come to terms with the fact that my baby is a Kindergartener. *sob*

Our year ended well and I really feel like we all grew. Here's a sampling of our accomplishments:

~We finished our year much more relaxed and with more enjoyment than we had about a month into things.
~Gracie is reading chapter books, like real big chapter books. Her favorites are Harry Potter, Judy Moody, Encyclopedia Brown, any of the American Girl series but the mysteries in particular, Nancy Drew and The Chronicles of Narnia. As you can tell she loves mysteries. Her reading skills are awesome and her comprehension is amazing. She's light years ahead of grade level in the reading department.
~Gracie is an auditory and visual learner for the most part and I LOVE the ability we have at home to let that dominate her learning. We do very little work sheet type work. She much prefers to hear about things, watch videos about things, read about them, look them up on the internet, research them, and then write a report or do a hands on experiment. She is very much her mothers daughter! She's not into drill work, she's into practical application. And she does great with that so we generally skip the drilling.
~Her writing has improved so much. The way she expresses herself, the amount she wants to write and her handwriting in general have really taken off. One thing we need to work on is spelling. I'm at a loss for how to teach this as she hates drilling and I was a horrible speller so I'm not sure what will help her out. I'm still a fairly bad speller actually. Thank God for spell check! I'm going to try a new approach with her next year, we'll see how that goes.
~Ian really got into the idea of learning generally. He loves his Brain Quest book, that's all we've focused on this year and he's really into it. His fine motor skills are coming along and he's trying to read. I have a feeling Kindy is going to be a huge year of changes for him like it was for Gracie. She started not able to read and really not trying much with writing and by the end she was reading and writing well. I'm so excited to see him reach those same accomplishments!

Plans for next year:
I intend to keep up with the low key eclectic approach we have going on. This year we had weeks where I focused on topics and weeks where we totally unschooled. It worked for us. My kids like direction, they like accomplishing things, they like to work with me. They also like doing stuff on their own. I really think staying relaxed is the key, as soon as someone is fighting anything we just take a break. They always want to come back to it and usually the break gives them the ability to conqueror it. Not sure why that works but it does. I will be using the Core Knowledge books What Your 2nd Grader Needs To Know and What Your Kindergartener Needs To Know. I LOVE those books. They are so comprehensive (except for language arts, they have tons of reading but no grammar, spelling, vocab, etc....) and I really like the way they are laid out and how easy they make everything to understand. I also like the suggested activities. The 1st grade book totally saved both mine and Gracie's sanity this year. So those books will be our core. Both the kids will have Language Arts books from Options and I got other text books too because hey, they are free, so why not? We can use them as reference and if they end up sitting unused it's no loss to me. I will also continue to have the kids journal and I want to focus more on making that a daily thing. I love what Gracie wrote this year and I know she will get a kick out of it when she's older. On Fridays they will be attending Options at a new location which I think we will really enjoy. It has more class offerings and extra-curriculars all of which is free or extremely affordable. Karate and Drama are two things in the plans already, both the kids are sooooo excited about those classes!

So that's it. The 2010-2011 school year is officially history. Woot!!

How do you handle extra activities?

2011-02-22T16:09:00.000-08:00

Trying to get a handle on things here.

We've had the kids in gymnastics since September. They love it and I can see major improvements in their strength and balance. It's been a good thing really. But it has cost us over $700 for 3 sessions plus enrollment fees.

Then there's Music Together, which is just for Ian and I on Fridays while Gracie is at options. We did the fall session, the holiday mini session and now the winter session. That has cost us $360.

We also do 4-H but that is minimal really, $60 for both kids for the whole year.

So, approxiately $1120 on supplemental activities and it's only February. And we only have 2 kids!!!!!

Today was the last class of gymnastics for this session and I decided not to resign them up. I feel they are benefiting from it but just can't justify the cost again. Music ends in 2 weeks and I am also not re-registering for that. We've been taking that class on and off for the last 5 years and this last session was the only series we hadn't done so I don't feel to badly stopping that one.

Now they are asking for swimming lessons again, which is $160 for both kids to take a 2 week/4 classes a week session. Swimming is important though, right? I would even go so far as to say it's an important life skill. The cost is a pain but the drive even more so, our little town doesn't have a pool so it would be an hour round trip driving plus time at back to back classes. Does not sound fun to me, like at all.

I think I'm going to focus on the free right now. We are a one income family and I feel like our budget is constantly stressed, these classes add to that stress a lot. But are we bad home school parents if we don't get the kids out and about and doing activities? Granted Gracie does go to Options all day Friday (free via public school) and we have a weekly gathering with our home school group (usually free or fairly cheap), so they are out among the living at least twice a week. That's good, right? And the weather is getting nicer too, so we can get out to the park every now and then. Oh, and memberships! We have memberships to the zoo and 2 museums, so that's free entertainment and education.

I'm feeling a lot of guilt on this one. Why do kids activities have to cost so much anyway? What do you do to supplement what you do at home? Are extra activities necessary?

Where we are now.

2011-02-15T15:20:00.000-08:00

I've decided the first year is home schooling is a little bit like the first year of marriage. You each have quirks and expectations and you dance this weird dance trying to get your point across while not hurting the other persons feelings.

Yes, it's kind of like that.

We have done so many things this year. In spite of all the changes we've made and the books I've bought and the plans I've pitched to the side I know we've learned a great deal.

So. Where are we now? Well, it looks like this:

Two books and a notebook.

We started the 30 minutes a day book 3 weeks ago. I like it because it covers the basics of phonics and math. Gracie likes it because she can do it without my help (mostly). It gives me the feed back I need without being overwhelming. There are only 50 chapters and she does 4 a week so it was kind of perfect to fit in this time of year. I picked it up at Childrens Book of the Month Club online. I think it was like $5 on clearance.

What Your First Grader Needs to Know is a very cool book. It's set up by subject, contains music and art and is a good overall book of knowledge. It has information and ideas on projects for the subject at hand. It feels Classical to me, but take that with a grain of salt since I haven't really done much research on Classical schooling. Very no pressure, lots of pictures, good literature, easy to digest. Just what we need. I picked it up at Barnes and Nobel for $18. I believe these books go up through 6th grade.

Lastly there's the notebook. I come up with a daily topic (I have a link on my sidebar for a website that has ideas) and Gracie writes her response and draws a picture. Again, simple and to the point. Great for practicing handwriting and creative writing. Also gives insight into her 6 year old head which I like and I know she will treasure as she gets older.

So that's where we're at! Where are you?

Penguin and Antarctica Lapbook

2011-01-10T11:40:00.000-08:00

We finished this before the holidays but I am just now getting photos of the final product up.

Front:

Back: Ian's contribution

Inside: from top left down we have a photo of Antarctica explaining that's where most penguins live and that they all live in the S. Hemisphere. Beneath that is a triangle that flips to either side explaining why penguins are black and white. The center has the penguin life cycle and a vocabulary list which is flipped down. The right side has a flip chart of what penguins eat and who eats penguins and a pocket with 17 cards, one for each of the different types of penguins.

Inside with the vocabulary list flipped up:

We used the Magic Tree House Research Guide book for our vocabulary as well as for the bulk of information we learned. We read and discussed one chapter a day and Gracie recorded vocab words on this sheet.

Flip chart on what penguins eat and who eats penguins.

I found all the resources for this flip book online. There were a ton of links, I just googled penguin lap book and took what would work for us. We also did penguin math sheets which are not in the flip book.

I think that for our first time doing a unit study and a lap book it turned out really well. We had fun doing it and I liked putting it all together. It combined science and social studies easily, I found math sheets with a penguin theme as well as color sheets and other things to keep Ian involved. We also watched March of the Penguins, the part about Arctic and Antarctic in the BBC Earth series, and Happy Feet. We learned a lot and it was fun!

We are starting another unit study today. This time we are doing horses and donkeys since we are adopting 2 mini donkeys this week. It's nice to have a real live subject to teach about!

My home school goal for 2011.........

2011-01-03T15:39:00.000-08:00

is simply to come to terms with the fact that because I home school my house will rarely if ever be completely clean. Because there are always, always, always little people who need to learn and explore and build and play and letting them learn and explore and build and play is messy. And that's ok. In fact it's necessary.

Someday they will be gone and then I will most likely lament my perfectly clean house and I will beg them to come, and bring their children, and mess it all up.

I will remind myself of this daily and enjoy life as it is. It may be cluttered, disorganized and even down right dirty, but it's also full of fun and love and that is where I will put my focus.

Penguins Unit Study update

2010-12-07T13:06:00.000-08:00

Our first unit study process is going along very well. We've done lots of small activities and have been reading the Magic Tree House book about penguins and Antarctica. We've all learned a lot, it's been very fun!

Cute story from yesterday. I checked out the BBC Planet Earth series from the library so that we could watch the segment that had penguins in it. After watching it the kids played penguins and it was so cute! They were using a plastic baseball as their egg and they were passing it back and forth on their feet like the mom and dad penguins do. They were talking about how they needed to walk so far for food and making penguin noises and bowing and dancing like penguin couples do. It was just so cute and awesome to see their knowledge being acted out. A very nice way to evaluate their retention without them having any idea that's what I was doing!

Yay for learning while having fun!

I have been inspired.

2010-12-01T13:40:00.000-08:00

So yesterday I read this post at Not Inadequate and I was intimidated yet inspired to figure out just exactly how unit studies work. It just so happens that the kids and I had started a book on Penguins yesterday and after doing research til almost midnight I decided to turn it into a unit study. I am a unit study virgin, never did one when I was a classroom teacher and I've never done one here at home but it seems to make so much sense with how my kids learn.

My unit study research turned me onto lapbooking and there are about a million resources for figuring them out. Just google. Then google a subject you are interested in and lapbook together. Amazing. How did I not know about this?

So yeah. We're doing a unit study on penguins and there will be a lapbook at the end. Stay tuned to see how it turns out!

AGHHHHHHHHHHHH

2010-11-28T20:25:00.000-08:00

It is my goal to get things accomplished before the end of 2010. I feel like we are getting a bit behind, although I'm not too concerned since I realized that the big long winter with lack of fun and holidays is just a month away. We have been extremely unmotivated to accomplish anything measurable lately though, so I'm going to try to change that. Wish me luck!!!

What’s up?

2010-11-10T15:26:00.001-08:00

Face Painting:

A zoo trip:

Oceanopoly: Disclaimer here, they were playing it with their own rules.

Letters:

Spelling:

Math:

Counting and Sorting:

Hiking and Nature Observation:

And apparently stealing my camera and having a dance party:

What are you up to?

I cannot explain how ironic it is……..

2010-10-21T17:22:00.001-07:00

That my last post was joking about how scary spiders are and now we are actually dealing with a very scary spider bite in our dog. Head over to my family blog if you want to find out what’s going on and see some pictures that are not for the weak.

Super Cute (wait, I mean Very Very Scary) Spiders!

2010-10-18T16:14:00.001-07:00

Inspired by this post we made our own very busy spiders today!

First we dug out some information about spiders and talked facts.

Then we dug out the black paper and white chalk and drew our webs.

Then we dug out the rainbow pom-pom balls, google eyes, pipe cleaners and glue and built these little guys.

They are cuter than cute, don’t you think?

P.S. The small balls on Gracie’s are bugs trapped in the web that the spider is going to eat. And both kids had to made a daddy spider and a baby spider, cause one spider alone just isn’t happy.

Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater

2010-10-13T16:24:00.001-07:00

Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater

Had a wife but couldn’t keep her

Put her in a pumpkin shell

And there he kept her very well

Today we did an art project based on this verse. The idea was very simple, read the verse to Gracie and then have her make a drawing based on what she heard. We also looked at the mini pumpkins we have to get an idea of how different they are and to give her something to go off of for the drawing. In the art book it was slightly more guided, directing the children to make a large pumpkin the center of the drawing. The example they had was beautiful, a lovely pumpkin turned into a house and a happy couple standing together proudly. I, however, wanted to just see what she would come up with since she had never heard that verse before, so I didn’t direct her at all and I didn’t let her see the example that was provided. The result was adorable and hilarious and oh so Gracie.

From top left we have:

Peter, who is apparently very square, and his wife who is small and sitting on a couch.

Then we have his wife sitting on her bed. She’s on the phone with her boyfriend Gracie said. That’s why Peter put her in the pumpkin shell. She has a dog and a cat under her bed.

Last we have the poor wife, trapped in a pumpkin and unable to get out.

Finally Gracie decided to write the verse all around the drawing, without any of my help (“no mom, I know it, I can do it!!!!!!”)

I plan on doing this again with other verses she has never heard. If anything it’s good for a laugh!!!

The Mad Scientist

2010-09-28T16:17:00.001-07:00

My children have informed me they have a new teacher. They refer to this person as the mad scientist. The kids both love the mad scientist. They keep asking for the mad scientist to come do other lessons for them but so far it just hasn’t happened.

I guess that every time the science book opens for a lesson the mad scientist appears. She apparently has an accent and talks all crazy and fast and yells and points her finger and the kids think she is hilarious. They all do the science lessons together and then when the lesson is complete and the book goes back on the shelf she just plain disappears. It’s very strange, this whole mad scientist thing. But since the kids love her who am I to complain that someone else is coming in and teaching for me, if only just for one subject.

The strangest thing is that I have never met this scientist. Apparently I go into some sort of zen like state when she appears. The kids say that I am the mad scientist. I think they are crazy. I would know if I were a mad scientist, wouldn’t I?

;)

Compromise

2010-09-20T10:58:00.001-07:00

I started school in the middle of August. We started out nice and strong with everything organized and lessons plans set in my Scholastic planner. As much as I believe in the unschooling method of learning I have to admit that for me, the former school teacher, I like having my books and plans and teachers guides. I mean I REALLY like it. I could jump back into a traditional classroom today and have no problems being a good teacher. It’s what I did and I’m pretty sure I did it well. And I loved it. It suites my type A personality to have everything laid out all nice and neat and a schedule to follow.

However……

For Gracie school became something to dread really quickly. At the end of two weeks she was really fussing every time I said we needed to do something and then the third week she said the dreaded words: “I hate school.”

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

I’m pretty sure that my enthusiasm and planning and love of my teachers guides unfortunately ran right over Gracie’s desire to learn. Oops.

So I stopped, cold turkey. For the past couple weeks we have only done what she wants when she wants to. I tossed my planner and let her choose what she wanted to do and then I just called on those teacher skills whenever she had an interest and we went for it. We deschooled. And we still learned a lot, it just takes a lot more spur of the moment creativity on my part to turn interests into a learning experience. I don’t mind doing things that way sometimes but I have to admit that I am not great at making lessons in my head in 5 seconds flat. Again, I’m pretty type A. If I’m going to do something I want to do it well. I want to have the resources to research and I want to have a project or whatever to help follow through on the line of thought. I want to make sure I’m giving the correct information. Those things take time and preparation. I don’t like to do things half-ass. It’s just not me! In theory I totally get the unschool philosophy but in practice I feel like I’m constantly missing opportunity because of lack of information or creativity or both. I know unschooling works for lots of people, I’m just not sure that we are those people.

So this week I decided we will try a new approach. A kind of compromise. Gracie gets some control and I get to prepare what we will do.

Today Gracie and I sat down and decided how many times a week we should do our various subjects. We have 4 days to do lessons in, Fridays she has Options. She gets to pick which lessons she wants whichever day of the week she wants to do them, and she can do them in whatever order and how ever many she wants. If we have to we will use weekends to finish the list up. I explained to her that if she chooses to do nothing one day that’s fine, but we will have to do extra the other days then. She understood that concept, although I have a feeling she will have to push it at least once to truly understand. But that’s ok, she’s learning how to prioritize and accomplish things and the consequences of procrastination will probably be part of the process.

After we decided how many times a week she will do her various subjects I quickly wrote her a chart where she can keep track of what she does every week. It looks like this:

Math 1 2 3

Science 1 2

Social Studies 1 2

Spelling 1 2 3

Handwriting 1 2 3

Writing 1

Reading Every Day (We read multiple times a day and James does a chapter book with the kids in the evenings.)

Spanish 1 2

Art 1 2

Then, every day, she picks what she wants to do. When it’s done she crosses it off. Pretty simple. Then she has control with what she wants to do every day and I know how many things to prepare for every week. I hope this will meet both our needs. I’m thinking I may come up with a much smaller schedule for Ian to follow with us since he participates in many of our lessons anyway. I think he’s like his own list to cross off too.

So, do I think this will work? Yes, for now. That’s the glory of home school, we can do what works til it doesn’t and then switch it up. I’d love it if this was our schedule for the rest of the year, but we’ll see.

How do you mix things up when you hit a wall? I’d love to hear from any of the home schoolers out there who happen by!

Birdhouses

2010-08-22T18:47:00.001-07:00

We painted these a couple weeks ago. I need to get some hangers on them so we can put them outside next spring and see if we get any birds to nest in them.

Wow, I haven’t even posted yet in 2010!

2010-08-19T20:34:00.001-07:00

That’s nuts. I had no idea!

Anyway, we are off to the races with Gracie’s first grade year. I hadn’t planned to start til after Labor Day but we got her books weeks ago and she’s been seeming a little bored so I said “what the heck!” and we hit the books.

Gracie is doing Options again this year. We’ve moved and the drive is going to be looong, but she made good friends and it doesn’t seem worth trying to move her to another location. It’s only one day a week. I think most of the time it should be fine. The snow could throw a kink in things, but we’ll see.

The nice thing about Options is that because it’s a public school program we have access to curriculum for free. This is a huge thing to me since curriculum is expensive. And there’s so much out there, you could go for days and days comparing it and then finally get it only to find it’s not really what you thought. Options narrows the field a bit and then has a book fair where I was able to go in and look at every subject, the books, teachers editions, workbooks, and manipulative. It was wonderful to go in and see everything and helped make choosing very easy.

So, for 1st grade Gracie is doing the following classes:

Math- We are doing Math-U-See So far I love it and Gracie is really digging it too. It’s similar to Saxon with it’s repetitiveness and I taught Saxon (eons ago now) so it’s comfortable for me.

Reading- No text. We’re just reading. I’m pretty confident she’s reading above grade level right now and honestly I hate reading text books. So we’re using the library. A lot. And Goodwill, great place to get good classical literature.

Spelling- Spelling Power. It’s good and basic with lots of ideas for fun and games as review. I like it because it’s so comprehensive, it’s one book for kids K-12.

Grammar- No text. I figure if she’s reading good literature and she can spell that the grammar will follow. I know some would disagree but at this point it’s what works.

Handwriting- Handwriting Without Tears This one I didn’t get through Options, they actually didn’t have anything for handwriting which I thought was weird. So I did some research, had this recommended by a few people, and jumped. So far I like it and again, I really like the approach it takes with fun learning activities that don’t just involve a workbook.

Creative Writing- Writing Strands It’s a basic simple small book with lots of ideas for introducing good and creative writing for children. There’s no text for students. Again, lots of activities that don’t necessitate sitting with a book and holding a pencil. Do you see a pattern in my philosophy of teaching here? ;)

Social Studies- MacMillan People and Places- I think this will be ok, but not awesome. It will expose her to things which is good. I think a lot of it is really dumbed down which annoys me, but that’s just the way it is with a lot of text books. We will probably supplement the information in this book a lot.

Science- Scott Foresman Penguin- Kind of like Social Studies this book will be a nice catalyst but it’s not exactly stimulating information so far.

Art- Atelier Homeschool Art- Love this so far. Really love it. Gracie loves art and I am not artistically gifted, like at all. But I can do this stuff with her and it makes it easy!! Also it includes fine art prints and guided discussion. Sadly I have had very little exposure to any of that my entire life, so I think I will learn as much as she does!

Spanish- Power Glide Language Adventure- This is Gracie’s favorite by far. This girl has the desire to speak with anyone of any language and she will learn it. Period! She’s torn through lessons this week, luckily it’s totally on CD so I can sit back and learn with her.

We will be doing Math, Reading, and Spelling M-Th. The rest of the subjects will be twice a week. Then on Fridays she will have whatever they do at Options this year. It will most likely be Science, Spanish, Art, and PE. I think that’s what they did last year. She’s also in weekly piano lessons, weekly gymnastics class starts the end of this month, and hopefully show choir will start next month (they are having enrollment issues so there’s a chance it won’t start which is so so so so sad).

So there it is folks. My first post of 2010. I sure hope to do another one before she’s in 2nd grade! :)

Holiday Art Work

2009-12-14T16:23:00.001-08:00

Gracie did some work making gifts for her classmates last week. She painted each of them an ornament, I added glitter and then she pasted decorations on them. She also made them each a snow ball soap which was basically grated white soap that you smoosh up and around a small toy. I don't have any pictures of that because I was elbow deep in it with her, but I do have pictures of the ornaments!

While we were painting Ian was playing with our pattern stacking blocks. He had a creative world of some sort going on!

My Girl

2009-12-14T08:58:00.001-08:00

They took school pictures of all the kids at Options, the enrichment program Gracie attends. Her picture turned out so great! I can’t believe how big she is, my kindergarten girl.

I took a picture of the picture so the real thing is not quite so washed out, but you get the basic idea.

November Art Wall

2009-12-08T10:49:00.001-08:00

I’ve decided that with all the art the kids do it’s time to make a monthly display. So I’ve started hanging all the pictures that are made on one wall that’s between the kitchen and living room. They also always have stuff all over our fridge and freezer. At the end of every month I’ll take pictures of everything and take it down so they can start the next months projects! I really want to keep a record of what they are doing and I think photos are the best way since I have no idea how I would keep all this stuff forever.

I love this one, Gracie made all the leaves using her finger prints on a stamp pad. So cute!!

Peter Pan and Captain Hook

The turkey Gracie made at Options for the turkey song her class sang.

Space man picture by Gracie done with stamps.

Leaves that Gracie traced and colored.

Thanksgiving turkey by Gracie

Thanksgiving turkey by Ian

Apples falling from the fall trees by Gracie

Circles and dots by Ian

Fish by Ian

Gracie’s list of the things we needed to do to get ready for Christmas.

These next three totally crack me up. Gracie used some stickers she had to make pictures with Disney characters. She was so busy and quiet and I was doing something else. When I saw what she did I just thought they were so cute, and so creative!

Blue and Green by Ian

The Thanksgiving Turkey Song

2009-11-20T09:53:00.001-08:00

As performed by Gracie and her kindy class this morning!

Museum!

2009-11-12T15:47:00.001-08:00

We were headed to the zoo yesterday for a free day. Once we got there though we decided never mind and headed to the museum instead. The free day combined with a holiday made the zoo, well, a zoo! There was no parking to be had and I could tell we would barely be able to move once inside so a change of plans was needed.

We love the museum. Our membership this year has already paid for it’s self and then some. We were glad to go this time and get to see the children’s area was put back together. We plan to go back soon for the Genghis Kahn exhibit that is there right now, it looks very neat!

So here’s some of what we were up to.

Greeting the parking garage dinosaur!

Ian carefully moving magnets to the right place.

Building with fish!

Gracie participating in an experiment about the effects of pressure on objects. It was very cool, she loved it!

My two space cadets! We had an awesome time in the space section too, there was a museum worker who spent about half an hour showing Gracie the entire solar system on this computer program and there was no one else there with us the whole time. It was pretty cool.

An update!

2009-09-29T14:29:00.001-07:00

I realize it’s been way to long since I wrote anything here, sorry about that!

Our classroom of life has changed a lot the last couple months. Gracie started her one day a week in the enrichment program through Aurora Options and she is loving it. We are doing morning swimming lessons again and Gracie has also joined the Douglas County Children's Chorale and to say she enjoys that is the understatement of the year. We have had a season of change as far as our home school support group and I’m currently looking at our options to find something that may work better for us.

Mostly we are just playing and living life as normal, learning as we go. I say we because this home schooling journey is just as much a learning opportunity for me as it is for the kids. I’m learning about my strengths and weaknesses and figuring it all out as I go!

I’m going to work on documenting our journey again, so hopefully there will be more interesting things coming soon!

Weekly Wednesday Hike with a side order of tree climbing.

2009-06-24T21:55:00.001-07:00

Weekly Wednesday Hike

2009-06-10T21:41:00.001-07:00

We love our weekly hike with our home school group. Seriously, sometimes I think this gathering of good friends and nature is what helps me stay sane through my week!!!
This week we went to Castlewood Canyon again. This state park is very quickly becoming one of my favorite places to hike, it's so beautiful and so diverse. Today we were lucky to have a guided hike set up by one of the dads in our group who had taken a guided hike with Ron the park ranger before and thought he would be awesome for leading our kids. And he was right!! Ron was great with the kids and very knowledgeable. I think we all really enjoyed him.

Looking at owl pellets(or as Gracie said “what the owls puke up”).

I think this was Ron showing them a flower.

The group on the rim of the canyon.

Sweet little waterfall. There were neat little pools all going down into the canyon from here, it was so pretty!

Beautiful wildflowers.

Gracie and her buddy Payge, both looking precious in pink!