As our children grow we try to train and teach them to be caring and compassionate people. Making sure that they use their manners and are kind to others. But nothing is quite as amazing as when you get to see them show one of these characteristics to you all on their own without being prompted by you.
My 11 yr old son melted my heart the other day. Ever since the day after Thanksgiving he has been trying to come up with his own money so that he could buy his own gifts to give to his family and friends. He has always loved giving gifts to others that I have bought but this year he has wanted to buy his own with his own money. And here is where he melted my heart. He received some money in the mail as a Christmas gift and the next day he was ready to go shopping because now he had more money to buy more gifts for everyone. Now you talk about a proud Momma. I was so proud of him for wanting to spend his gift that he received on others. How selfless of him. And I have to tell you that this made his Momma want to buy him just a few extra things for Christmas for him being so willing to spend his money on others.
I love this boy. He is becoming a great little man. He has also been very helpful with making lots of gifts as well. We have made a brown sugar and sesame oil body scrub and lots of bars of soap. And he is making his own Christmas cards to give to everyone. We save our Christmas cards from the previous years and then recycle the pictures and characters on them to make new cards. He does better at sending Christmas cards then I do.
You know as a stay-at-home I don't get paid money for a full time job but seeing my son be so giving it is "Priceless".
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Go with the flow.
This is our 10th school year homeschooling. You would think that perhaps I would be able to get everything done on our lesson plan for the day. But one thing is for sure with homeschooling you have to allow yourself to go with the flow sometimes. And leave it at that. Don't second guess yourself with, " But are they learning enough?" or "we have to get this assignment done today." I can guarantee you that it will not be the end of the world if your day doesn't go as planned. And believe me there will always be tomorrow (Lord willing). It is so easy to get caught up in the things that we didn't get done for the day. But what really matters is, what did you get done for the day. Because some days with life as crazy as it can be, the best that we can do is make sure that everyone is fed, bathed, and loved. And this is especially true when you have little ones running around.
The first several years of our homeschooling experience there were many days when me and my children snuggled up on the couch together and read through our stack of library books. As we read we would learn and touch on all kinds of different subjects. We could be counting the characters on the page as well as naming all of the different colors we saw on each page while we were reading the story. It can be tough to get through a lot of sit down book work time when you have little ones so you have to take what time you get and make the most of it. Try to cover as many subjects that you can at one time. You can certainly use the sand in the sandbox as your chalkboard and practice writing the alphabet in the sand as you play together. And you can count the cheerios on the high chair tray and build the different letters too.
Something that I have seen over the years is just how different your school day will change the older your children get and the more experience you get with homeschooling. You will see that there will be more sit down time as their attention spans mature. All children will develop and learn new concepts when they as indiviuals are ready for it. I have taught my 14 yr. old daughter with Down Syndrome addition and subtraction for many years now. But it hasn't been until this year that I have really seen her grow and come to understand this whole process. I do have to believe that it is partly because of the math that we are using this year. I have been using Math-U-See with both of my children. This is a new program for us and so far it is working really well for both of them. Jasmine requires a lot of repetition in her learning and you get that with Math-U-See. Plus both of my children are visual learners. So anytime that you can teach them something that they can actually touch and feel it helps them to understand much easier. But also Jas is just mentally ready to understand the addition taught this way.
With my 11 yr old son the Math-U-See is working well for him because the lessons only take about 10 - 15 minutes to complete. But also the approach that they use in this math with really focusing on patterns and codes to help remember the math facts has really helped him to learn and retain the math. As well as there are blocks that they use to build the facts out of. The past several years he has used Saxon and Swithced On Schoolhouse math. I loved the Saxon because of the thoroughness of the lessons. However the lessons would easily take us 45 minutes to finish for the day. And he is boy through and through so good luck getting him to sit still for that amount of time for just one subject. With the Switched On Schoolhouse it is a computer program where all of their work is done on the computer. At the beginning of the school year he seemed to enjoy this but as the school year went on he got tired of having to do the work on the computer so we started to print the lessons out and he would write out all of his work. These lessons could also be quite long.
Homeschooling is a constant learning process for everyone involved. I have said many times that I have learned just as much if not more than my children have over the years of teaching them. And perhaps the biggest thing I have learned is to go with the flow and take each school day one day at a time. You will be surprised with what will get accomplished because trust me, it is the important things that will get done for the day. And the rest will be there tomorrow or the next day.
The first several years of our homeschooling experience there were many days when me and my children snuggled up on the couch together and read through our stack of library books. As we read we would learn and touch on all kinds of different subjects. We could be counting the characters on the page as well as naming all of the different colors we saw on each page while we were reading the story. It can be tough to get through a lot of sit down book work time when you have little ones so you have to take what time you get and make the most of it. Try to cover as many subjects that you can at one time. You can certainly use the sand in the sandbox as your chalkboard and practice writing the alphabet in the sand as you play together. And you can count the cheerios on the high chair tray and build the different letters too.
Something that I have seen over the years is just how different your school day will change the older your children get and the more experience you get with homeschooling. You will see that there will be more sit down time as their attention spans mature. All children will develop and learn new concepts when they as indiviuals are ready for it. I have taught my 14 yr. old daughter with Down Syndrome addition and subtraction for many years now. But it hasn't been until this year that I have really seen her grow and come to understand this whole process. I do have to believe that it is partly because of the math that we are using this year. I have been using Math-U-See with both of my children. This is a new program for us and so far it is working really well for both of them. Jasmine requires a lot of repetition in her learning and you get that with Math-U-See. Plus both of my children are visual learners. So anytime that you can teach them something that they can actually touch and feel it helps them to understand much easier. But also Jas is just mentally ready to understand the addition taught this way.
With my 11 yr old son the Math-U-See is working well for him because the lessons only take about 10 - 15 minutes to complete. But also the approach that they use in this math with really focusing on patterns and codes to help remember the math facts has really helped him to learn and retain the math. As well as there are blocks that they use to build the facts out of. The past several years he has used Saxon and Swithced On Schoolhouse math. I loved the Saxon because of the thoroughness of the lessons. However the lessons would easily take us 45 minutes to finish for the day. And he is boy through and through so good luck getting him to sit still for that amount of time for just one subject. With the Switched On Schoolhouse it is a computer program where all of their work is done on the computer. At the beginning of the school year he seemed to enjoy this but as the school year went on he got tired of having to do the work on the computer so we started to print the lessons out and he would write out all of his work. These lessons could also be quite long.
Homeschooling is a constant learning process for everyone involved. I have said many times that I have learned just as much if not more than my children have over the years of teaching them. And perhaps the biggest thing I have learned is to go with the flow and take each school day one day at a time. You will be surprised with what will get accomplished because trust me, it is the important things that will get done for the day. And the rest will be there tomorrow or the next day.
Saturday, December 4, 2010
If You Give A Mouse A Cookie.........
One of our all time favorite childrens book is "If You Give A Mouse A Cookie" by Laura Joffe Numeroff and is illustrated by Felicia Bond. It is a sweet little story about a little boy that gives a mouse a cookie and the cause and effect that takes place afterwards.
This is one of my favorite illustrations. This is a true depiction of milk and cookies contentment. Love his little pooched out belly.
This author also has some other great books similar to this story. "If You Give A Pig A Pancake", "If You Take A Mouse To School", and "If You Give A Moose A Muffin".
I stumbled upon this little companion book at our local library's used book sale for $.10.
We decided to give one of the recipes a try.
The look of anticipation!
"Lily's M&M Crunchies" definitely get our vote for yummy goodness. They are certainly crunchy with the M&Ms and rice crispy cereal. This was a great way for us to spend our day together on a day with snow and rain blowing around outside in the cold wind. Nice and cozy warm in the house eating milk and cookies.
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Do we really have to????
It is only December 2nd and the Christmas spirit has totally taken over us all in my house. Even so, that Me, being the teacher is saying, "Do we really have to do school?" I'm just a big kid anyways and when it comes to Christmas my inner kid is screaming inside, "Let me OUT!!!" Each day it is a matter of deciding which one of our many Christmas projects we want to tackle. Yesterday is was putting up the tree and getting it all decorated. So far today it has been putting up the other decorations around the house. I love to watch my kids each year take more initiative in the decorating. It is a good thing that they do enjoy this season as much as I do or they might be saying, "Ah come on MOM, not another Christmas project."
We even have a special entrance for some extra helpers. We found this idea on the Family Fun magazine website. And then we made our own version.
I happened to find and elf hanging around under the tree.
I guess I must quit playing now and put my teachers cap on.
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
6 Weeks of gingerbread, royal icing and lots of candy!!
Every Christmas for the past 5 or 6 years my little family and I have went to the Grove Park Inn to "oooooooh" and "aaaaaaaaah" over the beautiful gingerbread houses that are on display for the Annual National Gingerbread House Competition. Last year my 11 yr old decided that he wanted to enter a house into the competition. Which I'm all about encouraging my children to participate and try new things but this one I was a little worried about. You see every time we have ever tried to roll out cookie dough and cut different shapes with cookie cutters, the dough never quite co operated like we wanted it too. The dough would get too warm and mushy and when we would go to pick the shapes up off the counter top to place on the cookie sheet the cookies would loose their shape or just stick to the counter. But never the less we gave it a whirl. After leaving the gingerbread dough in the refrigerator for a while I rolled the dough out on my baking stones. That way all we had to do after cutting the shapes out was peel the excess dough off the stone and the house pieces would still be intact. This worked great. WooHoo!
He created a great little house with a lego candy dog house and snow man out in the front yard. He didn't win but he did receive a certificate of participation. Which I think he was quite proud of.
So time rolled around again this year for the competition and not only did my 11 yr old want to compete but also his sister. So this meant double the fun! Six weeks ago we began the journey of creating their masterpieces. I wanted to try a new gingerbread recipe this year. And we are glad we did. The consistency of the dough was much more firm and a lot easier to work with. And I believe the magic ingredient was vegetable shortening. It was amazing the difference. We were able to roll the dough out right after mixing it together without having to refrigerate it at all.
Over the next six weeks we all watched as their houses took shape and became pieces of artwork.
This is the beginning of my daughters house.
This is her finished piece. She named it "Sugar Land" (love it)
This is the beginning of my sons house.
This is his finished piece. He named it "Camp Wazoo!". It is a camp for boy and girl animals.
We made the daring delivery this past Sunday. This is always interesting. Last year I rode in the back of our Land Rover with the house display held between my feet. This year however there wasn't enough room for me to fit back there with both displays so they had to ride on their own. Thankfully they made it to the GPI without any mishaps.
We haven't found out if either of them won yet. We will make the trip back to the GPI to see if either of them have a ribbon pinned to their displays. It really is a fun adventure and perhaps one day I'll get up enough nerve to enter one myself.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Getting back on the horse.
After an extremely long break I am attempting the blogging world again. I wanted to share how our first year attempt at year round school has gone so far. After nine years of homeschooling following along with the public school schedule I decided why not try year round. So far it has went well. I haven't felt nearly as stressed and worried with "Oh no, we can't afford to take today off or we will never get in all 180 days for the school year before the end of June."
We started our year the first week of August. Then seven weeks later we took our first week long break. It worked out well. My sister was getting married so I was able to plan that we would take the whole week of her wedding off so that I, the matron of honor could do whatever I needed to do to tie up any loose ends with her wedding. The kids were very excited about having a whole week off and being able to play and do "fun" things. It was like a mini summer vacation.
My intentions were for us to continue on a weekly school schedule until the week of Thanksgiving and take that whole week off. Which would be eight weeks of school until then. But two weeks ago my 11 yr old came down with the flu. He missed the whole week of school. Then the following week he was still re cooperating so I made the school work load easy on him. I did however continue to teach my 14 yr old during this time. We are going to go ahead have school on Monday and Tuesday of the week of Thanksgiving and possibly on Wednesday too. We may just see how our week plays out. My thinking too is that we'll plan to take two weeks off for Christmas. Which this is what we usually take off at Christmas time. I had considered us taking a third week off then but two weeks is usually more than enough time for the kids to play with all their new toys.
We have also missed the occasional day off here or there throughout the year too. Because as all of you who home school know, life happens and some days school just doesn't get done. But with this schedule I do feel more relaxed. Also I am looking forward to schooling through the summer months for a couple of reasons. The main reason being that my children won't forget everything that they have learned this year and then us have to spend the first month and a half of the next school year relearning everything. Another reason being that every summer my children always enjoy a few weeks of playing and doing all the fun outdoors stuff but then the "Mom, I'm bored" sets in. And here in the mountains of NC our afternoons can be quite hot and muggy and not so fun to play outside in. So this is the perfect time for them to wonder inside and us sit down together and do some school work.
So to sum up our first few months of this school year. I'm digging the year round school!!
We started our year the first week of August. Then seven weeks later we took our first week long break. It worked out well. My sister was getting married so I was able to plan that we would take the whole week of her wedding off so that I, the matron of honor could do whatever I needed to do to tie up any loose ends with her wedding. The kids were very excited about having a whole week off and being able to play and do "fun" things. It was like a mini summer vacation.
My intentions were for us to continue on a weekly school schedule until the week of Thanksgiving and take that whole week off. Which would be eight weeks of school until then. But two weeks ago my 11 yr old came down with the flu. He missed the whole week of school. Then the following week he was still re cooperating so I made the school work load easy on him. I did however continue to teach my 14 yr old during this time. We are going to go ahead have school on Monday and Tuesday of the week of Thanksgiving and possibly on Wednesday too. We may just see how our week plays out. My thinking too is that we'll plan to take two weeks off for Christmas. Which this is what we usually take off at Christmas time. I had considered us taking a third week off then but two weeks is usually more than enough time for the kids to play with all their new toys.
We have also missed the occasional day off here or there throughout the year too. Because as all of you who home school know, life happens and some days school just doesn't get done. But with this schedule I do feel more relaxed. Also I am looking forward to schooling through the summer months for a couple of reasons. The main reason being that my children won't forget everything that they have learned this year and then us have to spend the first month and a half of the next school year relearning everything. Another reason being that every summer my children always enjoy a few weeks of playing and doing all the fun outdoors stuff but then the "Mom, I'm bored" sets in. And here in the mountains of NC our afternoons can be quite hot and muggy and not so fun to play outside in. So this is the perfect time for them to wonder inside and us sit down together and do some school work.
So to sum up our first few months of this school year. I'm digging the year round school!!
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Look what I got!!!!
I'm very excited! I just purchased my first Susan B. Anderson book. It is "Itty Bitty Toys". I have been following her 2 blogs. http://www.spudandchloe.com/blog/ and http://susanbanderson.blogspot.com/ for a while now and I love how creative she is. I have completed many of her free patterns that she offers on both of these blogs.
The bottom 2 pictures show my version of her latest free pattern on http://www.spudandchloe.com/blog/ . It is the Dream Catcher Baby blanket. I don't have any little babies to make it for so I decided to make it into a rug for my daughters bedroom. This is as far as I have gotten. I still need to make one more square of each color. Here is the link to the free pattern on her Spud and Chloe blog. http://www.spudandchloe.com/blog/ . Once I finish all of the squares and stitch it together I plan on making a backing for it and possibly adding some crocheted flowers or knitted polka dots.
I just wanted to share my favorite knitting author. SO if you get a chance please check out her books and blogs.
Friday, April 30, 2010
Testing Week
So this week is our yearly standardized testing week. I have always opted to order the test from http://www.baysideschoolservices.com/. They are a fabulous company that rent out the testing materials and perform the scoring of your test and mail them back to you. We have never had any issues with them. I administer the test myself in our home. Now I know there are a lot of homeschoolers who may be a little affraid to take on this task themselves and they opt to have a testing group in their area administer the test with their children. My thinking behind chosing to do it myself is keeping my kids in their original school environment and with me, their teacher.
I may recieve some criticism for doing this myself. Like I'm going to cheat with my kids. I am after all trying to raise good peoples here. So what would that teach them. I don't help them with their answers. I repeat my famous line "mark your answer" over and over. LOL!!
After nine years of homeschooling and seven years of administering test at home things have always gone smoothly with nothing major coming up during our test week. But this year was a first. We woke up Monday morning all ready to get started and my 10 year old was not feeling well at all. He was complaining of his head, throat and ear hurting. As you all know that have boys, you know that they feel bad when they willingly lay on the couch all day.
As I started to freak out thinking, "Oh no, we aren't going to be able to get his test done. What am I going to do?" I started franticly looking through all the papers that the testing providers sent, and with a huge sigh of relief found that the company is forgiving if there is sickness and we are allowed to keep the test an extra week to get is finished. "PHEW"
So I'm off to get back to it and work on some more test!
I may recieve some criticism for doing this myself. Like I'm going to cheat with my kids. I am after all trying to raise good peoples here. So what would that teach them. I don't help them with their answers. I repeat my famous line "mark your answer" over and over. LOL!!
After nine years of homeschooling and seven years of administering test at home things have always gone smoothly with nothing major coming up during our test week. But this year was a first. We woke up Monday morning all ready to get started and my 10 year old was not feeling well at all. He was complaining of his head, throat and ear hurting. As you all know that have boys, you know that they feel bad when they willingly lay on the couch all day.
As I started to freak out thinking, "Oh no, we aren't going to be able to get his test done. What am I going to do?" I started franticly looking through all the papers that the testing providers sent, and with a huge sigh of relief found that the company is forgiving if there is sickness and we are allowed to keep the test an extra week to get is finished. "PHEW"
So I'm off to get back to it and work on some more test!
Friday, April 9, 2010
Welcome!!
As I embark on my first blogging experience I'm a little nervous but excited. I have been homeschooling my two children for nine years. I began when my oldest was beginning kindergarten. That seems like forever ago. But when I considered sending her to public school there was no peace in my body to allow me to do so. And so here we are nine years later still going strong. My oldest is 13 years old, going on 21 and my second child is 10. They are as different as night and day in every aspect.
My 13 year old was born with Down Syndrome. And she has been my teacher her whole life. I believe my children have both taught me so much about life and about the person that I want to be and need to be for them and everyone around me.
I was 17 when she was born and had no idea that she had Down Syndrome until the doctors placed her in my arms in the delivery room. I knew right away as I looked at her little face. But eveyone around me wanted to not believe it yet. But my mother instinct had set in immediatley and I knew. She was mine and that was all that mattered. I was a single teen mom who's life had just done a total 360. As I reflect on these moments my heart is softened at those precious moments between a mother and child that you never forget. Even though I was still a child myself there is nothing to stop that instant bond. And instantly creating the need to do whatever necessary to protect and provide for them. Leading me to where I am today.
Homeschooling both of my children has been such a blessing. To watch as those little light bulbs inside their noggins shine so brightly through their eyes when they have read their first sentence. There is nothing in this world that can be bought to replace such happiness and joy. I would love to see a Mastercard commercial done about homeschooling your children because it truly is priceless!
My 13 year old was born with Down Syndrome. And she has been my teacher her whole life. I believe my children have both taught me so much about life and about the person that I want to be and need to be for them and everyone around me.
I was 17 when she was born and had no idea that she had Down Syndrome until the doctors placed her in my arms in the delivery room. I knew right away as I looked at her little face. But eveyone around me wanted to not believe it yet. But my mother instinct had set in immediatley and I knew. She was mine and that was all that mattered. I was a single teen mom who's life had just done a total 360. As I reflect on these moments my heart is softened at those precious moments between a mother and child that you never forget. Even though I was still a child myself there is nothing to stop that instant bond. And instantly creating the need to do whatever necessary to protect and provide for them. Leading me to where I am today.
Homeschooling both of my children has been such a blessing. To watch as those little light bulbs inside their noggins shine so brightly through their eyes when they have read their first sentence. There is nothing in this world that can be bought to replace such happiness and joy. I would love to see a Mastercard commercial done about homeschooling your children because it truly is priceless!
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