Creations

It's been a busy week, as usual, but we've been extra creative, I feel. First, here is a easy tie-on scarf dress that DD1 wore for a while. The second scarf was bigger than the first, so I kind of had to improvise, but I think it looked cute. Great, easy dress up idea. I got the idea from a pin on Pinterest.

Our second creation, which we just whipped up this morning was a pillow, idea by DS. The kids are all fascinated by the box of fiberfill that I keep under my sewing table, and DS suggested that we make a pillow out of one of his old shirts that is too small. I'm often reluctant, as he often comes up with hard to pull off ideas, but I said, "Sure, let's try it." So, I sewed most of the holes with the sewing machine, with all three kids looking on (11, 4, and 3) in fascination, and they stuffed the shirt before I sewed up the last sleeve. It was quick and easy, and it was great to see everyone working together. Next time, I'll see if one of them wants to try the sewing part :)

Homeschool Mother's Journal 3

The Homeschool Mother's Journal is a linkup via www.TheHomeschoolChick.com.

In my life this week…

We kept busy as usual, this week, although I'm always busier than everyone else, it seems, since not all of our activities involve all of our children. My husband does his fair share, too! We skipped a field trip because my plantar fasciitis was really acting up. I went to the podiatrist Thursday for a shot and am vowing to keep up with all the things that I am supposed to do to help it heal. I really hate not being able to walk. I let this go on too long before the initial treatment, and now, I'm afraid I psychologically associate so many activities with pain (walking, the grocery store, basically anything that involves standing around or walking for more than a few minutes). It's something that I'll have to deal with for sure.


In our homeschool this week…

My husband officially started the Oak Meadow 5 History and English curriculum with DS (10) this week. As I sort of expected, there was much gnashing of teeth, after which lessons were done. I am hoping this smoothes itself out soon. They are both much too independent (and maybe just a bit stubborn ;)) to do what the other wants, and it can be stressful on those of us who just want everyone to get along!


My favorite thing this week was…

Okay, three favorite things: (1) seeing DS take a real interest in Scratch and start to do some work with it independently, (2) milk painting together, an idea that I got from the web and pinned on Pinterest (see below for picture), and (3) taking DS out to the Japanese steakhouse to eat at the Hibachi and celebrate his 11th birthday a little early.

What’s working/not working for us…

Not working: My feet, obviously. :) Also, my four-year-old seems to be having some self-confidence issues, at least when it comes to guided art. Whenever we try to draw a certain picture, she seems to think that if it doesn't look like mine or even a simple line drawing, it's not good enouogh, and she wants me to "help" (aka draw it for her). I try to be encouraging but so far, no dice. I'm seeking advice and may just stick to free drawing or even "why don't we draw a picture that reminds us of what we read about." With free drawing, she's happy and imaginative. I'm not sure why she compares herself to me or others so much, as I have tried not to do that. Maybe just natural human behavior. One step at a time, I guess.


Things I’m working on…

There is not much time beyond work, but I just bought UDraw game tablet for the Wii, and I hope to play around with it a little this week. DS's birthday is Monday, so it's gonna be a busy one!

I’m reading…


I haven't started anything new yet, but I just finished reading Real Murders (Aurora Teagarden book 1) by Charlaine Harris. It was my first e-book checkout from the library. I have a ton of both paper and e-books in my stack to read, so I'm sure I'll find something new.


I’m cooking…

Plenty this week! DS and I cooked American apple pie for World Cooking. The girls and I made homemade whole grain crescent rolls during school time. The girls also helped me with some baked apples, which I burned by leaving them in the crock pot too long (who knew you could do that?).


I’m grateful for…

A couple of weeks where we've gotten most of our lessons done (thanks to handing over history and English to DH) so that I can at least see how Oak Meadow really works for our kids and how we work together. I already know I need to schedule in a little more free time (for myself as much as anyone), even if it means other busier days.


A photo, video, link, or quote to share…

One of our milk painting examples. They changed constantly. You get the most color when you put all the drops of color in that you want before you stick in the soap-covered toothpick.

Fire and Fun!

On our unschoolish, eclectic side, we did some experiments with fire last week at the request of DS (10). DDs (3 and 4) looked on in awe. It was a lot of fun, but I talked a lot about safety, too. DS picked out almost all of the materials we tested. Hat tip to our friend Joe at Raw Learning, who gave us some wonderful ideas, including the very basic one that the best way to learn about fire was to light things and see what happens. Here is a photolog of our experiment.

Fabric

Fabric

DS recording results such as how fast each item ignited, the color of the flame, and what kind of material  remained

Paperboard

Hand sanitizer: It is burning, but the flame was basically colorless.

Adding salt to the sanitizer revealed the flame.

Dried leaves.

Copy paper.

Copy paper remains.

Yarn.

Fresh leaves.

Cardboard. We added tongs to create more surface area
(and thus more access to oxygen) on the items.

DS takes a turn at holding the tongs.

Newspaper.

Newspaper remains.

Tired and Frustrated

Oh, here we are. I knew it would come; I wasn't sure exactly when. The "I don't want to do any school" day. The "why do I have to do X" day. The day when DH comes in and steps all over my figurative toes and then gets defensive when I'm upset about it. The everyone is just in a tither day. The "I can't" day.

Today, I am just going to try to get through it without any (more) yelling, and take tomorrow as another, fresh day. It was actually okay for most of the day, so I shouldn't complain.

Maybe tomorrow I'll write a post about our exciting fire experiments from last week, or how I've actually been sticking to our schedule for the most part and getting things done.

See you then on a better, brighter day.

Switching Things Up a Little

Well, we're still here. I don't want to just post a litany of things we do every day, especially when things are so slow, but we're meandering along.

My schedule has still been a challenge. I have managed to increase my work hours over the past couple of months, which is a good thing in terms of income. However, it's made school scheduling a little more of a challenge, especially when you toss in field trips and so on.

Today, my husband agreed to take over the History & English part of my son's 5th grade curriculum. That is a real load off my shoulders. Not only does it give me a lot less to do (History & English in this curriculum also encompasses geography and arts & crafts), but it leaves the fun stuff for me: programming, science, math, and cooking. Guess I'm not that big of a history buff, although I do like writing :)

I'm still enjoying using the Homeschool Tracker Software, although I'm adding Cozi in this week to schedule actual (but flexible) times when "school" will take place. I remembered to add things like ballet, gymnastics, and karate to the list, too, as phys ed is part of learning, even if I'm not the one doing the teaching.

I'm also going off the grid and teaching a lesson or two on fire, at my son's request. As I might have mentioned, a big part of the reason I wanted a curriculum this year instead of strict unschooling was because it is making me "pencil in" time to spend with the kids that has some real interaction and meaning. If he had suggested doing anything together other than playing video games before, we might not be here, but it's been a long time since he really had. Anyhow, we got some really cool, hands on (or "hands off") ideas from an engineer friend, and it should be a blast ;) We're also working more on programming and cooking beef stroganoff!

With the kindergarten curriculum, we're still finishing up Lesson 2, talking a lot about B's and butterflies. This week promises to be fun with a "nature treasure hunt," crafts, singing, and painting. Hopefully, I'll have photos to share by the end of the week!

One: A Meme Post

I was tagged by Steph over at Confessions of an Erratic Homeschooling Mom for this one. Tag me back if you continue it. I'd love to read your posts.

1. One homeschooling book you have enjoyed: Homeschooling: The Early Years by Linda Dobson. This gave me a great start and talked about the different philosophies and encouraged us to go our own way.

2. One resource you wouldn't be without: The Internet :)

3. One resource you wish you had never bought: Science kits from The Young Scientist Club. I really need to not buy things like this unless I have plans to use them immediately. My oldest at least generally doesn't have the motivation to get them out and use them on his own, not when the computer is sitting right there. We have remaining a stack of about 20 of these kits (it was a monthly subscription) that we have yet to use, and it was a bit difficult to cancel once I decided to end it. Maybe someday we'll get to all of them...

4. One resource you enjoyed last year: Gleamer at Raw Learning for planning so many great field trips.

5. One resource you will be using next year: I'm adding "New" to this since we'll still be doing field trips with Raw Learning. This year we're adding curricula from Oak Meadow. I'm looking forward to continuing to explore and learn with it with the kids.

6. One resource you would like to buy: Oh, I can't just stick to one here, but some of the things on my wish list for homeschooling are a butterfly garden, Horrible Histories, and The Waldorf Book of Poetry.

7. One resource you wish existed: A group of secular homeschoolers in my small hometown. I've been able to hook up with homeschooling parents of younger kids (my daughters' ages) here in town (although not too many secular ones), but we have had to drive to meet up with kids any older, enough so that I often wish we moved closer to them, even though I like my town for the most part.

8. One homeschool catalog you enjoy reading: Rainbow Resource Catalog. Are there any others? Honestly, if there are, I don't get them. The one marketing thing I could use, and I somehow missed the mailing list.

9. One homeschool website you use regularly: Facebook and Google probably give me all the information I need. I really don't use any one regularly, although I might be visiting the Oak Meadow web site more as the school year rolls on. Now, e-mail lists, I have plenty of those!

10. Tag six other homeschoolers: I'm still exploring the homeschool blogosphere, so I'll be sure to tag some friends as a note in this post  as a note on Facebook :)

The Homeschool Mother's Journal 2

The Homeschool Mother's Journal is a linkup via www.TheHomeschoolChick.com.

Whoo boy, what a busy couple of weeks. I'm glad for these writing prompts to give me a starting place and a good prompt to write a blog post.

In my life this week…


We have been superbusy the last couple of weeks (I didn't post last week) with a trip out of town, neurofeedback appointments for DS, trying to schedule and fit in a little school, ballet starting up, karate continuing for DS, our first field trip of fall, work, and just life. You know you're busy/overwhelmed when you have to look back at your calendar just to see what you did the past few days ;)

In our homeschool this week…


We didn't do a whole lot of "lesson time." I did do circle time with the girls and start on the letter B with them on Monday, and DS did his second math lesson, but we did more eclectic type stuff. First, my girls, 3 and 4, started ballet on Monday for the fall. DD4 (almost 5) has been with this teacher the past 2 years. I considered moving her up to the next class, but she is kind of attached to her teacher, and I thought it would also help her younger sister (who has a short attention span) transition if they were in the same class. We also had a field trip, right here in our own town at The Art Warehouse, completely devoted to art. We did pottery with the Pottery Lady and explored colors with paint and other materials with Nancy from S&N School of Music & Art (I'll try to post pictures when the pottery is finished).


There was something for all three of my kids, and they also got to visit with friends, as the trip was organized through Raw Learning, a regional free school. I was amazed at how interested my youngest was in all of the artwork in the gallery, especially the sculptures and a little house and yard made entirely of sticks and twigs and other natural things. 

My favorite thing this week was…


Getting paid! LOL. I've been working consistently as a freelancer, but as things are bound to go sometimes, the checks don't always arrive on a consistent basis. We were kind of in a rough spot anyway, and then, it was almost 6 weeks without a check. I was very happy to receive 5 checks all at once this week. It will be helpful for both home and homeschool. DS and I can finally get to work on that Pan Bagna recipe this week!

What’s working/not working for us…


Organizing our schedule is still a work in progress. As my friend Steph over at Confessions of an Erratic Homeschooling Mom expressed in a recent post, every time I try to get "school" started, life gets in the way. But that's okay. I believe that life as plenty to teach me and my children as well. It's no less valuable than school time.

Things I’m working on…


How about things I'd like to work on if only I could squeeze out the time? Learn more about wirework jewelry, do more drawing and photography, play more Diablo II with my son. I do actually need to organize my kids' birthday party (my two older ones are having a combo party) and buy presents for my son, who celebrating 11 years in early October. I'm also researching the idea of hiring a mother's helper (perhaps a homeschooling teen) that could help me out on field trips with the kids. I have a foot issue (plantar fasciitis) that makes long periods on my feet extremely difficult.

I’m reading…


The Freedom Writers' Diary by Erin Gruwell and the Freedom Writers. Wow. I was inspired to read this book after watching the movie, and I'm being well rewarded.

I’m cooking…


We made No-Bake Energy Bites for a playdate this week. They were a hit, both at home and the playdate. Easy, healthy, and superyummy.

I’m grateful for…


My family, both immediate and extended. My mother turned 70 this week, and I'm so glad that she's a part of my life, even though she lives 700 miles away now. She's an awesome lady.

A photo, video, link, or quote to share…

My favorite photo this week: my youngest, asleep in her favorite place, the dining room table.