KGB That's Me!

Summer Vacation "World Explorer" Activity Kit

2011-08-31T19:17:00.006-04:00

I found this awesome kit to "make and decorate crafts from around the world" at the Goodwill thrift store today for a mere $3.25. It was new, sealed, totally unused. It's called the Summer Vacation brand "World Explorer" Activity Kit (ISBN 1585539783).

It has a guidebook with little lessons about each country. Then it gives instructions and supplies to make a craft from each country. It has:

USA & Canada: Make a Dream Catcher

Mexico: Make a Pinata

Chile: Make a Rainstick

Japan: Make Origami

China: Make a Chinese Lantern

Kenya: Make an African Mask

Morocco: Make Castanets

Italy: Make a Carnival Mask

France: Make a Stained Glass Window

Australia: Make a Propeller Boomerang

Continents: Make a Jigsaw Puzzle of the World

The jigsaw puzzle looks cool. It has the oceans in blue and then all of the continents outlined in white. You get to label it and paint and marker on it to decorate it as you please.

Then it also includes a World Explorer "Passport" book. This is pretty cool, too. It has maps and worksheets for each country with questions to answer from the lessons. When the child has made the craft and completed the worksheet and map for each country, they get to put a sticker that pictures the craft they made onto the passport. Then there's a travel journal in the back of it where they can write about a trip they've taken and also write about what they'd like to see in one of the places they've learned about. It seems like it will be a lot of fun! I got this with Haylee in mind, as she loves crafts. It says it's for ages 7+ targeted at 3rd grade. I figured I'd just pull it out as we study one of the listed countries. Very cool!

They had another one targeted at First Grade for the same price. Had things like decorating letters of the alphabet. It was the same price, so I might go back and pick it up for Holden, just for fun.

Have I mentioned how much I love shopping at thrift stores? My favorite is the Goodwill Outlet Center where you pay for everything by the pound. Pretty much everything is 59 cents/lb., except clothes are $1.29/lb., and books are 25 cents each.

Reviewing Shapes with Resist Art / Our Ladybug Story

2011-08-31T12:49:00.014-04:00

It's been a while since we worked on learning shapes last year, and Holden has forgotten a couple of them, or gets them backwards sometimes. So on some scrap cardstock, I used a white crayon to draw some shapes and fun pictures. He couldn't see what I'd drawn, and I asked him to stamp all over the paper with Do-a-Dot markers. Then I took a damp paper towel and swiped over it to reveal the images! He had fun identifying the shapes in this way. It was good practice and held his attention. I could see his anticipation building as he stamped all over the paper and waited for me to swipe it with the paper towel! Here's a sampling of what we did.

For his Abeka craft, he got to glue Baby Moses in the basket and finger paint the cattails. He likes fingerpaint! He also made Dexter Donkey and Ellie Elephant for his letter crafts (we're on letter F for Freddy Fish this week, but we were behind on his letter crafts and had to catch up! LOL).

Over the last couple of weeks, Haylee has anxiously watched the transformation of the larvae in her Ladybug Land into beautiful young pink ladybugs. As luck would have it, they emerged on Saturday...the day hurricane Irene dropped 10 inches of rain at our house. Luckily, you can keep them for up to a week before releasing them into the wild. If you don't release them, they sadly only live for a couple of weeks.

The weather is now beautiful, so this morning, Haylee invited her little girlfriends over to watch her release her ladybugs. There were 13 in all.

We put a stick inside the habitat so they would crawl onto it, and then we removed the stick and held it up to our holly bushes to allow the ladybugs to crawl off. Unfortunately, however, we didn't realize until after we'd released 5 in this way that there were tiny spiderwebs all over the bushes! We didn't see it until one ladybug got caught and eaten! We tried to find as many as we could and knock down the webs, but it was no use. Haylee was very upset.

So then we found one flowering Black-Eyed Susan and released the remaining 8 onto there. They seemed to like it very much and have happily made it their new home!

May you live long, beautiful ladybugs! We hope to visit you often!

THE END.

Neat Alphabet Worksheets for Preschoolers

2011-08-29T10:18:00.006-04:00

I've been finding lots of cool resources to help Holden learn his letters, both upper and lower case. We're working on both simultaneously, which is not the approach I used with either Hayden or Haylee. It seems to be working well with Holden so far.

In the process of looking for some activities that work on both cases, I found these super cool FREE printable worksheets. I've been having Holden find and mark the correct letter of the week using a Do-A-Dot marker. At the bottom of the worksheet, it says to print the letters in the boxes. We're not writing yet, so instead, I gave him a set of capital letter stamps I found in the Dollar Spot at Target and letting him stamp the correct letter in each box. He loves that!

Here's one he completed recently. He really enjoyed this activity, and I could really see his little brain working as he hunted for the right letters. I was impressed that he did it right all by himself!

I also got lucky and scored a brand new, unopened Grasshopper Preschool Prep Kit - Getting Our Hands Ready for $5! This retails for $30, so that was quite a score. I found it on Craigslist for $10 and offered her $5, and she went for it. I so love my negotiating skills! LOL. Anyway, I ran out and picked it up on Friday before Hurricane Irene made its appearance. We survived an earthquake and a hurricane, all in the same week. Sheesh! We've had a chance to try out most of the activities in the kit, which really are cute and useful. I must say, though, that I would never pay $30 for its contents...$5 was more appropriate! Feeding the froggy was really cute, and he loves stamping the bugs in the weird lightweight dough that feels like air. I laid out the crayons and coloring sheet for him, but he hasn't tried that one yet. He's never been big on coloring. He seems to only enjoy the Crayola Slick Stix. But I'll keeping coaxing him to try out those mini crayons in the kit so he can practice his pencil grip.

New School Year Just Around the Corner!!!

2011-06-18T13:29:00.005-04:00

We managed to finish up our school year a little early this year, so we've enjoyed a nice break of about 3 weeks. We've never had a break that long before at any time of year! Now we are ready to start our new school year on Monday. Hooray! I'm just a bit excited about it myself. Hopefully, my enthusiasm will rub off on the kids, too.

Haylee tried out some of her first-day workboxes this week. She did 6 of the 12. She said she really enjoyed everything, so hopefully that's a good sign for the rest of the year! Holden tried out a little of his first-day workboxes, too, and that went pretty well. Hayden hasn't started his yet, but he and I were busy catching up on 20 weeks' worth of music lessons! We abandoned playing the recorder back around Christmas time when we all became terribly ill. Following that, one or the other of us seemed to be sick with something or other for months on end! I didn't want us spreading germs in our instruments, so we just abandoned our lessons and never got back to them. But we both love playing the recorder, so we got 60 songs done in 2 days this week! Now we're on track to start our new lesson book on Monday. It's Beyond the 9-Note Recorder Method for Alto. This will be our 4th year playing the recorder, and it's really been fun. We did the first two years on Soprano, and the 2nd two years on Alto. Next, we'd like to move on to Bass Recorder, but it's a little cost prohibitive at $100-$300 per bass recorder. We especially enjoy doing duets, so we may just move on to a book of duets for both soprano and alto combined.

I have a 7th grader, a 2nd grader, and a PKer this year, so it ought to be an interesting year! I'm looking forward to getting everybody back into a routine of being busy with schoolwork every day, as the extended time off has become a little chaotic for my liking!

Great Toy Find

2011-03-16T13:30:00.004-04:00

At the thrift store this weekend, I found a really cool educational toy for Holden, and it only cost me 75 cents! It's called Sesame Street Light & Learn, and it's like an older version of the modern Hot Dots type of game. This one comes with 10 double-sided cards for a total of 20 learning activities that practice letter identification and matching cases and number identification and counting. You hold the Big Bird pen in your hand and touch the tip to the correct answer in order for the green light on top to light up and a positive sound is made. If you select the wrong answer, you get a negative sound and no lights. It's very cute, and Holden can play by himself with instant reinforcement. He really likes it!Here's a link: http://www.amazon.com/Sesame-Street-Light-Letter-Number/dp/B000WX7E3Q

Plans for School 2011-2012

2011-01-12T12:26:00.006-05:00

Wow! It's been a long time since I've posted! It's been super busy. We all got super sick before the holidays with the plague...Norovirus, the horrible stomach flu. It spread like wildfire through every single one of us, and we were down for about 10 days before we could even think about eating any normal food. I lost 6 pounds in 4 days, and I was the only one who didn't throw up! It was just awful. I'm so glad that's over! It sort of spoiled all of our traditional holiday activities, and it didn't feel like Christmas until about Christmas Eve. But we had a really nice holiday, and we celebrated 3 birthdays...Holden turned 3 on Dec. 28th, I turned 39 on Jan. 1st, and Steve turned 40 on Jan. 7th. Then we had Holden's party on Jan. 8th. Plus, Steve and I are running the homeschool basketball and cheerleading program again, and practices just started this week with the first game this weekend. So it really has been like a whirlwind around here lately!

Now that it's January, I'm beginning to think about our plans for the new school year that begins in June for us. I started ordering textbooks yesterday.

So here is my plan for 2011-2012:

HAYDEN, age 11, Grade 7

Sonlight Core 7
Glencoe: The American Journey 2003 (Social Studies Supplement)
Sonlight Bible 7
Sonlight Science 7
Glencoe: Life Science 2002 (Science Supplement)
Saxon Math Algebra 1/2
Saxon Grammar & Writing 7
Wordly Wise 3000 Book 8
Switched on Schoolhouse Secondary Spanish
Beyond the Nine-Note Recorder Method for Alto
Junior Scholastic Magazine or Science World Magazine

HAYLEE, age 6, Grade 2

Sonlight Core 2 with Readers 2 Advanced
Sonlight Bible 2
Sonlight Science 2
Silver Burdett Science Horizons 2
Silver Burdett English 2
Saxon Phonics & Spelling 3
Houghton Mifflin Spelling & Vocabulary 3
Saxon Math 3
A Reason for Handwriting C
Wordly Wise C
Complete Book of Spanish for Grades 1-3 (2nd half)
Harcourt Health & Fitness 2
Silver Burdett Music 2
Abeka Art Projects 2
Scholastic News 3

HOLDEN, age 3, grade PK

Sonlight PK 3/4 (2nd half)
Abeka Nursery Curriculum for 3's
Abeka PK Language Development Program
Tot Tray Activity Center (continuing with various Montessori type toys and activities)

So that's pretty much my plan for the coming school year. Hopefully, I'll be able to keep up better with Holden's stuff this year since Hayden will be dropping 2 workboxes from this year (he has completed 2 programs in spelling and art), and I'm switching Hayden's science and social studies supplements to programs he can work on independently with free online self-checking quizzes that correlate to his textbooks.

I signed up for the Amazon Mom program on December 2nd, so I get 3 months of Amazon Prime for free included with that. Then I made a qualifying purchase for Christmas of kids' toys and got another month of Prime added on for free. So that means I get free 2-day shipping on most items through April 2nd. I order from Sonlight on April 1st when the new catalog goes live, so that works out perfectly for me to order any remaining books from Amazon on the last day of my free 2-day shipping! That will really help me gets my books together faster than having to wait for shipments with super saver shipping, plus I don't have the $25 minumum order requirement with Prime. Amazon Prime has been such a convenience for the holidays that I might get suckered into buying the membership when this ends! LOL.

The kids are taking cooking classes at Young Chef's Academy this month on Fridays. I was able to get a large enough class together with my field trip group to hold private classes. That's always so nice! Holden just turned 3, so he is in the class, too. It gives me an hour and a half to go enjoy a coffee at Starbucks with my best friend, and it is a welcomed break!

I hope this new year is a lot better than 2010 was. It totally stunk! Hubby just got a raise and a nice holiday bonus, so that's a lot better than getting laid off as he did one year ago this month. Amen!

Tot Tray Activity Center Revealed!

2010-10-07T15:11:00.013-04:00

So here are some photos of the new tot tray activity center and Holden enjoying some of the trays this morning.I put it right underneath the window in our school room.

Holden's initial reaction showed that he really liked what he saw!

The first activity he chose was this counting and fine motor skill tray called "Feed the Froggy" that was posted on my friend Stef's blog. He really likes this one! He first chooses a number card from the bowl and then he counts out that many flies and feeds them to the froggy (which is glued onto a cereal box and has a slit in its mouth for inserting the flies.

He especially likes it when I make gobbling sounds as he feeds the froggy the flies! LOL

Then when he saw me add his new Just Hammer Away activity, he chose that one next. He's had that one out a couple of times already today! It seems to be a big hit, even with his big sister.

His first creation was a house with a moon in the sky. He was still working on it here.

All in all, I'd call the new activity center a total success!

Oriental Trading Goodies

2010-10-07T10:21:00.002-04:00

Our order from Oriental Trading should arrive today. I can't wait! Aside from the colorful trays I mentioned the other day, I also ordered this cool construction kit called Just Hammer Away for Holden to do as a tot tray activity. I think it will be a big hit 'cause he doesn't really have any good hammering activities right now. I think the older kids are going to like it, too, to be honest! I think I might reinforce the back of the cork board before I give it to him, as many of the reviewers suggested.

I was thrilled to see that Oriental Trading carried the bigger pack of Crayola Twistables Slick Stix with 12 colors. I've only been able to find the 5-pack of primary colors at Target here locally. They are awesome crayons for little ones, as they don't require a lot of pressure to color and really have rich, vibrant color. Holden isn't big on coloring in the first place, but he seems to enjoy these more than regular crayons, so we use them only for school. They have a lipstick consistency, much like the Colorix Silky Crayons, but more affordable.

Haylee could use some more practice with counting money, so I ordered these cool Double-Sided Math Money Cards for her.

And for Steve, I ordered this cool Scrap-Your-Own Flip Desk Calendar (which is on clearance) to make him for Christmas ('cause he's so hard to buy for). It's a perpetual calendar, so I thought he'd enjoy having some photos of the kids on it for his desk at work. I'm gonna use a spray adhesive to adhere background paper to it that goes with each month. I have a bunch of month-themed patterned paper that I got from a friend who designs for Karen Foster, and that will be perfect for this project.

I threw in an 80-cent box of crayons to get my order over $49 so I could use a free shipping +10% off coupon, so that made it an even better deal. The trays were $20 for 12, so that was the bulk of my order right there.

So I can't wait for our box to come! I'm anxious to get his tot activity center ready and post some pictures. What fun!

Steve cut both of the boys' hair last night...with clippers! Holden's mega-long bubble curls are all gone! Sniff, sniff. He looks so different this morning. I told Steve I'm so used to having my eyes drawn to his gorgeous hair that now I'm suddenly noticing his handsome face more!

Preparing a Tot School Activity Center

2010-10-06T10:25:00.002-04:00

I've got so many cool tot school activities now for Holden, but they are all stored in drawers. That means they get used far less than they should be! I scored an awesome deal on the 9-cube organizer shelves by Martha Stewart Living at Home Depot over the weekend. Somebody posted on FatWallet.com that they were on clearance at their store for $12 (reg. $46 each), and I called all over locally trying to find them on clearance at one of this area's 12 HD stores. I was told that markdowns are regional, and that it is not marked down in this region. Bummer. But the same store that took the time to explain that to me said that the manager took pity on me and was willing to sell me the shelves at that price if I would only pick them up that day! Yay! So I got two sets for $12 each! What a savings! I had to drive all the way out to the last exit before the toll that takes you to NC, but it was worth it. I was thrilled!

So Steve put a set together for me, and I got out some of Holden's cool activities. I ordered 2 sets of colorful plastic trays from Oriental Trading Company. They should arrive tomorrow. I'll be setting up the activities on the trays, which will fit perfectly to slide into the cubes of the shelves. Then Holden will be able to choose some fun tot tray activities to do from the shelves during his school time. Yay! I think he's going to love it. After the trays arrive tomorrow, I'll post pics of his activity center. I'm so excited to finally get this set up! I had the perfect spot to put them in our school room, too, and it's right next to a small table and chairs where he can sit to work on the activities.

The new school year!

2010-09-07T19:01:00.004-04:00

Today is the first day of public school here in this area. I'm so happy to have my kids at home with me! We homeschool year-round, so my kids are actually wrapping up the first quarter of the school year this week...week 9. Things are going along pretty well so far. Holden's workboxes are working out just fine. If I don't get to do school with him for a couple of days, it's easy enough to catch up at the end of the week. He's staying on schedule, too. He often likes to go to his workboxes and pick out a tot tray activity or an art project to do. So some days, we just do that sort of thing. He's counting successfully to 11 now without help, so I'm happy with that. He's identifying more colors correctly, too. He definitely knows a circle, but not too much else for shapes, and we haven't really worked on letter identification at all. We have plenty of time for that yet since he is only 2.5. Although, I must admit that Hayden was already reciting the alphabet by shortly after he turned 2! But he had all of my attention, and he came by it naturally.

I have been filling Holden's workboxes each day, but since he only does 2 or 3 assignments a day and then activities for the rest of his school, I think I'm going to start filling them for the week since we tend to do his assignments in chunks anyway. Then I know as long as we finish his workboxes by the end of the week, we're good.

So here is to everyone's new school year! However you go about it, be it home, public, or private, the best of success to you and yours!

Great computer game for 2-4 year olds

2010-07-14T16:47:00.003-04:00

I have all the software that my other kids used when they were little, but a lot of it doesn't run well on newer computers anymore. So I've been on a hunt for something newer for Holden to do on the computer. He is a big Elmo fan, so I was perusing Target for something Sesame Street. I spied a game with good potential, but it was $20. That was a bit steep for a 2-year old's game, so I decided to see if I could find it on ebay. Sure enough! I got it for under $5 shipped on ebay. Anyway, it turned out to be a FABULOUS game, and Holden absolutely adores it. It covers so many topics like color, number, letter, and shape identification, counting, and lots more. It contains video clips from classic Sesame Street episodes, too. It has about 6 different categories of games, and then multiple levels of games with each category. The child can spend as much time on one activity as they wish to before moving on to a progressively more difficult game in that category, or he can leave and go to another category of games at any time. I played it with Holden for about the first 2 times so he could learn how to move around within the game, and after that, he started going and playing it on his own! He absolutely loves it! It keeps his attention for a long time, and he's learning a lot by playing it. So I can highly recommend this game. Here it is:
Sesame Street Learn, Play & Grow

I just can't say enough great things about this game.

More Great Preschool Activities

2010-07-05T10:37:00.002-04:00

I stopped in TJ Maxx the other day, and I found some really good stuff for Holden and Haylee! They have such great prices on educational items. Here are the awesome things I got there:

I got a set called Match It! Shape Shuffle for $5. It comes with 4 sets of heavy cardboard pattern blocks in 4 colors and 35 pattern cards. The whole set is very bright and colorful. This was definitely a good buy. He worked on it a little this morning and seemed to really like it. The cards get progressively harder. Initially, they just match all the shapes individually. Then the cards teach them how to put pattern blocks together to make bigger shapes. Then it moves on to pictures with the lines drawn. Then on to pictures without lines inside. I think this is the most affordable pattern block set I've seen. There were other Match It! sets in this series, but Holden wasn't ready for those yet. They include What Goes Together?, Money, Foods, Sequencing, Opposites, etc.

I also got Holden a Melissa & Doug Wooden Pets Cube Puzzle for $5 on clearance. I plan to keep this until Christmas or his birthday, as it's for age 3 and up and has 16 cubes per puzzle. It creates 6 different puzzle pictures by rotating the sides of the cubes.

I got Holden a great book for teaching colors called Lift-the-Flap First Colors by Sue Hendra on clearance for $3. This is for 1-2 year olds. It has beautiful illustrations in bright colors with big flaps to life. Each 2-page spread focuses on the color red, yellow, green, or blue, revealing things in that color. Then the last pages have flaps of each color, and inside each flap shows one of the items of that color and the color names.

Haylee always enjoyed the Mighty Mind set that came in the Sonlight PK 4/5 Core. I spotted the more advanced set for older kids called Super Mind and got it for a mere $10 on clearance. It's fairly challenging for her, designed for ages 5-9. There are 30 cards in it, so it should keep her occupied for quite a while. I put this in her workboxes as a fun box. There is an answer key included, which is helpful because these really are challenging sometimes! She had her 10 year old brother helping her, and they still had trouble with some of them!

These deals were so good that I'll definitely be keeping my eye on TJ Maxx in the future, as well as similar stores that I want to check out like Marshall's.

Happy Shopping!

End of Week 1

2010-06-24T12:40:00.003-04:00

Well, it's the end of Week 1 of our new school year. Holden and Haylee are finished, and Hayden has about 2/3 of his work done for today. It has gone pretty well! Haylee is such a voracious reader. She is doubling up on her reader schedule so she can do both the 2 Regular and 2 Advanced readers this year, and even that pace isn't enough for her! She loves having all her own textbooks this year, whereas some of the subjects had only a teacher's manual last year. She gets to do more of the reading herself this way, and she's loving it.

I spent some time yesterday cleaning out my whole school room. I purged some stuff we weren't using and blessed a struggling homeschool family with the books and materials who had posted asking for help with books on freecycle. I got everything organized and labeled, and it looks so much better in there! We can actually sit and use the table in there now. Haylee and I did our schoolwork in there last night and today, and it worked well to be separated a bit from Hayden, who gets distracted easily.

I got Holden some Crayola Twistables Slick Stix from Target in a 5-pack of primary colors for $2.99 this week. They are just like the Colorix silky crayons that Sonlight recommends for PK kids, only a bit cheaper. I think I can stock up on those at Toys R Us when they do their big Crayola promotions during back to school time.

Speaking of which, Target was already setting up their back to school supplies section this week! Seems like it comes out earlier and earlier every year. School just let out last Thursday, for goodness' sake, and supplies were being put out on Tuesday! LOL.

All in all, I think the first week has been a success.

More Tot Goodies!

2010-06-19T10:06:00.003-04:00

I hit the local homeschool bookstore and the thrift store again, and I came home with LOTS more goodies for Holden! Here is some of the cool stuff I found:

Discovery Toys Place & Trace for $2.

The Creative Activity Kit brand Totally Creepy Bugs set, new in box, for 99 cents. I wanted to use this with Easter Grass on a tot tray with pretend bugs and frogs buried in it. He got the sensory activity of digging through the grass and the fine motor skill of using the tweezers to transfer them to the bug box. He got to use the magnifying glass to help look for them, too. He really enjoyed this.

Creative Toys brand Shapes early learning game for $2. This involves two piece interlocking puzzle sets where one piece has a basic shape and the other piece has a photo of a real item that has that basic shape. I laid out four sets at a time on a tot tray, and Holden studied them and matched them up. He really enjoyed this, too, and kept asking for more! The other half of the set had an outline of a shape with only half of it filled in. The matching piece had the missing half of that shape, and they have to be matched up. This was a bit more advanced, so I will save that portion for later on down the road. I'd love to find more of these games. The back of the box says there are other themes like associations, colors, opposites, rhyming words, and silhouettes in this series of games. They all say ages 2-5.

Primary Concepts brand Frog Sorting set for $5. This was really cute. I used these frogs for the bug hunting activity I described above, but he also used the set as intended for sorting the frogs by color on the lily pads. Too cute! You can sort by color or pattern (some frogs have various patterns on their backs). For grades PK-1.

My First Puzzles brand Dinosaur puzzle set, brand new, for $4. This set has 4 different dinosaur puzzles, each with 4 pieces. They are irregularly shaped, so a little harder than a square puzzle. He enjoyed figuring these out, and the pictures had numbers, letters, colors, etc. in the pictures with the dinosaurs, so we had fun talking about what was on the pictures after they were assembled.

A great hardcover book called Counting Colors for $5. This is lots of fun! Each two-page spread has photos of various real items, all in one color theme. Around the edge of the page, it lists how many of each item you can find on the pages. So this can be used for color practice, vocabulary building with identifying objects, visual discrimation in spotting the items, and counting. It's an awesome book with brightly colored images. I plan to use only one color page at a time as we are working on a particular color. I love the "I Spy" aspect of it, too. Holden really enjoyed naming the objects and finding and counting them.

This cool Number Flipper early learning activity, brand new, for $5. The whole thing has a write & wipe surface for use with dry erase markers, so it can be practiced again and again. It has a number on each page along with a photo of the correct number of objects to go with it. It has the number in braille, and the number shown in sign language. It also has the numberal for tracing and also the number word for tracing. It goes from 1-20. Then it has number and counting activities at the end, like filling in the missing number in a series, counting the number of objects and circling the correct number, etc. This will get used for a good while. Haylee is sitting beside me right now using it to practice spelling the longer number words and to practice the sign language. Neat.

Disney Pooh Musical Hide & Seek Game for $5. You press Pooh's head, and he spins around and plays music. Each of the characters peeks up one at a time out of their honeypots. When they stop, you draw a character card and try to remember where that character was. If you get it right, you keep that character card. The first one to collect one of each character wins. I thought some variation of this game would be great memory practice for Holden. We played last night before bed, and he really loved finding and matching the characters to the cards. I had a hard time getting him to give up this game to go to bed!

So that's my haul for yesterday! I just love this particular DAV thrift store. It's really big and gets in tons of new merchandise every single day. You never know what you'll find in there! I got half there and half at the homeschool bookstore. But I definitely got some great values. He's got plenty of stuff to keep him occupied during school now. I just need to find a good way to organize everything that will keep it out of his reach unless I put it in his workboxes.

I haven't been able to find colorful paint trays to use for tot tray activities, but I remembered that I had some high sided dinner trays in the closet that can sit on portable stands like tv trays. So I took out one of those and have been using it on the floor or the table as a tot tray. That has worked well to keep parts and pieces contained while he's doing an activity.

Fine Motor Skills

2010-06-18T13:10:00.004-04:00

Holden worked on some fun activities for building fine motor skills today. I gave him those flat-bottomed glass stones from the Dollar Tree in a bowl with a large plastic serving spoon to scoop them into another empty bowl. He did great with that and took to it right away.

Then I gave him some dry beans in a bowl with a smaller spoon and a bottle with a funnel in the top and had him scoop them into the funnel. He enjoyed that one, too.

I also used a 15% off shopping pass and a $10 coupon at Kohl's on a Melissa & Doug Wooden Tool Box set last night. I sat with him today and showed him how to use the tools and put the nuts and bolts together. He especially enjoyed hammering in the wooden nails. I loved that the pieces actually fit snugly and didn't just blow right through the holes like they do with so many plastic toddler toys that are essentially useless for any real learning to take place.

I'm on a hunt for some small plastic tongs that will be easy for him to squeeze and use for transferring pom-poms into ice cube trays. I think he'd like that, too.

I got some great ideas today from this website: http://prekinders.com/. It's designed for preschool teachers. There were so many great ideas there, all categorized by the type of learning that takes place. One thing I want to try is putting Easter grass in a box and hiding little plastic insects in it. Then give him tongs or tweezers and have him "discover" the insects and remove them into a bug box. Kinda neat. It's a sensory and fine motor activity rolled into one. I don't think I'll find Easter grass this time of year, but I could probably put some construction paper through the paper shredder and achieve the same results. I could make it really colorful that way, too.

Fun Educational Tot Toys

2010-06-15T09:18:00.004-04:00

I have been on a hunt for fun educational tot toys to use for Holden's "tot school." He is almost 2.5 now. I have had great success at finding things at the thrift store for a dollar or two each. Here are some of the things I found:
Lauri Toys Shape Sorter and Large Pegboard for a total of about $3. The pegboard set was complete, and the shape sorter set was missing a few pieces, which I can get from Patch company.
Discovery Toys Giant Pegboard for $2. It was missing only 1 piece, which I'm getting from a local representative for FREE. Never hurts to ask...she was very helpful!
Tallest Tree Stacking Blocks for $1. It was complete! It is neat...has 5 sides of learning on 3-dimensional cubes that stack in a set of 10. One shows the journey from forest floor to outer space. One is a poem about the Redwood tree to read. One has counting from 1 to 10 with forest animals. One has discovery of forest animals and plants. And one has learning about the world's tallest trees. Neat! ISBN is 1-883869-50-1 for anyone who might be interested.
Nick Jr. Go Diego Go Shapes & Colors Slide & Learn Interactive Flash Cards for $2. These are neat. Has 30 cards that slide open and show matching colors and shapes. This was complete, also. Holden loves Diego!
Enormous set of wooden pattern blocks in various sizes and colors for $2. It was enough to fill two tubs from Huggies wipes! I figured I can print off or make up my own patterns to use with them.

Then I went to ACMoore and used a 50% off coupon plus a $6 gift card he got for his birthday to get a $20 Melissa & Doug Lacing Beads set. It can be used in multiples ways for shapes, colors, counting, patterning, etc.

Then I went on Craigslist and got the nice Melissa & Doug Beginner Pattern Blocks set for $5. That was a deal! It was a complete set.

So we're all stocked up no on educational early learning toys, plus all those games I made myself. And I've got Teddy Mix & Match from Sonlight's PK 3/4 Core, plus I have some things I got at Moore Expressions: Discovery Toys Place & Trace for $3 and Peg-It Bears with Subtraction Fun Cards that I picked up there when Haylee was younger. And I have a nice set of colored counting bears and sorting cups from Wal-Mart that was also Haylee's.

So I should have a good supply of learning activities for Holden's workboxes to supplement his assignments from Sonlight PK 3/4 and Abeka Nursery for 2's.

I've been scoping out a couple of things from Lauri Toys like maybe the Primer Pak, but most especially the Early Learning Center Shapes & Colors. That looks REALLY cool. I found it cheapest at Amazon for about $29 HERE.

My A/C is broken, so our planned trip to Busch Gardens for today is out. It's being repaired as we speak. Gonna cost me about $1,000. Just spent $4,500 replacing the system at my rental property last month. When it rains, it pours. What can you do? We're in a roasting hot heat wave, so there's no way around it. The heat index hit 100 over the weekend with more to come.

Making Fun Tot Activities

2010-05-28T13:24:00.002-04:00

Well, now that I've schedule out Holden's curriculum for the year and gotten his workboxes all set up and ready to go, I've spent the last couple of days searching blogs online for ideas on some fun activities to put into his workboxes in the coming weeks.

I made the coolest fine motor activity yesterday using an empty Lay's potato chip can (ran to Dollar Tree for that), a hole punch, some hole reinforcements that I colored with markers, and a pack of colorful pipe cleaners. I finished making it just in time to take it to the ball field with us while the other two kids had practice, and Holden really enjoyed pushing the pipe cleaners through the matching color holes in the lid of the can. Instructions for making it can be found HERE.

I also made a couple of fun color and shape matching games. I laminated them and put velcro dots on them so the pieces don't slide around when he's trying to match them up. He enjoyed those, too. Instructions can be found HERE.

Then today, I made a couple of TotBooks. I did one on Ocean Animals and one with a Disney Cars theme. I made custom covers for them so he would know what was inside. Instructions can be found HERE for a variety of themes.

I printed up some other fun things that I'll post later after I finish making them. I've got lots of fun in store!

Epiphany!!!

2010-05-26T19:11:00.002-04:00

I'm so very glad I blogged my thoughts out loud today about what to do with Holden over the new few years. It kind of all came together in my head after I put my thoughts out there.

I decided I really should have Holden starting K the year he would if he were in public school, because it's always best to register kids the way they would be for PS. I can always teach "up" in some subjects as needed. I tend to start my kids early on math and reading instruction anyway, so I don't want to over-challenge Holden by starting him even sooner.

So here's my plan:

2010-2011 (age 2.5 to start): 1st half of Sonlight Core PK 3/4 combined with Abeka Nursery
Curriculum for 2's.

2011-2012 (age 3.5 to start): 2nd half of Sonlight Core PK 3/4 combined with Abeka Nursery
Curriculum for 3's, including the optional Language Development program.

2012-2013 (age 4.5 to start): Sonlight Core PK 4/5, adding in K level math, phonics, and
reading.

2013-2014 (age 5.5 to start): Sonlight Core K, etc.

So that's my plan. With that in mind, I sat down and scheduled out the stuff the this new school year (Abeka for 2's and 1st half of SL PK 3/4), and I got it all done! It really came together once I worked it out in my head. SL PK 3/4 only comes with a parent guide that lists the stories/books and suggested activities, but no schedule. So I made my own schedule and listed the suggested activities that correspond to the read-alouds at the bottom of each weekly schedule page. It looks great, and it's very easy to follow! I'm really pleased with how it all worked out on paper.

Now my next task is to get Holden's workbox system set up. I have the actual drawer sets that match the other kids' sets, but I need to select a color and make and laminate a set of tags and a wall chart, and then add the velcro dots to them. It looks like he'll have 2-3 boxes a day this year, and sometimes 4 in the last few weeks of school. I think that sounds about right. Basically, he has some kind of story each day, either a song or a learning numbers page, and an art page or a craft. I think he'll have fun with it. He gets excited when I ask him if he wants to "do school," and he tells his dad about it when Steve comes home and asks him if he did school that day. I think it will give him some purposeful activities. Oh, and another activity I'll add in is the bi-weekly Scholastic classroom magazine "Clifford" for preschool. I almost forgot I ordered that! That will be fun, too. It's only 4 pages, and the photos and words are big. I remember how much Haylee enjoyed them.

So I'm feeling really good about my plans. I can't wait to start!

Off school this week, but still learning!

2010-05-26T12:40:00.003-04:00

Technically, the kids are off school this week...their last break for we wrap up the last two weeks of school...but they're still learning!

We had lots of fun this morning. I am using a book called Early Learning Activities (ISBN 0785361871), which is a combination of 3 smaller books (Bright Start, Circle Time Activities, and Get Ready to Read), to do some fun learning things with Holden. I like the Bright Start section of the book, which breaks up learning activities by age for 2-, 3-, or 4-year olds. Today, we did the Alternative Art Canvas and Stop and Go games. For the art activity, I gave him a variety of differently textured surfaces to color on with crayons and watercolor paints to see how differently the colors and mediums would turn out on those different surfaces. We used constructions paper, a brown paper bag, a piece of cardboard, foil, waxed paper, and tissue. Holden really liked this activity and had lots of fun. During stop and go, he mostly watched me moving and freezing and laughed his butt off at me! LOL. It was worth it to hear the belly-giggling! I just love it when he laughs like that. Then I opened some bags of brightly colored pom-poms and gave him an empty compartment box and had him sort the colors for me. He did great with that and was mad when it was over!

I have a book from The Mailbox Magazine publishers called Science In A Box for grades 4-6. I selected the experiments on sudden surface changes and gathered the material in a clear plastic shoebox. Hayden and Haylee took it outside and erupted a volcano, complete with red "lava" out of an empty water bottle. They loved that! That experiment never gets old around here. The next part of the activity simulates the movement of the tectonic plates and how it affects houses and things on the earth's surface (using houses and hotels from Monopoly). We'll be doing that part after lunch!

Holden is also dabbling in Sonlight's Core PK 3/4 here and there. We read a few stories this morning from the 20th Century Treasury for Children and bopped to some songs from Wee Sing Nursery Rhyme Songs. He always enjoys that. I've scheduled out the books and songs in the free version of Homeschool Tracker since I prefer to have a schedule for all things school-related. The Core only comes with a parent guide that lists the readings and activities by quarter as a checklist type of thing. Since we're just dabbling in it right now (Holden just turned 2 after Christmas), I like that I can easily reschedule the activities in HST. I don't work on this with him every week, and often, I do it when the other kids are off school, so HST makes it easy to keep rolling the items forward on the schedule as needed and gives me a nice 1-page schedule I can print out for the week when we're ready to work on it again.

I haven't quite figured out how to handle school for Holden yet. In thinking ahead, I wonder when to start "real" school with him. The other kids started Sonlight Core PK 4/5 with K math, phonics, and reading when they were 3 yrs. and 10 mos. old. Their birthdays are only a couple of weeks apart, so timing-wise, it worked out the same for them both. Our school year runs June to June. Holden, however, has a winter birthday right after Christmas. So by public school requirements, he would be delayed in starting school until he was 5 yrs. 8 mos. old. So with late June as our starting point, he would be about 4 yrs. 6 mos. old when he started Core PK 4/5. That's about 8 months older than the other 2 kids were. I don't really want to start him at 3 yrs. 6 mos. unless he seems ready, but since they all start school at such an early age anyway, I can't imagine he'd be ready by then, but maybe he will be. The alternative is that he starts mid-way through the school year when he is 3 yrs. 10 mos. or maybe 4. That would put him in the middle of his school year when the other two are finishing theirs, but I'm sure it matters since we teach school year round anyway. I don't know. I guess I haven't worked it all out in my head just yet. It matters, though, because it affects what material I'm covering with him right now. I have SL Core PK 3/4 as well as Abeka Nursery Curriculum for both 2's and 3's, and also the Abeka Language Development course for preschool. I could really spread all that out and easily fill in the extra time with it, but I don't know if I want to do that. If I follow it as scheduled, and then he's not ready to move on, then I won't have anything to occupy him in between. So I really need to spend some time figuring it out. I guess I need to talk it over with Steve and get his thoughts on it, too, but he generally leaves all things school-related for me to decide and doesn't really have an opinion.

So anyway, that's where we're at. The kids have 2 weeks of school left before they move on to the next grade. Haylee will be starting 1st grade, and Hayden will be starting 6th grade. I'm debating whether or not to go ahead and set up Holden's workboxes. I think I might work on that this week. Then I'll have to be more purposeful with his activities, and that's probably better, because he's really getting to be distracting to the other two just playing and not having structured things to do during school time. He wants to play with THEM is the problem!

I'm almost done with my mass copying and setting up of binders for the new school year. I've already put all the new materials in the school cabinet. Yesterday, I stopped in at Ollie's Bargain Outlet in Hampton and picked up a great bargain...they had a Hooked on Spanish kit on the "oops" scratch and dent shelf on clearance. It was marked down to $3.75 and said it had missing items. The box was all crushed, and it was taped up all over it. I opened it up to see what was missing, but the packet inside was still sealed, and everything was in it. So that was a real find! It retails for $40 on the HOP website. It's for ages 4-6, so I'm going to let Haylee use it this year since she is starting Spanish. I'm also waiting for The Complete Book of Spanish for Grades 1-2 to arrive for Haylee to use over the next 2 years. It's a great big workbook of beginning Spanish vocabulary activities that Hayden did in 1st and 2nd grade, and he really liked it. It's very colorful. Once that comes in the mail, I can get it scheduled out for Haylee and then her schedule will be finished and I can print it out and be ready for our new school year. All of her other stuff is already ready to go.

Workbox Centers

2010-05-13T20:52:00.002-04:00

I have been having lots of fun this week making Take It To Your Seat centers for the kids to use as workbox activities for the new school year (which we start at the end of June). I had Haylee (5) writing in a story journal every day this school year, just drawing a picture and writing a sentence about it. I decided to make it a little more interesting but still give her daily writing practice for 1st grade. I found the Take It To Your Seat Writing Centers on the Evan-Moor website. I looked at the Table of Contents and noted the titles of the 13 centers. Then I went to www.teacherfilebox.com (where I have an annual subscription), searched on those titles, found all of them there, and printed them up. I got all of them assembled in 2 sittings. I didn't bother with laminating them, and I even printed them on a "fast" setting to save ink. I made extra copies of the worksheets inside the folders, and I bought a Sterlite hanging folder storage box to organize them in. There are 13 writing centers, and there are up to 12 different writing assignments in each folder. That should last her all school year. I think it will give her more variety and exposure to different types of writing, and it will make it more fun for her.

I also made up some math centers, vocabulary centers, and some science centers for her and put them in the box. She can use those for fun box activities. She was so excited to see all the new activities that she wanted to do them all right then! LOL. I let her do two of the science ones, and then I stopped her and put them away for the new school year.

After I realized how neat the writing centers were, I started thinking that Hayden (10) might really benefit from some for his grade level, also. His writing skills are terrible. I never made him do daily writing when he was younger, and I don't give him a lot of essays and things to write 'cause he just dreads it. I think I need to back up and give him smaller assignments that help him practice the basics and build his confidence with that this next school year before moving on to longer assignments, so I'm thinking this might be just the place to start for him this year. Evan-Moor has a book of writing centers for grades 4-6, and Hayden will be in 6th grade coming up, so I think I need to go and buy some more 2-pocket folders and make up a set for him, too. I've used up every folder I stockpiled last fall at Wal-Mart during back-to-school time, so I'm going to have to find some for a reasonable price somewhere. They are about 78 cents each at Wal-Mart right now! That's just crazy. I think the cheapest ones out of season are a 4-pack for $1 at Bottom Dollar. I might have to run to Dollar Tree and see what they have. It seems like they are starting to stock school supplies already. I bought a bunch of 3-ring binders there recently for $1 each.

Anyway, I can't say enough good things about www.teacherfilebox.com. I've printed off so many materials from there. My $60 for the year was well spent. I printed out two Never Bored Kids' Books for Haylee this week (over 250 pages) that would have cost $50 if I'd had to purchase hard copies of the books. I'd never have spent that. But I absolutely love all of the Evan Moor books. I will also be using a lot of the History Pockets this next year to go with their studies of ancient history. They'll be doing Core 1 and Core 6 from Sonlight.

I also printed up some neat Take It To Your Seat Early Learning Centers for Holden (2). There were only a couple that he could do right now, but he will grow into the rest soon enough. They are so cute...I put them in brown paper lunch bags and used cheap penny envelopes from the dollar store to hold the pieces inside the bags. I used picture labels on the envelopes and the bags. He was so excited to have his own "school" activities to do!

I'm amazed at how many centers I assembled in just a couple of days. They are all self-contained activities, too, so I won't have to sit beside her and explain what to do.

The only centers I laminate now are games...ones with lots of pieces that are to be played with 2 or more players. I figured those will get handled a lot more and used more often than the regular file folder activities, so I do laminate those. Many of the math games are that way.

Not laminating the others significantly cuts the cost of the centers and the time for assembly, too, and allows me to be able to make a whole lot more of them with little expense.

I just love Evan-Moor publications. There's such a variety of supplemental material available from them, and it's rare that I type in a topic that doesn't come up with SOMEthing. Haylee is always asking for extra worksheets and things, so I often will find whatever topic we're studying for science or math or whatever and print out practice sheets and such for her fun boxes.

I'm getting excited about our new school year! We have school next week, 1 week off, then school the following 2 weeks and we're done! Then we have 1 week off, and then we start our new school year at the end of June. I've got all of our new materials in the school cabinet already, and it's bursting at the seams! I've already packed away all but the last few books from this school year, so I have tubs sitting everywhere, waiting to be topped off and stored in the shed when we're done. The school cabinet will thin out once we finish up so I can put their new books into their workboxes. Most of the textbooks will stay in the workboxes all year, so the school cabinet will be less crowded then. I am busy making the last of my copies for the new school year, and then I'll be all ready to go. I just ordered Haylee's art book from the Abeka book display, so when that comes, I'll be able to finish up her schedule and get it printed out and put into her schedule binder. So I'm basically just tying up loose ends right now.

Shew! I'm tired. Time to get my apple crumble out of the oven and start getting the kiddies to bed.

Hayden's 5th Grade CAT test scores

2010-04-29T14:47:00.002-04:00

I got Hayden's 5th grade CAT test scores today. Here is the breakdown:

TOTAL BATTERY: 99th percentile, 9th stanine, grade equivalent 12.7

Vocabulary: 98th percentile, 9th stanine, grade equivalent Post-High-School
Comprehension: 89th percentile, 7th stanine, grade equivalent 10.3
Spelling: 89th percentile, 7th stanine, grade equivalent 8.9
Language Mechanics: 75th percentile, 6th stanine, grade equivalent 8.5
Language Expression: 83rd percentile, 7th stanine, grade equivalent 10.9

Mathematics Computation: 99th percentile, 9th stanine, grade equivalent Post-High-School
Math Concepts: 99th percentile, 9th stanine, grade equivalent Post-High-School

Study Skills: 93rd percentile, 8th stanine, grade equivalent 11.2

Science: 73rd percentile, 6th stanine, grade equivalent 7.9

Social Studies: 79th percentile, 7th stanine, grade equivalent 9.1

So I'm really thrilled with how well he did, and I'm so thankful that he took the test without a lot of anxiousness and anxiety this year. Great job, Hayden! Go Hayden, Go Hayden, Go Hayden!!!

Now just 5 more weeks of school, and he'll be ready to start 6th grade. Hooray! I can hardly believe my first baby will be in middle school. (sniff, sniff)

Life

2010-04-22T16:22:00.004-04:00

Life sure is full right now! Hayden finished his CAT test this morning, and we got it mailed off at the post office. I'm anxious to see how he did this year. He didn't have any of his usual anxiety about taking the test, and he said he felt very confident in how he did, so I hope he is happy with the results. We should get them around this time next week. I have no doubt I'll be fine with however he does on it, but he usually has a fair amount of anxiety about it, so I hope he does as well as he hopes he will. He said he was glad we supplemented with Our Nation and Science Horizons, both public school textbooks, because he felt like the topics on the test were fresher in his mind by using those as supplemental reading. I'm glad. He was very non-chalant about the test-taking process this year, so that was good to see. I gave him the option of dropping the supplements next year, but he said he wanted to continue them 'cause he felt better about the test as a result. That's good. That's all I wanted for him, was to relieve that anxiety. He has always scored well, so it was really about taking his self-imposed pressure off by supplementing.

I'm waiting anxiously for news about my mom. She has not been well at all, literally wasting away at home. She is seeing her old doctor today, as we speak actually. So I'm hopeful that he can get her moving in the right direction again. They think her kidneys are failing, so we'll have to wait and see. She has had severe diarrhea for over a month straight and isn't eating. Now she is so weak that she doesn't get out of bed and is sleeping all the time. Prayers are welcomed and appreciated! She is 74 and had a stroke last Halloween. It's really been a struggle since then. She was rallying after months of therapy, but then her health began to decline pretty rapidly, and she just hasn't come back from it for whatever reason.

Now that the CAT test is behind us, we can sit back enjoy the rest of our spring break through the end of next week. That will be so nice! I have lots to do here at the house, though, catching up on household stuff.

I did a little scrapbooking this afternoon, and that was fun. I'm getting ready to take the kids to baseball practice, so I guess I'll be throwing a frozen pizza in the oven when we finally get home!

I have to say that the new Digiorno Pizza & Breadsticks combos are fabulous! I added some extra mozzarella to both when I made them last time, and it was sooooo good. The crust is soft and delicious, and the marinara sauce is wonderful. I'm so glad I got to host the House Party! It was fun, and I like trying new products.

Groupon Recommendation

2010-04-14T18:08:00.002-04:00

Have you heard of Groupon? Several people in one of my coupon groups posted about it. It's available all over the country in major cities with more being added all the time. I signed up for the local Groupon group about a month ago, which had a message that deals would be starting soon, and the daily deals just started last week. It's the coolest thing! They find local merchants who will offer deep discounts in exchange for a minimum number of buys from the group. They negotiate the discount and post one deal daily to the group. They give all the details of the deal and indicate how many people have to agree to the purchase for it to go through. If you "buy" into the deal, then at the end of the day, Groupon lets you know if the deal went through, and if so, they go ahead and bill your credit card that you have on file. If they don't get the minimum number of participants, then they tell you that, too, and you are not charged. When a deal goes through, you get a confirmation email and a link to immediately print your discount voucher. I did one the very first day for a local frozen yogurt shop. I got $6 worth of frozen yogurt for $3, and my voucher is good for the next 6 months. You can buy as many of the deal as you want, but the deal disappears in 24 hours when a new daily deal is posted. I've seen deals on yoga, pottery classes, restaurants, and museum memberships, and all kinds of things. There's really something for everyone. And if you refer someone who buys their first deal, you get a referral credit in your account to use towards your next group buy. It's really neat! Here is my referral link if you want to sign up and check it out:
http://groupon.com/r/uu1332262
Enjoy!

Busy, busy!

2010-04-04T08:57:00.003-04:00

I've been SOOO busy getting things prepared for next school year, which begins in late June for us. At the same time, I'm keeping us on schedule to finish up the last 7 weeks of this school year! Hooray! I need to start prepping Hayden with the Spectrum Test Prep so he'll be ready for his CAT test, which he'll be taking in just 2 short weeks! We'll be starting off our 2-week Spring Break with testing, and then the remainder of the days will be our break time. I can't wait! I've put on a few extra pounds the last couple of weeks for some odd reason, so I'm hoping to get out into the fresh air and get more active again. Winter was LOOOOONG this year!

We had a great time at Busch Gardens on Friday. The weather was just gorgeous. Although it was busy because of it being Spring Break for public school kids, the lines didn't take long to get through. The kids only waited about 15 minutes for each ride. Hayden took along a friend, so I had somebody to ride roller coasters with for a change! I got really sunburned on my arms, though. I knew as soon as we got out of the van that we would need sunblock, and then I realized I hadn't brought any. Bummer! I was at Harris Teeter yesterday getting pizzas and breadsticks for our DiGiorno House Party, and I spotted some Gold Bond Ultimate lotion with SPF 15 in it on sale, so I grabbed some of that and I figured I'd just keep it in the van for next time we're out in the sun like that.

Our DiGiorno Champions House Party was fun. We did it as a luncheon so it wouldn't take up the whole day. We had mostly people from church and one of our friends and her son. Everybody had a great time visiting, and we all loved the pizza and breadsticks. The cheesy breadsticks were surprisingly good, and the marinara dipping sauce was really delicious. I would definitely buy it again. It happens to be on sale at Harris Teeter right now for $6, and I had $4 coupons in the party kit to pass out to everyone, so that was cool.

I got my Sonlight order placed on April 1st, but I have not seen a shipping confirmation yet, so I'm assuming they are a bit overwhelmed with their initial onslaught of orders! I can hardly wait for "Box Day!" I'm really looking forward to changing things up with some new material.

Preparing for Next School Year

2010-02-24T17:20:00.005-05:00

I went and paid off one of the vans yesterday, so we've got one less monthly payment now. I've already gotten my state and federal tax refunds, so now I'm planning my curriculum purchases for the upcoming school year, which for us, begins at the end of June.

For Hayden who will be going into 6th grade, here's what I've got planned:

Sonlight Core 6
Sonlight Bible 6
Sonlight Science 6
Saxon Math 8/7
Saxon Grammar & Writing 6
Houghton Mifflin Spelling & Vocabulary 8
Wordly Wise 3000 Book 7
Switched on Schoolhouse Elementary Spanish
McGraw Hill "Our World" (6th grade Social Studies we use as a supplement)
Silver Burdett Science Horizons 6 (we use this as a supplement)
Abeka Art C
Nine-Note Recorder Method for Alto
Science World Magazine

For Haylee who will be going into 1st grade, here's what I've got planned:

Sonlight Core 1 with Readers 2 Regular and Readers 2 Intermediate (at double pace)
Sonlight Science 1
Sonlight Bible 1
Silver Burdett English 1
Saxon Math 2
Saxon Phonics 2
A Reason for Handwriting - Transition
Wordly Wise A & B (at double pace)
Complete Book of Spanish for Grades 1-3 (1st half)
Harcourt Health & Fitness 1
Silver Burdett Science Horizons 1 (we use this as a supplement)
Houghton Mifflin Spelling & Vocabulary 2
Silver Burdett Music 1
Abeka Art Projects 1
Scholastic News 2

For Holden, who is now 2, I'm planning to continue taking our time working our way through Sonlight Core PK 3/4, plus adding in the Abeka Nursery Curriculum for 2's, which I've already purchased. He just turned 2 after Christmas, so we're just reading some of the stories in PK 3/4 and singing some of the songs right now. He's really eager to be read to right now, so I figured it's a good time to ease into his own special "school." It's so cute when Steve comes home and asks him if he's been busy doing school. And if you ask him "so, watchya been up to today?" he answers with "nuh-in much!" That kid cracks me up with his talking these days. He'll say just about anything. :)

I've been busy perusing the Sonlight website to try to figure out how Core 1 and Science 1 have changed since I last used them in 2005. It's nice that I only need to purchase the books that have been added and get that nice 50% discount on upgrading my teacher's guide. It looks like Core 1 mostly dropped some books and added a required resource, and Science 1 has changed quite a bit since they revamped all the science programs last year. I'm looking forward to the upgrade there. I have been busy ordering all the supplements (old PS textbooks) that we use online. I discovered I could print the activity book for her Harcourt Health & Fitness program for free, so that was good news (www.harcourtschool.com/menus/health_fitness/planning_resources.html, and includes grades K-6). I also printed Hayden's workbook for free for his McGraw-Hill Social Studies program, too (www.mhschool.com/socialstudies/2003-5/teacher/workbooks.html, and includes grades 1-6). And if anyone is interested, you can also print off free workbooks from McGraw-Hill Language Arts (www.mhschool.com/languagearts/2001/geacher/teachres/workbooks.html, and includes grades K-6 in 3 levels - remedial, regular, and advanced).

I was able to get the teacher's manuals and student textbooks I needed for just a few dollars each this year, so that was a relief.

Overall, I feel like I'm in a good place with my planning and preparations. I need to start making copies and scheduling out my supplements as I receive them. I model my schedule after the Sonlight schedule so it all flows together in my binder. I always schedule out everything we'll be using for the whole school year so there's little to no prep work once we're ready to start the new core. The copies, though...ugh! I dread the massive amounts of copies that are required. Sheesh. I've already started on some of it. It takes me a couple of months of doing it in my spare time to get it all ready. It sure makes my life easier during the school year, though, to have it all ready to go.

I'm so glad we were off school this week. I've been sick with what I fondly call "the plague." The kids have milder versions of it, but I've been totally wiped out with this thing for the last week straight. I am just starting to turn the corner in terms of getting the congestion loosened so I can blow/cough it out. Gotta love real Sudafed and Mucinex for working their magic!

The kids and I went on a field trip to the Virginia Symphony Orchestra's Young People's Concert. It was really nice. The kids were well behaved and really seemed to enjoy themselves. I was suprised that Holden started out so calm, but I guess he's not feeling all that well himself. We had front row seats, too!

I'm looking forward to my last VSO concert in April for the season, and I'm thankful I'll be renewing my season ticket for next season. It's like my respite away from the kids and the chores of home, and I feel so peaceful when I leave there. It's like my "Calgon, take me away!" moment. You know what I mean. :)

Not so bad...

2010-02-14T08:12:00.001-05:00

Happy Valentine's Day! I paid the bills for January, and although we still had a whopper from the holidays, we made it through with some leftover, thanks to the overlapping severance and new payroll from Bay. We now have health insurance, though we don't have cards yet, so I had trouble utilizing it, but at least we're covered.

I'm getting ready to pay the February bills, and I'm proud to say I cut our credit card spending in half from what it was over the holidays! I'm pretty happy with that. I've spent most of my free time clipping coupons and shopping at a myriad of stores to get the best deals on groceries. It's exhausting, but it's got to be done!

I sent off our taxes last week. We should be getting back enough to pay off the blue van and get us down to only one van payment, order the kids' school curriculum for the new school year, and replenish what we had to use from savings last year. So that will give us a good starting point for trying to get a new budget going. I still have no idea what it will be like from month to month once we no longer have the excess in the account, but I'm feeling more confident that we will be okay...I just can't go anywhere so I don't spend anything! LOL.

I'm headed off to the symphony with a friend after church today. Aaaaaah. I have so enjoyed the symphony this season. I wasn't going to renew, but Steve says I should because it's the only time I get out to myself without the kids, and that's certainly true enough. If I renew by early March, I get to pay last year's rate, which would save some money, too, and I'll get to keep my same seats. My friend is going to buy the other seat with me so we can go together. That will be fun! Luckily, they offer a 6-month payment plan of about $17/month, so I'll probably pay that way.

I'm looking forward to the spring opening of Busch Gardens next month. We go the most in the spring on Fridays while other kids are still in school. It's so pleasant outside, and it's wonderful to be able to get on rides without a long wait. Thankfully, I renewed our passes in the fall for 2 years, although I opted for the monthly payment plan. There's no way out of it now!

But all in all, I think we'll be okay. We'll just have to see how it goes. I'm feeling a little less anxiety about it, though I'm sure there will still be some things that have to be cut out.

The Aftermath

2010-02-01T11:30:00.003-05:00

Well, all told, I heard we got about 9 inches of snow here. WOW! That's really something for this area. The kids' basketball games were canceled on Saturday. Church was canceled and so was the symphony performance on Sunday. Local schools are all closed today. It's a homeschool day for us, though! There's so much snow out there! It never got above freezing all weekend, so it's just sitting there. Today is a high of 38, though, so there's some melting action taking place now. We canceled basketball practices for tonight, too, because parking lots and a lot of local roads are still bad, at least in neighborhoods and parts of main roads.

So it was a pretty quiet weekend overall. I got some scrapbooking done (take a peek at my scrapbooking blog at http://www.kellysscrapbook.blogspot.com/). I had a lot of fun with that yesterday, as I was working on a contest where I had to follow a sketch.

I need to upload photos from my camera, but I'll have to post some snow pictures. Crazy!

The upside of today being February 1st is that we are now officially covered by health insurance once again! Hooray!

Blizzard of 2010?!?

2010-01-29T09:45:00.002-05:00

Got hubby's W-2 this week. Turns out the new salary is $20K less than last year! Ugh! We'll work it out, though.

We're supposedly in for a big snowstorm this weekend, starting around midnight tonight. Some forecasts say 1-3 inches tonight followed by more tomorrow for a total of 6-10 inches! That would really be something. The kids are so excited! Hayden already has his snowsuit on, and the snow isn't starting until around midnight! LOL. Now that's enthusiasm!

It seems every local weather station says something completely different, so I'm relying on Weatherbug and the National Weather Service. I guess time will tell. Apparently, there's a possibility we could get a layer of ice from sleet underneath the snow. It's anybody's guess! I have lots of stuff to go out for this weekend, though, so I will have to watch what happens. The kids have basketball and cheerleading on Saturday morning until lunchtime, we have church on Sunday morning, and I have a ticket for the symphony on Sunday afternoon!

New Job!

2010-01-18T09:32:00.002-05:00

Steve starts his new job today. He's going back to work for Bay Electric where he worked before this. It's been 4.5 years since he worked there last, and they've been so gracious to invite us to their company picnic every summer since he left, so we've maintained a relationship with them all this time. Steve went and met with them 2 days after he lost his job, and they had an offer letter to him the next day. That was a relief! The downside is that now he makes at least $15K less than he made last year. That's a real bummer because it means a total lifestyle change for us. I'll have to find a way to cut back at least $1,250/month going forward. Not sure where to find that many cutbacks. I think this is going to be a really rough year for us. He's essentially making what he started out making 4.5 years ago, so it's a bit of a step backwards. He is a project manager there, as he was at this last employer for most of the his time there, but right now, Bay only has him working on the electrical side of projects, which is pretty limiting since he's been doing general construction management for so long now. But I think they will expand his responsibilities over time. His first project is a new site in Georgia, and he'll be flying down periodically on one of the company's private jets to oversee that project. That ought to be interesting! They also have a company apartment down there, so if he has to stay overnight for any reason, at least he won't have to mess with hotels.

He won't get to take any vacation this year, so no annual family vacation for us to look forward to in 2010. The kids were really disappointed about that, and so was I. And he only gets 1 week/year instead of 2. Also, the health insurance will cost us more than before because the company is smaller.

Sigh. It's a lot for me to take in. He did get a company car and a gas card, so although he has a long commute to Newport News, at least we won't be paying for gas. We have to pay taxes on the commuting mileage, though.

I think we're gonna use our tax refund this year to go ahead and pay off his van. We only had a little over a year left to pay on it anyway, and that will get rid of a payment of $233/month. That's a start, but there's still a long way to go to squeak by. We have another huge credit card bill this month from Christmas expenses, the dogs' annual checkup at the vet, and the lifetime subscription to TIVO, which I did because our 3-year contract was up, and it was before he lost his job. So we'll have to recover from the last of these big expenses and then figure out how we'll get by thereafter.

I went grocery shopping yesterday, and I'm already shopping differently. No more convenience packaged items. Instead of baby carrots and apple slices that are ready to eat, I got regular carrots and whole apples...stuff like that. I didn't buy as much as usual, and I shopped only from my grocery list and skipped all the other aisles. I didn't get the kids any snacks beyond a $1 bag of pretzel sticks and a 62-cent bag of marshmallows. They'll just have to get used to less variety.

So anyway, wish me luck trying to figure out a new budget. It's gonna be a challenge!

Bad news

2010-01-08T10:12:00.003-05:00

We got some bad news on Tuesday. Steve lost his job. They gave us no notice or anything! They just created his new position 6 weeks ago, and I guess they decided they couldn't afford it after all. I think our health insurance ended the same day according to our benefits booklet, so that really stinks. He gave me the news by phone just as I was walking out from having my crown re-done again. I had bleeding problems again during the procedure and had to have an adrenaline injection into my gums to stop it. That wasn't fun! I felt like I had run a marathon. Anyway, it was all very surreal. I thought he was joking at first. In this economy, it's definitely not a good time to be looking for a job, especially in construction. He has such an impeccable reputation in his industry, though. Someone made him a job offer before he even got home. But he went yesterday (his birthday) to interview with his former employer from 4.5 years ago, and they offered him a job to start on the 18th. I think he's going to take it, although the salary is $15,000 less than he made last year! That will mean major lifestyle adjustments around here. That's a big owie, for sure. It's also on the other side of the water, so he'll be back to a long commute each day. Hopefully, they will give him a company car, like he had when he worked there before. That would help cut costs, too, by not having to pay for gas and wear and tear on a vehicle. He has been doing so much traveling lately, and it costs a lot. He had a vehicle allowance at his most recent job, but no direct reimbursement. I imagine we will need to get rid of one of our vans to get rid of a car payment, but we owe more on them than they are worth at this point. Not good. Sigh. We haven't been sleeping so well this week, and we're all sick with colds, too. I have a doctor's appointment next week that I can't miss, and it seems we have no health insurance now. Steve is gonna call the Benefits department today and see how to get COBRA coverage, but of course, that will be a big expense, too. I'm not sure how long the waiting period for insurance is with the new job, but I think it's at least 30 days.

Anyway, it's weird for us right now. Not sure what to do with ourselves. I know everything will work out in the end, though. At he won't be unemployed for long.

Holden's First Day of "School!"

2010-01-05T10:50:00.002-05:00

Today was Holden's first day of "school!" I stayed up until 1 AM this morning trying to set up a schedule for Sonlight's PK 3/4 program. It comes with just a checklist of things to read and do, but I really wanted a schedule to hold me accountable and balance out the workload. I had tried to put it into a table the way I do the other kids' schedules, but because most of his stories are in treasuries, typing the long names out made it so it wouldn't fit in a traditional scheduling table. So I decided to download the free basic version of Homeschool Tracker and plug it into that to see if it would give me a decent printable schedule to use, and it worked out great! I loved how I didn't have to keep retyping the information...I could just select it from the drop-down menu of resources, and I didn't have to duplicate my efforts. Anyway, I had to do a little tweaking at first, but I stayed at it until I got the first trimester all entered in before I went to bed. Then I added some of the second trimester this morning and got it done all the way through June. So I went ahead and printed out this week's school schedule for him, and he and I sat down and did yesterday's and today's assignments and got all caught up.

I was surprised at how excited he was! He just turned two last week. I asked him if he wanted to sing some songs first, and he said yes and climbed up to the bar and sat beside me like Haylee does for school. It was so cute! I put the disc of Wee Sing Nursery Rhyme songs in my laptop, and we did a couple of them together. He clapped along and smiled and really enjoyed them! Then we read a couple of storybooks and a couple of bible stories. He was really interested in the Picture Book Classics. He really paid attention and pointed to things in the pictures and named them. I could tell he really enjoyed it! The book of bible stories was way beyond him and far too long to hold his interest. I might reschedule those for the end of the year when his vocabulary is a little more advanced, and I'll just substitute the Rhyme Bible Storybook for Toddlers to use right now. I think that's more his speed at this point, and it has very coloful illustrations and short rhyming text. I remember reading that to Hayden when he was this age.

So anyway, all in all, it was very successful! I think I'll do his school with him in the mornings when he is fresh, before I start school with Hayden and Haylee.

Hayden and Haylee are both sick with a nasty cold, and I have to get some serious dental work done this afternoon. I've had two crowns on the same tooth, and it fell out again last week. I think I'm gonna have to get an implant today. Not fun. Maybe they can try recementing this one again. I'm not sure what the problem was. They used a post to support it this last time, so it wasn't supposed to be able to fall out. The dentist says the base of the tooth may have cracked this time, in which case I'll have to do a partial denture or an implant. I just turned 38, so there's no way I'm getting a denture! I don't want a metal crown, either, because it shows when I smile. It's shameful how much money I've had to spend on this tooth already, between the root canal, the first crown, the recementation, the second crown, and now the implant alone will cost over $2,000. Sigh. Always something.

Scrapbook Stuff

2009-12-05T19:43:00.003-05:00

So I mentioned that I got a subscription to Storytellers Club monthly scrapbooking kits for Christmas. I wanted to post the first layout I did using the free trial kit that I got. Here is a photo. I'd love to hear feedback! I used a page from the "Just Add Water" theme and a page from the "Family" theme in the kit. This was a camping trip we took to the Colonial Williamsburg KOA a few years ago. We spent the day at the pool and the evening by the campfire. Let me know what you think! I used a matching sheet of the paper to cut out the flowers and suspend them with pop dots over the prints of the same flowers underneath. I thought it turned out pretty cool. I love the papers from Storytellers!

Family Emergency & Holiday Stuff

2009-12-02T10:21:00.004-05:00

It's been ages since I've posted. That's mostly because my mother suffered a devastating stroke on Halloween. Actually, it was the night before, but she wasn't discovered until the afternoon of Halloween. She was paralyzed on her right side, was unable to speak or communicate in any way, was blind in her right eye, and deaf in one ear. It pains me to think of all the hours she laid awake in that bed, unable to move and wondering what was happening to her. And this was just a few days after her 74th birthday.

She was taken to the hospital and stayed there for about 2.5 weeks. My sister went to be with her the week or so, and I flew there with Holden to help her the last week. Before I left, I was able to get her transferred to a rehabilitation hospital. She has been undergoing intensive physical, speech, and occupational therapy there. She has improved by leaps and bounds. I have to hand it to her...she is a strong lady, and she has a wonderfully positive outlook. She is now re-learning how to walk with a walker. She is speaking pretty clearly, though more slowly, and she still struggles to find the right words. But at least she can communicate now! She has regained sight in her right eye, and I think her hearing has come back, as well. She has pretty much regained most everything except the use of her right arm. Her right arm only works in the shoulder and upper arm. She can't lift it by herself, but if someone supports her elbow to lower arm, she can push with her upper arm and shoulder. They sometimes place it in a sling so she doesn't injure her arm, and then she can push with her arm, like to maneuver a walker that's been specially adapted for her. She's doing great! They think she may eventually get the use of her arm and hand back, and obviously, that would be wonderful!

I'm so glad I was able to go and help her. She needed a lot of assistance in the beginning, and she wasn't getting very much attention at the first hospital. I enjoyed spending that time with her so much. I was only able to go because my dear friend came over every day in my absence to do lessons with Hayden and Haylee, and Steve came home extra early every day so she wouldn't have to spend all day here. It was great to be able to focus my attention on my mom and not have to worry with what was going on at home. That was such a blessing.

So I came back and sped through entertaining for Thanksgiving. It went really well. We had 4 extra adult guests for dinner and a baby. We all had such a lovely day together. My mom got to go home on a day pass to enjoy Thanksgiving dinner at home, and my sister-in-law arrived that week to help my mom out and make dinner that day. She is still there spending time with her at the hospital until the end of next week. So my mom has been very fortunate to have continuous help from family. That's wonderful! I talked to my mom on Thanksgiving Day, and she really enjoyed seeing her home again. They expect her to be home by Christmas for good, but if she is still making progress, then they will continue to keep her. They are really happy with her progress so far.

Now it's on to Christmas! This time of year always speeds by. I love the holiday season! I really get into the Christmas spirit. I had the best Black Friday shopping day ever, and I didn't even go out early. I got a lot of great deals online that morning, and then I didn't go out until almost lunchtime, but I hit the mall and got almost everything else I needed there. The deals seem to abound this year! I had all my holiday shopping completed by the end of the day, but the Cyber Monday came. More deals abounded online, so I did a little more shopping. I don't really have the money for any of this stuff, but we're going to be dipping into savings for bills this month anyway with my unexpected trip to AR, so I'll just wipe it all out that way.

I'm so excited because Steve let me join Storytellers Club as my big Christmas present! I signed up yesterday. I will start with the December Ultimate Scrapbooking Kit, but I also ordered the January, February, March, and October 2009 kits at a steep discount. That should be plenty to get me started! Each one makes up to 16 layouts, so I will definitely have enough materials to keep me busy. They are seasonal kits, but you can definitely adapt them for any occasion. I just LOVE the papers! Very good qualty, double-sided prints with a different print on each side, plus Bazzill textured cardstock perfectly coordinated to the colors of the prints. Then there are chipboard embellishments, ribbons, and other goodies to go with it, plus a pen. I love how everything in the kit coordinates perfectly. I really have a hard time finding cardstock solids in the craft stores around here that actually match the prints that are available, so that was the part that really sold me on doing the club. Steve says I can do it for a year, so that's really cool! My stuff ships today, and I should be getting it some time late next week. If you're interested in checking it out, try the free trial kit first. http://www.storytellersclub.com/. And they are having a pack sale right now on past packs. Monthly ultimate kits are about $33 including shipping, but the past packs are on clearance right now for $13 for the first one and $10 for each additional one, plus $6 shipping on the whole order. You don't have to be a member to take advantage of this sale, so check it out: www.storytellersclub.com/packsale. That's definitely a deal!

We went on a kids' discovery cruise field trip yesterday on the Spirit of Norfolk. That was fun. I took some people from church with me, and we all went to the zoo afterwards. It was really cold, but we had a nice leisurely afternoon in the company of good friends, and that's always a great way to spend a day.

Now I have to get everyone focused on schoolwork again. We're really just now getting back into the swing of things since I've gotten back from my trip. The kids are really distracted, so I know this whole month will probably be a struggle.

I got my tree put up this weekend and put lights on it, but I haven't added any of the decorations yet. I did wrap some presents, though. I've been so busy!

Well, gotta run. I'll post some pics from Halloween later.

Vacation!!!

2009-10-16T20:23:00.002-04:00

I can hardly believe I haven't posted to my blog in over a month! Gosh, it's been so busy. We just got back from our vacation in the Shenandoah Valley. We stay in Front Royal every year at the same cabin. We've done it the last 3 years in a row. It's so familiar that it feels like a second home when we go there now. We always look forward to it. I have uploaded my photos of the trip yet, but I will post some pictures when I do. We actually took a trip on the Skyline Drive this time, and we got some great shots of the mountain views from there. We got up to like 3,500 ft. on some of the lookout points. It was amazing! I have to admit I felt a little scared every time I pulled off at a lookout point. I felt like I was gonna drive right off the mountain! I got more comfortable with it the longer we were up there, though.

We ended up coming home a day early, as usual. I get so antsy when we're traveling. That feeling of an impending long drive makes me feel so anxious to get it over with that I always end up just packing up and coming home! lol. My dad was always the same way. I've never liked having things looming over my head. I like to hurry up and get things over with. Anyway, it worked out well to come home a day early. Then we weren't rushed, and we had a chance to get unpacked and back into the home routine before returning to schooling and work. We also had a lot of visitors at our church that first day back, so we were glad to be here for that.

Getting the kids back into schoolwork was a challenge this week. I had given them 2 weeks to get a week's worth done before our trip. Then they had a week off during vacation. So getting back to a full schedule was a little rough for them, but they managed to do it. We wrapped up week 12 this week, so we are officially 1/3 of the way through our school year already! That feels like a great accomplishment.

We were hoping to make it to Busch Gardens today, but the weather has been just awful. Our soccer games are even canceled for tomorrow because of this ongoing rain. And it's cold! Our field trip to the corn maze was also rescheduled to next week because of the rain. It's just as well, though...we were pretty busy this week as it was. I took the whole day yesterday and spent it getting Haylee's new bedroom furniture. I sold the crib and dresser, so I finally had room to move the other dresser into the boys' room, which left Haylee needing bedroom furniture of her own. I went and got her a cherry sleigh bed, dresser with mirror, and nightstand. In the pouring rain, Hayden and I managed to get it all in one trip, bring it in, unwrap everything, carry it all upstairs, and assemble it in her room. Then we went and got the matress and boxspring and brought those in, too. Then we went and bought her some brand new Disney Princess bedding and put the finishing touches on her room. Then I cleaned up all the mess from all the boxes and packing materials just before Steve came in. Shew! Man, did I hurt! Every part of my body ached last night. I had a hot bath, but it didn't help much. I ended up taking a couple of Tylenol to go to bed. That helped a lot.

It was all worth it, though. Haylee was beside herself with glee at her new room and her pretty pink bedding. When her dad came in, she went on and on, and he was just giggling at how excited she was. Hayden was a huge help to me throughout the day and even emptied the dishwasher for me so I could do the dishes again. I couldn't get over how helpful he was all day long. There's hope for him yet! lol. :) I made sure to tell him repeatedly how much I appreciated his pitching in when I needed it. I couldn't have gotten all that stuff up the stairs without his help, for sure.

I will definitely post pics of her bedroom when I get a chance. It looks really nice, and it makes her look so tiny in that great big bed! She slept late this morning. I think she really enjoyed her new big-girl bed.

-Kelly

Tea Room

2009-08-30T09:52:00.010-04:00

For Haylee's 5th birthday at the end of July, I took her to the English Rose Tea Room. That was such a beautiful little place! I just have to take a few minutes to post some pics. We each had the Royal Tea. It was quite a little feast with several courses of goodies to devour! The scones were so good, and so was the fruit & custard parfait. Those were Haylee's favorites of the day.

It was pouring down with rain outside, but we made a reservation for the afternoon when the tea room was only open by reservation, so we pretty much had the place to ourselves. It was a lovely way to spend the day together, and we got all dressed up for the occasion. Haylee looked like such a little princess! It cost a small fortune, but we had a wonderful time, and I'd like to do it again next year.

For Hayden's birthday, Steve took him out golfing...a full 18 holes! It was equally as expensive, so then I didn't feel so bad! lol.

If you live locally, you should definitely check out the English Rose Tea Room. It won Best of the Beach 2009.

-Kelly

Party was a hit!

2009-08-03T15:30:00.006-04:00

Well, after much preparation, the kids' party turned out to be a big hit, I think. Everybody seemed to have fun, and Hayden ended the day by telling me it was the best party he'd had yet. That was enough to make all the fuss worthwhile for me!

The cake turned out really well, and I thought it was absolutely delicious. It was a lot of work, though. I basically spent all day Friday working on it. The decorating took forever, 'cause I really have no experience at decorating cakes beyond simply winging my way through it every year! The chicken recipe was VERY good. I will definitely be making that again in the near future. I don't think anybody, myself included, was fond of the salad. The dressing was icky. I think I'll just toss it. It would have been a great salad with another dressing, but I'll be tossing that recipe, for sure. It seemed like a lot of food once I laid it all out, but it's basically gone already after one night of eating leftovers, so I'm glad I made as much as I did. The Italian Ice punch my friend, Bonnie, made was fabulous! We went through two bowls of that.

So another big Burgess Bash is over. It's good to have it behind us. The next big event to think about is our long-awaited, much-anticipated vacation to the cabin in October. Aaaaaaah, how we all daydream about it. It's been on my mind a lot lately. It's only two months away. It's so peaceful there, and I'm really looking forward to relaxing on that front porch looking out over the rapids in the Shenandoah River below.

Once we get back from vacation, then it will be Halloween, then Thanksgiving, then Christmas, and Holden's birthday party, and alas, Steve and I will be another year older, and another calendar year will be gone. The end of the year always seems to fly by.

Here's a photo of me & Steve...we hardly ever get our picture taken together, so I thought it was worthy of publishing here.

New Workbox System!!!

2009-07-27T13:03:00.002-04:00

I saw the *perfect* set of Sterlite drawers for our workboxes. It's what I wish they'd had when I first went shopping for some. Once I saw them, I knew I had to have them, so I went ahead and replaced what I had with these new ones and then used the other drawer sets to reorganize snacks and drinks in my dining room. Anyway, each set of drawers was $20 at Big Lots, and I got 4 of them. Each set has 7 drawers (3 deep and 4 shallow), and it's all one piece. So they are just the same size as what I had before, except that the smaller sets I had sitting on top weren't as wide. Now all of my teacher's manuals lay flat in the shallow drawers, and I don't have to worry about anybody knocking the smaller sets off the top. The photo at right shows the new setup. Also, Hayden kept losing the post-it notes with the assignments on them that told what pages to read of each book, so I laminated index cards and used Vis-a-Vis wet erase markers to write the assignments on them, and then I taped them inside the drawers so he can see what they say through the drawers and won't need to remove them. We use a 4-day schedule, so I put the whole week's assignments on the card (M-T-W-TH) so I only have to change them on the weekends.

So I really think it looks great, and it's very functional. Now I don't need the return baskets on top. Since each set has 7 drawers instead of 6, each one has an extra drawer on top, so each kid has one as a return drawer for finished work I need to grade, and one as a handy supply drawer for scissors, glue, extra pencils, ruler, etc. I love that it's all contained.

So if you have any comments about it, please share! I would love some feedback.

Incidentally, Big Lots is having a teacher appreciation day next Saturday, August 1st, and I could have gotten an extra 10% off and saved $8, but the kids are having their birthday party that day, and I was afraid I wouldn't ever make it up there since the party often drags on all day (we usually have about 25-30 people in the house!). So I just went ahead and bought them while I had time to get them set up.

I've also been cleaning out the kids' board games. I have been disgusted at how much space they take up, not to mention how they are always losing/misplacing pieces to them, and I find them all over the place. So I had an idea...I went and bought the Hefty One-Zip Jumbo 2.5 gallon storage bags from Target, and I took all the games out of their boxes and put them instead in one of those bags. I cut out the name of the game, any instructions, and the contents list and dropped them into the bag with the game. I organized any small pieces into snack or sandwich sized bags and dropped those in the bigger bag with the game board, as well. I was able to fit nearly all of them in one big storage tub underneath the kids' pool table. I want to make space for them in one of the toy armoires and get rid of the storage tub altogether. I literally filled up both my trash can and my recycle can already! Good thing I'll have trash pickup before the party.

So I'm busy making lists and starting to decorate for their birthday party on Saturday. I called around today and found a cake decorating store that had a handful of cupcake pics with the Italian flag on them. Turns out they were looking to get rid of them and said they's sell me all they have (more than 24) for a grand total of 60 cents! Way cool. I'm waiting for Holden to get up from his nap so we can run and get them. I'd like to find a centerpiece, but I'm not having any luck except for online, and it's too late to get things shipped in time now.

The party is going to be an Italian Cook-Off theme. The kids are all going to get their own white aprons to decorate with fabric markers and take home as party favors. They will be making their own personal pizzas using Boboli crusts. For the grownups, I'm making a full spread of Italian fare, including Bruschetta Stuffed Chicken Breasts, Italian Garden Salad, Fettuccini Alfredo, Spaghetti and Meatballs, sliced Italian bread topped with mild Italian sausage, peppers and onions, and mozzarella baked on it, a fresh fruit tray, snacks, and an Italian Chocolate Cream Cake as the birthday cake. It's supposed to be a large 3-layer cake, but I'm going to bake it as a 1/2 sheet cake instead. I figured for serving so many people, that will be easier to slice up. I'm also doing strawberry cupcakes for Haylee with green and red sugar sprinkled on white frosting and the flag pics on top.

This is going to be such a busy week. I started braiding red, green, and white streamers today and taping them to the corners of the room, meeting at my ceiling fan in the middle. I will probably wait until later in the week to blow up the balloons and hang them. I got great Italian folk music from the library that I'm going to have playing in the background, too. I wanted to find affordable chef hats for the kids to keep, too, but I haven't had any luck.

Well, I've gotta run...I hear thunder, and the Bounce Around is still out in the yard!

Trying Something New

2009-07-18T08:04:00.003-04:00

Shew! This had been a busy month that has just simply flown by! Our school schedule has been pretty cumbersome these last 3 weeks, so we haven't had time for much else. All the Sonlight forums say that Core 5 has the heaviest workload of all the cores, even for high school, and that the first 2 weeks of it are the heaviest of all. Many people have posted that they take a full 2 weeks to do EACH of the first 2 weeks. But we have managed to trudge our way through at full steam ahead without stretching it out at all. I'm happy to say we are finishing up week 3 now, so hopefully the pace will slow a bit for us now! We're starting to get the hang of the World Book Encyclopedia on DVD-ROM and how to use it for our Eastern Hemisphere Explorer research.

Now I'm taking the plunge and venturing out to try something totally new. We've been using Silver Burdett English for years and have been loving it. I purchased textbook/workbook sets up through 8th grade several years ago and have had them in the cabinet just waiting to be used each year. I love it's straight-forward approach to teaching grammar and the way it eases kids into writing. Hayden has really needed that. But now I'm finding that he's getting very lazy with it, rushing through all the worksheets because each one focuses on one specific grammar rule. He's not really paying attention to what he's actually doing, and that has been bugging me like crazy this year. Then I stumbled onto something on the Saxon Homeschool website. I found out they've just released (May 20th, 2009) a new Saxon Grammar & Writing program for grades 5, 6, 7, and 8. I saw it about a month ago, but there weren't any samples posted yet, and I sure wasn't going to drop that kind of money without seeing the contents first. Then Thursday night, I saw there were rather lengthy 25-page samples for each grade posted on their website. I took a long look at it and was very impressed.

It has the same incremental, spiral-learning approach as Saxon Math, and that was just what I was hoping for! The "mixed practice" that Saxon Math has works wonderfully for Hayden. It helps him retain what he has learned in previous lessons by bringing forth a spattering of questions from across those lessons, and it forces him to pay attention to what he's doing because every question references something completely different. That makes him have to think about what the question is asking. I think that's just what he needs for grammar, too. In looking through the sample, it looks like it is exactly that, and each question on the mixed practice references the lesson number in parentheses that the question came from so he can look back to refresh his memory if he gets stuck.

Hayden does Saxon Math totally independently now, and I'm hoping he will be able to do the grammar program the same way. I'm very excited about it! I talked to Steve about it, and he said it sounded like a good plan, so I went ahead and ordered it. It retails for $75 from Saxon's website plus $10 shipping. But then I did an internet search and found it at http://www.homeschoolingsupply.com/ for $55 + $11 shipping, and I will have it in about a week. There are 112 lessons in it, and that works out to about 3 per week for the whole school year, so we'll have to catch up on about the first 12 lessons once it comes. I think we can do it, though. The homeschool set includes the student textbook, student workbook, and teacher's packet. The textbook covers grammar concepts, the workbook covers writing, and the teacher's packet has the answer key and forms for tracking student progress.

So wish us luck! Hayden has always loved Saxon Math and Saxon Phonics, so I'm hoping he'll really take to this since the format will be so familiar and comfortable for him.

I'm headed out shortly to pick up this month's Angel Food order. They've started sending out neat invitations to order that include photos of all of the food items in the basic box. I have to admit the advertising is very appealing and really helps you visualize what's included so you can figure up in your head if it's a good value for your family or not.

Target Finds

2009-06-29T19:52:00.004-04:00

I saw a couple of posts about Target getting teacher helps in the Dollar Spot, so I decided to go check it out today. I found lots of goodies!

Leveled reader books (got level 2 books on Whales, Dolphins, & Sharks and Animals of Africa…they say grades 1-3, but my daughter who is not yet 5 could read them…they also had level 3, which say grades 2-4)

100-piece jigsaw puzzle of North America called Coast to Coast

A Math Bingo game (says for 2-8 players, ages 5+)…includes 42 cards on addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, 70 bingo chips, and 8 bingo cards)

They had tons of SmartMats. These are 2-sided dry erase placemats. They covered all kinds of topics. I got one of the United States. It shows states and capitals on one side, and is unlabeled on the other side. I plan to let Hayden keep this in the van to mark off the states when he sees out of state plates. He’s been making a list inside the cover of his puzzle book that he keeps in the van, but I thought it would be more fun to mark it on the map so he can see how far they’ve traveled. We have a lot of military here, and it’s also a popular tourism area, so we see lots of out-of-state plates on a daily basis. I also got one that says “class schedule” on it, but it has analog clocks without hands and blank digital clocks printed on it. I know when teaching time with Saxon Math, I have to draw a lot of these on the chalkboard for practice, so I’ll just use this mat instead!

A small 8-pocket pocket chart called a Classroom Card Scheduler. I haven’t really decided how I could use this yet, short of using it to rearrange things in order (alphabetical order, numerical order, etc.). If anybody has any suggestions, I’d love to hear them! It has grommets at the top so you could hang it on the wall if you wanted to.

They had TONS of workbooks of all kinds from PK-3rd grade. I only bought a Science one. It says grades 2-3, and it’s called Science Projects & Experiments. It had some cool-looking experiment instructions in it that you could do with household things. The pages are perforated for easy removal, so I thought these would make great “fun” items for the workboxes.

Primary colored pom-poms and pipe cleaners for my craft supply box. They also had a bag with various sizes of googly eyes.

There were plenty more things that I did NOT get because I didn’t need them, like flash cards, rubber stamps with encouraging things on them (nice job, A+, etc.). They also had some neat non-school-related items. One in particular I just have to share is the telescoping metal marshmallow sticks with wooden handles! I bought one for each of us to take on vacation with us to the cabin in the mountains this fall. They will also be great to use in the fireplace at home next winter. I usually just use disposable wooden skewers, but I usually still need a glove or oven mitt to keep from burning my hand since they aren’t that long. These telescoping rods extend really far! The kids were thrilled!

That’s about it. It was definitely worth stopping in there.

Interesting stuff

2009-06-29T13:52:00.010-04:00

I finally located my camera that has been misplaced! I uploaded an updated photo of our workbox system in last week's post about my workbox adaptations. I wanted to show you the completed system with the schedule charts above it and the clock-in/clock-out pockets on the wall. I also added a clock there so they would have a better awareness of how long it was taking them to move through their boxes. You can see that I color-coded everything blue for Hayden and pink for Haylee.

I came across a really cool website to practice spelling and vocabulary. It's called Spelling City. You can enter your own spelling words there, and it will turn teach them, turn them into online or printable games and puzzles, and even administer an oral spelling test for you and grade it on the spot! It's so awesome. Most sites like this that I've seen before have a limited word bank to choose from, so they generally only work for younger kids. But on this site, it seems you can add any word you have. I input Hayden's 7th grade spelling words from Houghton Mifflin Spelling & Vocabulary, and it recognized and annunciated every one correctly, and even gave them in the context of a sentence! I also like how you aren't stuck with one person's voice. It changes with each word given. There's nothing worse than being stuck with one annoying voice and not being able to change it. On this site, it automatically cycles through a number of different voices.

We're supposed to be off school this week, but we're still dabbling a bit in our workboxes to stay a little ahead of schedule in case something fun comes up! We like going to the free movie festival each week, so having some work done ahead of time ensures that we won't get behind because we're going to the movies!

I'm gonna go out in a few minutes and get our tickets for the Tides game on Friday night. It's our family tradition to go every year to one of the 4th of July celebration games that have fireworks afterwards. It's neat to be sitting so close to the fireworks, since they set them off from a boat just behind Harbor Park.

Workbox details

2009-06-23T19:01:00.004-04:00

I just wanted to post some details on our adaptations of the workbox system.

First of all, as you can see in the photo here, I use Sterlite drawers instead of open boxes. This is much neater and tidier and keeps my toddler out of the contents.

Second, I don't use the schedule strip as described in Sue Patrick's book. Instead, I use a laminated chart on the wall above the boxes that has all the numbers written on it in squares. Each square has velcro on it.

Third, instead of taking the numbered tags from the schedule strip and placing them on the boxes as they are completed, I put the numbers on the boxes when I fill them. Then, as the kids finish each box, they remove the tag and place it on the corresponding spot on the numbered chart on the wall. So they know the boxes they have left are the ones with number tags on them, and I can glance at the chart on the wall at any point during the day and see how close they are to finishing by how many tags are still missing from the chart.

This setup has worked very well for us for the last couple of months. For the most part, the kids have had a better attitude and lots of enthusiasm to start and finish their work earlier rather than later. Occasionally, though, Hayden (with ADHD) still reverts to his old habits of only half-doing an assignment and trying to pass it off as finished, or wasting time when he should be doing his work. Admittedly, today was the worst day yet since we started the system. But today was NOT a typical day as far as our routine goes. Today was the first day of the Regal Free Family Film Festival, so we went to the movies in the morning and started school in the afternoon. In addition, he had flag football practice this evening. So it was anything but a typical day. In addition, with the limited hours for school, Haylee was NOT doing school, as she was already two days ahead of schedule, and I knew there wouldn't be enough time for me to work with both of them. So he was a bit distracted by her, as she kept playing around him and talking to him and adding to his distraction. This is one of the benefits of the workbox system we've seen...they both can be busy with school at the same time, so there's less opportunity for distraction. Having that not be the case, like today, shows why that is SO important to the flow of our school day.

I haven't posted new pics lately because I can't seem to find my camera, lol. You know how that goes. Hayden has been swiping it and taking miscellaneous pictures lately, as evidenced by the strange photos of the floor and Haylee making funny faces when I go to offload my photos to the computer, ROFL. I've even seen photos of store shelves and cars passing by outside my van while I'm driving. That can only be Hayden! Mind you, I bought him his own camera this spring for Easter...a nice VTech Kidzoom camera...but I had to take it away because they were drawn to it like a magnet during school hours, and I guess I forgot to give it back, so he's been playing with mine. :)

Another tip on workboxes, this time related to actually filling them each night. A lot of people say it takes them a big chunk of time to fill them up at night. I found myself having to stay up late after the kids were in bed to do it uninterrupted. But by 10 PM, I'm tired and falling asleep myself after I nurse the baby, so that was hard for me. I've found a better way that makes more efficient use of my time. Now, as each child finishes a box, I go ahead and refill it with the items for the next day. So as soon as they move that number tag to their chart on the wall, I drop in the box what needs to be in it for the next day. Most of their textbooks and related items stay in the boxes anyway, so it's just a matter of adding in any worksheets or supplies for experiments and the like that needs to be done for the next day. But by updating them as we go along, I don't need that huge chunk of time at the end of the night to get the boxes ready for the next day. I mentioned before that I have the whole school year scheduled out and all of their worksheets sorted into daily page protectors before we ever start our new school year. All that prep BEFORE the school year begins is a worthwhile investment of time, also. I use Sue's workbox schedule (just a blank table with the numbers of the boxes and columns for each school day of the week) to type out the contents that need to go in each box for the week for each child, and I make that on Friday nights for the following week. So I only have to stay up one night a week to take care of that. I take the time to flip through their lesson plans for science and math and all the other subjects and itemize all the supplies that need to be in the boxes for each day's assignments. So refilling the boxes as we go along is simple because I just glance at that schedule and grab those items that change each day and drop them into the box as we move on to the next one.

As others have stated, the time it takes to keep the workboxes filled is more than balanced out by the amount of time that is SAVED during the actual school day by having everything ready and waiting and organized. Not having to stop to go get supplies for an assignment, and not having a child wait for the next assignment because you're still busy with the other child are both HUGE time-savers, and more importantly, it keeps the momentum going for the KIDS themselves. The fewer opportunities for them to get sidetracked, the better.

Yesterday, as a "fun" box for Haylee, we made a shrinky dink shape. We'd never done one before...that was pretty neat! Hayden says he wants to make one, too, and he wants to watch it shrink up in the toaster oven. So I guess we'll be seeing a return of Shrinky Dinks to the workboxes one day soon! I had picked up the little kit, new and unopened, at the thrift store for a mere 45 cents, and it came with a little satin headband you could glue the shapes to for decoration. They are too cute. I thought it was cool how it comes out so thick, almost like glass, when it goes in so paper thin. I guess they'd look pretty cute as scrapbook embellishments, too. I'll have to remember that.

Another recent craft find at the thrift store was a new, unopened kit for making stained glass bottles. It has little miniature bottles in it, and the paints for making them look like stained glass. I thought Haylee would enjoy making that, and maybe even Hayden. He likes painting stuff. It was also only 45 cents and came with 4 bottles in the kit. I love finding unusual, cheap crafts like that to put into the boxes for fun.

Our workload for school is definitely full this year. Hayden is not getting fun boxes right now because he has 12 real assignments. Haylee is having 10 real assignments and 2 fun boxes each day. I'm hoping things will lighten up for Hayden at some point, but I've heard that Core 5 is the heaviest workload of all the Sonlight cores. Plus, we do so many supplemental things, particularly this year. I don't know. I think I need to work in some fun things for him, if not in the boxes, then at least in the middle of the school day just to break things up, like 15 minutes playing on the Didj, or 15 minutes playing on the Wii, or 15 minutes playing outside. I don't know if that would work in a positive way with him or not. It might get him off track so that he has a hard time getting focused again, but on the other hand, it might be just enough of a break to get him rejuvenated to keep going and get his work done. I might have to experiment with it a bit. As of late, though, he's being rather lazy about his work. I really had to babysit him through his assignments today because he was too lazy to read the directions to understand what he was supposed to do. I always have to be prepared to change things up with him to stay one step ahead of him.

Well, here's to hoping things go more smoothly tomorrow as we get back to a normal routine again. I was trying to steal away to my computer frequently today to start planning their big birthday bash in August. Hayden and Haylee's birthdays are only 12 days apart, so we have one huge party every year and really go all out with a theme. We're doing an Italian Bistro party this year. I always make authentic dishes to go with the theme, and I love to make things from scratch and try new recipes. I think I'm going to make homemade Calzones this year, and let the kids make their own individual pizzas as an activity. For side dishes, I was thinking fettuccini alfredo, spaghetti and meatballs, Italian bread or maybe homemade bruschetta (I just learned how to make that in a cooking class), salad, fruit tray, veggie tray, and for the cake, I found a great-looking recipe on AllRecipes for a Chocolate Italian Cream Cake.

I'm also trying to find some affordable plain white aprons that the kids can decorate themselves while their pizzas are cooking, and then they can take them home as party favors. I'm having a hard time finding youth sized ones rather than kid-sized ones, which are made more for the preschool set. Most of their friends are even bigger than they are, so I definitely need the youth size. If anyone has any suggestions, please leave a comment on my blog. Thanks.

Saturday Busy-ness

2009-06-20T15:20:00.001-04:00

Today is Saturday, and yet Haylee insisted on doing school! She did, too...a whole day's worth. She's a day ahead of schedule over Hayden now, but they both were already 1 day ahead. We're supposed to start our new school year on Monday, but Hayden has done the 1st day and Haylee has done the 1st and 2nd day already. Gotta love that enthusiasm! That is one of the things I love best about the workboxes...each school assignment is always ready to go, so they can work ahead if they want to. This will be especially beneficial for Haylee since she tends to want to work on school even on the weekend. I like it when she is ahead of schedule, because it takes a little bit of the pressure off me during the week and gives me more focused time to spend with Hayden so we can finish up earlier in the day.

I spent about an hour outside in the backyard weeding my gardens. It's June 20th, and I have yet to put my plants out! I think I've missed the boat. I only have two starter plants...1 tomato and 1 pepper. The rest will have to start from seed. We'll see. I'm going to plant anyway, probably tomorrow. Both square foot gardens were overgrown with weeds, but one wasn't so bad because I'd weeded once already this spring. The other one had weeds about as tall as my waist! But it takes about half an hour each to weed them, even when they are that bad, because the soil is so moist and soft and loose that I can do all the weeding with just my hands, roots and all. Gotta love that. I'd never garden any other way. If you haven't tried square foot gardening, you should really give it a shot. I used landscaping timbers above the ground, laid weedblock in the bottom, and filled it with an organic soil mixture you mix yourself as outlined in the book. I did it years and years ago, and it's been so easy to maintain. I keep it organic by planting a border of marigolds in the squares along the perimeter. It creates a natural pest barrier because of their strong odor. I never have troubles with bugs eating my plants now.

I also have a Granny Smith apple tree in my yard. I'm hoping the ants don't attack the tree this year, 'cause it seems especially covered in fruit this year. They make a fabulous apple pie around early August. I might have to break down and have Steve put Seven Dust on it to keep the fruit from getting spoiled by the ants. We have a big problem with Carpenter ants here, as well as the regular ants. We even had a bout with fire-ants in our sandbox 2 summers ago! We had to abandon the sandbox last year because we were afraid the kids would get attacked again. They crawled all up in Hayden's shirt that summer and were stinging him. He was hysterical, running around the yard undressing and trying to get them off!

I am so glad to have the garden ready for planting tomorrow. I have just been so busy that I haven't gotten around to it. Isn't that always the way?

I took Suzie, our oldest dog, up to Petsmart for a flea bath. She was scratching like crazy. Now she's clean and fresh, but peeing/pooping all over the house. This is why she is an outside dog, but I have to keep her inside for 2 days until it's okay to apply the BioSpot flea preventative to her. Steve is treating the yard with flea killer right now. So by the time she goes back out tomorrow night, she should be well protected from re-infestation.

Angel, on the other hand, has been staying in the house ever since she had her spa treatment in May. She is so good in the house and can wait all day long and just go out to the bathroom once a day. She mainly lays around and sleeps all day! She's pretty tolerant of Holden messing with her, too, even though she is getting older, too. Suzie is 15 now, and Angel is 11. That's so hard to believe!

I baked a batch of Amish friendship bread today. I just had a slice...yum! We love that stuff. I keep the extra batches in the freezer and take them out when I'm ready to bake the loaves. Then when I get down to the last batch, I take it through the whole 10-day process to expand it into 4 more batches. You can make the starter yourself if you don't have the benefit of getting one from a friend. Then you can just follow the recipe after that. It will keep going indefinitely. I got my original batch from a friend in April 2008. I shipped it all over the place, even to Michigan to my mother-in-law, and she sent it all over her state to her friends, too. You can do all kinds of variations on the baking recipe, as well. The recipe I use is a little different from that, but very similar...no raisins or nuts, though.

Holden didn't get a nap at his usual time since Steve and I were both outside working on the yard. After he shared some friendship bread with me, he apparently climbed up on the couch, pulled down the blanket off the back of the sofa, and went to sleep right there in the corner of the couch sitting up. What a cutie! If I can find my camera, I'll snap a photo and post it later. He's such a sweetie-pie. :)

Fun with Brain Quest

2009-06-17T20:39:00.000-04:00

I continued cleaning out the schoolroom today. I think I'm basically finished now. I just have to carry the stack of storage bins full of books out to the shed now. I really got things organized in there. I went out and bought some more storage drawers. This time, I got one to hold all of the toddler's snacks! He had them on a little table in the corner of the room, and I was forever picking up the canisters off the floor as he'd dig through to get what he wanted. I should buy stock in Gerber for as much of the Graduates as we buy! lol. Anyway, now it's in a set of clear drawers, so it's all contained and orderly and organized. We should be in good shape to start our new school year next week.

During the cleanout, I ran across a set of BrainQuest cards that were age appropriate for Haylee. I started playing it with her, and Hayden came and joined us. They ended up playing it game-show style with me as the hostess. Hayden grabbed a couple of nearby tubs of Play-Doh to use as buzzers when they were prepared to answer. It was cracking me up. They had such fun. They went through one whole side of the deck! Hayden said it was really fun and that he would like a set for his grade level. So we made a quick trip over to the thrift store to find some more. I found a 7th grade deck for a mere 99 cents, so I grabbed that and will put it up for him to use in a couple of years. I'll have to keep my eye out for a 5th grade set.

I'm steadily making my way through the downstairs, cleaning out and organizing things as I go. I'm so glad I had this week off to work on it, although I must admit that the kids and I have been out and about most every day doing something or other. Tomorrow, I'm taking them to Water Country for a couple of hours and then to Busch Gardens for the rest of the day. I know we're gonna be so tired after a day in the sun and the long drive home! But it will be fun. It will be a great last hoorah before getting back to the business of school.

Saturday, I have to pick up our Angel Food order. If you've never heard of it or given it a try, you should really check it out. Some months are better than others. I don't do it every month, but I do it a few times a year. Anybody can participate. There are no income requirements or anything...it's open to all. You can view the next month's menu and decide if the $30 box of food is a good value for your family or not. Everything is always of good quality, though. I've been happy to see that they keep adding new pickup locations. They are slowly getting closer and closer to home. Last year, I had to drive to a neighboring city, but 3 have been added to our city this year alone. It makes it more worthwhile when I don't have to spend a lot in gas to get there.

I have been meaning to bake a batch of Amish Friendship Bread since Saturday, but I've been too busy, so the bag of goop is still sitting on my counter, about ready to explode! I had hoped to get to it today, but I have run out of time once again. I guess Friday will be the magic day. It's always so yummy, and it doesn't stick around here very long! We all love it. I put the extra batches from splitting it up in the freezer. Then I just thaw one when I want to bake it until I get to the last batch, and then I take it through the 10-day process again to multiply the batches. I've been working this batch since a friend shared it with me in April of 2008. I even shipped some to my MIL in Michigan, and she spread it all over the state. They are addicted now, too! It's the moistest, most delicious cake-like loaf you've ever eaten. My kids love the crusty cinnamon sugar coating on the outside. We all fight over who gets to eat the end slices!

Well, I must be getting everybody ready for bed so we can get out of here early enough to make the drive.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

2009-06-16T09:41:00.001-04:00

I have a lot of fun organizing and setting up group field trips for homeschool families. I have a Yahoo Group for this:(http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Kellys_Homeschool_Field_Trips_of_Hampton_Roads/).

We do field trips twice a month throughout the year. It's a lot of fun. There are nearly 300 families in my group, and I've been doing this for about 3 years. It's strictly a volunteer thing. I really enjoy it.

Today, we are doing an end-of-school-year Mad Science Party. A scientist from Mad Science will come in and put on a show for about an hour with a variety of interactive science experiments. Each of the kids will get to make their own slime to take home...I'm sure they'll love that! LOL. I'll try to post a photo later today after the party is over.

Next week, we'll be going out to Cape Henry to do one of their summer adventure programs. The kids will get to try to find a lost treasure by using a compass to guide them. This will be a team activity. They'll get goodie bags to take home, too.

There is so much to do in this area that I'm never short on ideas, and I've found a lot of new things to do this year. Homeschooling is very popular here, so most of the museums and organizations offer special programs just for homeschoolers. That's really cool.

No surprise...Haylee is asking to do her schoolwork, even though they are off this week! There's never enough school for her...I sure hope that enthusiasm continues over the years. If only some of it could rub off on Hayden! lol. He used to be that way, too. Anyway, I guess I'd better take some time to fill her workboxes today so she can dabble in that some.

This morning, I had Steve take the old toy bin set down from the attic. I got it all set up in Holden's toy corner in the living room. I guess this will be our toddler version of workboxes! I figured if he could get to his toys by himself, then it would help to keep him occupied with stuff to do while the rest of us are working on school during the day. It will make cleaning up a breeze, and he can pick what he wants to play with. I can easily remove a particular bin if I want to him play with balls, or cars, or building blocks, or whatever. It's not as tidy as the chest of clear drawers that I had there before, but it's definitely more functional and user-friendly for a busy toddler.

The other two kids are working on a big jigsaw puzzle today. They finished it this morning (they started it yesterday), but they've already disassembled it and decided to do it again! They must have enjoyed it. It's one that glows in the dark if you turn the lights off. Kinda neat. I bought it at Ollie's Bargain Warehouse last fall to take on vacation with us.

I'm in the middle of a big mess in our schoolroom. My original intention for that room was that everything for school would be stored in there, and we'd actually sit at the table in there to DO school. But with time, I came to realize that there was better natural lighting at our dinner table, and the dinner table also is at least twice the size of the school table, so we've migrated to the dinner area! Everything for school is still stored in the schoolroom (our old formal dining room), but the workboxes are now set up in the corner of the dinner area, and that's where we actually do school. Crazy, I know. But what are you gonna do?!? lol. Anyway, it's a mess in the actual schoolroom because we just finished up the school year and got everything ready for the new school year. I still have bins everywhere from packing up the old books. I need to pull together the odds and ends to put in each bin before I take them out to the shed. I try to make sure I keep everything for each grade level together so that when it gets pulled out for the next kid in 5 years, it's all in one place. That's the curse of having kids so far apart in age. My shed is definitely filling up! But at least I'm at a point now where I'm starting to use a Core from the shed at the same time.

Somebody asked me to post what kinds of curricula we use. We mainly use Sonlight for the Core (history, bible, readers, and read-alouds) and also for Science. We love all the Usborne books. But I've found that Sonlight covers topics for Social Studies and Science in a different order than public schools. It seems we always have to cram for the CAT test at the end of the school year in those two subjects. So this year, I'm hoping to take some of the last-minute pressure off Hayden by supplementing all year with public school textbooks for those two subjects. No heavy work involved...just a little extra light reading each day throughout the year to keep those topics fresh in his mind for test time. It doesn't really add that much "extra" to our day. We get sort of stressed out with test prep before the CAT, so I'm hoping this will alleviate that. I don't know why I worry about it, though...the lowest overall score Hayden has ever had is 98th percentile, and that was only once...all the other years, it was 99th percentile!

We LOVE Saxon Math. We've always used it. Both of the kids enjoy it. Hayden is doing 7/6 this year, and Haylee is doing 1. I really like the layout of the middle grades math. It's basically self-teaching. Hayden likes it that way. I know a lot of people skip questions on the Mixed Practice, but Hayden does them all. Math is his favorite subject, and it only takes him about 30 minutes to do all 30 questions in the mixed practice, so I don't feel like it's too much. Hayden is also very motivated by the daily drills. He loves to beat his time over previous drills.

I used to use Sonlight Language Arts the first few years, but it just wasn't working for Hayden, and I didn't feel like it was very thorough. It sort of jumped around and never really spent any time on any one concept. He just wasn't retaining anything, 'cause it seemed like nothing was actually taught, if you know what I mean. It's considered a natural language approach. Whatever! It was his weakest area on testing. I switched about halfway through our second grade year to Silver Burdett English (an old PS textbook from the mid-80's). I had gotten one from a retiring teacher on Freecycle, and I really liked the look of it. He did SO well with it. He had been a year ahead in English up to that point, but we backtracked and did that whole book by the end of the year because I just didn't feel like he had mastered the concepts. His test scores went way up after that! So I went online and ordered textbook and workbook sets from 1st through 8th grades to keep for all the kids to use from the start. I spent maybe $80 on all of it, including shipping. Quite a bargain! Each unit covers both grammar and composition, with the composition using the elements of grammar covered in the unit. It actually teaches the writing process using graphic organizers, which were a huge help to Hayden to figure out how to get the ideas from his head to the paper in an organized way. I just can't say enough good things about it. Many of our friends have since switched to it, as well, and they all feel the same way about it.

The subjects Hayden is studying this year are history (countries of the Eastern Hemisphere, plus review of American History as a supplement), math, grammar & composition, science (anatomy mainly, plus some review), art, music (we're in our second year of playing the recorder using Beyond the Nine-Note Recorder Method...awesome!), vocabulary (using Wordly Wise), spelling (using HF Spelling & Vocabulary), handwriting, and bible (daily readings and a devotions book).

Haylee is studying math, world cultures, spelling/vocabulary, health, science, art, music, English (using World of Language), handwriting, and phonics.

Well, that's enough for now.

Monday, June 15, 2009

2009-06-15T16:46:00.001-04:00

Well, it seems all the world has a blog but me, so I'm giving it a shot! This is my first shot at setting one up. I'm a homeschooling mom of 3 and happily married nearly 15 years. My life basically revolves around my kids and their education, so most of what I post will be something to do with their school and activities, I'm sure! lol.

If anybody reads this, I'll be amazed! But I have to say I've really benefited from the blogs of other HS moms recently, so hopefully, I can return the favor by posting some great ideas.

I just recently discovered Sue Patrick's Workbox System. I'm so glad I did! It has totally transformed our school day. My oldest son has ADHD, and getting through the school day can be a real chore for everyone because of the way he drags his feet and gets distracted a million times a day. But the workbox system has been very motivating for him, and it keeps the workflow going when I'm working with my daughter and vice versa. They also love the little surprises they get in their boxes in terms of fun activities and special snacks throughout the day. It keeps things new and fresh, and they really get excited about it. I didn't like the idea of the open bins, as her book suggests. One, it's untidy looking, and this setup is located in the corner of my dining area. Two, I have a toddler who would be all too busy dumping things out of the bins if they were so easily accessible. These rolling carts were affordable ($11 each for the big ones, $6.50 for the smaller ones, and $2.50 for the return baskets on top...all from Big Lots). Since this photo was taken, I've moved the chart that holds the numbers to the wall above the baskets, and I've also added the clock-in/clock-out pockets above, plus a clock on the wall so they can be more aware of the passage of time with each workbox.

We started just a few weeks ago, so we were able to spend our final month of the school year setting up the system and tweaking how we use it. We school year-round, so we only have a week-long break between school years. The kids were so excited to be done that they even did their first day of the new school year before they started their break, just to see how the typical school day would be for them both. Hayden is starting 5th grade, and Haylee is starting Kindergarten.

Holden is turning 18 months old at the end of this month. Hooray! He's such a big boy and so full of personality these days. He starts off every day with such gusto, and he never fails to make us all smile.

I made a couple of file folder games for the kids today to keep them occupied since they couldn't go out to play in the pool on account of the overcast skies and occasional drizzle. That kept them busy for a little while. I'm loving http://www.teacherfilebox.com/. I signed up for the monthly subscription. The first month is only 99 cents, and $12.99/month thereafter. I'm really getting a lot of use out of it initially. If the usefulness continues, I'll probably switch to the annual subscription for $99, which saves $55 over the course of the year. It seems well worth it. The Evan-Moor Take It to Your Seat books generally run about $25 each, so if you print out 4 of those a year, you have recouped your cost already. There are so many topics available there to supplement your homeschool, and the material spans grades PK through 6th.

Well, I guess I'll sign off for now. We just got in from our end-of-school-year celebration dinner. Every year, the kids get to pick where we go out to eat as a reward for all their hard work at finishing up another school year. We hardly ever go out to dinner, so it's kind of a big deal for them, and they even get to pick dessert.