A Day in our Homeschool Life

I thought about trying to document the perfect day, but let’s be honest, those don’t exist.  At all.

Or not in my house.  So, here’s the honest truth:

7:30- I wake up, the kids have already been awake for a few minutes, but know I don’t wake up well
7:35- I blink at my computer screen and try to resemble a human being while drinking a breakfast shake.  Ever since being pregnant with the twins I haven’t done well with breakfast frequently.

8:15-get breakfast for the kids.  I do not want a repeat of the GREAT PLATE MELTING INCIDENT………..  The smell of melted plastic does not leave your house for HOURS people.
8:30- stare at computer for a few more minutes, maybe blink a little, and decide to take a shower while kids watch TV.  Warn kids we’ll start school once I come out.

8:45-get distracted by book, and read for 15 minutes-ish……..

9:00ish- Calendar Time

9:45- Exercise, led by Superman today.  We practice Kung Fu moves, and do push-ups.  Do you know how many years it’s been since I did a push up?

9:55- Dance break, yes we have a daily dance break.

10:00- Discuss general schedule for day and hand out math assignments

10:20-reading with Rapunzel, I mean Superman.  Yes, he needs a wig to read.

10:32-reading with Princess, yes you need 3 horses to watch you read.

10:50- Batman reads, or imitates a zombie, your guess.  We love our All About Reading Level 1!  Each of the kids is at a different point.  Batman celebrated finishing book 2 this week.

10:56- Mac saves us from any scary things in the backyard below by warning us of them.

11:05- Load up in the car for lunch with my Mom.  Turn around 3 times for various things left behind.  THREE TIMES!

11:30- Lunch with my Mom.  Yes, the boys did bring their math with them because they had problems with something and weren’t done.


1:00- Superman attempts to break his nose at the store.  Errands are cancelled and we head home.

1:30- Superman attempts to injure himself in many more spectacular ways.  I consider wrapping my kids in bubble wrap………….

2:00- Science, canine notebooking, and in case you were wondering, Princess swears pom-poms are necessary to learn about this.

2:25- History, we finish off history for the week early in a marathon spree.


3:00- The boys attempt to sit on each other.  Then decide to dance with the dogs.  Why?  Because they can.

3:15- Batman Lego 2 with Superman.  I should enjoy my birthday present, so I don’t let them play it without me.  That’s what he chose to do with me as the “Kid of the Day.”

4:00- I send the kids upstairs for rest time, and work on the Sunday School lesson for a bit.

4:40- Load up for Kung Fu

5:15- Boys have Kung Fu, I work on drawing pictures for Jonah (lesson the week after), and Princess plays with toys.  She brought Hungry, Hungry Hippo, a hair brush, and a mirror to entertain herself.  I kid you not.

6:15- start cooking dinner.

6:45- eat

7:30-storytime, we’ve just finished “Misty of Chincoteague,” and I’m gonna write about that on Saturday, fingers crossed……….

8:00- All kids are in bed, and at least pretending to sleep

8:30- watch TV and what have you

11:00-look at the time and mumble about going to bed, then sit in bed and read for another two hours.  Look at the clock, realize it’s almost 1:00, I REALLY SHOULD GO TO SLEEP!

Now: GO SEE EVERYONE ELSE'S POSTS!

Our calendar time

Since, I’m going to be writing about a “Day in Our Life” soon, I figured I might as well share about our calendar time first so I didn’t have to explain in great detail about it then.

I’ve gathered together calendar pages from all over, and I’ll include links to the ones I’ve used, and links to the ones I’ve found, but didn’t use at the bottom of the page.  There’s a lot of resources out there.

Their covers are very carefully and artfully drawn, which makes it easy to tell whose is whose.


The first two pages are a days of school chart and a tally mark chart for days of school found at Motherhood on a Dime.
Then is a chart for weather for all the months.

Next is the monthly section.  It starts off with a calendar page of the month.  Behind that is the “All About Me” skills page.  My kids need to work on writing their address and information, so once a month they will complete this page.  This comes from the Enchanted Homeschooling Mom’s Member’s Only site (review coming, highly recommend it).

After that is the weather.  We’re using the weather page from Our Aussie Homeschool (hers didn’t include snow, but many variations on sunny and rain).

The last two pages we’re still working our way up to filling out completely.  First is the 2nd Grade Daily Math activities.  It covers time, creating a money amount, and math problems.  This caught most of what I wanted to work on for daily math for the kids, but there was one other thing.  This is also at Enchanted Homeschooling Mom’s Members Only site, she has different pages covering similar material for kinder-3rd grade.  Second grade hit all the things I wanted, it’s designed great for calendar time for multiple ages, oh and large enough to be able to write on.

Last page is a correct the sentence page (which we haven’t done the top part yet), and daily number.  We’ve done the daily number part.  We roll two 10-sided dice and create our 2 digit number, then we go through figure out even/odd, expanded notation, number word (oh the complaints), 10 more, 10 less, 1 more, 1 less.  Printable found at The Teacher Wife.

The way to make sure we get this done more often?  We only fill in the days of school chart when we do this, and we’re going to have a party once we reach 100.  So that means they HAVE to remind me if they want the party.

I also know I won’t make this every day of the school week, so I didn’t include a full month’s worth behind each monthly calendar, I guess at a number based on what I know of each upcoming month.
Other places with Calendar Posts
Our Aussie Homeschool
Motherhood on a Dime
The Teacher Wife
Homeschool Creations
Mama Jenn
Fantastic Five
Royal Baloo

Organizing All About Reading

I struggled for a while with All About Reading Level 1 trying to figure out how to organize all of it.  I’d seen different posts with how people were doing it and that got me thinking.

 

At first, I hole-punched the word cards and had them on a ring.  But, if I was looking for a specific lesson, then I had to flip through all of the words.  Time lost, okay only a minute or so, but in 7 year old time that is IMMENSE.

 

Enter my plan, and this will work smoother next year because I will know ahead of time how I want to do this.

 

This is a mini-manila envelope.  It’s about half the size of a normal one.  I suppose I could put them in full size ones, but this works perfectly once game pieces are cut out, and if it’s a lesson with only word cards.

 

I send the kids off to cut things out for me, and then I staple or glue it together.

 

If it’s a game that has a sorting element or something that “eats the word,” I glue it to the front.  The eat the word games then have a slit cut into them so the game piece goes directly back into the envelope.  This lets me revisit favorite games easily.

 

Which as you can see is wildly popular.

 

Behind the individual lessons are our spelling boards that I created several months ago.  The letter tiles are attached with velcro to a laminated file folder.

 

I’m going to link over at Learning All the Time to share this

homemade tools: spelling board

We use All About Spelling and it has 100 or so spelling tiles.  They encourage you to get a magnetic board that is about 2 foot by 3 foot for this.  The problem is I have problems knocking the magnets off and losing them.  Enter my solution:

Supplies: laminated file folder (for durability), All About Spelling letter tiles , velcro (bought at Feiner supply [thanks to Jolanthe at Homeschool Creations for giving me the heads up of where to buy]), scissors

This is fairly self explanatory, but I figure I’d give you the tips I learned in making three of these.

1.  Measure out the space between velcro strips and figure out the right distance.  I figured out it was roughly an inch space.

2.  I figured out it worked best for me not to have all of the multiple letters out at this time.  There might come a day someday when the kids need them, but right now there are no double letters out, and only the 3 digraphs we’ve started on.

3.  I used rubber cement to put on the labels for the different phonemic segments consonant blends, vowel teams, etc).  I had originally used packing tape, but that makes it harder to pull up if I need to rearrange, which I’ve already had to do once.

4.  Figure out roughly how much space you need for each section before gluing down any labels (see above comment on the packing tape).  I figured out the primary alphabet needs 3 rows with some extra space left over.  The vowel teams needs about 2 rows, and the consonant blends needs a row (maybe 2, wasn’t real sure yet), and the other two categories can pretty much split a row).

5.  I’ve got the extra letters and such in ziploc bags right now and squirrelled away, hopefully somewhere I can find them again.

I got this idea from something I saw on pinterest, but I just spent 20 minutes scouring my boards and can’t find the original post.  If you pinned this idea or have seen it, could you let me know the source so I can credit it.  Also, they had a printable to some plain alphabet tiles if you don’t want to buy the AAS ones.

Homeschooling Meme

I was tagged earlier this week by Enchanted Homeschooling for this, and I’m supposed to answer all of the questions, which was harder than I thought.  Maybe that’s because I’m still waking up and my allergies are something horrid right now with all of the wildfires in the area.

1. One homeschooling book you have enjoyedHmmmm……  Only one?  One that I read and really enjoyed when we were first thinking about this whole thing is “So You’re Thinking About Homeschooling,” by Lisa Welchel.  I love the way she writes and the fact that she featured many different types of homeschoolers, from school at home to unschoolers, to a single working Mom who homeschools.
2. One resource you wouldn’t be withoutThe internet?  I look up a lot of stuff, and research books to get from the library what to teach from it.
3. One resource you wish you had never boughtSing, Spell, Read, Write.  I thought it would be a good fit, and there were many parts that were, but the primary reading parts were too much for the kids.  They got upset and frustrated with the 50 page books.
4. One resource you enjoyed last yearWe really loved our history and our science last year.  I’m sure we’ll be going back to them on a regular basis.
5. One resource you will be using next yearMath U See, actually I think almost all of our curriculum we’re going to stick with for next year.
6. One resource you would like to buyAll About Reading.  I’m really curious to find out more about it and for when they get their first level out.  My only hesitation is I got really burned buying SSRW unseen, and am hesitant on it.
7. One resource you wish existedHmmmm…….  I don’t know.  That’s a good question.  Maybe a literature based 50 state study with a very long list of books you could use.  I’ve been making ours up as we go along.
8. One homeschool catalogue you enjoy readingAfter a while of looking at catalogues my eyes glaze over.  I enjoy CBD’s catalog, but I really could spend a lot of time looking at Currclick, I love some of the downloadable units.
9. One homeschooling website you use regularlyI’d have to agree with Enchanted Homeschooling, Pinterest.  I love looking through there for ideas and my boys love looking over my shoulder for what they want to make as well.  Also, I follow most of my favorite bloggers which means I sometimes get previews of what they’re planning on doing.
10. Tag other homeschoolers
Children Grow, Children Explore, Children Learn
Almost Unschoolers
All Things Beautiful
All three of whom are friends of mine who homeschool in ways that I admire (different things for each one), but things I admire.

Homeschool Mother’s Journal, week 1

In my life this week…

It’s been a little crazy.  We went up to Dallas last week to help Jeff’s Mom after surgery.  So we didn’t get much schooling in last week, and then we had Labor Day this week.  So I’ve been feeling like it’s all catch up all the time.  Housework, cooking, laundry, OH THE LAUNDRY!

In our homeschool this week…

We’re fighting to get back into the zone.  I had a lot of various appointments this week, which threw everything off.

My favorite thing this week was…

Small groups at our church starting back up.  I’ve missed getting together with them every week.

What’s working/not working for us…

Having school in the morning and getting started “promptly-ish.”

Things I’m working on…

Finding that groove.

I’m reading…

“Making Music in the Kitchen” for review.  I love the idea behind it, but am struggling every now and then with the writing, not because it’s bad but because I want to be reading something ridiculously not on topic and fantastic.  In other words some piece of fluff reading.

I’m praying for…

The people who have been affected by all of the wildfires in the area.  One family I’ve known since a kid who ran a campground my boys went to lost their home and the entire camp in the fires.  So far in the Bastrop fire 1300 houses have been destroyed, and in the Leader/Cedar Park fires I think it was about 50.  There is so much danger of wildfires right now there is talk of banning grilling outside and anything that looks like a fire.  We desperately need rain.  So very very desperately.

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

Princess reading to Nana.

 

Don’t forget to enter my giveaway, I’m gonna draw a winner tomorrow.

Our school room

This week on the Not Back to School Hop is all about school rooms, and while everyone else is all done hopping, I’m just now getting the pictures taken and writing this post, and I still want to share it because it’s still needs a bit of fiddling, but it looks so much better than it had, and its working so much better now.

This is the boys’ workspace.  These desks were built by Jeff’s Dad back when Jeff was a kid.  The story, as I’m remembering it being told, is Jeff’s Dad saved and got lumber for months before Christmas and finally built these desks for both of his kids and gave them to Jeff and his sister for Christmas.

Now we have both of them and the boys love their desks.
I’m trying to work on us getting our work area ready for the next school day before we leave the room, so I’m teaching the kids to put everything back in their desks, except the letters box on their desk, their lamp, and for right now their ark.


In between these two bookcases is Wendy’s desk.  This is another desk my father-in-law built, but this was for his wife.  Hence it being a lot nicer looking.  Flanking either side of the desk are the kid type crafting supplies, these used to hold baskets and baskets of cloth, but those are now in the closet in this room, and the baskets now have crafting supplies categorized by type and various curriculum stuff.
On top, are the excess recycling stuff that won’t fit in that basket.  A Disney Polly Pocket Beauty and the Beast castle that I bring down on special occasions to play with, various family pictures, and a Jo Madame Alexander doll.  There’s still a bit of clutter, but I’m slowly whittling through that while the kids work on stuff they don’t need my help with.


This is the final part of the school area in this room, I’m not showing the sewing area yet, it’s still in progress, of course so is this book case.

This is the easel where we do spelling or any copywork.  It’s a dry erase board on this side, and that seems to be working really well for us.  This bookshelf has some of the textbooks and the like, miscellaneous teaching books and is slowly being organized with MY crafting supplies, no touching kids!  The stuff on the floor is stuff I’m working through.  I’m still figuring out what I want to do with all of my teacher papers, you know all of those worksheets and the like.  They’re probably going to go out into the garage in the filing cabinets out there.  I just need to remember to check those cabinets from time to time as my kids are able to do those pages, since I taught 1st/2nd they’re slowly advancing through all of the stuff I have stored up.

Well that’s my school room, if you’ve come over from Heart of the Matter welcome!

Oh binding machine how I love thee

Let me count the ways…………

 

Seriously, I love this thing.  There are so many ways I use it.  Our geography notebooks are bound using this.

 

I bind so many different little books with it.

 

When I got it my Mom said, “Ticia, why do you need a binding machine?  You can just use the one we have up here.”

 

Yes, well then I’d have to keep 3 hyper little guys in the church office workroom as I put books together.  That doesn’t sound fun.

 

Now, I can make them whenever I want.  Which is often.

 

My binding machine is AWESOME!  (and to truly get the impact of that AWESOME imagine a high pitched sing song voice holding that out)

A great way to spend an icky morning

 
First you pop some popcorn on the stove.


Then you very carefully pour the melted butter on and mix that in.






Then enjoy a leisurely morning of schoolwork in our pajamas.  I personally like Superman’s drawing of Wolverine (that guy with claws, whose costume has been added to the growing list of costumes I’ve been asked to make).

Preschool Corner: Take it outside

 

Sometimes you just have to enjoy the weather, and take school outside.

 

The joys of homeschooling.