Dare I say... We are near.... {The Homeschool Mother's Journal}

{I know I didn't follow the format this week. I'm sorry. It's just been so long since I have linked up and last week we took vacation to be with visiting family. So much to share than just a week. Forgive me?}

THE END of our 2010/2011 year!?

Oh yes I must declare we surely are! Can I get a Woot Woot!?

I can not believe how fast this year has gone. In the same token I can not believe how long this year has been?

I also can not believe how long it has been since I have posted about our homeschooling! Wow... I'm so sorry!

In the last couple weeks we have finished our Phonics, Language Arts, Handwriting, and Spelling. This week we are posed to finish Math for the YEAR!

Yeah baby!!

We still will have Bible, History, and Science to do for a little while but the big bulk of the school work is finished! I based my daughter's grades this year off of her tests and my DD finished Phonics/Lang. with a 89.8% and Spelling with a 91% (or right about there. I have two last tests to input for her final grade but that is where she is at right now).

In Math right now we are working on fractions of whole numbers. I have to be honest with you when I first saw these coming up in lessons I got nervous, but you know what my daughter (as usual) surprised the heck out of me with how much fun she had with them. That's right you read it correctly! She has FUN doing them!!

She rocks my socks off!

This is just one of the problems she has been doing. They have gotten harder and she still whizzes right through them.

This year I have noticed I may be a little hard on her to do her best. Which she does in everything but even though I may have been tough she totally has surpassed all that I ever could have expected. This first year of doing it 100% on our own (well with God's help of course!) has been phenomenal!! I can not wait till next year!

OOoohhhh speaking of next year.... I am soooo stoked about our new added feature to our homeschooling week! So are the kids. On Friday I got to sign them all up with a local Co-Op. They have never been and they can't wait! September can not come fast enough in my house. To make matters sweeter or more nerve wracking I am teaching in the Winter/Spring session. Yikes! Honestly I am totally amped to be doing so, but being as I have never gotten up in front of other students to teach I am a little nervous. I am teaching safety to Kindergartners and First Graders. It will be fun!!

My oldest guy has been asking more and more to do school as well. It warms my heart when he says "Can I do school like Sissy?"

We've been working on color sorting and math with M&M's and Skittles. He loves it. His favorite letter to write right now is the letter M too. It's cute because for Mother's day he spelled "MOM" all by himself on the coffee mug he made me. Talk about melting into a puddle of goo. It was awesome!

Heehee and yes I am aware that the instructions on the page here to the left asks for him to draw rectangles he has found, but he wanted to work on his M's some more and I didn't want to tell him no. He has been doing such a good job with them. So I let it slide. :)

All in all I have been really pleased with how this year has gone. Although I have to be honest we have pushed History and Science off most days just to get more of our core subjects done ahead of time. I am looking forward though to enjoying the projects and experiments more now that the core subjects are completed and we can just focus on them.

So maybe pushing them off wasn't so bad!? ;) Hey I have to try to soak up some of that mommy guilt right? Who am I kidding I have so realized I need to figure out a better schedule for next year because 3 active kiddos and 2 schooling next year... It's going to get interesting. But worth it.

If you homeschool more than one who do you get it all done? 

{Also sorry for the poor quality of some of the pictures. They were taken with my cell phone.}

Stream of Consciousness

{warning: may result in bleeding retinas due to length... I apologize ahead of time}

Wow it's Friday already!!?? Where has this week gone!?

The week's my husband has a late day in the week off really throws me for a loop. I feel like today is Thursday. It's going to be a long day.

I am proud to report that I have so far taken a picture everyday this year {except for the 2nd}. That is a bittersweet accomplishment for me. I really didn't want to jump into the new year and miss the 2nd day! But I have taken some pictures everyday since {and today isn't even close to being over yet!}. I still need to get all my kids together for a picture a month on the same day thing that I was mentioning the other day. I just don't want it to be a day that will pass by each month and get forgotten. Maybe writing it into my calendar would help?? Is that dumb? lol anyways! I have also come to realize I need *lots* of practice with my camera INDOORS! Low light. Steadiness. Grrr this is my Achilles heel. I grow a very quick love/hate relationship with my camera when shooting indoors! I only have the built in flash and am wondering if an external one would help make the difference?? I have got to get one on one with my aperture and shutter-speeds for indoors. I also need an eye exam to get the proper prescription in contacts too because I am thinking that is throwing off my focus as well.

So much I want to do. So many bright brilliant pictures I want to take... Indoors... Outdoors... In general! I however though {if I am honest} get very discouraged when I see these amazingly bright sharp pictures around and then find out they spent lots of time in Photoshop to achieve that look. I am not one that likes lots of edits. Maybe a quick enhance or a little sharpness but that is about it. Once in a while a vignette or funky color just to switch it up some. But all in all I try to achieve that sharpness and brilliantness {is that the correct word? Guess it is now} SOOC. There has to be a way to do that right??? Just one of the many things I want to figure out on my already full plate. It's a fun hobby for me though so I don't mind the work. Just venting about it all I guess.

This week in school we have done alright. Some getting caught up from before the break, and a slow ease back into the flow of "normalcy". We have made great stride in math this week. We have been doing our worksheets "game show" style. Try to beat the timer and if you do better on each section, and paper and beat your time you win a prize. Feel like double or walk away??? I throw in a second paper and if she does better on that paper than the first then she doubles her prize, or she can "walk away with the small prize she won from the first paper. It seems to have been working this week and she seems to be having a lot of fun with it as well. I realize this probably won't last too, too long but I will take what I can get. It's a lot better then crying and dragging of feet.

I am also needing to find balance with my 2nd grader... doing work with my preschooler... and my 18 month old. This is proving interesting, but I  know can be accomplished.

But how!? Any and all suggestions would be greatly appreciated. 

Ballet started back up this week for my daughter. It's bittersweet. She loves it and loves the tap and jazz she did over the winter too. My husband and I really loved watching her in tap and she says she had so much fun in it, but we couldn't afford 2 classes only one. She chose ballet. We are looking into getting her into tap again come March so we'll see if we can do both. She did great this week in ballet. She has a big class this time and lots of repetitiveness from this summer. I just hope she has fun with it and will enjoy doing ballet in the spring recital vs tap and jazz like she did in the winter recital. She had so much fun in the recital last month I pray she has just as much fun in the spring one as well. She takes classes just through the community center right now. Maybe someday, if she wants, we can try to get her into a studio... if my wallet can handle it. lol

I have still be faithfully reading Proverbs everyday this month still... even though I know I have 3 days {including today} I need to update on. I wish I could express the joy my heart has been feeling while doing this nightly the past 6 days, but I am not sure how in black and white words to pull the proper elation off. I will have to try to find a way. It's like soaring really. Light as a feather... pure, abundant, weightlessness... joy! May days feel brighter {despite the clouds out my window}. It has been amazing.

Some other reading that has been taking place is my husband and I started doing a couple's kit we have had sitting on our shelves collecting dust. It's one on communication by Dr. Gary Chapman. We read on Sunday and then during the week we are supposed to fill out our individual workbooks and "meet" up on Fridays after the kids hit the hay to discuss our answers. Sadly this week has been totally nuts so neither of us have had time to write in our workbooks. Ha I guess that means we will be writing our answers and talking about this tonight. lol

We also restarted the Love Dare Day by Day devotional. We did some of this last year but sadly failed about 60-70 days in. My being gone for 7 weeks helping my dad didn't help much. We did it over the phone every night for a while and then honestly I had attitude from being gone so long that I know I am the one that didn't seem interested. I was. Really! But it was hard doing it and being gone. Once I got home we had company come and well the year just kept on going while the book kept on sitting. So New Years came and I asked if we could start it again. My husband was hesitate due to fear of failing at it again this year, but we are determined to not let life get in the way, and the first 6 days we have done great! I look forward to all the rest!

If you haven't done this book or even looked into it yet I highly recommend you do! It's really awesome!!

I am really excited to finally be getting some updated pictures of all of us up and around the house. My husband bought this awesome collage frame right before Christmas and we finally got all the pictures printed and put in last night. It looks amazing! I can't wait to get it hung up. That is something else I wanting to tackle this year. Make my home feel more cozy and decorated. We don't really have any decor and it's starting really wear on me. I hope to be able to change that this year. That would really make my heart sing, and help with all of us having pride in our home.

With that comes needing to desperately figure out something in my boys room. It's either time for bunk beds and that means my 18 month old is going to a big boy bed or we have some inconvenient rearranging to do. Both of which I nervous to tackle, but at least I know bunk bed wise we might be able to have grandpa build it. So we shall pray what route we are to take because something needs to be done. My 18 month old keeps opening the door from his crib and banging on the wall to let us know he is wanting attention. It's getting a little much. Sure that sounds like bunk beds would only keep him up and down more, but we are praying that might not be the case and that it will actually help him learn to be still when he needs to be. Lots of wishful thinking I know. One can hope right?

I need to post our meal plan for the next 2 weeks. Ours I write out based on paydays and shopping days. Both of which were yesterday. I am hoping by doing so it will help me to actually stick to it! Oh yes I am the queen of writing it out and never following through with it. I don't want that to be the case anymore. So here's to hoping!! My husband would like me to stick to it too lol. It then would help prove how helpful this might actually be. Must do it! Must do it! All part of being organized. Which reminds me I need to get to work on our household binder. I have been wanting to do this for years and this year I am going to do it. Got to get us more organized, but that is another long bleeding retina post alone. I'll spare you. lol

You're welcome. :)

Ok I guess since my daughter is now done with her math test I should probably go grade it and move onto another subject while my littlest monkey is napping.

Guess there was a lot on my mind. Sorry about that.

Hope your week has been great and your weekend beautiful! Happy Friday!

{I apologize if you have gone blind while reading... :) please forgive me}

Learning Colors M&M's Style {Preschool Edition}

Like everyday we are working with our preschooler on learning his colors. He has cute nicknames for certain colors like:

Blue = Boy

Red = Girl

Green = Go

and so forth. lol He knows them just shouts out Boy, Girl, Go when asked sometimes. He totally gave them their nicknames all on his own and they are super cute, but he also knows how to identify them correctly. So a fun way we came up with to practice and reinforce their correct names is to use M&M's.

I think I have posted about this before, but today my little guy is having so much fun I had to share again (if I had already posted about this method we do)

We even have peanut M&M's to use for being able to identify oval shape vs circle shape. For my 2nd grader we utilize the M&M's for math. Tally Marks, Graphing, etc.

It's just another fun day here in homeschool land.

{and honestly he tells you not to eat them. "They are for my school." Is what he will tell you. He has never tried eating them himself. We store them inside baby food jars. They've been great}

Color Matching Meet M&M's

Last month I found this wonderful link about using M&M's as a graphing and tally mark activity for my 1st grader. I thought it was awesome and totally sent my husband to the store to pick up some bags. I got to thinking though how can I involve my 2 yr as well because honestly my 2 yr old loves doing school when his big sister is doing school. She has a worksheet... He wants a worksheet... and so forth. It's really cute! Although her attention span is a lot longer than his at the moment it's getting better everyday, but still a 2 yr likes to move and be busy. So I needed to think of something that would be quick, fun, and educational at the same time.

So I decided I am just going to cut circles of colored construction paper and get him his own jar of M&M's to match. It worked wonderfully! He has so much fun... for about 15 mins. But hey it's 15 mins of learning I am not complaining one bit. One of the best parts... He doesn't try eating them at all!! Not once... Crazy cool for a 2 yr I think. :)

Once we emptied the big baby food jar and all M&M's are on their respective colors he was able to then tell me which group had the most and which group had the least amount. It was awesome!

We had so much fun!! We got goofy at times and were switching colors and moving them back, but it was a blast. Sissy though can't wait to get to her tally and graph activity with her M&M's. That one is next on our list to do. :) 

I secured these to the table with just double sided tape. It worked really well.

Fun... Simple... Inexpensive... Effective.

LOVE.IT

What fun teaching moments do you hold close to your heart or are your favorite memories?