A day in our life!

I have been reading a series of posts entitled "A Day in the Life", by various families that has run on the website Simple Homeschool, this past year.  It has helped me to feel good about what we do each day and more importantly, it has helped me to feel not alone. 

Each time I meet someone who is curious about homeschooling or is interested in perhaps doing it one day, I try to stress that each day looks different to each family and that I suggest taking it one day at a time.  My number one rule for myself is to be flexible and to not let standards and guidelines take the place of learning and growing. 

I don't think we have it figured out.  In fact, I KNOW we don't have it figured out.   I am searching and researching almost daily for the next best thing that is going to help one child or another to master a certain concept.  I'm constantly looking for more information about learning styles.  I think such is the life of a homeschooling family.  When school and life merge so that there is a blurred line and they just flow as one, learning is never really over.

We typically wake up about 6:30 and are eating breakfast by 7 or 7:30.  On Mondays and usually Fridays, one of the kids helps me to make some kind of muffin or pancake that we eat for breakfast  the rest of the week.  Then the kids all play until it's time for the almost 2 year old to go down for a nap.  They play outside most of the time, or they might play in their room or in the school room.  Most importantly, they have to be independently playing...as in WITHOUT me!  I use this time to plan, answer emails, do laundry, more baking, clean up, well you get the picture.  I also find myself sorting out fights and reminding them that Mama's ears do not hear tattling!  Thank goodness for beautiful SC weather and an awesome back yard.  **Edited to add...my 7 year old just came in from outside saying that he invented an outside toilet and his hand smells like pee.  We are going to just leave that one alone for today, but see how much he is learning by just playing outside ;)

When the toddler goes down for a nap, then we get started with our school day.  We usually make PB&J sandwiches and eat them while doing our assignments for the day.  The first grader is working on Easy Peasy All in One Homeschool.  He is doing Reading 1, Language Arts 1 and Math 2.  I supplement with Science and Geography, but this year we are not using a specific curriculum and we don't do either every day.  He spends about 60-90 minutes on school work.  Some days more and some days less.  I am pretty free with his lessons. I plan out 6 weeks in advance and on Monday we write down what he has to accomplish and I let him do it in whatever order he wants to do it.  Some days he does all his math for the week in one day and some days he does 1 lesson from each subject.   

The Kindergartener is working though Alphabet Island.  It is a phonics based curriculum that uses stories and music to teach the letters and sounds.  She will finish up the "Learning the Letters," portion of the curriculum this week and will start the "Learning to Read," portion just after Christmas.  She LOVES it.  There is also a math curriculum that goes with the program that is basically a general Kindergarten math program.  We do a phonics and math lesson every day.  It takes her about 20 minutes total.  She is a really young 5 year old and honestly more then 20-30 minutes a day just doesn't work for her.  She colors, plays a game on her iPad or does another craft while she waits for her bother to finish with his work.

Baby brother is usually waking up within 1.5-2 hours, so we end our day at that time.  In the afternoons we are either running errands, going to the children's museum, playing with friends, going to gymnastics or just hanging out at home.  Our sit down school day is not long.  I have the philosophy that  they are learning a ton by playing and my goals for our year are pretty basic...learn to read and add by the end of Kindergarten, read chapter books and subtract by the end of first grade.  Those sound really, really simplistic but those are my measurable goals at the end of each year.  They will glean so much more during the year that we just can't measure, and honestly if I kept track of each tiny thing, I would probably lose my mind a little more then I already do! 

Some days our day goes smoothly and some days it is chaos upon chaos and by the end I have no idea exactly what just happened.  On those days, the fact that we are alive is enough of an accomplishment!! 

Adventures at the State Fair

About 4 months ago, during the heat of the summer, my middle child and I were watching A LOT of Cupcake Wars together.  I'm going to go ahead and stop right here and ask you all to send out a Tweet asking Netflix and The Food Network to add more seasons.  Right now there is only one from 2011 and we all know there are way more episodes out there for the public to enjoy.  And yes, along with the #welovecupcakes and #moreCupcakeWarsforNetflix we can add #firstworldproblems.  But seriously, this Mama would enjoy not watching the cupcakes for Yo Gabba Gabba or Match.com ever again!

Ok, back to the story...........CB became really interested in baking and making her own creations.  Twice I have let her make her own recipe cookies and one time a cake.  Surprisingly, they turned out ok each time.  We have given her a little guidance about ingredients, but not much.  She knows the basic things she needs to add and then, just like the pros she tastes as she goes.  Anyway, she started asking if she could enter a contest and the only thing I could come up with was the State Fair.  I looked it up and although it was August and regular registration was over, she could still enter any of the baking categories.  We decided she would enter brownies.  Now, it was time to teach her a recipe and in true CB style she wanted to change it and add stuff to it.  I think that since September, she has made about 20 batches with all kinds of modifications, some good and some not so good.  My main goal was for her to be able to make the basic recipe on her own if I laid everything out that she needed to use.  It was her contest after all and I wanted her to take the responsibility in making them.

A quick note about entering the state fair;  If you Google "tips for entering the state fair," you will be overwhelmed so I would not suggest doing that.  It is a whole different world and there are some interesting people heavily in that world who fight tooth and nail for those blue ribbons!!  Some people enter 50 baked goods, from cakes to cookies, all at $15 an entry and they are all working towards the coveted Judges Best in Show ribbon.  I was just hoping CB would get Honorable Mention so that she had something to show for her work ;)

So, the morning of drop off, I got her up at 6:00 am to start baking.  Her brownies have icing on them and would need time to cool before we needed to leave by 10:30. As you look though the pictures you can also see we went though a couple of costume changes, because when one is baking, you most definitely need to also dress accordingly to the temperature in the kitchen. There were a couple of extra helpers as well.  I think everyone ate brownie batter and icing for breakfast, although I was also throwing cheese at them to hopefully off set the sugar high.

 



 

When we got to the fair it was a bit overwhelming for all of us and we had about 20 minutes of standing in line.  This part was SO MUCH FUN <<insert loads of sarcasm here>>, with three sugared up kids who were in line with people who were balancing their prized cakes.  When it was our turn, I was so relieved.  They called her in and then we moved to another line to wait another 5 minutes for someone to call her name to a different table.  At this table they helped her choose 6 brownies to put on a special white plate with her name card and that was it!  It was kind of anticlimactic for the 5 year old.

Two days later, we hadn't heard any results. (The results are still not available online.)  The website said it might be slow to post results, but that by the first actual day of the fair the results would be displayed in the show room.  So we loaded up and headed to the fair!  When we got to the building and walked in, it was overwhelming.  It seemed like there was no rhyme or reason to how things were displayed and there were about 50 wood and glass display cases with 8 shelves full of baked goods.  We just started searching for the plates of brownies and the ones that "looked like hers."  There were several and thank goodness, I have two who can read her name because it took all three of us to find it!

 

 

She was so excited and we had to take pictures to send to everyone we know.  It was a good day for her.  Her first contest.  It was neat to go through the process with her, and I would highly recommend entering the state fair if you have a budding baker.  They also have craft and art categories.  We may have learned that Lego creations also have a place at the fair!  After learning the results, we spent the next 4 hours at the fair eating fair food and riding rides.  The fair is always a bit crazy and after making the decision to just embrace the chaos, it was hart warming to hear CB call it the "Best Day Ever!"  The South Carolina State Fair 2015 equals lots of memories that I hope stay with her forever!  And maybe, in 20 years, we will be a Mother/Daughter team on Cupcake Wars :)

Adventures in Planning

We have officially been in school for seven weeks!  Geez, where has the time gone?  I remember the week before we started sitting down and planning, then looking at the mound of lessons, and thinking that the end seemed forever down the road! 

This year we decided to break our year up into six week chunks.  So, we do six weeks on and then one week off.  This has been my most ingenious idea yet!  Well, it really wasn't my idea, I borrowed it from one of the many homeschooling Facebook pages to which I belong.  The ingenious part was implementing it into our year!  The week off gives me time to plan, re-adjust for things we didn't finish, print out any worksheets we need for the next six weeks, gather supplies for lessons, and more importantly have some down time for myself.  Believe me when I say this Mama NEEDS her down time.  This week we have perfected Clara Beth's state fair brownie recipe, gone on extra field trips and I spent my off co-op morning thrifting with a friend.  I would say this week has been good for my soul. The weather has also been pretty amazing.  The beginnings of Fall are certainly in the air, so outside time this week has been a priority.  We will start the next six weeks energized and ready to go!

I also have decided to change up the reading program that we had been using for my sweet kindergartner.  The one her brother used last year just wasn't working for her.  After lots of searching I found one that uses lots of songs and poems to introduce letter sounds and blends.  I am super excited about this next chapter for her. It was tempting for me to want to press on and just say she will get it.  And I think she would have, but the break and the "new start," were the push I needed to find something else for her.  If you are wondering, we are going to start Alphabet Island. The program has been around for a long time.  I'll let you know how it goes. 

Fall is full of exciting festivals and farm visits.  We are looking forward to incorporating these things into our lessons and getting out and just simply enjoying our new state.  We may have to travel a little bit to see changing leaves and there may not be many places to pick apples, but the sheer amount of festivals make up for it.  I think there is a different one each weekend until December.  It all starts with the Okra Strut this weekend.  I mean a whole festival dedicated to a slimy, green vegetable (which I do love), that most people outside of the South have never heard of.  What could be better ;)

So here is to the next six weeks of chaos!  May we come out on the other side with leaves in our hair and full of all things pumpkin!!

Okra Man is the mascot of the Okra Strut. 

Adventures in Sleep Deprivation

Yesterday I had this blog idea to write an open letter to the Mamas and Papas of little ones who do not nap.  You see, after 3 weeks, three really, really good weeks of school and napping and sleep, I was beginning to think we were coming out on the other side and I wanted to be an encouragement to those who were deep in the trenches.  The ones who struggle every day to get their little to nap for even 20 minutes so they can sit down and just rest. The ones who wonder how everyone else gets things done because surely no one actually has a napper like all the books suggest.  The ones who go from Saturday to Saturday without a real shower, with real water.....not just a washcloth and dry shampoo.  I mean, yesterday I was able to clean and bake, yes, BAKE and have dinner ready in a timely manner.  I'm talking a real dinner with all food groups.  And not to mention in the last three weeks I have started a couple of "naptime" projects with dumpster dive finds.  Pinterest and I have gotten cozy as I dream of the dress up closet I am going to create from the discarded dresser I found on trash day. 

Thing 1 and Thing 2 were horrible nappers.  I logged so many miles on the Escape driving them all over upstate New York and North Carolina, just so they would be rested and not toddler crazies by the time my husband got home from work.  I dreamed of the days that not only would they not need a rest time, but they wouldn't need me to lay down with them at bed time either.  Thing 3 has been shaping up to be a good napper and an ok sleeper.  He had made progress on the sleep front recently, and was getting up to come see us at night rather then scream.  He was also only waking up once and sleeping until 7:30.  It was almost like this routine thing and the getting older thing were working out in our favor.

And then last night happened.  The toddler decided to laugh in our faces.  He screamed from 10pm until 12:30am, with me in THE BED NEXT TO HIM and then was up and at 'em by 4am.  I hear your check mate kid, loud and clear.  I'll throw my hands up and get rid of my smug attitude.  Humble pie it is for breakfast.  As it is I'm on my 5th cup of coffee by 9:30am.  I'll play your game my little one.  You are number 3. I have more tricks, including the one that is currently working now to keep you awake until this afternoon.  Your brother and sister are the best distractions and they work for me.  The goal is to keep you upright until at least 11am and then you only have until 2:30pm to rest, no more waking up whenever you please.

To those whose littles who struggle with sleep, I tell you that it does pass.  But you know that.  I also want to tell you that you get smarter and you get more confident with more tricks in your bag.  Stop reading the books and the blogs, and stop listening to the advice of others and listen to yourself. After you try everything you want to try to make sleep better, it's ok to throw in the towel and just do what works and gives you the most amount of sleep each night.  Go ahead and pat yourself on the back right now and say you are doing your best.

So, I raise my hand in solidarity with you to say we will persevere through the toddler years.  We will come out on top and we will rule this chaos!!  Until then enjoy that coffee and try not to fall asleep standing up while watching your 2 year old on the playground.....that is usually frowned upon ;)

Adventures in the First Day of School Year 2015-2016

Today is our first day of school.  We are ready.  More then ready.  After a year of schooling on the go, we finally have a space just to "do school."  Ahhhhhhh, my OCD, must have a schedule, need to be organized self along with my extreme desire to find what we need when we need it, is finally starting to heal. :)

The room is my favorite place in the house right now.  It's comfy and cozy with several working stations and a white board and calendar where hopefully my visual learners will start to understand how time (days, weeks, months, years) flows.  

We have already spent several hours in here this weekend.  Even Cha Cha joined us for a while! 

Today marks a big day for us as the big kids (did I really call them big kids!!) start their journey into first grade and kindergarten!  Two grades that lay a foundation of skills that will help them to become life long learners.  We have big plans for this year.  Most of them have to do with not killing each other and learning how to like our siblings most of the time.  Not like I am putting any pressure on us or anything ;)  

We are ready for this new school year!  Ready for new challenges!  Ready for new experiences!  Ready for new failures!  Do I sound a little like I am giving myself a pep talk?  If so, you are totally right and you might want to check in on us around noon.....

But first, in this quiet time before it all starts, I am going to relish my cup of coffee and time in the Word.  The chaos will begin soon enough!

Adventures in Year 1

Today is the last day of school!  We have successfully completed our first year of homeschooling :)    Here is a look back at our year........successes, failures, fun, not so fun, trips, and beautiful, beautiful chaos!!

First day!!

First Day!!

Math with Manipulative

Matching letters and sounds.

Art at Spirited Art

Baking with Dad

What homeschooling in the middle of a move looks like!!

We really did move mid year!

One of my favorite activities was candy corn math puzzles!

Aquarium Trip

Working on tying shoes with cousins!

Art with Ms. Renee.....she is our favorite art teacher!

Lego Zip Line

Failing at Geocaching!

Pesky Workbooks!

Cutting and Pasting is a chore for EVERY Kindergartener!

So much to learn with the Lite Brite!

And we made it!!

Kindergarten graduate!

Adventures in How the "Other" Side Lives

We have been living the civilian life for about 1 full year now and there are a few  fun things I have learned about how the other side lives....

1) A business trip is just a business trip!  Lots of times military spouses refer to deployment work ups or week long training exercises as "business trips."  In the civilian world they really are called business trips.  To top it off, guess what....phones and usually internet connection are included!!!!

2) People in this alternate world don't usually talk about their life in 2-3 year chunks.  That is completely foreign speak!  Most of the time, they talk about graduating from high school, going to college or trade school or finding that first "real" job.  When I talk about our life it usually revolves around duty stations.  For us it begins at Quantico, then we lived at Lejeune, then Lejeune again, then Benning, then Rochester, then Lejeune again.  Our entire life in 6 nice to manage time periods.  Pretty handy actually!

3) When you start speaking with letters and numbers you get funny looks.  Most of the world does not use acrynoms in every day speak.  "Oh, you are dropping your child off at the CDC while you are packing to do a DITY when you PCS."  Yeah, that is not a normal sentence.  Neither is, "Call me when your husband gets back from CAX, mine is currently TDY at TBS."  Or, "Where is 1/2?  Oh they are on K street down past building 2."  HUH?  (MY DISCLAIMER: I totally just made up those sentences to see how many acronyms I could pack into them for effect.  You usually don't hear them all at the same time.  But in a conversation, you might hear a bunch :)

4) People have lived in the same place FOREVER.  I mean their Mama lives down the road and their grandma lives two doors beyond that.  They rarely, if ever, have had to pay for a baby sitter because family is abundant.  The first home they bought, IS their forever home.  Or, if they have moved it is to chase a better job, or a job closer to family.  When talking about our life more the once I have seen tears in their eyes.  Just the tought of living how you live and doing what you do, even just the logistics of it all is mind blowing.   They have mad respect and secretly, are so thankful it wasn't them.  And, honestly, when you are on the other side and you think back on your military spouse years you will wonder how you did it too!

5)  Your military friends think you are crazy for leaving and the civilians don't quite understand you......yet.  It's not an easy transition.  Breaking into friendship circles is hard.  In the military spouse world friendships happen super fast.  They must.  There is a deployment or a field exercise right around the corner and you are going to find yourself needing to be in two or three places at the same time! You move so often and you need each other quickly.  Family isn't around and your military spouses fill in the gaps.  They become your family.  In the civilian world that world is established.  Trust isn't easily given and you might have to "prove" yourself just a little bit.  But those friendships built slowly and steadily will become just as precious as your military spouse friendships, and taking the time to sit back and enjoy the ride is what I have come to appreciate.  I mean, isn't is all one chaotic adventure anyway?

Our Adventures in Homeschooling

I am going to say up front that I am hesitant to "go here," with a homeschooling blog.  However, I want to share our very real reflections about how our first year has gone, knowing that my audience of friends and family includes several homeschooling Mamas and Papas as well as those in education, both teachers and administrators.  My only disclaimer is that what I write is strictly based on our experiences.......not my best friend's brother's wife's cousin or my cousin's best friend's next door neighbor's sister's niece.  I know there are good and there are bad experiences with both homeschooling AND public school AND christian school.  I've been both a public school teacher and a  homeschool teacher.  Now that is out of the way let's move on ;)

Today we are reflecting.  I keep seeing pictures on Facebook from Kindergarten and Pre-K graduations and I am realizing that we MADE it!  We are in the homestretch.  Our middle child is finished with Pre-K and our oldest has about 3 weeks left of Kindergarten.  And since we are being honest, we all know what that last three weeks of school looks like in ANY setting.......parties, games, relaxed atmosphere, using the fun materials, etc.  We just finished our reading curriculum and are almost done with math.  We are finishing these last three weeks working on handwriting, reading books out loud and reviewing our math concepts.  I also have a couple of assessments that I will give  to see where they are at as far appropriate grade level goes.  I see these as a valuable learning tool for myself to know what we will need to work on in the coming year.

As I look back over the year, I definitely feel we made the right choice in homeschooling this year.  We were able to travel during the school year while we were waiting for our house and the oldest was not in and out of three different school systems with different focuses and different teachers and different kids.  While other parts of their lives were chaos, school was a constant.  We have made the commitment to homeschool again next year.  We will have a first grader and a kindergartner.  We also will be joining a co-op where both kids will take classes in literature, spanish, science, PE and art.  I think they will both enjoy getting out once a week for school and I know that I will enjoy the company of other parents who are in the same boat.  While we have made the choice to homeschool next year, if there comes a time when it isn't working anymore or if one child decides they really want to go to public school we will evaluate and make a decision at that time.  We want to do what is right for each kid and that may be that at one point in time we have a kid in pre-school, a kid in public school and a kid doing school at home.  In fact we selected our new neighborhood based on the fact that the schools are fantastic.  They consistently are rated at the top every year.

As I reflect, I am reminded of all that we accomplished this year.  It far outweighs and overshadows what didn't work.  The oldest has learned to read, and he did it basically in the last 6 weeks.  He is a fantastic memorizer and by 4 years old he had memorized the entire set of BOB books.  Tricky little kid, right?!?!  We started this year working on phonics and, yeah, that didn't go over so well.  He and I would, no kidding, fight our way though the lessons.  It was mentally exhausting.  I just wanted to quit.  We took a break until January and it wasn't much better, but I changed approaches and at least the fighting and tears (on both sides), stopped.  A few weeks ago, we noticed him reading signs in the car and the last few nights he has been reading to his younger brother and sister.  My goal for him this year was to be able to read by the end of Kindergarten and he did :).  It has been really neat to see him grow and mature as a reader.  I want to note, as a bit of encouragement to others, that I would say he was 6.5 before he was ready to read maturity wise.  And just like potty training, when he was ready he was ready.  No amount of pushing got him there.  Just making the resources available and allowing him to go at his own pace is what worked!

We started some geography lessons in the Fall, but it was just too much.  That was when I realized that focusing on Math and Reading, with some science experiments and history museums thrown in the mix, was going to be our best bet for success for the year.  We did a lot of play, both structured and unstructured.  Lots of children's museums and park visits helped to round out our education, along with church and daily Bible lessons.  We made an ABC picture Bible book with all the verses we learned this year which was a really fun project that both kids are proud of!  I think when the kids look back at their first year of homeschool they will remember it as a good one.

So, yes, we made it!!!!  It kind of feels like when a one year old is approaching birthday, and his parents can look back and say, "YAY!!  We survived the first year!!"  I'm proud of us.  I'm proud of the kids for putting up with me learning how to help them learn.  I'm thankful for a husband who has taken the  baby so that we can learn uninterrupted, so many mornings.  I'm thankful for the opportunity to be home and able to homeschool.  It's been an interesting, fun, scary, adventurous, crazy, amazing, terrifying ride full of beautiful chaos.