Pieces of Us

School Pictures

We got the kids School pictures back and they are all so cute!  I usually think school pics are dorky but we needed them for ID cards so I had them done.  I was surprised they came out so cute...well not really because the subjects are cute. I'm going to scan them and post them soon.

How it went

    Well we officially survived our first day.  You know how it is when you are forced to switch gears so quickly that you feel a little like you are stumbling around inside someone else's life?  That was yesterday.  But I expected that to some degree and so we found our way and I believe we came out successful.  Work was completed, there were no tears and only one trip to the hardware store was needed.

    I woke up early, much earlier than I have been getting up all summer. Early for me is 7am because if I don't have to get up before 8...well, I'm not going to do it.  

7am- I'm up.  Groggy but awake. I grabbed a cup of coffee and looked over the school table which I had prepared the night before.  I get a little nostalgic on the first day every year when I look at what I have set out for each kid.  They are growing up and I'm not always ready for it.  OK, I'm never ready for it.  This year my wee Caleb had his own spot at the table with all of his Kinder-ish stuff waiting for him.  I ate a muffin because I was feeling like I needed a bit of energy.

7:30- I blogged a bit or read facebook or did some other time wasting activity.  I think Jillian woke up.  She is always the earliest riser of all of them.

8-ish- I headed to my bedroom and got dressed and began waking kids.  I like to aim to start at 9am so I can have the bulk of my teaching time done by noon. This doesn't mean the kids are all done with school but that the things they really need me to be right there for are done by that time.  That way I can get other things done like laundry...and oh...laundry...and maybe some laundry.

8:30-  They're all up.  They all looked over the table and were excited to see new pencil boxes with pens, pencils, crayons, highlighters etc.. Oh and candy.  What first day is ever complete without candy?

I brushed and braided little girl hair so they didn't look like nappy little ragamuffins.

9:00-  We were actually ready to start!  I ran the kids outside for first day pictures. They were compliant, even Jilly.  Success!  We came back in and I went over their Assignment calendars with them.  On Sunday night I always print out the weeks assignments for each kid.  They know what they need to do and can use their highlighters to mark off completed work.  It makes the school day feel more doable to them and I can see what needs to get done by the end of the day at a glance.  I worked on Language Arts with Ginny and AJ. Maddy began reading The Scarlet Letter and Caleb worked on his Explode the Code book.  Jillian colored in an activity book.

10:00-  We're trucking along.  We've accomplished a ton by this point and I was very happy.  The older kids were all working on Teaching Textbooks math so that meant they were all quietly plugged into headphones on their laptops. I took this time to work with Caleb and Jillian on reading and letters.  Jillian surprised me by knowing all but a couple letter sounds.  I really hope to have both of them reading within a couple months.

10:30- The older girls are done with math.  The younger ones are silent reading.  We need to work on a science experiment which needs insulated copper wire.  I dug through AJ's wires in his desk but none were long enough so I grabbed Gabby and we went to the hardware store in search of some.  Gabby asked the young guy working for some insulated copper wire and he asked, "What would 'insulated' mean exactly?"  I giggled that she had to explain it to him. We got the wire and went back home to experiment.

11:00- It was time for the younger kids to do an anatomy lesson so we worked on that together.  The older girls needed a format writing lesson so we went over paragraph construction and they completed a sample paragraph.

12:00- By now we were pretty much done for the day.  The first week is pretty light usually as we ease into routine again.  I headed to the store for some sandwich fixings and then we had lunch.

In the evening I had left for a birthday dinner and when I got home the kids informed me that they had completed the next day's math.  That makes a mama happy!  So no math work today. 

We're about to head into day two and still finding our bearings.  Here are our first day pictures.

First Day

The first day of school is upon us!  The table is set and I am fairly certain I have all the lesson plans in place. The weekly Assignment calendars are on top of the laptops and we are good to go.  Now I need to wake some sleepy children!  I'm planning to get a first day of school picture of each of them as well.  Be back later!

The Final List

    It's the post everyone looks forward to all year long!  What curriculum will we be using this year!  Ok, I maybe exaggerated a little bit.  It's always fun however to see what curriculum a family has decided upon. Math was my biggest impediment this year.  I think after much consulting, testing, finagling and praying I have finally narrowed down my math choices to a final decision.

Here is the breakdown beginning with the eldest girls.

Madeline and Gabriella- 8th Grade (* denotes high school course)

History*/Literature/Bible

I'm very excited about this curriculum.  It's History, Literature and Bible all in one.  Easily laid out and self-guided which is a big plus. It's a high school level course but the girls will only be getting credits for history and I will be lightening up the load in the other two subjects so as not to overwhelm them. I love the literature selections for the year which include these titles.

We will be supplementing the girls writing with these two books.

*Science

We will be doing Physical Science with the Ybarra family.  It's a lot more fun to do labs with more partners!

Math

 

My final decision on math for the girls is Teaching Textbooks Pre-Algebra. It's self grading which is huge and the lessons are explained on the computer.

 

Art

 

Art is something will will tackle second semester most likely.  I was highly impressed with this program.

 

*Health

*Drama

The girls will audition for a melodrama in the fall and will actively participate in Sespe Players.

 

*Foreign Language

Music

 

Gabby will continue with Piano.

 

Fine Arts

 

 

Irish Dance begins again in the fall.

 

Andrew- 5th Grade

Language Arts

 

Science

I'm so excited to teach anatomy and physiology this year!  My favorite!

Math

History

Art

Music

PE

 


Fine Arts

 

Genevieve- 3rd Grade

Language Arts

Math

 

Science

 

History

Art

 

Music

 

PE

 
 
Caleb- Kindergarten

Reading/Writing

Math

Art

PE

 

CHEA Highlights

I got back from CHEA on Saturday night and I plan to have a full blog post up soon. In it so many questions will be answered such as:

• What is going on in this photo?

• What is a $22 per ticket movie theater like?
• How much food can one person eat over 3 days?
• Did I really order two desserts and did I eat them?

• Are Danielle and I magnets for the strange?
• What math curriculum will we be using?
• What was that crunching sound?
• What's up with all these hangers?

• What did I buy?
• Did I really see Pat Boone?
• What did the kids do while I was gone?

 

All this and more when the full blog post is up!

Ch-Ch-Ch-CHEA...again.

    It's CHEA time again!  That would be Christian Home Educators Association.  I'm off to the convention again this year in hopes of revitalizing, refreshing, renewing, re-whatevering.

    OK, secretly I just can't wait to get into the marketplace and play with all the curriculum...and buy those crazy cool highlighters!

    Truthfully, it's hard to leave the family behind but I really do enjoy the couple of days where I don't have to cook, clean or drive anywhere. This year Danielle and I are staying at the hotel adjacent to the convention center which means pretty much just walking out the door and into convention. 

    Last year's trip to CHEA began with a completely bizarre set of mishaps and weirdness which later evolved into many jokes that still stand today. We left for for Pasadena in the blazing heat and decided to wait to get lunch until we were close.  After driving miles and miles down the main road past many, many eating establishments we unwisely selected a Carl's Jr.  Entering the restaurant we were greeted with a blast of heat and several sweaty, grumpy-looking workers. Air-conditioning=Out of Service.

    We each ordered a salad which was our second mistake, our first being the choice to stay and eat there at all. Immediately I noticed the salad was warm.  And not just -warm because there is grilled chicken on it- warm, but nasty, sitting out of the fridge warm.  I sent it back and watched them put it back into the fridge.  Really!  They intended to re-cool it and give it back to someone else...after I had opened it and felt the lettuce with my fingers. I received a cool salad and we sat down. Danielle pulled back the lid of her salad only to find there were no walnuts or cranberries on her 'Cranberry-Walnut salad'.  Back to the counter.  The worker opened the lid looked inside, dumped the salad in the trash and then gave her a new salad...along with a packet of berries and a packet of walnuts.  

We stood there.

I'm still to this day trying to figure out why the first salad needed to be dumped if they were just going to give us packets.

 

    On our merry way, we check in to the Hilton hotel realizing that we had picked the wrong hotel and were 1/2 mile away from the convention center.  No fear, there is a free shuttle driver.  Enter Phillip, our right hand man for the weekend. Needing to check in our bags we waited in the lobby while an amazon of a concierge looks down her nose at us.  We wait for a bellhop but they were too busy for the likes of us.  Maybe we smelled like hot salad. Finally a maintenance man offers to wheel our bags up since we were not permitted to do it ourselves.

He greets us by saying, 'HELLO GORGEOUS!' (This has since become our standard greeting to each other.) As we traipse through the parking garage and begin to head to the elevator he stops us and says, "I know a short cut!"  

    Lesson to my readers...when a maintenance man whom you have never met, greets you with compliments and then tells you he knows a short cut...run!

    We didn't run.

    No, we giggled insanely and decided to soldier on ...past the garbage cans that smelled of rotting bodies or some such macabreness. Past the road we just drove in on.  Past the main doors. Into...the underbelly of the hotel.  Through the laundry area which smelled like bleach.  Past the behind-the-scenes hotel workers who looked at our maintenance guy with looks that said, "What the HECK are you doing bringing those insanely beautiful women down here?"  (OK, I embellished that a wee bit.)  Still in the steaming underbelly of Hotel Hilton we were paraded past the downstairs offices and to the maintenance elevators.  At this point I whispered into Dan's ear,

    "Should we be getting into a maintenace elevator alone with this guy?"

    Common sense would tell you  NOT to get into the elevator.  But who says either of us have any common sense?  We did.

    We rode up in the elevator, not so silently, stifling our giggles as best we could. 

    "See, this is a good shortcut!"  Maintenance dude said.

    "No, Our way was shorter,"  Danielle replied.

    "Next time you go your way and you can time it, " he retorted.

    We shut up.

    Finally we reached our floor. The elevator dinged and we waltzed off and into our room where our admirer stood expectantly waiting for a tip.  We gave him some change (I think) and he smiled and said,

    "This is why I work here, I get to help beautiful ladies."

    {{shudder}}

    I think I need a shower....again.

 

As my memory serves that is how it happened last year.  We shall see what this year has in store for us.  Danielle and I will be together so some hilarity will ensue...that's for sure.

 

Getting My Act Together

    This summer has been loaded.  Jam-packed with fun activities with friends, swimming, field trips, birthdays, camps. I love this summer business because it's a laid back busyness.  I need to get my act together though!  School will be creeping up before I know it and I have lots of things that need to be planned.  CHEA is in a few days and I know it will be  the jumpstart that I need to get on the ball.

    I ordered a large chunk of my curriculum and just started paging through it and formulating a mental game plan before I put it down on paper. As much as I loved my file system last year I'm having a hard time ripping up workbooks this year.  I had the books spiral bound and I think I am going to keep them together this year.  I have course descriptions to write up and paperwork to turn in to our private school.  It's certainly not crunch time yet but I don't like to wait until the crunch.

    Genevieve has been my snafu this time around. She is going in to 3rd grade this year but will be completing 4th grade Language Arts due to the fact she went all the way through the 3rd grade stuff this year.  We are switching to Teaching Textbooks for math this year in order to have a computer graded system and she tested into Grade 4 for that too.  Last year she did a 2nd grade spelling program so I ordered a third grade one for this year (AJ concurrently does the same program as he needs remedial help), I pulled it out yesterday and found that she can spell a vast amount of words in the book.  In fact she spelled any word I chose from any lesson correctly. I'm not sure what I need to do about that.  I found a different 3rd grade spelling curriculum that looks more challenge so I may have her work the easier one this summer for review and then move on to the harder one.

    The elder girls are going into 8th grade this year but will be earning a minimum of 20 credits for high school level classes.  Latin, Drama, Science and Health will all count towards their high school transcript.  It will be a heavy load but I know they are quite capable.  

    Caleb is eager and ready to begin Kindergarten and as is usal in our home school he will focus on learning to read fluently.  He will also work on penmanship, art and simple math.  

    AJ is in 5th grade this year and we will focus a lot on strengthening his abilities in the areas of his learning disabilities.  I want a strong focus on science with him as well as this is truly his strength.

    So all this to say that I need to get off my rump and start buying and planning more.  Time to get going!

 

PostScript-

After re-reading what I wrote it hit me hard that my girls will be full fledged high schoolers next fall. I'm not ready! I'm not ready! I'm not ready!

End of the School Year

    Well here we are at the end of the school year.  About this time I start looking back over what we've learned throughout the year and see what we've accomplished.  This year I have a lot to smile about.  It has certainly been the very best year we've had since we began homeschooling eight years ago.  All of the kids have come so far and I am confident in what they have learned.

• Genevieve learned her multiplication tables.
• AJ moved into fluency with his reading.
• Madeline got a silver medal for the National Mythology Exam
• Gabby excelled at piano.
• Ginny and AJ impressed me with their dedication to grammar this year, mastering sentence diagramming.
• The older girls started to gain a solid base in Latin.
• Writing improved a lot for all the kids.
• History was great this year thanks to out TOG curriculum.  We all learned so much about history this year and can't wait to move on to the next time period.
• The girls read a lot of excellent literature.
• We began Singapore Math with the elder girls and found it to be much mroe to our liking.
• Ginny started to show an aptitude for Math.

 

So much more happened this year but those were just the highlights.  I'm looking forward to plotting and planning next year and seeing where the year takes us.  One more year until we tackle high school. YIKES!

Words that Warm my Heart

    I have written several post about AJ in the past. He has struggled for many years with learning disabilities primarily in the area of reading and writing.  I also posted how this year has been his year or growth. Yesterday he uttered words that I would count as my most treasured since I began homeschooling 8 years ago. 

    ""I LOVE reading."

 

  To hear this from Maddy, Ginny or Gabby would be nice and not unheard of.  They are each natural readers who required very little instruction to learn to read.  But AJ... it was 4 years of rigorous instruction and going over and over the phonetic rules again and again. It was special colored paper and little colored transparent rulers, it was large fonts on the nook. In short it was the biggest challenge I have ever faced and it was likely the same for him.

  So this year when his reading just exploded I sighed with relief a little.  I never expected him to begin to love reading.  It is still a challenge for him at times when he sees the words differently than they are written, but he is loving it.  My in-laws bought him a boxed set of the How To Train A Dragon books for Christmas.  These are silly, nonsensical books with crazy drawings but plenty of challenging words.  He has devoured them. I rarely see him without one in his hands.  He is reading in the car.   He is reading on park benches.   He is reading by booklight late into the night.  

 

  And he loves it.

 

 He has excitedly reported to me that he is on his fifth book since Christmas.  Five books in four weeks or so. Not a bad accomplishment for anyone let alone a boy with learning disabilities.  This year has by far and away been our very best homeschooling year.  We have found curriculum we love and all of us- including me, are growing in our knowledge.  I am already looking forward to planning next year and praying fervently that it goes as well as this year has gone.  Is it possible that we have finally hit our stride?  I think so!

Putting his best foot forward

     AJ has struggled his entire schooling career with dyslexia and dysgraphia. Despite this we have never treated his disability as something that will hold him back. Instead we just try harder to make things work for him according to how his brain works. This year has been a huge turning point for him. He is fully independent with his reading now and loves going to bed to read a chapter book at night.  This just warms my heart because I know that many dyslexic kids never gain a love for reading because they do not get the attention they need to learn how to read. His favorite books right now are the How to Train A Dragon books.  They are fun and interesting but also just challenging enough to stretch him a little.

    For quite sometime I have been concerned about his writing.  He is a couple years behind on writing because we truly felt that he needed to move into it slowly and that reading should be solid first. In the last couple months I have noticed his copywork and dictation work has been much neater and yesterday when he completed this sentence I was so thrilled with his printing. I can see he hardly erased anything at all and none of his letters were backwards or corrected after he realized they were backwards.  I think the wheels in his brain are turning and things are starting to click into place. He really seems to be enjoying school now that it all makes sense. I know it must be hard to come after two girls who read very early and also to have a little sister who reads far above level but we try to make him see his gifts for what they are while working on his weaknesses.  After all every one of us has strengths and weaknesses.