Reading Can Be Fun

One concern I had when beginning to homeschool was how to go about teaching my Monkey to read. Even though she has always seemed to somehow learn so much just by living life; she had showed no interest what so ever in learning to read. Thankfully the right tools have come along at the right time and my DH is doing great with her reading.
First of all, thanks to Carissa at 1+1+1=1 for her You Can Read program that she offers for free. My Monkey loves the sheets that go with each unit. I have then taken paint chips and wrote the sight words on the chips that she uses for review and for spelling practice.

Here is Monkey using the word tiles in the unit to spell her words for her Giant Word Book that we are working on since we are in a tiny house and don't have the space for a Word Wall. I then laminate each page once it is full of sight words that she knows, and she loves referring back to it to show Daddy what she knows.

Of course sight words alone aren't enough to teach her to read. Luckily, the Time 4 Learning program she has been using has a phonics course in the language arts curriculum. Now, there are definitely some negatives to using a computer based education, one of which is what I like to call the "fun factor". So along with the phonics on the computer, we then do a craft for the letters covered that week.

I always try to make things as hands on and fun as possible. I don't always get to do as much of this type of thing as I would like because I also work 30-40 hours each week. But we always do our best and as long as she is learning, having lots of fun, and is loving learning, then I must be doing something right. Right?

Thanks
Beth

Wordless Wednesday

The One Box Wonder

In a matter of 3 days, this box went from hideaway, to house, to boat, and to airplane. I love how their imaginations work!

Halloween Party Food

With Halloween fast approaching, the kids playgroup tomorrow is having their halloween party. Typically I am only in charge of bringing a treat from my own daughter, but since my sister has two little ones to contend with, I decided to borrow my niece for the day to help make the treats to take.
First we made some green pudding that we scooped into little clear plastic cups and put Oreo cookie crumbs on top. Then we drew Frankenstein faces on the cups. Next we took Oreo cookies, inserted lollipop sticks, dipped them in chocolate and put on some Halloween sprinkles.

 

So, of course after all of the messy fun was over, any good cook has to try their creations before allowing guests to taste them.

It was a lot of fun having Miss M here for the day.

Have a great Halloween All
Beth and Monkey

Frustrated Family

Usually our lessons run very smoothly. Monkey wakes in the morning and begs for her school work before she is even finished getting dressed. Those are the days that I love. Unfortunately, not every day is a perfect picture of bliss.
Take today for example. I have just finished working two night shifts on almost no sleep. I returned home at 6:30 this morning and crawled my tired self into bed, only to wake 2 hours later when Monkey woke up. Thankfully she can go to the washroom and get her clothes and get dressed on her own (at least when I work nights she can, not sure why it doesn't work the rest of the week!), this gives me an extra 1/2 hour to convince myself that I can somehow crawl out of bed.
Now, unfortunately she has also had a couple of nights of not so great sleep. So, 1 tired momma + 1 tired Monkey = very little patience!
All had been going well until getting near the end of our very short phonics lesson, reading a simple book from the Time 4 Learning lesson plan that I had printed. Just like the books she has read to me before by sounding out the letters. For some reason today the phonics part of her brain must have stayed behind in bed because she just couldn't seem to sound out the simplest words like "sad", even though she has done it before.
Well, with us both running on very little patience and her both of us getting more frustrated by the second, it was time for a break:

ENTER - THE HULA HOOP

This seems to be working great for those moments when we need to take a personal time out to re-group. She goes and does the hula hoop and I pour a coffee. Usually after only about 5 minutes we are back where we left off ready to continue.
It has been hard for me to admit that we sometimes need to do this as I am the type of person who keeps plugging away until I get it. My DH calls it stubborn, I call it persistence. Where Monkey is the type of person who needs to switch focus for a few minutes, and then comes back refreshed and ready to go.
After the frustrations this morning, I decided to do an additional fun activity this afternoon to ensure we ended on a happy note. I feel it very important to end each school session positively. I decided to pull out one of our halloween activities that wasn't scheduled until next week. And, besides, who doesn't love playing with legos!

And what is more fun then a lego ghost - Thank you Pinterest.
I would love to know what some of you do when you or your little ones have a bad day. At least I hope I am not the only one who has days like today.

Thanks
Beth

Working Mom trying to Homeschool

I always wanted to be a mom. I always new how I wanted to raise my children and what type of person I hoped they would be. Rather than having many children to raise, I have been blessed with one absolutely amazing little angel.
I was a full time working woman with a great job that I loved and a great husband. Wow, how everything changed when we finally received our angel. I took the year maternity leave and loved being a stay at home mom, but also missed the connections to the adult world that working gave me; so, with family to babysit, I returned to work full time.
Things went along quite well, although I missed her dearly each day, until she started talking and repeating some of the things that were going on during the day while I was at work. This is when we decided it really needed to be DH and I who raised her, not family or babysitters. Of course with bills to pay and trying to buy a house, I couldn't just walk away from my job.
Finally, with the house bought, and the downturn in the economy causing cutbacks at work, I was able to once again become a stay at home mom and could appreciate even more than I could believe. While off work we had to decide whether I would find another job, or become a full time sahm. Financially we could barely afford for me to stay home; but it would mean no extra activities for anyone, and giving up our favorite past-time of camping. With these things on the line, I started looking for a job that would fit with my life, rather than fitting my life around a job.

I was lucky enough to find the perfect job. I went from an 8am - 4:30pm desk job to working shift work in a special care home for elderly persons with the most amazing boss ever. My boss is so family oriented it is wonderful. I get holidays off to be with my family and I don't work during the day. On the rare occasion that I go to work before DH gets home from his job, I am able to take my Angel to work with me and he just picks her up on the way home.
With my career change, it means we can homeschool our angel, and we can be the ones to raise her instead of babysitters and teachers. There are certainly many times when it can be challenging, especially if I need to work a couple of extra shifts if someone is on vacation, but so far we are making it work and having as much fun as we can (quite often at the expense of the housework) while she is young.

New Addition

WOW! There is nothing like a new addition to the family to throw a monkey wrench in school plans for the week. But; before you get ready to congratulate me, the new baby isn't mine. Congratulations to my little Sister on the birth of her second beautiful baby girl.

With an 18 month old and a new baby to adjust to; we have spent some extra time with my Sister and her family. It never fails to amaze me at just how wonderful it feels to hold a newborn baby. And with Monkey being so much older this time, she is taking the new baby in stride and loves to be near her and hold her.

So here is a picture of Monkey proudly holding her new baby cousin. Thank goodness my Sister is able to have children, and lives close enough to visit almost every day, since I am not able to have more children.

As you can see, this year for Thanksgiving we all had a lot to be thankful for. Yes, I said Thanksgiving as I live in beautiful Canada.

Beth

Printing Practice

It is amazing how much my Monkey can despise a particular area of school as much as she does. She does not like printing. It is not easy coming up with ways for her to practice this area that she actually enjoys. I have now found a couple of things that work.

She really enjoys learning her sight words from 1+1+1=1 I can read program and each set comes with a printing practice worksheet. The only actual printing worksheet my DD will do. So I put them in page protectors in a booklet with a dry erase marker and make it available to her whenever she is ready to work on them. This seems to be the only printing worksheets that she will even think of doing.

The next thing I have started with her is journaling. She has both a regular journal and a math journal where I write questions in it and she writes the full sentence to answer that question. I help her with the spelling, and it has been a great way to introduce the period at the end of her sentences. Because we call this journal time she does not view it as printing practice and is more than happy to do the work.

I can already tell a big difference in her printing compared to what she was doing last year at preschool. This is definitely going to be the bulk of our printing practice for this year. As the year progresses I will use questions that will require longer answers, and will also start some copy work using some small poems that she enjoys and quotes from her favorite stories.

Just as a side note, the little book with the  early printing lined paper was picked up last fall when school supplies when on sale. I was able to get four of these books for less than $1. I was even able to pick up 4 more this fall on sale for $.10 each. I love a good deal.

This has to be why I love homeschool so much as compared to public school. If a child does not like to learn something one way, you can try something else. In public school, if they don't get it the way it is taught, then you need to spend the extra time at home to do it and the poor child is stuck doing nothing but school work all day and doesn't have any time left to just be a kid!

This Week

Wow, what a productive week. After spending the first month of school trying to plan everything out myself, it is amazing how much time we had been wasting. This week we started using the Time 4 Learning program for Language Arts, Math and Science. It is great to be able to have a better flow to our work and it lets me make sure I don't miss something.

It is amazing how much she loves to use a computer. She gets so excited when I tell her it is time to do her computer lessons; and the Time 4 Learning program is so simple to use that even a kindergartner has no trouble.

Another great aspect of the Time 4 Learning program is that there are worksheets you can print off to reinforce the lessons that have been taught. This way she not only sees and hears the information, but she gets hands on work for the lessons as well. This is definitely the most effective way for my Monkey to learn. Besides, who doesn't enjoy scissors and glue:-).

Of course there is always additional fun stuff to do each week, like going for a nature walk to gather up a bunch of goodies so we can spend even more time playing with the glue.

Over all I feel that this was the most productive week of school we have had yet; and I am still amazed at how much I am learning about my Monkey during this process. I am certain now that this is the correct path for her learning and am looking forward to all the other fun projects we will be doing in the weeks to come.

Beth