Only in Chicagoland can these kinds of extremes happen in five days.
The snow last Friday put me in a seriously bad mood. But this week has been plenty hot and humid! Enjoyable at times, but that too has put me in a nasty mood. I feel like I go from cheerful to crabby a lot. I’m realizing I need to refocus on LOVE and ENJOYMENT of being home with my kids. I do love them. I do enjoy being with them. Why do I get so annoyed? Continue reading
My parents are currently serving a religious mission in Nicaragua. They will be gone for two years, and it’s only been five months! We miss them very much but thankfully we have modern technology (SKYPE!) to make the distance seem much shorter.
Our co-op does a culture day every few weeks. When they did Nicaragua, we knew it was time to take our own virtual trip there to get to know where Gramma and Grampa are!
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One Mother’s Day, as I deal with cranky kids, cooking dinner, getting ready for church, and taking care of people at church, I often have a few moments of frustration. Why is this such a great thing to be a mom?
But of course, I snapped out of it. I love being a stay-at-home homeschooling mom to three great kids. Here are some of the special things that make it worthwhile everyday. I really do love being a mom to young kids. Continue reading
My son is strong reader, so I’ve decided to institute a “strong reading” project each week to make sure he practices those skills he’s developed.
You see, although my son is reading at a 4th grade level, he is still gravitating toward lower reading level books.
For example, he’s still rereading The Magic Tree House books; Judy Moody and Stink; Ready, Freddy!; The Pee Wee Scouts, and so forth. There are worse books (I really don’t like My Weird School and Junie B. Jones, for example). But the ones he chooses still provide somewhat stilted dialog, immature and rude comments, and formulaic plots.
I get it. Raisin, despite his high reading level, is six years old. He likes the books! They are very easy to read and also full of fun. I want him to enjoy reading, and certainly don’t want to discourage the stay-up-late-and-read-under-the-covers habits that he’s begun. (Ok, well, I wish he’d go to sleep, but isn’t it a great thing?!)
So the question is: How can I drive my son toward books that have strong language, better complexity, and challenging language that will help him develop a stronger vocabulary?
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My son has found a way for us to enjoy school even more: Mom School. As we do his school during the week, he curates ideas of things to test me on. Then, on Friday, he gave me school.
I had to do a crossword puzzle with all of his spelling words in it.
Next week, I suppose, we’ll have to learn how to spell SEARCH. Those /er/ phonograms are tricky!
I had to write some other spelling words that he found from his textbook. (He made sure to review the phonograms with me before he gave me the spelling words.)
You will notice that a few of the problems were marked incorrect because I either did not write it in cursive (I did not realize that was the assignment, but of course! Why wouldn’t it be! I make him write in cursive all the time) or it was not proper cursive. He was very particular that I write neatly. And he had fun tricking me with the “to/two/too” homophone!
I had to answer some math problems he typed up for me.
My favorite part of this one is the “I Love Math!” he put on the bottom of the page. I hated Math, but he loves it. This is what homeschooling is about. He also found Microsoft clip art and a border to make it look interesting. He put his name and copyright at the bottom, too, with a link to his blog (“for more information”). Apparently, he sees me making educational products for sale a bit too often. LOL!
And then he asked me some silly questions in Spanish that I had to answer in Spanish. (No picture because this got my son speaking in Spanish!.)
In general, it was quite fun to see him (try to) stump me. He really wanted it to be hard for me. I love how, for him, that means adding 1,000 to a problem.
A fun time was had by all!
How often do you let your students turn around and be your teacher?
I mentioned a few weeks ago that our co-op science teacher has family heath issues; she dropped out of teaching for the remainder of this year and we have decided to not seek out a sub as there are so few weeks left. I was panicked, as I’ve never believed I was very strong in scientific concepts. What could I do for my son’s science learning?
Well, it turns out it is not too hard to find things to do! I decided to finish off the Human Body, which is what the co-op teacher had been teaching, because my son has been immersed in body books this winter and spring. Then I have moved on to animals! Continue reading
Today’s Mentor Monday at The Reading Tutor/OG is about the teachers and/or parents who helped instill a love of reading in your heart. I love remembering the people who brought books to life for me! Continue reading
I’ve been enjoying reading some of the reasons people have chosen to homeschool, both on blogs and homeschooling support sites.
I decided to pull some of the facts and numbers I found (according to a few polls) into this infographic. Without further ado, here is Why Homeschool?: An infographic about why people have chosen to home educate their children. Continue reading
We’re not doing much for Easter in terms of secular tradition this year. I haven’t dyed any eggs. I bought candy and we’ve already been eating it. It’s more of a spiritual year in terms of Easter for me. But we’ve obviously been talking a lot about the Resurrection of Jesus Christ and what that means for us. In addition to Easter, a family friend passed away in March.
The other day, we were getting ready to go in the car, and I paused while Raisin put on his seat belt.
“Why do I have to wear a seat belt?” he asked.
I explained that we loved him dearly and we did not want him to die.
“But it would be okay, right?” he asked. “If I died? Because of the Resurrection? We’ll all see each other again. So it would be okay.”
I was taken aback by the question but it taught me. First, he does not really understand what death is (how painful to lose someone we dearly love, to be separated for life from them, to have to continue without them).
But also, his comment reminded me about what it all truly means. It’s easy to say “we’ll all be resurrected.” It’s another thing to truly understand what it means that we will all be together again, in body and spirit. Continue reading
I have noticed that my toddler, Strawberry, does not recognize shapes: she knows heart, moon, and star, but not the basics like circle and square. She calls ovals “footballs” and gets excited when she sees them though! I have been thinking for weeks that we needed to focus on learning the shapes.
When I saw that Krista’s Math Madness Wednesdays this week is about shapes, I thought it was time to put some ideas into action.
