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 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?
Raisin is a very strong reader, and he loves to read anything and everything! This week he has been reading about scabs. And all the other gross things on our bodies. The library books he checked out have real photographs of scabs on the covers. I call them the “icky books” and Strawberry has begun to parrot me when she sees them. “Mom! Icky book!”
At any rate, Raisin likes to read fiction too, and enjoys reading in his free time and before bed. Because he is a strong reader, he breezes through a book and then cannot tell me what it was about, beyond basic plot points or even specific things that happened that stood out to him. I’d love to talk over fine literature with him, but I have not been sure to best methods to use.
So, that said, close reading is my goal with Raisin for the coming months. I have determined that we need to read together more frequently and notice what we read more. We need to talk about it together and predict together.
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This started off with a bit of a sad note as I mentioned in Monday’s post, so I let homeschool go a bit more than I normally would. We played, we read, and we did not have formal learning on Monday and Tuesday. The rest of the week has been good in general.
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We had a tragedy this weekend. One of the Bishop’s counselors for our congregation died unexpectedly. It has affected all of us.
What it has done for me is reminded me of the important things. I hold my kids a little closer, and I try to refrain from yelling a bit more. We do not know how long we have on this earth, and each day is a blessing.
I feel like I should let blogging go a little bit more than I have. Why blog when I could be with my dear husband? Why blog when my kids are off having fun and I want to join in with them?
So if I seem a distracted or distant from the blog for the next few days or weeks, just take that as a reminder to go love your own family a little bit more.
This is the season of life for that before anything else.
This was a difficult, tear-filled week for my emotional first grader. For his privacy, I won’t go in to details. For my own, I’ll add that this is an intensely personal post.
As the screams and tears continued from one day to the next, I found myself wondering, however, if for my sanity I needed to send him to school. Let someone else deal with the ups and downs for the day. I could handle the night if I could just get a break during the day.
But I realized quickly that this would solve nothing. He would still struggle to deal with the issues at hand, but he would be far from me. I would not know. Beyond not knowing, though, I would not be learning the patience and love that I learn by having him here with me.
There is a reason I am a mother. It is for in these moments of trial that I learn and improve myself as well. Continue reading
I cannot believe it is already time for another week in review. This week has been fun! I am still enjoying a much more relaxed homeschool, and it is doing great things for my stress levels. I believe Raisin enjoys it too. This week can be summarized as “PLAY.” Continue reading
This week has been full of distractions! I can’t say we got much school done, but it was a great week for learning, so I am not too worried. I keep telling myself that Raisin is already ahead for his age, so why rush through thing just to say we did?
That said, I need to refocus on planning my week a little bit more. It might be a little less difficult in the midst of the week if it was planned to begin with! Continue reading
Last year, I was a pretty new blogger and Valentine’s Day week was very stressful to me because we did not get school “done.” I feel like laughing at my reaction last year.
I am a lot more laid back this year.
This year, Raisin decorated Valentines on the computer again and we went to our Valentine’s Day bowling party. It was not that stressful, and our week was rather laid back, although I did bring out the math worksheets again to get something more formal done for school. Today we will do a little bit of school, and then we will have play dates. Continue reading
This week was relaxed. I took an “unschooling” approach this week and I loved it!
I believe Raisin did too. This morning, at the end of his hour of listening to Mozart, he said, “You know, if I had to go to school, I wouldn’t have time to do this!”
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