Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was a lot of fun at our house this year. We checked out some really neat books from the library: If you were at the First Thanksgiving, If you were on the Mayflower, A Plump and Perky Turkey, The First Thanksgiving, Three Young Pilgrims, and Mary's First Thanksgiving. One of the books was a craft book that Super Frog looked at on his own. He found a craft to do, got the supplies and did it with Daddy while I was making dinner one night. He and Daddy both did one. I was inspired at the way Daddy just let him go at it as he worked beside him. Even Little Bird joined in. They made the Mayflower together.

We did a bunch of activities and coloring pages from 1+1+1=1 blog.

After feasting with our family on Thursday we curled up on the couch under blankets and watched Charlie Brown's Thanksgiving and the Mayflower Players. It was cute. I had some friends do a Snoopy Thanksgiving Feast--and I thought that would be a good idea for next year: popcorn, jelly beans, buttered toast and pretzels.

Counting to 100

Using our 100 Chart Super Frog counted to one hundred! We usually count from 1-20 every other day..today he wanted to keep going. All I had to do was tell him if it was the 30s, 50s, etc. It was so cool to see him "get it."--very encouraging :)

Puzzle Time

Little Bird loves to do puzzles mostly because she sees her big brother doing them all of the time. Of course she isn't interested in her toddler, wooden, chunky puzzles--she loves his. Here is one of his that she can do pretty well. This is the first time she puts it together by herself...well most of the way. I put the circle together and she filled in the missing pieces.

We're Still Going!

It's almost the end of October and we're doing well. I've been very eclectic so far but it's all been good and I've been pretty consistent. Our biggest work days are Mondays and Wednesdays. We have Bible study on Tues. occasionally I'll do things with Frog when we get home. Thursdays I go to Zumba at the YMCA. I love it! I can't say enough about dancing to exercise. It's so much fun. Zumba starts a little later so usually we do some school before it's time to go. Fridays are toss ups. We go to MOPS two Fridays out of the month (we LOVE MOPS!!!). Doing school on Friday depends on how the week went.

And Now For Plan B

On to plan B...

We've been on plan B for two full weeks now and it's going great.

We are now doing Rock Star Preschool. I shared the name with Frog and he loved it and then told me he wanted to pick the name next time.

I shared a lot of the basics with him like why we were starting with the letter L instead of A. We are both very taken with it. It's a great PRESCHOOL program with singing, routine and great game ideas. We're having a lot more fun now. Little Bird joins us in the singing and it's real easy to print off a page or two just like Frog's so she can join us. I have esecailly liked the crafts so far too. That's something I've been wanting to get better at doing with both kids. I don't usually know the songs in the packets but we have lots of our own that we substitute in.

I love having everything printed and set out for me. I still do extra activites after Rock Star Preschool and use the work boxes. Having something we always do makes it easier to plan the rest. There are a few things we do differently and I'll post on that at a later date.

Here is my "fancy" schedule sheet

Wednesday:

1. Pray

2. Rock Star

3. Writing Practice- Name- Box A

4. Count 100 Chart (we usually count to 20 using a pointer and then I will ask him questions like find number 24. Which number is bigger than 24?

5. More or Less activity- Box C

6. Play Doh- Box D- Frog builds letters with the play doh (example here).

7. Read Together

Thank you Carisa at 1+1+1=1

http://1plus1plus1equals1.blogspot.com/

Devotional Time and Prayer Every Day!

For devotional time with Super Frog and Little Bird each morning before school I decided to try something revolutionary...I'm using books we already own. I've picked up tons of cute little Bible story books, toddler devotions and poems over the years. We read them here and there but never in one sitting. As a result; we went through each book reading one or two pages everyday. Here are the books we've gone through so far: Special Times, Bible Promises for Toddlers, My Great Big God and Jesus is for me. Most of the books include Bible references and we'll look up at least one verse everyday.
For prayer time we used What Shall We Pray About? as a great jumping off point. Then we made our own list together and pick a few things from it each day to pray about.

This is not how I pictured it going!

My plan is not going well. There are a lot of things wrong with it. Probably one of the biggest ones is that I sit and have to plan everything (mostly the night before when it's late) with out much of a clear direction. I feel tired and overwhelmed and mostly don't want to do anything when I sit down to plan.

No, this is my bigger problem...I'm expecting too much out of my preschooler. We are siting and doing seat work; hard core writing practice, phonic drills and worksheets. Frog is frustrated I'm frustrated. Throw Little Bird in and it's too much.

I'm overwhelmed with house work and projects that are bigger than I first thought they would be. I need to stop and rethink some things.

Would you like to pray or have your tooth pulled?

This summer I carried around a notebook on our many travels and kept a running list of ideas and plans for our new school year. One of our last trips was to an Intervarsity Staff Conference, which is basically like a retreat for me-the wife of a staff worker. I enjoyed the fellowship and inspirational times of worship or speakers. I also enjoyed lots of time to myself in prayer and planning. Little Bird and Super Frog loved playing with the other staff kids and there was a team a wonderful babysitters :) A perfect combination!
One thing I heard clearly there was that Frog needed to learn to pray. Getting him to pray any time is like pulling teeth and I started to think about it...I don't think we've ever specifically taught him to pray. I was so encouraged to hear on a walk with my husband one night that he had also been burdened with Frog's lack of prayer--or willingness to pray.
I was reminded there at the retreat to keep the main things the main things. Frog will learn all those important school things in the years to come. I want to firmly establish the ideas and concepts that surround our faith and love of Jesus...and Lord willing that faith and love will be created in him too.
Earlier in the spring I had purchased a book at our MOPS resale (along with many other things--puzzles, games and more books). The book is What Shall We Pray About by Andy Robb. It's a cute book that gives suggestions of things to pray about with fun, friendly pictures. It was a great starting point for Frog. We read a page each day and talked about the pictures. We each chose one thing to pray about and prayed right then. Daddy also started requiring Frog to pick one thing to pray for every night. At first Frog would pick things like the wall...Daddy did a wonderful job of being graceful and thanking God in his prayer for the wall too, because it holds up our house and we need a house to live in...
Now that we are done the book Frog is into the routine of praying with very little prompting. We made a list of all the people around us, our family, all the activities we're involved in and much more to pray for. So now we take out that list every morning and I give him a few suggestions. I think the key is he helped me to make that list. I envisioned doing something real fancy with colorful pictures but our handwritten list is doing just fine.
Another note: Little Bird has picked up on our prayer time and often folds her hands and bows her head too. We ask her what she wants to pray for and usually she says, "Layla, hit car..." Which means she wants to pray for the lady that got hit by a car in the parking lot of the grocery store one day. It was a very minor injury but we helped by calling 911 (just as I was teaching Frog about dialing 911 for emergencies that week). I think it has made a big impression on her. We saw the ambulance come and everything. Again, the lady was not badly hurt but we pray for her to heal and know Jesus almost everyday.

School Room...and toy room and family room

We were given a very sturdy dinning room table so we have upgraded from our card table that wobbled when you wrote on it to this--thank you J.

We have tons a space now and Birdie gets her own chair and not the step stool, although she usually insists on sitting on my lap. It's so nice to have everything close at hand too. However our table hardly ever looks like this.

I usually clean it up for school on Monday, tidy again for our big Wednesday school time and then it slowly gets worse and worse. You can see the 3 tier drawers underneath that serve as our "workboxes"

Frog is super proud of the spinning pencil, scissor holder. He picked it out, well I think that was the only one in the store but he loves it.

The Fall 2010 Plan

THE PLAN

Devotional Book and Bible (various books, I'll post about it)

Prayer

Math Mondays: Preschool Plus, Ultimate Skills Builder (colorful worksheets- a lot of patterns etc.), 100s chart to practice counting, practice writing numbers with this cool wipe off board we got. Number puzzles and all sorts of games.

Writing Wednesdays: Working on letters, writing name, use shaving cream in bag or tempera paint to draw letters, Play-Doh letters.

Phonics Everyday: We're still using Hooked on Phonics and we have a lot of books and puzzles to help too. We "build" words using random letters using magnets or other letter shaped things.

We read our first chapter book together too--Charlotte's Web. It was a great experience.

We read The Berenstain Bears Science and Nature book about once a week too.

I decided to make a schedule for myself to make sure the important things were covered: math, writing, reading. So I made a list of all the activities under each label and switched those in and out each day.

Little Bird? I had pages and activities for her too. She is interested for a while and then usually goes to the toys. Some days she sits in my lap and is quite distracting.

Using work boxes? YES! I love it. However, we've adapted the method. I put a list of things to do each day on the wall and beside certain activities I'll put a letter to the corresponding box next to it. Frog knows when we get there he'll crawl under the table (to the 3 tier Sterilite drawers) and get the items from box A or B etc.

I love having all the materials in one place and it gives Frog the chance to get up and move. I try to have one craft a week.

I have Five in A Row and I want to start that too--it just felt like too much this fall. I do plan to use it sometime soon...

First Day of School

Super Frog is 4.5 years old and is ready to go. We've graduated from "learning time" and we're actually calling this process school now (that's a big step for me!). Little Bird doesn't know what she's in for...hopefully ALL good stuff.

Wrapping my Mind around Home School

I have read a lot about home schooling. There are three books in particular that were influential in giving me a vision for home schooling in our house. One book I have reread a couple of times now is For the Family Sake by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay. This is not necessarily about home schooling but I love the pace of life she writes about, the value of being home and the value of creating a warm home. The other two books are very practical home schooling manuals; The Ultimate Guide to Home Schooling by Debra Bell and Mary Pride's Complete Guide to Getting Started in Home Schooling. These three books along with invaluable, veteran home schooling moms and the blogs I've found online have helped me so much. I'm not quite how sure all of this is going to work out or if I'll make it through first grade but God knows.

Did Spring Break Last Forever?

Hey...what happened in the spring? Well in preparation for a CRAZY summer we took time to learn about all that we were going to do and the places we were going to go to. Academics? Yes, we still practiced our letters and numbers. We still use Hooked on Phonics and finished going through the Alphabet. But I found tons of books from the library and fun activities, games and crafts online to go along with our theme. We also have lots of our own toys and books that go along with these things too.

Baseball- Frog participated in his first ever team sport--T-Ball at the YMCA

Camping- We had many opportunities to camp this year

Vietnam and Cambodia- Where Daddy was traveling for two weeks as a culminated experience to his seminary career.

Graduation- Daddy graduated from seminary

North Carolina and the Outer Banks- Beach, first flight, airplanes

Airplanes- we took our first airplane ride to CA as a family this summer. There are tons of books and shows on this subject--every beloved child character goes on a plane at some point; Curious George, Elmo, Dora, etc.

California- It's across the country and beside another ocean (two major facts we learned)

Weddings- Both Frog and Birdie were in my brother's wedding this summer in CA. Frog took his role of walking his sister down the aisle very seriously. Bird cried the whole way down the aisle but at least she walked down it.

Needless to say it was a very fun summer!

We also took Charlotte's Web with us on our trips and some phonics books.

U-Z?

Yes we still learned our letters. I lost steam with keeping up on the blog. I rarely use original ideas and I definitely don't take pictures of all our activities. We got through pretty well. I got better at requesting books from the library in advance. We were able to read some cool books about X-rays during X week. I found a great way to search for books. I search on Amazon.com to see pictures and read descriptions and then request it from my library. The library usually has at least half of the books. W week was real cool. My Aunt took us on a wonderful trip to Williamsburg where we stayed at Wolf Lodge where there was lots of water :)

Which Bible Part 2

Alright, so I'm going to stick with the Family Time Bible. I would like to get the Read and Share one for later use--Little Bird? I am going to figure out how many stories now until Easter and skip to the New Testament. My plan is to keep reading after Easter and finish the book. I might go back to the Old Testament--we only have about 10 stories left.

Storage

This area is not very developed but this is what I have so far. I love using wipe holders for things. I don't know why they come in every big box of diapers we get--but they are useful! I keep a lot of the games and puzzles up and blocks and other toys that would be too much if they were taken out all the time. Super Frog and I often play a game together for his "Special Nap Time." He stays up 30min after Little Bird goes to bed. He then goes into his room and plays quietly and looks at books for 60min (a timer is set on his noise machine. It just goes off after 60min--it's great! He'll sleep about twice a week.

The white 3 drawers are for storage. The purple 3 drawers are for me to experiment with work boxes. I'm very intrigued by the idea and think it could work well for us. I thought I'd give it a try and put everything in the drawer we'd need for that day. I haven't totally gotten into using them yet. Although I did put some games and special items in the B drawer to use during nap time with Super Frog. And I filled the A drawer with all the T items for the week to put in our blue holder.

Do you see the two purple trays stuffed in there? I tried the Tot Tray idea once. It worked pretty well. Super Frog loved his cutting and hole punching tray. Little Bird was excited about hers for about two min. and then moved on.

Our Learning Space

Here it is! Our Learning Space. I had to make room for Little Bird. She uses the step stool but not for long actually. She'll stay there until she sees something she'd like better, gets on my lap and onto the table. I am still struggling to get her invovled in a non-distracting way. She grabs whatever we are using even if she has one of her own (exactly the same).

The Learning Board has evovled a little bit since I last wrote about it. We don't always have a theme. Although--sometimes it just works out and something fits. Our last theme was sizes--Big, Little, small, smaller, smallest, etc. We still do a letter and a verse. Our Vocabulary section has turned into words that start with the letter of the week. And we have a cool place for the days of the week. The truck holds the days, months, and seasons. The crane holds up the day. And that's our amazing space :)

Which Bible to Read?

We read The Family-Time Bible to Super Frog every night. It has been great and because we only read one story a night it keeps him hungry for more. The pictures are also very graphic--that also keeps him wanting more--very intriguing for a little boy I guess. Yet, along with those graphic pictures are topics I'm not ready to talk with him about. For example--King Saul visits a witch. And then in the next story Saul kills himself. The book has spent a considerable amount of time on conflict and people killing each other. Up until now I've enjoyed the book and have appreciated the honesty about hard things but I think I'm ready to give it a break.

I went to the library tonight and found a few bible story books we'll try. The Read and Share Bible, and the Veggie Tale Bible. Then again, another part of me thinks I should try to keep with something--I seem to change stuff so much. I could just skip the stories I don't want to read. On the other hand I flipped through those other bibles and there are some great stories this one is leaving out. Sometimes I wish we could do EVERYTHING! And then what about the actual Bible? Should we be reading something from that too? Oh decisions, decisions.

Letter T

I don't know what happened to R. Frog has been pushing us through the letters quicker these days. He noticed his letter poster and sees what letter is coming next and wants to go right to it. We've been having fun with T this week. I put all the T things into a box on Sunday night and then we put them into the blue holder together. It saved a lot of time and easier to pull out everything myself without little hands wanting to get out more.

We are going to get all our train things out later this week when it is supposed to rain. It's been such a wonderful break in the weather we've been outside a LOT! It's been so good! Praise God, Spring is on its way! Hopefully we'll do this cute turtle craft too.

We've been doing Hooked on Phonics together every morning. We are still on the first stage--using the CD and learning the letter sounds together. It's nice that we can sit on the couch and Little Bird can join us if she wants.

Last week I did my first tray! Tot Trays as I think they're called. For Frog I put lots of paper, wacky scissors and shaped hole punchers and a little red box with dividers to put it all in. He loved it. For Little Bird I took old ornament boxes and filled them with match box cars and gave her a tub to put them all into. She liked it for a few minutes and then was onto something else. She is so busy! I try to give her--her own things that match her brothers and try to include her but she is so grabby. She's not content on her stool either--she climbs over into my lap and then onto the table. Usually I call in Daddy (who works most mornings at home) about half way through our learning time (which only lasts about 30min max).

Super Frog and I are still doing one verse every week from Songs for Saplings--Corresponding letter. We are doing some random pages in a workbook recently given to me by a friend called The Ultimate Skills Builder. We do the day of the week and our phonics. And we are also going through a book called I Wonder Why I Blink. It's a very well done book about the body--great for his level and nicely illustrated. We do one or two pages everyday--it is a short book. We'll be done tomorrow. I requested some from the library but they weren't what I was looking for...so I'm not sure what we will do next.

Letter S

Nothing too out of the ordinary for S. Here is a cool letter tracer page I found. This site is great and we've been using almost every week.

We talked about Science and started a cool book about the body--I wonder why I blink. We talked about Samson and read a little book about him.

Letter Q

It's a quilt! We talked a little about patchwork and how in quilts (often) each square or patch will look different. We got out the paint and Super Frog and Little Bird went to town! Mommy's friend stopped by for a visit so she drew a picture from her recent trip to FL. Later Frog drew on another square, a maze and some quarter rubbings. The quarter rubbings worked much better on thin, white, notebook paper. There are two other squares we are going to give to family members this weekend so they can add to our 'Q' Quilt.

Quarter Tossing! A few nights ago after Little Bird went to bed, Frog and I sorted our change jar. We put the different coins in piles and talked about their names, their differences etc. It was one of his first introductions to money. So today we did a quarter toss. I put a handful of pennies and quarters in a bowl and Frog threw the correct coin into the labeled basket. Birdie love it too.

Letter P

We've had fun with P foods this week. Popcorn and pretzels mainly. We're also spending time learning about Moses and the Plagues.

This is a display board I got for Christmas. It's been great.

Letter O

We did a lot with Ocean (books, Nemo) and Octopus. Sorry it's not too detailed

Letter N

The only thing out of the ordinary we did with this letter was make a Necklace out of Noddles.

Letter M

Since I started this blog in the middle of the year we are about in the middle of the Alphabet. M is the first letter.

We read about Moses, counted with M & Ms and sorted them into different colors. We counted with Marshmallows. Our theme this week was Moving Trucks. We found all the books that had to do with cars or trucks and we played with them a lot.

Raising Rock Stars

Raising Rock Stars is a concept from another wonderful blogger. All of my Bible related posts will be under this label. I love her word picture of Rock Stars from the following Bible verses:

Philippians 2:15

so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe.

Matthew 7:34

Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.

Read her Intro to the Rock Star Vision HERE

The Ever Evolving Curriculum

As the 2009-2010 school year began I began to panic. What am I doing? What am I NOT doing? Seeing all the first day of school pictures on face book made me nervous too. What is Super Frog missing out on?

I called a veteran homeschooling friend and mentor and she calmed me down and let me know those were pretty common feelings. She reminded me of my goals and the real reasons I'm homeschooling. It's good to have friends like that.

From there I started doing more research on the computer. Super Frog was only 3 1/4 (pre-school) so my husband and I decided not to buy a curriculum. I stumbled on The Brightly Beaming Steps to Reading Program and the learning poster connected to it. This inspired me and got me excited about what Super Frog and I could do together. I looked for the suggested books on our library site and sent in a request. Super Frog was happy about his poster and liked the idea of themes each week.

Other things we did:

We read an old science pamphlet about animals occasionally

Pre-writing letter worksheets from the Internet

Cool workbooks from Nana with lots of mazes and fun activities (School Zone Publishing)

Bible Verses: I started with a verse and kept adding on to it. I started off with pretty heady stuff and ALL the IMPORTANT ones I thought he should know like OBEY YOUR PARENTS :)

I soon lightened up on those with finding Songs for Saplings. A CD with verses set to music going through the alphabet. I was happy about the short and encouraging verses chosen.

The Curriculum Evolves:

Can I stick to anything? No, not very well. I was frustrated by never having the suggested books in time for the week's theme. Our library system is wonderful but my requests took a while, would come in on all different days and I often didn't get to the library in time before the books were taken off hold for me and then sent back to one of the 5 different libraries in our area.

Also I was so happy with the Songs for Saplings CD I took more themes from there. For example H is for Happy are the people whose god is the Lord, so we talked about feelings.

Then December came and we had themes surrounding Jesus and the Christmas story.

It's January now and I haven't gone back to Brightly Beaming themes yet. I'm very thankful for the program though. It gave me a great structure to build on.

Our theme this week is Trucks by request. We took a crate and collected all the books we have in the house to do with cars or trucks--we have a lot. And we found all the books we have for our letter M--Give a Moose of Muffin etc.

We'll do winter next week and then I don't know what. Maybe I'll ask Frog what he would like to learn about. The homeschooling blogs have been real helpful too with ideas and inspiration.

We are still doing Songs for Saplings as our verses, letters and their sounds, pre-writing worksheets, and using the numbers 1-10. I have the Bernstein Bears Science book we'll start reading together and we're doing cool things with the days of the week, month, year and season. We are enjoying our educational Christmas presents, games, puzzles, etc. And we have discovered some great, free computer games online. Nick Jr., Sesame Street, Starfall.com and Uptoten.com

Movies that Helped us to learn:

Leap Frog Letter Factory

Sesame Street All-Star Alphabet

Blues Clues Alphabet Power

Sad but sweet times

In my last post I said I wasn't ready to begin school...and then my father-in law and the kid's beloved PopPop passed away. Needless to say, everything was put on hold. PopPop had a liver transplant in August but began having trouble in November. He was in the hospital for over a month and over Christmas. Things got worse and worse and he came home on hospice January 8th. He passed away early in the morning on the 11th. The Lord is good. PopPop had one good day and it was sweet. The kids enjoyed him and he enjoyed them. Family came over and there was laughter and good memories made. I amazed how the Lord works out every little detail. Down to who spent the night on Sunday and keeping Super Frog asleep through everything. Frog knows that PopPop has died and is with Jesus in heaven and it's not sad for him. Little Bird charmed everyone with her smile and both kids were a good distraction. The memorial service was very nice and I'm so proud of my husband Billy for being able to speak and share about his Dad's faith and final days.
We stayed at MomMom's house for the week and had more sweet times with family. It will continue to be a struggle for our family but it was very nice to come home and get things back in order here. The first day we were home Super Frog looked at the learning table and asked, "Mommy, can we do learning time again?" That's when I knew we just need to start. The plans and the fun activities I worked on over Christmas weren't ready, the house was in disarray but we did it anyway. It was good. As I said before I think I can get paralyzed by wanting everything to be perfect and ready before I start. It was healthy for me just to do it and Super Frog helped to put things in place and slowly our learning time has come together.
We've been working on the letter M, Trucks (by request), and counting. We've worked on numbers 1-10 individually now we're going to spend time using them. And M&Ms make the perfect counters :)
I'm still struggling with what to do with Little Bird during our learning time. I've tried some Tot School stuff but she is TOO interested in what we are doing. Daddy is home this week so she's had special Daddy time.

Not ready but relaxing

I have been over-whelmed with thinking about school for Super Frog and also what I'll do with Little Bird (some tot-school stuff I think). As much as I love these home-schooling blogs with home-made crafts, games etc. I can be overwhelmed by them too. But I was reminded again this week that this is where I am and it's okay. My children are young, I am just beginning this journey and I CANNOT compare myself. What I am doing is good enough, I will start soon and it's going to be okay.

We have been enjoying Daddy being home from his week away at Urbana and I'm just starting to feel ready to begin. We got some cool school things for Christmas, file folder games, a table top card holder and even Hooked on Phonics. I'm not going to do Phonics just yet. We got K and first grade. It looks great but I want to do tackle some left over things from 2009 and do more individual letter sounds first before we try blending them together. Also I was reminded one of the biggest reasons I want to home school is to delve into the kid's interests and use them to fuel what we learn. I've been so focused on my "themes" and plans that I haven't taken much notice of what Super Frog is into. We got a Chuck the Truck toy for Christmas and it came with a poster. We put the poster on our learning time board and he said "let's learn about Trucks!" Okay, well that's a good idea. I also want to focus on the "new year" and days of the week. We are starting with the Letter M--a good excuse to use M&Ms, Moses and Moving (TRUCKS!).

The Lord is showing me again what a waste of time/energy it is to worry. I try to make these grand plans and stress over them...HE IS IN CONTROL.