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.