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Saturday, November 27, 2010

School Week 8 and 9

September 27th - October 8th



Painting

Bella writing after we did a reading lesson.

Puzzle of animals and their homes after a Noun Lesson for Sweet Boy.

A visit to the Arboretum

We went to the Arboretum with a Part-time school's field trip.  We have several friends in this group and they invited us to this field trip.  Sweet Boy got to learn about the early Texas Pioneers in this 2 acre exhibit.



Babies first swing ride!




Pin Punching


Metal Insets




Writing with the movable alphabet.  I currently work with Bella to help her figure out the middle sound.  She does not have a problem with the beginning or ending sounds.

Transfer work.  She is transferring pom-poms with tweezers.
In Geometry we have been working through the Geometric drawers.  For the Polygons the kids created a Polygon book.  They cut the shapes out and labeled.  I helped them with this project.

We have been practicing skip counting every day.  We are currently working on counting by 2's, 3's and 5's.  Bella will skip count up to 10 and Sweet Boy up to 100. 



Bella practicing her numbers.  What I do with Bella is to ask her to practice one number a day, any way she wants to.  I give her ideas like painting, sandpaper letters with sand or sand paper letters and then writing on blackboard, number worksheet, etc...  There are days that she does not want to and then there are days that she will work on 5 numbers!  It all evens out.

Friday, November 26, 2010

Disney World!

We just returned from an exciting Disney World Vacation!


My sweet friend who lives in Orlando.  We stayed with her and her family and got to spend lots of quality time together!

Sweet Boys favorite, trains!

My sweet friend and her hubby!

Peter Pan ride.

Baby enjoying,  It's A Small World ride.

Playing Putt-Putt Golf.















Monday, November 15, 2010

Leaf Study

We began our leaf study when Bella asked me to go with her to pick leaves.
This was over a month ago.  Our study lasted about a month.

Here Bella has her bag of leaves and decided she needed to trace them in her notebook.

Both Bella and Sweet Boy did leaf rubbing. 

Another week I presented the nomenclature - Parts of a Leaf for Elementary Age.
I made this Felt Work for Bella since we do not have a Leaf Puzzle.  This is very simple, great for 3-5 year olds.  I got this work free from Maybe Montessori.
On another week, we reviewed and got leaves to look at the different parts on real leaves.


On a bike ride around the neighborhood we picked lots of leaves and taped them to cards and worked on naming them.  I wrote the names on the back.

On another week we used our leaves to sort by leaf margins, blade shape, and veins.
Leaf margins.  On another day, we reviewed the leaf margins.  I taped them on the door, said the name of the leaf margin and it's definition and we placed the names in it's place and found a leaf to place under it.  We used the magnifying glass to look at the edge closely.  This can be a little tricky!

Saturday, November 6, 2010

Homeschooling Reflections

My love hate relationship with homeschooling.


I LOVE that we don't have to be at school by 8:30am.  I HATE that we don't have to be at school by 8:30am!!   What do I mean.  Well, I love that there is NO rushing but I don't like that some days it is so hard to get started.   That some days it is 10am when we are starting our school day.  With a baby you just can't say "Ok, we are starting at 9am".  It is just not going to happen unless I have someone helping me with the baby.


I LOVE all of the time I get to spend with the kids.  I HATE all of the time I spend with the kids!!  OK, I would love to miss them a little :-)  I LOVE Co-op days so that I can miss them!


All kidding aside, I've been reflecting a lot lately.  Since I do work, I feel that I am not doing justice to the kids and my husband.   I used to read to the kids before bed every night and now I am so tired that I don't and the thing is that my husband does not take up the slack here.   Most of the time now I get the baby to sleep and let my husband get the big kids to sleep.  We used to share this job.  Once the baby goes to sleep I sit in front of the computer and get to work on my school work (answering e-mails, grading, checking on my students, doing my online office hours, working on SACS( our College is going through Accreditation).  I get my work done and go to sleep.  When I should be planning for the kids, I am working for the College, when I should be spending a little time with my husband or with the kids in the evening, I am working or just too tired to want to.....


Another reflection.   I don't feel I have enough time in the day to do everything I want to do with the kids.  So, if they went to school then I could just concentrate on the 'cool' things I want to teach them outside of school time that I don't have time now because I spend a lot of time on basics and baby and life.


Another reflection.  I am one person, trying to do the job of educating my child which usually takes 7 teachers at school.  Two full-time teachers in a Montessori classroom, the Spanish, Nature, Music, PE, and Art teacher.  These teachers get a planning period and a lunch break.   And don't get me started on the support group at school: lunch, materials makers, cleaning people, etc. etc.    


Another reflection. There are many things I will want to start doing with Andres during the day that I will not be able to do or will have to hire babysitters so I can do it.  His PT is starting to be more frequent, I can enroll him in aquatic therapy and music class (all free).  Hard to do because they are weekday mornings. 


What was I thinking.... (Don't answer that!)

I've come to the conclusion to at least one thing.  If I homeschool next year (yes, I said IF), I will be using a curriculum that tells me what to do each week with weekly support meetings like "Classical Conversations" and keep Co-op OR I will join a part-time school (2 days at school, 3 days at home).  


So, I will keep reflecting.