So I have heard that now for about 4 days straight and it is getting on my nerves. But yeah, I get it, she is really getting into coloring (and getting very good at it BTW), finger painting, and using her new talent......scissors!
Ever since we started the letter books she loves to cut paper, and she colors something at least once a day (fridge is FULL!). But I'm also trying to get her to understand that school is not always about art and that we have to learn about our letters and numbers and lots of other really great stuff.
So I have been trying to combine the two; we learn numbers and letters and add art to the mix. When she is learning her letters we do the books and color pictures that start with that particular letter. With numbers........well I'm still working on that one! And for right now that is all we are really concentrating on because due to my schooling she is a little behind on those things and I want to get her caught up before I go back in the Spring and she gets put on pause once more.
Today we learned the letter H and she came up with 4 words all on her own that started with that letter...(Horse, Helicopter, Heat, and Hug). She also did really well on the letter's F and G last week. She came up with 10 words for the letter F all by herself!
We also read two chapters of Charlotte's web again and a book on Thanksgiving. We went over numbers 11 through 20 (I'm trying to get her to recognize them). Tomorrow we are going to the library for story time!
Monday, November 16, 2009
Monday, November 9, 2009
My Fall Internship is Finally Over!
Oh and how so happy I am that I do not have to get up early in the morning anymore and go to work (at least till Spring). My internships are required for me to graduate and I have one more to do in the Spring and an online class; then I will be 100% done with school!!!
Which means...... no more interruptions in Aurora's schooling!!!
I started homeschooling Aurora again today and will keep going till January 6th when I will start my other internship and class, then unfortunately it will be put on hold once more till I graduate.
Now, for today's lessons with Aurora. She did really, really well today! She has been acting up a lot lately, coming into her own, and bringing along an attitude with her so I sat down with her and told her about the new "reward system" I was putting into play starting today. Basically I have plastic coins (got from Oriental Trading) and she gets 1 coin when she is caught being good (listening, helping around the house, sharing, being nice to the pets, etc) and get coins taken away for being "bad" (the opposite of everything above). It's working out great so far, she has already earned 3 coins today and had none taken away!
As far as actual schooling we had a very productive day reviewing the letters A-E and starting the letter F. She came up with at least 10 words that start with the letter F all by herself. Then she did a small project finding and cutting out upper and lowercase A's and B's out of old magazines (recycling) to put in a little book using part of a file folder that I had to cut up during my internship and brought the extra pieces home with me (also recycling). She learned how to spot the letters and how to use scissors and a glue stick.
Then after that we had lunch. She then practiced writing uppercase and lowercase F's. Then came the part she had been waiting for all day.... adding with candy corn (hence why I waited till after lunch for this). She did very well adding candy corn and learning the plus and equal signs.
After all this we were done but she said she wanted to play with some play-doh so she did. Then around 4pm she said she wanted to do more school!!! I so love that!!! So she sat down and started cutting out the letters C and D for another little book. Now she has ballet practice.
Tomorrow were going to Barnes and Noble for reading time!
Which means...... no more interruptions in Aurora's schooling!!!
I started homeschooling Aurora again today and will keep going till January 6th when I will start my other internship and class, then unfortunately it will be put on hold once more till I graduate.
Now, for today's lessons with Aurora. She did really, really well today! She has been acting up a lot lately, coming into her own, and bringing along an attitude with her so I sat down with her and told her about the new "reward system" I was putting into play starting today. Basically I have plastic coins (got from Oriental Trading) and she gets 1 coin when she is caught being good (listening, helping around the house, sharing, being nice to the pets, etc) and get coins taken away for being "bad" (the opposite of everything above). It's working out great so far, she has already earned 3 coins today and had none taken away!
As far as actual schooling we had a very productive day reviewing the letters A-E and starting the letter F. She came up with at least 10 words that start with the letter F all by herself. Then she did a small project finding and cutting out upper and lowercase A's and B's out of old magazines (recycling) to put in a little book using part of a file folder that I had to cut up during my internship and brought the extra pieces home with me (also recycling). She learned how to spot the letters and how to use scissors and a glue stick.
Then after that we had lunch. She then practiced writing uppercase and lowercase F's. Then came the part she had been waiting for all day.... adding with candy corn (hence why I waited till after lunch for this). She did very well adding candy corn and learning the plus and equal signs.
After all this we were done but she said she wanted to play with some play-doh so she did. Then around 4pm she said she wanted to do more school!!! I so love that!!! So she sat down and started cutting out the letters C and D for another little book. Now she has ballet practice.
Tomorrow were going to Barnes and Noble for reading time!
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Sooo Tired
Just to make this real quick we did art and history today. With art we talked about painting, looked at some painting and talked about them and then we painted little wooden pieces. She did a wonderful job on her tiny bird house.
And for history I taught her what a globe and a map means. Also, I taught her that there are 7 continents and 4 oceans plus the names of all. We also pointed out what country we live in and the state. She was really antsy during this lesson so I'm not 100% of the amount learned but we'll be reviewing on Thursday too, so we will see.
I also read to her alittle and went over again the days of the week.
And for history I taught her what a globe and a map means. Also, I taught her that there are 7 continents and 4 oceans plus the names of all. We also pointed out what country we live in and the state. She was really antsy during this lesson so I'm not 100% of the amount learned but we'll be reviewing on Thursday too, so we will see.
I also read to her alittle and went over again the days of the week.
Monday, August 31, 2009
Ohio and Today's Lessons
Well I guess it's a big my bad for not writing for so long but life unfortunately gets in the way sometimes. And today is not really any different, it's already 10pm and I have to get up early for my internship so this is going to be brief...
Aurora and I spend 3 weeks in Ohio visiting friends and family while daddy stayed home =( cause he couldn't get the time off work. I planned ABC and 123 lessons for her while we were up there, and it was enough to last the entire time there. Those were the only lessons I brought due to not wanting to "over pack".
Well after about day 3 of these lessons I realize that no matter how I come at her with the information (games, worksheets, hands on, verbal, etc) she just wasn't getting it, it just wasn't clicking for her. She was getting frustrated and frankly so was I (and I was actually being very patient). So I took to a couple of homeschooling groups I'm on and asked what I should do about it. Now I guess I should also tell you that this is not the first, second, or even third time I have attempted to teach her to recognize the alphabet and her numbers. The wonderful women gave me all real good advice but one stuck out.... just quit and come back to it! It may sound drastic or along the lines of giving up instead of trying harder or sticking to it but it really made the most sense to me. So I made the drastic move and stopped all the lessons all together! I know my child just as every other homeschooling mom or dad knows theirs and I felt that she was still not quite ready for this material yet; even at the age of 4 1/2! But to me this is all the beauty of homeschooling, you can stop something and come back to it at a later time for better comprehension; you can basically take your time on what you need time on.
So long story short since all I brought to Ohio were lessons of ABC's and 123's (and my mothers Internet was running at dial up speed, and the printer was out of ink) I was unable to proceed with homeschooling till I got back to NC. Now I did read to her a lot, play with her and teach her things here and there but nothing major. I did feel bad and sad though that yet again her education basically had to be put on hold.
But now we are back home and have been for a little over a week and we officially (again) started school today. I planned a math, science, and writing lesson today and then daddy read to her before she went to bed.
For math she was working on more or less and while doing that she actually did addition all by herself. When i was holding up a #3 and #2 flashcard, she pointed and said "mommy if you put 3 and 2 together they make 1,2,3,4,5.... they make 5"! OMG, I couldn't believe it, I was soooo proud of her for figuring that out all by herself. We did a couple of worksheets on the subject and played with Lego's trying to figure out which group of Lego's had more or less in it.
For science I reviewed her five senses with her. I read her a short story on them, and drew pictures of an eye, nose, mouth/tongue, ear, and a hand on our large white board and asked her which body part belonged with which sense and she did wonderful, although for some reason instead of saying taste she often says lick or eat, but she'll get it.
For writing/English we started a letter of the week thing and since this is the first week (again) we are doing the letter A (duh). So she traced the capital/uppercase A and the lower case a. She also got writing in by putting her name on her worksheets and writing numbers for math on those worksheets (see, I'm slippin those ABC's and 123's in a little at a time).
And then to round it out I started to teach her the days of the week. All in all I think she got a 92 out of 100 today on being good and learning!!! I can't wait for tomorrow!!!!
Aurora and I spend 3 weeks in Ohio visiting friends and family while daddy stayed home =( cause he couldn't get the time off work. I planned ABC and 123 lessons for her while we were up there, and it was enough to last the entire time there. Those were the only lessons I brought due to not wanting to "over pack".
Well after about day 3 of these lessons I realize that no matter how I come at her with the information (games, worksheets, hands on, verbal, etc) she just wasn't getting it, it just wasn't clicking for her. She was getting frustrated and frankly so was I (and I was actually being very patient). So I took to a couple of homeschooling groups I'm on and asked what I should do about it. Now I guess I should also tell you that this is not the first, second, or even third time I have attempted to teach her to recognize the alphabet and her numbers. The wonderful women gave me all real good advice but one stuck out.... just quit and come back to it! It may sound drastic or along the lines of giving up instead of trying harder or sticking to it but it really made the most sense to me. So I made the drastic move and stopped all the lessons all together! I know my child just as every other homeschooling mom or dad knows theirs and I felt that she was still not quite ready for this material yet; even at the age of 4 1/2! But to me this is all the beauty of homeschooling, you can stop something and come back to it at a later time for better comprehension; you can basically take your time on what you need time on.
So long story short since all I brought to Ohio were lessons of ABC's and 123's (and my mothers Internet was running at dial up speed, and the printer was out of ink) I was unable to proceed with homeschooling till I got back to NC. Now I did read to her a lot, play with her and teach her things here and there but nothing major. I did feel bad and sad though that yet again her education basically had to be put on hold.
But now we are back home and have been for a little over a week and we officially (again) started school today. I planned a math, science, and writing lesson today and then daddy read to her before she went to bed.
For math she was working on more or less and while doing that she actually did addition all by herself. When i was holding up a #3 and #2 flashcard, she pointed and said "mommy if you put 3 and 2 together they make 1,2,3,4,5.... they make 5"! OMG, I couldn't believe it, I was soooo proud of her for figuring that out all by herself. We did a couple of worksheets on the subject and played with Lego's trying to figure out which group of Lego's had more or less in it.
For science I reviewed her five senses with her. I read her a short story on them, and drew pictures of an eye, nose, mouth/tongue, ear, and a hand on our large white board and asked her which body part belonged with which sense and she did wonderful, although for some reason instead of saying taste she often says lick or eat, but she'll get it.
For writing/English we started a letter of the week thing and since this is the first week (again) we are doing the letter A (duh). So she traced the capital/uppercase A and the lower case a. She also got writing in by putting her name on her worksheets and writing numbers for math on those worksheets (see, I'm slippin those ABC's and 123's in a little at a time).
And then to round it out I started to teach her the days of the week. All in all I think she got a 92 out of 100 today on being good and learning!!! I can't wait for tomorrow!!!!
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
New Homeschool Group
So, I am part of this networking site just for mothers called CafeMom.com and I love this place! NO men NO kids, just moms! They have tons of groups on there you can join for just about any and everything your interested in; including homeschool. Now they do have tons of homeschool groups in general but when I was looking to see if there was one that just had various homeschooling resources tested by homeschooling moms.........nope didn't have one..........so I created one.
Homeschooling Resources is the new group on CafeMom.com that all homeschoolers and those thinking about homeschooling can go to look up reviews on books, curriculum, and websites. It also allows moms to put their ideas and organization techniques up on the board. There is a place for lesson plans, unit studies, and websites. I just started in this past Sunday and we already have 61 members!!!! My hope is that it turns into a valuable resource within itself that thousands of homeschooling moms around the world can turn to when they need fresh ideas! If you would like to join you must be a cafemom.com member first (and it's free to sign up) and then you just go to this link and sign up
http://www.cafemom.com/group/homeschoolingresources
Also, I found out that I will be traveling up to Ohio for about 2 1/2 weeks from the 3rd of August till about the 20th to visit with family before my Fall internship for my degree starts. I was looking forward to just getting on a decent schedule with homeschooling Aurora at home but it looks like i'll be doing it for a few weeks up there; but hey that's ok, that is the beauty of homeschool.... you can do it anywhere.
I'll post when I get up there and let you all know how I am doing with it.
Homeschooling Resources is the new group on CafeMom.com that all homeschoolers and those thinking about homeschooling can go to look up reviews on books, curriculum, and websites. It also allows moms to put their ideas and organization techniques up on the board. There is a place for lesson plans, unit studies, and websites. I just started in this past Sunday and we already have 61 members!!!! My hope is that it turns into a valuable resource within itself that thousands of homeschooling moms around the world can turn to when they need fresh ideas! If you would like to join you must be a cafemom.com member first (and it's free to sign up) and then you just go to this link and sign up
http://www.cafemom.com/group/homeschoolingresources
Also, I found out that I will be traveling up to Ohio for about 2 1/2 weeks from the 3rd of August till about the 20th to visit with family before my Fall internship for my degree starts. I was looking forward to just getting on a decent schedule with homeschooling Aurora at home but it looks like i'll be doing it for a few weeks up there; but hey that's ok, that is the beauty of homeschool.... you can do it anywhere.
I'll post when I get up there and let you all know how I am doing with it.
Friday, July 10, 2009
Working on getting organized and ready
So I just started this blog and I'm testing it out.
Right now I am working on getting some things organized to begin homeschooling in August after my Summer semester ends so that I can concentrate on her schooling and not mine. I'm really excited about getting started finally and begin pre-school lessons.
I know that someone might want to read this and follow the posts and maybe get some ideas on how to homeschool their kids, so for that reason I will give some background info on our family....
I am a wife of a active duty Air Force husband for the last 7 years, I myself was in the Air Force for 3 1/2 years when I got out to stay at home with Aurora. We live in NC right now, but that is the beauty of homeschooling.... wherever we go I can homeschool. Aurora just turned 4 in April, I will turn 27 in a few weeks. I am working on my associates degree right now, set to graduate next Spring. I grew up in Ohio and my husband grew up in upstate New York.
I choose to homeschool because I have pretty much lost all faith in the public school systems. Although, I do know that there are some decent ones out there, I would just prefer not to take any chances. I do not force homeschooling on anyone because it is not for everyone. I will answer any questions anyone has and help them in any way I can if they want and ask for it. We are not a religious family per say, although I do consider myself as a Pagan, my husband is more agnostic. I will not force my religion on my family, friends, or anyone else to include my daughter and how she learns. I fully intend when the time is right to teach her all of the major religions in the world and let her make her own choice when she is ready, if she chooses to have any religion at all.
I consider myself a very type A person: Organized, planning, scheduled, loyal, and won't take any shit kind of person. So right now I'm making sure all of my ducks are in a row before I begin with Aurora. I feel that the more I plan and organize the better prepared I will be to give her the best education I can provide. Although, I am willing to make any and all changes necessary to form around how my daughter learns. I consider my job is to educate her around what she needs, wants, and the different styles she may learn best from.
Now after saying all of this I must confess that I am nervous. I want this to work out so much that I am afraid of failing my daughter; but at the same time I understand that if there comes a time when I feel I am no longer adequate to give her the best education then I will hand it over to a private school hands. I do not consider myself a quitter by any means so I will do any and everything to try and make this work. I know I'm not perfect and I will make mistakes but that is part of the learning process for myself through all of this.
So anyway, I am not real great at keeping up with these sort of things but I will definitely try, but I will not post a whole lot until I actually start in August. And along the way I hope to make available of all the things I have created for Aurora and make it available to anyone that might want to use them too.
Right now I am working on getting some things organized to begin homeschooling in August after my Summer semester ends so that I can concentrate on her schooling and not mine. I'm really excited about getting started finally and begin pre-school lessons.
I know that someone might want to read this and follow the posts and maybe get some ideas on how to homeschool their kids, so for that reason I will give some background info on our family....
I am a wife of a active duty Air Force husband for the last 7 years, I myself was in the Air Force for 3 1/2 years when I got out to stay at home with Aurora. We live in NC right now, but that is the beauty of homeschooling.... wherever we go I can homeschool. Aurora just turned 4 in April, I will turn 27 in a few weeks. I am working on my associates degree right now, set to graduate next Spring. I grew up in Ohio and my husband grew up in upstate New York.
I choose to homeschool because I have pretty much lost all faith in the public school systems. Although, I do know that there are some decent ones out there, I would just prefer not to take any chances. I do not force homeschooling on anyone because it is not for everyone. I will answer any questions anyone has and help them in any way I can if they want and ask for it. We are not a religious family per say, although I do consider myself as a Pagan, my husband is more agnostic. I will not force my religion on my family, friends, or anyone else to include my daughter and how she learns. I fully intend when the time is right to teach her all of the major religions in the world and let her make her own choice when she is ready, if she chooses to have any religion at all.
I consider myself a very type A person: Organized, planning, scheduled, loyal, and won't take any shit kind of person. So right now I'm making sure all of my ducks are in a row before I begin with Aurora. I feel that the more I plan and organize the better prepared I will be to give her the best education I can provide. Although, I am willing to make any and all changes necessary to form around how my daughter learns. I consider my job is to educate her around what she needs, wants, and the different styles she may learn best from.
Now after saying all of this I must confess that I am nervous. I want this to work out so much that I am afraid of failing my daughter; but at the same time I understand that if there comes a time when I feel I am no longer adequate to give her the best education then I will hand it over to a private school hands. I do not consider myself a quitter by any means so I will do any and everything to try and make this work. I know I'm not perfect and I will make mistakes but that is part of the learning process for myself through all of this.
So anyway, I am not real great at keeping up with these sort of things but I will definitely try, but I will not post a whole lot until I actually start in August. And along the way I hope to make available of all the things I have created for Aurora and make it available to anyone that might want to use them too.
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