After a hectic weekend, that involved princesses and a birthday party for Miss Abigail it is time to get back in the swing of things. We are slowly winding down our school year. The kids are busy playing outside right now instead of doing schoolwork. The babies are napping while I am here with my unknown number cup of coffee lol
Today has started off on a good note. Braeden had his well baby check up today and because he isn't talking or walking (well he walk but only a few steps at a time) they have referred him for the whole therapy bundle. Speech, physical and occupational therapies. I am happy they listened to my concerns and also didn't seem to bat an eye when I said I wanted to wait on his next round of vaccinations. I guess I am lucky that his pediatrician is so awesome!
Due to his lack of speech we have been incorporating signing into our daily lives. Right now its just the basics because I am reteaching myself A.S.L. And Jade is picking up on it very quickly. She already knows mama, daddy, thank you, eat, drink, sorry, all done, and more. Braeden is still working on getting the coordination down to make the signs. But he tries at times to sign more and eat. Which is about right for him, he loves to eat! lol
Moving on towards school with Noah and Abigail. Right now it is too sunny and wonderful outside for them to focus, so we have swapped our hours. They play in the mornings and evenings, and we do school during the afternoons! That is one of the greatest things about this homeschooling thing, we can do it whenever we want and we can do whatever we want as long as we are learning!
Monday, April 30, 2012
Friday, April 27, 2012
Reading Eggs!
I was given the awesome opportunity through The Homeschool Lounge to get a free trial at ReadingEggs.com
I have to say that I had to invest in purchasing a membership with the website. All three of my children love the site.
My 8 year old, Noah, loves the fact that as he reads and does the quizzes that come after the story/chapter book he had read, he earns gold eggs (hence the name Reading Eggs). Then he can take his eggs and use them as currency to buy things. He has his own 'apartment' that is decorated his way, with pets, and his own clothes on his avatar. He would stay on this website and play all day every day if I let him. I have had to start limiting his time on the site in order to get other things done.
My 7 year old, Abigail, likes the games that the site has to offer. She enjoys the phonics game that comes with the site, as she is still having difficulty reading at times. There are games that isn't really educated related but it is still something that she can do and learn about at the same time. She also likes earning the eggs and using them in the stores to buy different costumes for her avatar.
My 2 year old, Jade, likes doing school with the older kids. So a lot of times while I am busy helping Abigail with her assignments, Noah will sit at the desk with Jade and do her little lessons with her. She is doing the phonics lessons, where she learns what the letter is, what it looks like and what sound it makes. She is catching on pretty quick and will tell you that T is TA for turtle and B is BA for ball.
I feel very lucky to have been given the change to get a free trial for this website. It has been a headache saver on those days when it seems like everything has gone wrong with our lessons and so to make sure the kids get some learning in for the day, I let them loose on the readingeggs.com website!
The Home School Lounge
Reading Eggs
I have to say that I had to invest in purchasing a membership with the website. All three of my children love the site.
My 8 year old, Noah, loves the fact that as he reads and does the quizzes that come after the story/chapter book he had read, he earns gold eggs (hence the name Reading Eggs). Then he can take his eggs and use them as currency to buy things. He has his own 'apartment' that is decorated his way, with pets, and his own clothes on his avatar. He would stay on this website and play all day every day if I let him. I have had to start limiting his time on the site in order to get other things done.
My 7 year old, Abigail, likes the games that the site has to offer. She enjoys the phonics game that comes with the site, as she is still having difficulty reading at times. There are games that isn't really educated related but it is still something that she can do and learn about at the same time. She also likes earning the eggs and using them in the stores to buy different costumes for her avatar.
My 2 year old, Jade, likes doing school with the older kids. So a lot of times while I am busy helping Abigail with her assignments, Noah will sit at the desk with Jade and do her little lessons with her. She is doing the phonics lessons, where she learns what the letter is, what it looks like and what sound it makes. She is catching on pretty quick and will tell you that T is TA for turtle and B is BA for ball.
I feel very lucky to have been given the change to get a free trial for this website. It has been a headache saver on those days when it seems like everything has gone wrong with our lessons and so to make sure the kids get some learning in for the day, I let them loose on the readingeggs.com website!
The Home School Lounge
Reading Eggs
Thursday, April 26, 2012
Weekly Round-up
First things first, I want to say that Miss Jade is well on her way to being potty trained. She hasn't had a pee accident all week and only one poop accident yesterday! Needless to say I am beyond excited at this.
Noah and Abigail are in the homestretch of finishing this school year out. We have 30 (maybe less) days left of school. So we are finishing up and getting ahead with lessons, etc.
And I am going to spend the weekend, finishing up and finalizing the first month's worth of lesson plans. And then loosely set the second month up. This way, I can stay on top of everything!
This week has been quite the hectic on top of all of this going on. Abigail's birthday is tomorrow, and her party is Saturday, so we have been getting the house party ready! And she is bouncing off the walls with excitement. We have been busy practicing our karate, because they have a test to advance to their green and white belts next week. I have a job interview tomorrow, and I have been giving a possible work at home opportunity. So it has most definitely been a busy busy week!
On other topics, Daddy is in the countdown for his next hip surgery. We are hoping this fix all of his problems and he can be well on his way to getting better!
Noah and Abigail are in the homestretch of finishing this school year out. We have 30 (maybe less) days left of school. So we are finishing up and getting ahead with lessons, etc.
And I am going to spend the weekend, finishing up and finalizing the first month's worth of lesson plans. And then loosely set the second month up. This way, I can stay on top of everything!
This week has been quite the hectic on top of all of this going on. Abigail's birthday is tomorrow, and her party is Saturday, so we have been getting the house party ready! And she is bouncing off the walls with excitement. We have been busy practicing our karate, because they have a test to advance to their green and white belts next week. I have a job interview tomorrow, and I have been giving a possible work at home opportunity. So it has most definitely been a busy busy week!
On other topics, Daddy is in the countdown for his next hip surgery. We are hoping this fix all of his problems and he can be well on his way to getting better!
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
PEN PALS!!!
I finally got all the information back in for the kid's pen pals. Noah has a pen pal that is his age that lives in Delaware, Abigail has a pen pal her age that lives in Northern Oregon and Jade has a pen pal that is a little bit older than her that lives in Southern Oregon! Noah and Abigail wrote letters to their pen pals this morning as part of their school work and I will be assisting Jade with her letter/picture later. I am so excited for them to have this experience, because it is something so awesome for them and it is completely not computer related! Although I found their pen pals from the computer lol
Hopefully they will make a life long friend like this!
Hopefully they will make a life long friend like this!
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Spring Break
Well today is the official start up after spring break! While I enjoyed the break, I like the normalcy of our routines.
Some great things happened over spring break. Jade is well on her way to being potty trained! Yay me! Braeden took his first steps and is slowly becoming a walker, but still isn't talking much. But his babbling has increased over the past few days, so he should be a talker soon also! Abigail has a case of poison oak, she was out back playing with the green leaf stuff growing, making salads and I didn't realize exactly what it was she was playing pretend cooking show with. We get to go out back now and survey everything and start chopping it down! YAY US! Noah has been kind of quite the past week, when schedules change he tends to either shut down a little bit or just become a total brat. Its been a mixture of both sides this week, but now we are on our way to fixing it!
Other than that, nothing much is going on around here. Just finishing out the school year with Connections Academy and I am still working on putting together at least the first few weeks of lesson plans for us doing school on our own! Oh and still job hunting too! Life is always busy with something lol
Some great things happened over spring break. Jade is well on her way to being potty trained! Yay me! Braeden took his first steps and is slowly becoming a walker, but still isn't talking much. But his babbling has increased over the past few days, so he should be a talker soon also! Abigail has a case of poison oak, she was out back playing with the green leaf stuff growing, making salads and I didn't realize exactly what it was she was playing pretend cooking show with. We get to go out back now and survey everything and start chopping it down! YAY US! Noah has been kind of quite the past week, when schedules change he tends to either shut down a little bit or just become a total brat. Its been a mixture of both sides this week, but now we are on our way to fixing it!
Other than that, nothing much is going on around here. Just finishing out the school year with Connections Academy and I am still working on putting together at least the first few weeks of lesson plans for us doing school on our own! Oh and still job hunting too! Life is always busy with something lol
Thursday, April 5, 2012
Playing Catch Up!
We have been behind a couple of lessons for the past couple of weeks. And since Connections Academy follows public school guidelines, they needed all past due assignments turned in today or the kids would be getting zeros. So we have been busy all morning getting the couple of things turned in. Now that Noah has seen there are online 25 lessons left in his Language Arts class and about the same in his other classes he is determined to get school work done for the year through spring break next week. So now we are working on a unit test in L.A.
After lunch, I get to switch kids and do all of Abigail's work with her. Then grocery shopping. WOOHOO!
After lunch, I get to switch kids and do all of Abigail's work with her. Then grocery shopping. WOOHOO!
Tuesday, April 3, 2012
The Job Hunt Maybe Over!
I think, I think, I think, I might have just found a job. Its at the local Pizza Hut, but its a job and its a start. Now that means I am going to have to work extra hard into finishing up this school year (because Daddy is completely lost on where we are at now lol) and getting stuff put together, worksheets printed out and ready for school when it starts after our summer break! Things just got a lot more exciting for us... I love excitement!!! I will be posting my first week lesson plans by the end of the week!
***On a side note: my grandpa seems to be responding well to the chemotherapy and when he went to the doctor yesterday, the doc said that his tumors were shrinking. He is able to eat again, little things like jello, pudding and ice cream. So things are looking very optimistic for him!***
***On a side note: my grandpa seems to be responding well to the chemotherapy and when he went to the doctor yesterday, the doc said that his tumors were shrinking. He is able to eat again, little things like jello, pudding and ice cream. So things are looking very optimistic for him!***
Monday, April 2, 2012
WooHoo!!
As March comes to an end and April charges in (yeah I know corny lol), I have found myself spending more and more time on building next year's curriculum. I am super duper excited about, as is the kids. They can't wait to get started on what they are calling Mama's school. We've been tossing around school names and I think we have settled on Largent Learning Academy, now to make a sign to hang over the door that comes into our classroom corner. I am still working on getting that set up. I still have a dishwasher where my desk is suppose to go, and then as I was thinking I can move the dishwasher out of the way today, I realized that I don't have a chair for my desk, so now I get to go thrift store hunting for a pretty chair :-)
But on to more exciting things. I have finally finished putting together everything, now I am in the middle of writing out lesson plans and getting worksheets printed for the first month of school. I want everything to be ready to kick off for a great day of school, just in case I have a job and Daddy has to be the teacher!
After lots of thinking, I think its going to be best to put science and history together. Well not together, but teach Noah and Abigail together on the subjects. This way there is really only Math and Language that has to be done separately. Now here is the list of science things we will be exploring
Dinosaur Fossils
Plants and Animals of the Sea
Trees
Types of Trees
Flowers
Edible Flowers
Forest Plants
Eye of the Storm
Hurricanes
Volcanos and Glaciers
Earthquakes
-Thinking of adding in Tornados with Hurricanes, not sure yet-
Simple Machines
Meet the Scientist (gotta choose a scientist or two for this one)
Frog and Butterfly Life Cycles
Animal Babies
Extinct Animals- Dinosaur
More Extinct Animals
Desert Plant and Animal Habitat
Forest "
Ocean"
What is Weather
Seasons
Climate
Water Cycle
Planet Earth
Rocks
Geological Time Scale
Exploring Sun
" Moon
" Stars
Space Explorations
Air and Atmosphere
Magnets and Forces
Exciting isn't it? Now granted this is the exact way its going to be put together, some things are going to be rearranged and then stuff may be taken away or put in, but its a rough sketch. Each topic is going to be broken down into a week's worth of lessons. And I am trying to make sure that either the History topic or Science topic has an art project at the end of the week. Like for dinosaurs, I am going to buy the 3-d wooden puzzles and that is going to be our project for that week!
I am also looking at adding in Sign Language as their extra curricular activity. So now I am looking for resources for that, to teach them along with my two year old and one year old.
A fun fun school year lies ahead of me, and I can't wait!!!
But on to more exciting things. I have finally finished putting together everything, now I am in the middle of writing out lesson plans and getting worksheets printed for the first month of school. I want everything to be ready to kick off for a great day of school, just in case I have a job and Daddy has to be the teacher!
After lots of thinking, I think its going to be best to put science and history together. Well not together, but teach Noah and Abigail together on the subjects. This way there is really only Math and Language that has to be done separately. Now here is the list of science things we will be exploring
Dinosaur Fossils
Plants and Animals of the Sea
Trees
Types of Trees
Flowers
Edible Flowers
Forest Plants
Eye of the Storm
Hurricanes
Volcanos and Glaciers
Earthquakes
-Thinking of adding in Tornados with Hurricanes, not sure yet-
Simple Machines
Meet the Scientist (gotta choose a scientist or two for this one)
Frog and Butterfly Life Cycles
Animal Babies
Extinct Animals- Dinosaur
More Extinct Animals
Desert Plant and Animal Habitat
Forest "
Ocean"
What is Weather
Seasons
Climate
Water Cycle
Planet Earth
Rocks
Geological Time Scale
Exploring Sun
" Moon
" Stars
Space Explorations
Air and Atmosphere
Magnets and Forces
Exciting isn't it? Now granted this is the exact way its going to be put together, some things are going to be rearranged and then stuff may be taken away or put in, but its a rough sketch. Each topic is going to be broken down into a week's worth of lessons. And I am trying to make sure that either the History topic or Science topic has an art project at the end of the week. Like for dinosaurs, I am going to buy the 3-d wooden puzzles and that is going to be our project for that week!
I am also looking at adding in Sign Language as their extra curricular activity. So now I am looking for resources for that, to teach them along with my two year old and one year old.
A fun fun school year lies ahead of me, and I can't wait!!!
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