Busy but not forgotten!

So it is and was the Christmas season...a belated Merry Christmas to you all! I did manage to get some schooling in before taking these 2 weeks off. What I have focused on with JD was his writing and math. Basically I was repetitive with his writing his vowels, uppers and lowers, and wow! such growth! I will post pics on a later date:) He knows for memory 1-30 and recognizes in order 1-100 with help. I don't like to push but I was just wondering if he would pick up on the rhythm of the numbers, especially after 20. I was impressed that he met my challenge! So no I did not forget about my blog, but things have been quite crazy since Thanksgiving, that is when we went for a road trip to visit my mom. It was nice and JD had a BLAST watching the trains every 15 minutes, yes you read that correctly:) I hope your time with family was blessed. Looking forward to this new year! I promise to do better with my posts;P

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Watch my Flower Grow!

This is what we did for crafts today. Oh yeah! Hi everyone! we took last week off so I could focus on some serious cleaning that desperately needed to be done, and some pondering on how fast I want to push him along:) Came to the conclusion to do a lot of reviewing in different ways with the short vowels, and also review in numbers up to 50, but keep going through in the weather book. This week is "How does the weather help us?", and I figure we will just review the seasons too since November and December are crazy months for visiting:) He has finally succumbed to the fact that he HAS to color when told, but since this particular craft also had gluing and cutting in it, he was much more content especially when his flower moved up and down! LOL He has improved wonderfully on his cutting skills as you can see and also with his coloring ;) In all we had an excellent day and hopefully it will continue through out the week! Have a great night everyone!!!

Still Going!

I know I haven't kept up with my posts, but I am STILL GOING! My husband and I have finally found a homeschooling group close by that seems to be what we or I should say I am looking for. I hope I am not disappointed. UPDATE: have been pushing JD to sit still for a longer period of time to see how he does. Amazingly on average he does well. We are reviewing short vowel sounds and next week will be onto long vowels. I think on those I will definitely take a little longer with since they get more complicated, but in all we are mostly on track of where I think we should be for his age.

I am trying to keep my ears open for signs of tiredness so I don't lose his interest and am pushing him on coloring neatly rather than all over the place:P He might not be thrilled with it but tolerates it and gets the job done which I am happy to see. I can tell already that he is going to be my science guy rather than artist or phonics but that is okay. As long as he tries his best and gives 100% I shall not complain...well maybe just a little but I will work on it. So we shall keep on trucking along and both doing our best, and really that IS what it comes down to....DOING OUR BEST!!!

Till I write again,

Tara

Adventures in Homeschooling: Back on Track!

Adventures in Homeschooling: Back on Track!: "Okay.... had a rough 2 weeks here but and proud to say I am back on track! Yahoo! Now mind you still figuring things out but thanks to an aw..."

Back on Track!

Okay.... had a rough 2 weeks here but am proud to say I am back on track! Yahoo! Now mind you still figuring things out but thanks to an awesome husband who looked up the state laws of homeschooling, I realized I can breath ( inhale........exhale........). Lets see, we found out that state law says child must be in school by age 7 and continue through age 17 (check..actually ahead of the game:) ),next we have that homeschooling is recognize as a private school..hee hee so now I can just say he goes to private school, HA!, and last I must record or write down the books I used for what months and so on. So yes I can breath and also am proud to say John is getting the hang of rhyming words..yay!!! So I apologize to you all for not writing in a while, got a little bit off track but next week it will go a lot more smoothly. ( inhale....exhale...)

Weather Painting Craft

I put these two up so you all can see how much more willing he was to paint, which was fun! He wanted to paint for school so I came up with this four square of seasons to see what he remembered from the story but also recognition of what you can do. It was a huge success ! FYI- for winter it is snow balls:) white on white is a little difficult.

I have backed of a little bit on how much we do each day so neither one of us gets stressed for not staying to a "schedule". I am also doing some regrouping of my subjects and how it is best for him. I am hoping this helps him to learn from me flexibility so not everything has to be set in stone:) Sorry I have been slacking with my posts, hopefully will be on track better this week:)

weather mobile

Our art project dealing with the weather, basically the seasons! Obviously he was more excited being done than doing the coloring part of it. Fact number 1: MY SON HATES COLORING BUT WILL DO IT IF HE HAS TO! Fact number 2: We did enjoy doing it together and that is what matters. Have a great day everyone:)

Reality Check....

Okay so this week is going a little more smoothly:) However I have come to face facts that for me personally I need to realize I can't have to many things on my plate or I get over whelmed and stressed out. John deserves more than that from me, and doesn't deserve the left overs! So I have come to this.... home schooling is first and then in the afternoons will now be working as landscaper for my hubby's Aunt. I am not going to worry about getting a workout in right now since I need to at least finish out the front of her house before the frost comes, and in order to accomplish this I need to go over every day and get it done. Then when the cold sets in and we can't get out then I can fit work outs in:) TA DA!!! Having this little reality check might seem small but it is huge for me. Thanks for listening:) I found this site http://www.kidzone.ws/ it is great for those of who home school and also if you want to review with your child over the summer too....*HUGS*

So Proud!!!

Alright first things first...I am the proudest mom ever!!! He did excellent with the storyboard AND he used his own adorable imagination to tell a story with the pictures too!!! This is the story board that we are using for weather and "classroom decor" :) He was also able to recall the events that took place in the story...yahoo!!!! AND he has been getting better at his writing....FYI took your advice and am keeping to capitals and definitely is less confusing for him.

Now that I am at this new road in my life however, I am starting to realize I really have to start allotting more time for other things such as...CLEANING! My housework has been pushed to the side along with my workouts. All of the sudden I am realizing all the balls I actually have to jungle now. HHMMM...is all I can say. I did manage to mop floors which I am actually thankful are small so it doesn't take long and actually doing the self cleaning time on the oven. Okay I am doing a whine, but I am over it!! The Lord asked this of me and He will show me what I need to do for time management:) HOORAH!

So Much Better!

It is amazing the difference between this week and last!! WOW!!! For one it was definitely wise to change the number of pages to 1 each day...so much easier! He stays focused alot better. I also am proud to say that he can count to 30!! YAY!!! He makes me so proud! I also remember to set the timer which really does help. It might sound small to some people but it works and takes you out of the equation of "How much longer?" or having a weekly calender takes you out of the equation of "where do we go tomorrow?" or "What is next?", especially when it comes to lesson plans. I just bought a medium bulliten board so we can do a story time and he can help decorate it for each season. (I just came up with that idea today..lol) I am slowly getting my creative juices flowing again, and hopefully they will speed up! I think that is the sucky part of being an adult...it is harder to use the imagination. I really wish peter Pan was around:) Anyway we are doing alot better this week and looking forward to tomorrow! BRING IT!

what day is it????

Well lets see how this week is going...hmmm...so far I have manage to keep putting to much work on the table. Glad it is week one, so this is officially trial and error week, but anytime now it can just stop. Thankfully today was just review which was nice for both of us:) Well we know that 4 pages in phonics takes to long to do, and now I know that 2 lines of capitals and 2 lines of lower case A's is just too much! GOOD GRIEF! Yep its official apparently I am an overachiever:) LOL Today I did change it to 1 line of each Aa and that went better, but I am starting to think that maybe I should stick with the first few months with capital letters for practice and THEN introduce lowercase letters. Still toying with that idea. OPEN TO OPTIONS *HINT HINT*

So today was a ultra light day and in celebration of not killing each other went to the alligator playground:) It was definitely needed, but I know from this week what needs to be done for next and hopefully it will go more smoothly. Just got 2 more days and then start a new beginning again)

WHEW!!! Day 1 complete

WHEW!!! We made it! YAY!! AND we are still talking...heehee:) Talk about having to make a lot of adjustments, I definitely miscalculated how long it would take, forgot to set the timer for time allotment, and definitely pushed John to the limits for sitting. HA! BUT the good news is we did it and it went well for first day. Things I have learned are: 4 pages in a work book is to long for a boy to sit still and listen (honestly didn't think it would take that long, but it did) oh well, we need to practice cutting more often, and if you use m&m's as a bribe you can really get him focused;) Actually that was part of his math; we just introduced 1-100 and worked on 21- 30 outside on Frisbees. Wrote numbers 21 through 30 on them and threw them into the yard, he had 10 seconds to find the number starting with 21 and so on, then bring it back in that time. If he did he got 21 mm's and went from there. I think he enjoyed it enough to participate well.

All in all, I think Day 1 went well, I AM GLAD IT IS OVER! lol Looking forward to tomorrow. but will do 2 pages in phonics rather than 4 and might just have to do it more than 2 days and make it 4 instead. We'll see how it goes this week and make the necessary adjustments for next week:) FYI- just so I am clear on this, I DID ENJOY IT! I so enjoy seeing that light bulb go on and reach him on his level:)

Big Day Tomorrow

WOW! This week has flown by...and tomorrow I start our first day of kindergarten! I found a neat 1 week calendar at Office Depot over the weekend that is big enough to write each days schedule for JD:) I have been looking for one like this for a while, so this is exciting stuff for me. It even came with weather "colorforms" so we can put those on the days and he can understand weather as well as days of the week rolled into one! I KNOW! I'm a genius!! HAHA! I did actually look through the books today and wrote ideas of what I would like us to do for tomorrow (for those of you who were wondering;) ) Then while I was at it I decided to write my goals to hopefully accomplish by the end of the year. If they all don't happen that is okay because we can just focus on those and move ahead in others. See how that works people?? Pretty neat to work with your child's needs rather than against them, isn't it? Anyway, I really am looking forward to the BIG day tomorrow and am excited to see how he grows through this year:)

PS- how did I do honey? was it interesting;p love you!

Excitement for little things

So I have pointed the hard part of this schooling at home in my last blog, but who knew that I would now get so excited over a book for school! I know! Crazy right? But yes it is true. Tonight we went to the book store and while JD was hanging out playing trains I wondered....I do that a lot in the kids section, anyway I have been trying to find a way to incorporate science into his schooling but in away that is easy for him to understand. So as I wondered I looked up and there it was!!! My science book that I have been looking for!!! YAY!!! For any of you who are actually curious to wonder what it is titled......mmmmmm...kept you wondering didn't I:) HAHA! I digressed, I know I am just excited:) It is called...wait for it..... 365 SCIENCE EXPERIMENTS...I know it grabs you right at the title! Found it at Barnes and Nobles for bargain price of $10 rounded off. It is written and tested by teachers and is easily explained.

Just had to spread my joy to help make the world go round:) Lets get out there and LEARN!

The Countdown!

Well it is getting closer and closer to the big day....I think between setting up a plan and deciding when to start have been the 2 most difficult steps for me. So I finally decided that after labor day will be when we start, but then I notice all this activities that have come up started that week so it may delay things. That is the PLUS side of this direction in my life and John's, we can be flexible with homeschooling. So FYI it will be the week after labor day that we technically start, so it in countdown mode that will be 8 weekdays away, I don't include today or the weekends!

HMMMMM this wasn't so bad to blog after all:)

Let the games begin

Chronicles of homeschooling.
There is always a beginning.
There is always trial and error.

Just about the time you get it all figured out, its all over.