This just in....

Another update from my world...

Well, after much testing and crying and arguing with my doctor, he finally diagnosed me with gestational diabetes. I am working hard to control my glucose levels by eating the right foods. The kids are jealous of all my snacks...Neeener neener neener!

Puppy stays busy banging his hammer "fixing" lots of things. Also, he is no longer going by his given name...He is now either Bob, or Mater, Underdog, or any other character he decides to be. Some that he made up and that he is especially fond of are, Super Underpants, and Super Poop, and Super Naked. Toilet talk....Super!

Monkey boy is asking some great Santa questions this year....that's all I am saying.

Mouse is busy becoming a young lady. She primps and prisses all the time. She takes as long as me to get ready to leave the house these days.

Andrew is still helping out with Friday night football at the local private school. They are in the playoffs, and that means travel! Uh, did you know I am a big scaredy cat??? Well, I am, so it has been a miracle that I have endured the first away game. Tonight is a home game. Go Cougars!

As for me, I am starting to feel the nesting coming on. I think our holidays are going to a great time of cleaning and decluttering. Also, I think I want baby things up and organized by Christmas.

In the world of homeschooling....

We are going to make some ornaments to exchange with other users of our homeschool curriculum, Five in a Row. Tomorrow is the deadline for mail out. I will post on that soon.

We just finished up a semester of co-op with our local homeschool group. That has been fun. The kids have really enjoyed getting to know other homeschoolers. We return for the next semester right after the baby comes. We will see how that goes. 3 kids and a newborn...that is going to be a new experience.

Ok, so, that is all...hope you enjoyed this edition of Mommy Logic.

First Day of Fall

We love the Fall season here. The weather cools, the trees are painted a beautiful collage of color. Football season is in full swing. It is just an exciting time!

We are going to do lots of fun things this Fall. Identify and collect leaves. Watch for migrating birds. Make lots of things with pumpkin as a main ingredient. Enjoy the wonderful weather and journal in our nature journals.

I am going to browse through a wonderful resource from Five in a Row, the Fall Nature Study. I think the kids and I will read through parts of it together. Today they are going to do an Autumn word search, and I hope to get out some paint and let them paint something in Fall colors.

Hmmm...I may feel the need for a new header soon!

The Method to My Madness

The last few days around here have been full of planning school for next year. This is the second year we have started school the week after July 4th. Last year, I started early, because I knew there was a strong possibility that I would get overwhelmed frequently with a toddler at home, and having to teach both of my older kids for the first time, which would cause me to need frequent breaks.

This year we are starting early in order to have plenty recovery time after the baby is born. I have planned for 2 weeks off after the baby, but I assume we may not be quite ready at that point, and I want lots of wiggle room.

This year Monkey (7) will be using Five in a Row as his main curriculum for the last year. He will move on to FIAR Vol. 4 next year for half the year, then move into Beyond Five in a Row the second half. Mouse (9) will use Beyond Five in a Row and a few Volume 4 titles as a break in between Beyond titles. Puppy (2 almost 3) will be doing some light activities from Before FIAR.

This is the way I plan:

First, I sit down and write down all of my fabulous ideas for the year. Like, things I want to improve upon, and things that I think need special attention. This year those areas are writing, and spelling. We will also work on calendaring. That idea has not cemented in Monkey's brain yet.

I also write down all of the curriculum we will be using for the year. This year looks like this:

FIAR Vol 1-3

BYFIAR - Vol 1-3

Sequential Spelling

Growing with Grammar

Horizons Mathematics

Handwriting from LightHome Publications

Story of the World - 2 days a week

Piano - 1 day a week (practice each day)

Then I make a general outline of how I want the day to go. Just to get an idea of what I am in for. Hee hee.

Next, I make a year long calendar on my favorite publishing program, Microsoft Publisher. I print it out with 2 months on a page. I print out the list of books used in FIAR, and all plannig wisdoms I have gathered from the authors of FIAR. Then I find a good pencil and an eraser and all of my FIAR volumes and a comfy place to sit. Currently, my bed.

I go through and check all of the books that we have already done off the book list. I also mark off all the days we will not do school on the calendar. I find that it helps me decide what kind of unit, or which unit we will do that week, if I know in advance it will be a short week.

Now I am ready to fill in my weeks with books we haven't yet rowed. I try to group them seasonally, so they will be relevant to the time of year we are in. Doing Cranberry Thanksgiving in March, just isn't going to work!

Normally there are 36 weeks in a standard 180 day school year. So that is 36 titles...or what I did this year was 33 FIAR titles and one Vol. 4 that takes 2 weeks, and one review week. This will have us finish school the last day of April, because we will take several breaks.

After I have assigned a book per week, the really hard part comes. I sit down with the manual, and look at each title in detail. I choose which activities/subjects we will cover for each book based on what the child needs to focus on, what we have already learned, or what his interest is. I will ask my child frequently which he would prefer to study. I want him to feel like he can direct some of his learning. Also, at times, I cannot decide, and can't figure out what he would like best, so asking him seems to be the best way to relieve the pressure from my brain! I write all these things down on the calendar. Then I put them back into my calendar on Publisher. I know I could skip this step by just typing straight into Publisher, but I like the feel of a pen and paper sometimes.

Then, when I do all that, I go post on the FIAR boards about how much I rock!

Here is a sample of one month of planning. I think you may be able to click on the pic and make it bigger. I hope so.

It's a Bug Hunt!

The other day we were enjoying the weather and the kids declared NATURE DAY! They are so in love with the outdoors. We found some pretty cool things.

A funnel web spider.

Some tent caterpillars.

An underwing caterpillar, we think. Monkey climbed a tree to find this one. Look at the awesome camoflouge on it. Amazing!

These bugs are mating. Go ask your mom what that means.

FUN School - Arabella Week Two

Week one of Funschool was very fun. We did not get to everything on our plans, but we did most of it. Some things we will try to catch up on this week. Especially studying the Great Barrier Reef and storytelling.

Monday:
Social Studies - Relationships & Learning - Island Life - Review Australia
Science - Build an Island (Volcano building)
LA - Storytelling

Relationships and Learning: We will discuss why it is important that we learn things in stages. Building one idea on top of another. This will also be taught in a spiritual way. Heavenly Father loves us and teaches us in stages. Using Isaiah 28:9-10

Island life - I used to live on an island, Crystal Beach, TX, it was fabulous. We will talk about the pros and cons.

Australia Review - Where is it? What animals live there? etc.

Language Arts: Storytelling
Mouse wrote the story to a boy, a dog, and a frog. It turned out quite nice. She is trying hard to write so she can be "published"! I have seen a huge improvement in her writing lately.

I will have Monkey narrate his story to me later.

Science: Islands
Mouse wants to make an island as part of our study. Being the new and improved homeschooler that I am we are going to do it! We read a book from the Magic School Bus series on volcanoes and how an island is formed. This will be fun. We are going to make a volcano, and then if she wants to make a dirt island outside we will do that too.

Tuesday:
LA - Descriptive Sentences/Lists, an extra for Mouse: Parallel Construction
Science: The Great Barrier Reef

We will use some books I found at a library sale to supplement our study of the GBR. We will learn about coral, and the fish that live among it.

Wednesday:
Art - Medium - Watercolor
We will paint nautical scenes on real watercolor paper. It should be fun! I was thinking of tying this in with the GBR study and painting coral, or saltwater fish.

Thursday:
Applied Math - Parts of a Whole in Real Life
Science: Clouds

Friday:
Science: Tides

Dinner will be seafood po boys.

Pictures will come as they happen!

FUN School - Arabella Week One

The next two weeks are an attempt to make our homeschool fun again. We got a little focused on workbooks, and just doing the basics and it got B-O-R-I-N-G! This involves hands on science all week. (My kids idea.) Also I have to step up the art lessons.

This is what we are doing with the Five in a Row book Arabella by Wendy Orr. This book is a story about a boy and his grandfather and the model ship Arabella. The model gets lost at sea during a storm, and the little boy goes after it. The boy makes it safely home with the Arabella but learns that his grandfather values him most of all the things in his life.

Monday:
Social Studies - Discover Australia
Science - Weather Observation

A while back a friend from the FIAR boards sent us this book as a surprise. It is signed and there is a note to the kids from Wendy Orr. Very nice. It was shipped from Australia, where Wendy Orr now resides. So we are studying Australia.

Today we completed a Highlights Top Secret Adventure that cover Australia.

We are also going to make a bottle thermometer, a barometer and a wind speedometer from the instructions in the Usborne Big Book of Experiments.

Tuesday:
Language Arts - Simile, Storytelling, Vocabulary
Science - Rope and Knot Tying

We have the book a boy, a dog, and a frog by mercer mayer . This is a wordless book, and both Mouse and Monkey will write a story for this book.

Mouse will do the Vocabulary words in the FIAR Vol. 4 book. Monkey will learn about similes.

Andrew will be teaching us basic knots during Family Home Evening on Tuesday. We are pretty excited about that. I am sure I will "tie" in a demonstration on how family unity can be represented by a rope. I am sure the Godhead will be demonstrated also as they are 3 individuals united in one purpose.

This is the Double Half Hitch knot:

This is the Sheet Bend knot:

Wednesday:
Art: Model Ship Building
Science: Parts of a Wave/Reefs (The Great Barrier Reef)

We are going to build models of ships from toothpicks. We will also make the Crayola models of The Black Pearl and The Flying Dutchmen from Pirates of the Caribbean. I found them at Goodwill for $2.

Thursday:
Applied Math: Parts to Make a Whole
Science: Blood Cells

We will find real life fractions. This will not be intense. We will keep it light and fun. They get a ton of fraction practice in their math curriculum.

We will look at this website on blood. We enjoyed learning about how our blood is such a help to our body. We watched the Magic School Bus show Inside Ralphie. Note to me: It is so much better to study something then let them watch the movie. We discussed and reviewed it as we watched. Very good!

Friday:
Science: Sailing
Field Trip to a local marina.

We will talk about sailing concepts, and the general principles of aerodynamics and the use of simple machines. (straight from the manual)

We are using many books to aid in our studies this week. Our "Learning Library" is full of fun and interesting books on all topics we will cover over the next two weeks.

I will update with pictures as they happen.

The Most Hideous Day!

This morning is the Monday after a non-stop weekend! We are all a bit tired and the house is more than a little worse for wear. So, I call to the Monkey to wake up this morning. He wakes up whining...
"MOM, I declare every Monday as break day from school!"
Why Monkey boy?
"Because they are our most hideous days!!! We have to clean all day, and then do school, and then we are late for Family Home Evening! Please, mom! School break?"

No dice baby!

Some thoughts!

It seems that every January we hit a funk. It is usually do to the weather and post holiday blahs. Well, I saw this coming this year. I knew it was probably going to happen. The following are a few ideas to prevent total homeschool meltdown in January.

Find some good books that you all enjoy and read them out loud.

Find a way to change your thinking every day. Challenge yourself to do something fun and fresh each week. Invite a friend to join your challenge.

We are doing some Top Secret Adventure Packs from Highlights that are adding a little bit more fun to our daily grind. We are also doing some fun Science experiments from some kits we got at Christmas.

Focus on your reasons for homeschooling. Are you doing it to make your kids the smartest, best behaved kids on the block? Because it is popular...? Or are you doing it to develop relationships that last and instill a love of learning. Are you doing it because it was something you are called to do? Then trust in the One who called you.

Steve Lambert, publisher of our homeschool curriculum Five in a Row, has an excellent talk about homeschooling. He says this is a marathon, not a sprint. And on that marathon there are some steep hills and January to me is one of these hills. I have to remember that there is a great downhill stretch up ahead.