Native Americans

I've been putting together our study on Native Americans. For the spines I will be using History Pockets Native Americans, and North American Indians by Herman J. Viola. I've never used History Pockets before so I'm excited to get this in my hands. I know my dc will love the activities in it and putting together folders for each tribe. My library has North American Indians so I will be checking this out on and off throughout our studies. This is a wonderful resource. There are beautiful paintings by Bryn Barnard of a scene from each tribe at the beginning of each chapter. This will be wonderful for doing picture studies. I'm still doing some research for what books and crafts we will be doing for each tribe but here is a list of the tribes we will be learning about.

Region/Tribe

Arctic-Inuit
Southwest-Navajo and Zuni
Northwest-Haida and Tlingit
Plateau-Nez Perce
The Great Plains-Sioux
Northeast-Iroquois
Southeast-The Seminole and the Cherokee

My choose each tribe based on the tribes mentioned in my spines and what books are available at my local library.

Weekly Report and Nature walk

I hate to say it again but we didn't do much school work this week. Monday we woke up to an inch of snow and the kids had to go outside and play in it. They were so excited that it had snowed that they played outside for about 2 hours in the morning and then for about 2 hours in the afternoon. I couldn't get them to come in long enough to get any school work done. Then on Tuesday they wanted to back out and play with the little bit of snow that hadn't melted. We also attempted our first nature walk on Tuesday. We walked around our house. They weren't that amused with it and when I asked them what they had seen Speed Racer said trees, grass, our house. Princess did come up with a good question. She asked what kind of fruit grows in the winter. It told her that in the north things don't grow because it is too cold and the ground is frozen. I need to research what does grow in the southern states in the winter.

Math: We are in the last workbook of math 2! Yippie! They did 3 lessons this week and are working on the triplet 16, 9, 7. I can't be happier with how the are learning the addition and subtraction facts!

Grammar: I've decided to switch to another grammar program. First Language Lessons just isn't working for us. I'm looking into Growing with Grammar, or Primary Language Lessons, or both.

History: We reviewed chapters 4, 5, 6, and 7. I was amazed at what they had remember!

Poetry: We are memorizing. I Heard A Bird Sing by Oliver Herfor. You can read this on my sidebar. It's a sweet short poem. We haven't memorized poetry in awhile so I thought we would start with something short.

Writing: We are using Writing With Ease. I don't have the workbooks that go along with this so it doesn't always get done. I've decided to put them both in level one for now. Princess is better at narrating than Speed Racer but I thought it wouldn't hurt her any and I can always beef it up some for her.

It was so nice out on Thursday, an unseasonably warm 58 degrees, that we went on a real nature walk. We live in the suburbs, but we have a small line of woods that borders our sub-division. We have never ventured through them so I thought this would be perfect for our first nature walk. We were surprised to find a marked trail with bridges and everything! The kids were so excited. I wasn't thinking ahead of time and did not dress for the occasion! I didn't have tennis shoes on because my last pair bit the dust a couple of months ago. I don't know why but I wasn't expecting it to be muddy! Plus Sweetie Pie was in a dress with tights...umm like I said I wasn't thinking. I brought our camera along to take pictures and after only taking 4 or 5 my memory card was full so I started to delete some old pictures and then the battery went dead! LOL It really turned into quite an adventure. We found a small stream that was partly frozen over. At a few spots along the stream there were logs going across so the kids decided to walk across the logs. Casanova was so cute, he didn't want to stand up so he crawled across by putting each leg on one log. They were having such a great time I had trouble keeping track of them all. They kept running in different directions. At one point I thought I had lost Casanova! I told him to wait for me while I showed Princess how to get back across the stream, after walking across once she was scared to come back across. By the time I showed her another way Casanova was nowhere in sight! I started screaming for him and eventually he came running. I told him he needed to stay where I could see him. At the point I decided we had enough for the day and they each moaned and groaned as we headed back home. I told them we would come back another day. I'm so happy they had such a great time, and we have the perfect spot for our nature walks! Our lessons for The Outdoor Challenge didn't get done because they wouldn't stay quiet long enough to listen to the sounds of nature, they were just happy to be out in it!

Preschool

I'm still in the process of piecing together preschool for Casanova. He has enjoyed making his ABC book. Our library has an elson machine so I've punched out A's and B's and some pictures of things that start with those letters. Today he wanting to do another page so I gave him the materials to make his B page. He really seems to enjoy doing this and is wanting to work on it all the time. I had originally wanted him to do a letter a week in it but it might be more like a letter a day! LOL

I purchased the above workbook for him and so far he hasn't shown any interest in it. He is still upset about me throwing his last workbook away. The one that was his brothers math workbook that had already been worked in! I think this preschool one looks like a lot more fun then that old dog eared workbook!

I'm still going through Unplugged Play and pulling out a lot of ideas to keep Cassanova and Sweetie Pie busy during school time. My plan is to put a picture on an index card of an activity and then let Casanova choose from 4 or 5 different ones throughout the day. I want to come up with 20 activities to rotate during the week to keep Casanova busy and out of trouble!

Homeschooling Ramblings Part 1

I've been trying to put the words together for this post for awhile and they just aren't coming to me. I'm not the greatest writer or even speaker for that matter. Words have never been by friend so I have a hard time conveying my thoughts and feelings but hear goes!

When I first told my older dc that we were going to homeschool they were happy and excited about it. Princess had gone to ps for kindergarten and first grade. Speed Racer had gone to kindergarten. I was pregnant with Sweetie Pie when we started that July. I had wanted to get a head start on things before the new baby came. I didn't have everything we needed to start so I did my best just to make do with what we had. I had gotten a couple of math workbooks from barnes and nobles, OPGTR, Explode the Code, and a couple of binders for narration, and copywork. When we started they hated it. I did the best I could but I soon tired easily because of being pregnant and so we ended up only doing school for maybe an hour a day. Then the baby came in October and so I decided to take a break until January. I didn't realize how hard homeschooling would be with a baby and a very jealous Casanova! It sucked! If the baby wasn't crying and wanting to be held all the time, Casanova was causing trouble or wanting attention or both. I've been trying for a year now to figure out how to homeschool with two little ones and two older ones who have bad attitudes and think that the grass is greener on the other side (at school) lol

I've come to realize that my attitude about life hasn't helped them any. Since we moved away from my family almost 4 years ago I have changed a lot and not for the better. I'm trying my best to change my attitude and outlook on life. I know my attitude directly affects my dc and our journey with homeschooling. Now every time I try to do something with them no matter how happily I'm doing it they still mumble and grumble. I know it'll take all of us time to change. The road ahead is a long one but I am committed to these children and the choice that I have made to educate them at home.

Winter Wednesday

Okay, I know I'm a little late in posting this but we will just blame it on the weather!! I waited and waited for it to snow and it just never did. Where we live we usually just get a dusting of snow but on rare occassion we will get a couple of inches. The kids have been patiently waiting for it to snow. I think they have finally gotten used to the fact that we just don't get much snow where we live. We come from Ohio which usually gets a lot of snow each year. This will be our fourth winter where we are living now and I think the kids have learned to live without it. But believe me, as soon as the snow starts to fly they are bundling up and heading outside before it blows away!

For our Winter Wednesday study I decided to read a couple of books, SnowFlake Bently, and Princess read one to everyone called Winter. Then they gather round me at the computer and we looked at some pictures we took of them playing in the snow last year and talked about how the colors looked brightered up againsted the white snow. Then I had them draw a picture on white paper representing snow.

Preschool Plans

I started preschool with Casanova this week. He loves getting up at the table and doing school work with the other two. The problem I'm running into is that he wants to do the exact same thing that they are doing. For example the other day I gave Princess and Speed Racer a speed drill, when Casanova got up at the table and said he wanted one too I tried to give him a worksheet more on his level and he threw a fit! I would have just given him a speed drill to scribble all over but I didn't have another one. He likes to work in one of Speed Racers old math workbooks that is already filled in...go figure!



My library has some Monday Morning books in the reference section where you are allowed to make 10 copies a day for free! They have the Alphabet Creatures, Number Creatures, Alphabet Puppets, & ABC Mini Books. I have been making some copies each time we go to the library for Casanova. These books will be a great help to me for preschool with Casanova. I was really beginning to wonder what I was going to do with him and now I've found the answer. I'm also having him make his own ABC book. Yesterday he made the title page and then worked on the first page of his book letter A. I am using 8X8 scrapbook paper for this. I'm hoping to be able to buy him a cheap scrapbook soon to put his pages in before they all get lost!

I've been gathering a lot of resources online for preschool. There is so much out there I get overwhelmed. I'm hoping to post what I come up with soon. I'm also trying to come up with some ideas of activities for Casanova and Sweetie Pie to keep them occupied while I work with the older two. I found this great book called "Unplugged Play" By Bobbie Conner at my library. It has activities for kids ages 1-12. There are so many great and simple ideas in it I can't believe I didn't think of some of them myself! For instance one idea is to hide toys in a pillowcase for your 1 year old and let them do what they please with it! What a great idea for Sweetie Pie who has lately been putting toys in and out of baggies! She has been having a blast with this so I know this should be something she would love. An idea for Casanova is to make an obstacle course with empty cans and use ping-pong balls and a new flyswatter to guide the balls through the course with. We are going to have a lot of fun with this book.

I'm hoping to pull everything together soon for our preschool work so I can post all the wonderful resources that are available online!

Sweetie Pie is still sick

I went ahead and took sweetie pie back to the doctor last night. The same doctor that was there when I took all of the kids was there again last night. I though, oh wonderful I wonder what he is going to say now. He listened to her lungs and told me that the penicillin wasn't strong enough and put her on amoxicillin and gave me the same medicine he gave Princess and Casanova for her cough. I didn't get that one filled since it didn't work for the other two but I'm thinking maybe I should. She was coughing so hard last night that she threw up twice! I just really wish we could take her to our pediatrician! We have a balance we the clinic were our pediatrician is so we have been blocked from making any further appt. If she isn't better by Monday I think I will be on the hunt for a new pediatrician. I didn't want to do this because it can become a pain but I think it's better than going to the convenient care clinic where we just see whatever doctor who may or may not know much about kids!