Human body

Last night while we were reading our bedtime story Kaydence interrupted asking what the bump in her knee was. It was her knee bone. She then had several more questions about bones. So we stopped reading and I googled skeletons. We looked and the pictures and talked for about 30 minutes. I asked her if she wanted to learn more about bodies in the morning. After that there was a crazy loud storm. We ended up staying up pretty late watching care bears in my bedroom.

So this morning rolled around and after breakfast Kaydence wanted to repeat an art project we did the day before. Its out of my montessori art book Let Out the Sunshine. These pictures are from the other day when we did it. **on the original day** Nolan spent a little bit trying to cut with scissors, and then asked for help. I cut his paper into strips after that. It's the first book in the activity. Again, we didn't follow the instructions exactly, but basically you have them cut long strips of paper and then glue them to a white paper. Kaydence asked me if I would do it too. So I sat down and cut strips and glued them to my own paper. Kaydence watched me very carefully and started to try to do hers like mine.

This morning Nolan was not interested in cutting or gluing. He played with his trucks and ninja turtles. While they were both busy I pulled out my montessori book to see if it had any helpful lessons. Turns out my book is great. I already knew that though. There was a suggestion to use a stethoscope to help them hear their breathing and heartbeats. We have several play stethoscopes, but no real one. So I thought I would post on the local homeschool facebook page to see if someone had one they would be willing to let us borrow. Not only did a lady respond pretty quickly that she had one, but she lives down the street from me. Crazy right? We went to pick it up and then we spent some time at the library checking out new books.

When we got home it was lunch time and Nolan was so grumpy from our late night. We had lunch and took an early rest. We watched the Magic School Bus inside our bodies while we ate. Once we got up I got the stethoscope out and I let them both listen to my heart. Nolan loved it, he wanted to listen to his heart too. For some reason it freaked Kaydence out. She listened for a few seconds and said, "I don't like that. It scares me." I have no clue why that scared her, but I didn't push it. She watched Nolan listen for a while. The book also suggests that you do a google search for heart drawings and photos so they can see what a real heart looks like. It includes (in the book, it's an e-book that I have printed out) links for cool videos you can watch. I went to youtube and looked for human heart beating. There are a few videos of chests open during surgery where it shows the heart beating. There is also a computer generated hear showing it beating, it was pretty cool. I was thinking that the surgery video would scare Kaydence since she didn't like the sound of her own heart. She asked to turn it on, so we did and she LOVED it. We watched that video about 15 times. She was asking why the person needed surgery and all sorts of questions. I'm not sure I answered all of her questions accurately, but I tried. We also turned on a clip of Bill Nye the Science guy I also found on youtube, but by that point she was tired and ready to play.

We had our dog trainer come over for our last lesson after that. One of our dogs is a crazy puppy and our other dog has this weird obsession with light. She's been helping us with both. Anyways after she left we had a snack and then Kaydence was ready to learn about skeletons.

We sat down and I googled an image of a skeleton and we looked at all of the bones. My montessori book suggests bringing out a pad of paper and having the child feel the bones in their body and make a list of the bones they could feel. I meant to do that, but I didn't. We felt our bones and we talked about what they did. She was mainly interested in her rib cage and we spent a long time talking about how the ribs protect our lungs and heart and why they are so important.

The other activity in my book that I wanted to try today was letting them feel and explore chicken bones. Lucky for me I already had some leftover drumsticks. I cleaned the chicken off the bones and gave them a really good washing. I put them on a piece of white paper and gave them magnifying glasses. We talked about how hard the bones were, and how light they are. I had them try to break the bones, they couldn't of course. One of the bones in my left overs actually was broken so I brought that one out and let them look at the bone marrow. We talked about blood cells being made there. The book suggested taking a fork to get the bone marrow out, but I decided not to do that. Kaydence asked for some crayons because she wanted to trace the bones and color them. She asked to paint the bones too, but I decided against that.

There is Bella hoping the magnifying glass with make a reflection.

There you go! Another day in our life :) we haven't done her reading lesson yet. It's been a busy day. The other day I ordered a book called Explode the Code. They are phonics lessons. I'm going to be using it along with her reading lessons. We will be starting a handwriting program once I can decide which one to use. 

Sensory Balloons

We're up and running again! For some crazy reason last week I decided it would be a good idea to potty train Nolan. So we did it. He is finished now, aside from the occasional accident. We spent most of last week downstairs in our TV room because we had to run to the potty every few minutes. It's also easier to clean off of the hard floors than the carpets. But it's done now! No more diapers!

So here is what a general idea of our days are looking like so far.

7-8am we're waking up. I give it a larger timeframe because sometimes I have the kids play together in Kaydences room while I get a few more minutes of sleep. Generally this doesn't last more than 5 minutes at a time, but can't blame me for trying. We're usually up by 7:30, but today they both slept until 8. I was happy.

8-8:30 (or earlier, depending on wake up time) I let them watch some TV while I make breakfast. I'm not my best in the mornings. Takes me a few minutes to get up and moving, and once we start our school day the TV goes off.

9am. This isn't an exact start time, we just start whenever breakfast is finished and I've cleaned up. You get the idea. We start off with some sort of montessori style learning activity. Nolan can be involved and we do it as long as they are interested. I'm using an at home montessori curriculum as a guide. I haven't set up the proper Montessori environment (according to the book) and I'm not planning to do everything 100% Montessori. (it's crazy expensive, even at home) We pick a "practical life" activity. Right now I am just going through the pages. Once we have done a few I will give them the options and let them pick what they would like to do. Yesterday the activity was sweeping. I've done that with them before and they got bored very quickly. This time we started out by making sensory balloons. We took a package of balloons, some funnels, and some kitchen ingredients. We used flour, lentils, dried kidney beans, and rice. Mostly because that's what we had. They scooped the ingredients into the funnels until they were full and then I tied the balloons shut.

Kaydence was interested in tying the balloons herself. So I let her try as long as she wanted and only stepped in to help when she asked me to. 

Scooping the ingredients was harder for Nolan. He tried for a while and then he used his hands. He switched back and forth from using his hands to trying to scoop. He would stay very still and watch Kaydence as she scooped and then he would try to scoop again. He got bored filling the balloons before Kaydence did, so he went to play with his toys and we finished up. Now I brought in the sweeping. (We made a huge mess) I don't have a kid sized broom. I thought about buying one, but when my kids get a hold of a broom they generally wave them around in the air. I decided it was better all around not to give them access to brooms on a regular basis. Instead I bought them a little (as in smaller than the one I use) brush and dust pan. I used the broom to sweep into a big pile and then Kaydence helped me sweep it into her dustpan. Most of what she swept went all over the floor, but hey, that's what learning is about. Nolan didn't want to sweep. He was fighting a battle with his superman. 

Then we brought the balloons over to the coffee table. We made 4 of each type of ingredient balloon. 2 for each of them. I mixed them up and the game is to squeeze them and match them together based on how they feel. Kaydence finished pretty quickly and was done, but Nolan spent a long time squeezing them.

After we were finished with that I gave them a few options of what to do next. We ended up playing with our felt There was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly set. I bought it used and then found it was missing a few pieces, which was annoying. (My fault for not asking first) We used some other animal toys for the ones that were missing, and the kids don't know the difference. I've also set up a rewards system for Kaydence. Every time she reads me a book she gets one gummy bear. So she read me three books, and then I took a turn reading to her. 

11am we decided to take a trip to the library. I like to go on Mondays because Sam is usually off work and I can look for books without the kids wanting me to hurry. However, I forgot it was labor day so the library was closed. Instead we drove around and enjoyed the pretty Texas landscape. 

12am- lunch. We usually eat earlier than this. Otherwise they beg for snacks and are then too full to eat lunch. While I fix lunch I generally give them the option to color or play with other things. They wanted to watch X-Men cartoons, and I was okay with that. I love X-Men. 

1pm- rest time. Nolan takes a nap. He's usually out for 1 1/2- 2 hours. Kaydence rests quietly on the couch. She has the option to play on the ipad or watch a show. I am going to make her some quiet boxes to play with during rest time, I just haven't gotten there yet. I usually only have her rest for an hour. It's pushing it to get her to lay still for that long anyways. We get up and do her reading lesson. We're on lesson 50! Oh yeah! She loves her reading lessons. Nolan woke up screaming that bears were going to get him. That's relatively new. He will go upstairs alone to play, and then realize he is alone and start screaming that bears are going to eat him. Sam put him to sleep, but wasn't in the room when he woke up so he freaked out. I had planned to do an art project from my Montessori art book, but he just wanted to be held. So we read books and colored instead. Kaydence read me a few more books. Usually around 4 we're done with any official learning that I have for us to do. Sometimes it's earlier than that, sometimes later. Most of this is just a general idea of what our day looks like. Starting soon we'll have dance classes and things like that. We'll adjust our day around those things. Some days (like toady) Kaydence decides she wants to wait to do her reading lesson until Daddy comes home. We're flexible. 

We're going to start a kindergarten level math program soon, as well as handwriting without tears. Or something similar. I'm leaning towards singapore math, but I'm not sure just yet. 

Here are some afternoon silly pictures from me and Bubba. It's one of his favorite games. I make a silly face and he tries to copy it.

To Montessori or not?

I thought I had my whole plan for the next few months worked out. Not on paper (I really need to sit down and do that) but it's all in my head.

I think I posted a little bit before about how I decided we would worth through my Montessori books before we moved on to a curriculum set. (Right now I'm looking at Sonlight, it's been my favorite for a while) I want time to do lots of hands on learning and really focus on finishing Kaydences reading lessons. (Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy lessons) Then when we're finished I'd like to move Kaydence on to Sonlight (or a different one possibly) and keep Nolan working on Montessori type things until he is older. I was really comfortable with my plan and excited to get started. We went to church this morning and my mind was wandering a bit to homeschooling and I felt so at peace. Then this evening I started questioning everything. My whole carefully thought out plan! I thought, "Oh my gosh, what am I doing?! This is all wrong, I need to buy a curriculum set NOW." Luckily some part of my rational brain was still functioning and telling me not to rush to anything.

Maybe it was the back to school buzz? I'm so excited for all the kids getting back to school. Public and homeschool, and I'm excited for all the teachers. Kaydence and I have been talking a lot about how we're so glad we can learn together at home. She is ready to go! I wanted to sit down and plan out at least this months lessons over the weekend. It ended up being kind of a busy one, so I didn't get there. I think I need to remember that I planned to give myself a week to get organized, re-arrange some things in the house. I want to set up a "school room" where our play room currently is and turn my sons room (which he doesn't sleep in anymore) into their play room. My mom suggested using Nolans room as our school room, but I like the play room better. It's more open and we can spread out a lot more. Maybe it's just the stress/anticipation building? I don't know. I don't feel stressed. I'm not even worried about not having our school room set up. I've got to find some more book shelves and a table for us to use, but that will take time. Eventually it will be set up the way I want, but in the meantime I'm not worried.

I'm just really second guessing myself. Not the decision to homeschool, I know without a doubt that right now it's the best thing for us. Will that change later? I don't know, I try not to think too far in advance when homeschool is concerned. (just the thought of high school makes me cringe) Just what if I'm approaching it the wrong way? I don't exactly have a ton of family support. It's kind of a weird feeling. On one hand they support me, but they are also quick to make comments about why I need to send them to school, but all in a positive we want the best for you sort of way. It's not anything negative. My husband is supporting me, but he's really not nuts about it. So sometimes I end up feeling like I'm doing this alone. That isn't the case because I've been trying to make some more homeschooling friends. The homeschooling community is really great, everyone is so quick and willing to help.

I just wanted to write this down, because homeschooling isn't all sunshine and rainbows. Some days are amazing, and somedays I know I'll be second guessing every thing. Next time I go into panic mode I'll have to remember this and remind myself that it will be ok. Also, since I originally started this with the hope that maybe other people getting started would read it and feel like they weren't the only ones having a hard time. Tomorrow I'm going to spend some time getting organized and hopefully the next post will be filled with our great "back to school" week. I'm going to ride out my insecurities tonight, and hopefully tomorrow with a fresh perspective I'll be ready to roll.

Sorry it's been so long! I hit a serious block this summer and switched into survival mode.

That makes it sound a lot worse than it was. Basically the kids and I were going stir crazy being stuck in the house all day. Except for the pool, and they were getting bored with the toys in the house. My mom came during that time so we got to get out of the house a bit. I had to get creative and change things up. Also my computer broke. So for a while I was just hoping it would magically work again. It's still broken, but we do have more than one laptop. We've been busy bees. I'm not going to do a long post right now. This is just basically to say we're still here and I'll be posting what our new "school" year will look like.

I spent a lot of time looking at different curriculums, but I decided for this year I'm going to work through the montessori book that I already have. I also got a montessori art book that we were going to do this summer, but it took forever for the book to come. We're going to focus on reading and getting used to being on a more formal schedule. (with lots of wiggle room of course) I decided it would be a good transition year. We're going to go check out a co-op next week too!

Look for another (better) post soon :)

Weather Week- clouds

I decided we would learn about the weather this week. I found this great website HERE all about weather for kids. I thought clouds would be a good place to start. It even has some lesson plans and activity ideas.

I had them start out by coloring a picture of the sky for me. They both decided that they wanted stormy skies. This is kind of silly, but I was so surprised by how awesome Ashley's clouds were! Since she is older than Kaydence you can usually have an easier time telling what Ashley has drawn. Sometimes Kaydence has to tell you what hers are ;) Ashley made fluffy storm clouds with lightning and rain.

Kaydence is getting the hang of clouds too, hers are kind of spiky, but I was really proud of her. I am pretty sure that's the first time she tried to make a cloud. 

Afterwards I pulled up the lesson plan for clouds (See the link at the beginning of this post) We talked mostly about what clouds are made of. The lesson goes into types of clouds, but they weren't interested in that. It has you put some shaving cream down and you ask them if clouds are made of shaving cream. They thought this was very funny. They played with the shaving cream for a while and then wiped up their spaces. After that I got out some spoons. They felt that the spoon was cool. I had them breath into their hands to feel it was warm. Then they breathed onto the spoons and I told them they made a tiny cloud. That was all in the lesson plan, but they thought it was awesome. 

Next we made rain clouds in cups. I've seen it all over pinterest, but the links I tried didn't work. So I just guessed. Take a cup and fill it 1/2 way with water, top with a fluffy shaving cream cloud and with a dropper have them drop in water mixed with food coloring. They watched it rain in their cups.

About this time Nolan started getting really sick. He spiked a fever so I put him on the couch to rest. Unfortunately for our cloud day he got worse through the afternoon. After nap time I sat holding him while the girls played. I told them I couldn't do their reading lessons today because Nolan cried every time I put him down. Sam was home though and Kaydence said, "DADDY CAN DO MY READING LESSON! I love to to reading with Daddy!" And he said he would love to help them both with their reading lessons. Then he helped the girls make feel better cards for Nolan. They were both being very sweet to Nolan bringing him things to cuddle and kissing his forehead.

This doesn't have anything to do with clouds, I just wanted to share how amazing dinner was last night. 

I made spaghetti sauce with zucchini noodles. I have to admit I was a bit skeptical, I loves me some spaghetti. I tried making a spaghetti squash but it was crunchy and weird (any one want to teach me?) but I love zucchini noodles in stir frys. It was AMAZING. I seriously couldn't taste a difference between this and regular spaghetti. It looks different obviously, but oh goodness it was good. I want to buy one of those things that makes spiral noodles out of veggies, it will make the whole process a lot faster. I used a veggie peeler and then sliced them with a knife to make them thinner. YUMMY. I'm going to make it again for lunch today. We had leftover sauce but no extra noodles. 

Curriculum

For a while I've been stressing myself out thinking I needed to choose a curriculum right away. I've been thinking that what I'm doing isn't enough and negative thoughts along that line. I had a curriculum picked out and I've been looking around for a while to find a good used set. (I love to save a little money!) Then the other day I was exploring a website with a kindergarten readiness check list. I realized that while Kaydence doesn't have every thing on that list, she's got the majority of it already learned. We have been working through a learn to read program. (Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons) I started getting really frustrated because she is a hard time putting the sounds together. I wasn't frustrated with her, I was frustrated because I didn't know how to explain it to her. She can easily identify the sounds and tells me each one, it's just hard for her to put them together. So after asking for some advice I decided that since she is only 4 there is no need to rush it. I decided to take a break for a while and pick it up again when she is ready. The very day I decided not to do it anymore she started asking me for reading lessons. Every day she asks all day if it's time for her reading lesson yet. This weekend I wasn't going to do them, (hey, it's the weekend!) but she was begging for it. So we sat down and worked on it, and then she asked for ANOTHER reading lesson. This time Daddy did it. I've been making an effort not to get frustrated with myself and to give her serious praise when she sounds out a word right. I mean like over the top cheering and high fives and gut squeezing hugs. I think that's what made the difference, she loves the praise. 

Anyways, I started to see that I don't need to push a full curriculum on her right now. She is learning at such a fast pace and what we do is very easy and fun for her. I wish someone had told me to take a breath and calm down. But since I didn't actually tell anyone how much I was stressing that would have been pretty hard to do. 

So I just wanted to write this in case someone else out there is stressing over all the curriculum options. It's easy to do. Being responsible for your child's education is a big deal. I for one am constantly worried that I'm messing it up. Take a breath and remember that it will be okay! Especially at this young age. 

Real fruit snacks

Our Paleo diet is still going strong. Sam has been left to his own devices. He has absolutely no desire to stick to it, and I don't want to force it. I pack him breakfast and lunch. He eats dinner at home, but otherwise he is on his own. The kids have been doing really well. I let them have hot dogs with buns on the 4th of July and they had a couple of cookies. I'm not making them do it 100% like I am. My main goal is to cut out as much junk as possible, with the occasional treat. We've been running through fruit and veg at a huge rate! I'm going to have to re-think my grocery system. I used to buy groceries for a two week span, but I think I'll have to start going once a week. Anyways one of the things my kids are crazy for is fruit snacks. I decided that I don't want them to have fruit snacks, even as a special treat. The other day I came home with some dried mango and kiwis and they were gone in a matter of hours.

I've tried several versions of home made fruit snacks, and they were good, but the kids didn't really like them. So then I decided just to get a bunch of dried fruit and cut it up into little pieces. That way it would last longer. I filled 6 little baggies with a mix of kiwi, mango, pineapple, and papaya. All of which are delicious. I got some of it from the bulk bins for a much better price. The mango I got today was on sale, but H-E-B brand is way way better. Lesson learned there.  Since they are in the little snack baggies I've been calling them fruit snacks. They are plenty sweet and the kids absolutely gobble them up.

Yay real food!! I only put a few bags down within their reach. Otherwise they would be gone in the blink of an eye. I also didn't pre-chop up all of the fruit. I decided it would be better to do it as needed. 

I'm pretty happy with how our healthy changes are going. It does surprise me how many people are trying to pressure me into eating breads though. I'm amused, not upset by it. I really didn't think people would have a such an issue with it, but hey, that's what happens when you go against the norm.