Sensory Bins

I really thought I would do more of these hands on activities... but truth is they take a lot of time to plan and make.  I finally did a Valentine's Sensory Bin and the kids loved it.  They made a huge mess with all the fun heart related junk toys.  I started to get frustrated with the mess (just being honest) and said something to Nathan like... I don't know why I bother doing stuff like this... it's another huge mess.  And Nathan's response to me was... well it looks like they are having a great time to me! (OUCH! That hurt!)  But he was totally right!  I have to remind myself of that when I get overwhelmed with the messes daily fun my kids have.  And the hours of entertainment that these sensory bins provide... I want to try and do better to make them for them.

                                                  

 
I also had some hands on activities for the kids all heart day related... they really those things too.

Homeschool Update...

So we have been homeschooling for a little over 2 months and for the most part I LOVE it! I'm not saying that its perfect or even easy because its NOT!  Somedays its absolute mayham! As in anything you do in life whether you work, stay home, homeschool, public school there are good days and bad days with it all!  I remind myself of that on the rough days. I love having all our children with me and us creating a close knit family.  Somedays I think wow... today would be so different if Addison and Taylor were in school.  Nathan works almost every Saturday (its a miracle if he has one off) and when he is working 5 days a week he usually has a random day off mid week. (for almost 1/2 of the year he usually works 6 days a week)  If the girls were in school they wouldn't get to see much of him. 

I knew this year would be an adjustment, it's a lifestyle adjustment I am responsible to get something very important done... and I'm kind of a fly by the seat of your pants kind of girl and knew that I would have to adjust my desires.  Having 1 vehicle has helped that! LOL Most days/weeks go great with schooling it all depends on the "extras" that I have decided to do within a week.  And I am still learning to not commit to do to much.  We have joined a MOPS group, a homeschool group and a bible study that I am trying to connect with at the church we are going to.  I love all 3 groups...  But some weeks I have to say no... because we have to focus on school and that is new for me. 

The virtual school I think was a good choice for our first year for the accoutability purpose... but I don't think I am going to do that next year.  Mainly I do NOT like reporting to someone... LOL who knew! Like right now I have to turn in a book log... Huh?? What??? Why???  I've known about this but have I kept record of what books we've read NO!  Because I know that we are reading... and I think its ridiculous and one more thing for me to do and I don't want to!  Ok I'm done with that! LOL I mainly signed up for the virtual school because I had no idea what I was doing, I liked the curriculumn and it was FREE!  We are going to have to budget for next school year to purchase 2 curriculumns but the good thing is I can pass most of it down to the next kid.  There is always the HERI library (part of the HS group that we joined) and you can check out curriculumns.

Taylor is doing very good.   She wasn't being challenged in the beginning and most of it is still easy for her so I added a sight word program from HERE it's called You Can Read and we are moving right along with it.  Taylor is catching on very quickly and even Addy is with some of the words. :)  I am also using her Raising Rockstar Preschool mixed with the Kindergarten one so that it's on Addy and Taylor's age level.  You can find those here  Raising Rockstars Preschool and here Raising Rockstars Kindergarten  this blog has a TON of info and resources on it if you are thinking of homeschooling... I really like it.  Addy has been amazing me as well...  she will definately be ready for Kindergarten!  Payton has actually wanted to sit down with me to.  We do very little together... but that is all that she needs right now.  Since the first day of school she hasn't wanted to do much with me.  I think she likes playing with the toys by herself. 

Taylor does this often... she writes, colors or draws with both hands... meaning uses both hands at the same time!  Here I caught a picture of it with her coloring a pattern.  She has even written her name this way.  She mostly favors her left hand and always has... but uses her right hand a good bit too.  If she is writting on the left side of a work book or page and makes her way to the right side of the page or book she sometimes switches hands.  This cracks me up!

I showed pics of our clean and orderly school room before... well that is NOT REAL at all for us...

Just keeping it real... because most of the time it looks like this....

This would be Jackson knocking all the books off the bookcase.

The playroom side and this is mild compared to some days :)  SIGH.... (But I am very thankful to have a space for all this junk to live)

This little man causes alot of distraction :) but a cute one.  Here he got a hold of the crayons again but it kept him entertained he kept putting them in the box and dump them out over and over again.  He may have eaten 1 crayon... Don't judge me their non toxic ;)

Here is my cutie pie!  We worked on a coloring sheet together now that she is finally showing interest and you can see in her face how proud she is :)

The HS group that we joined has 2 field trips a month the first one we went to the Tree Hill Nature place, that was kinda cool.  And I was definately unprepared for a walk through the woods with an umbrella stroller.  The 2nd field trip we've done,  the girls painted these pots and we met with the group and planted pansies in them and took them to a local assisted living home.  I knew my girls would be shy but I still think it's important for them to experience this.  Addison LOVED it.  She really like handing them out to the elderly and telling them to have a blessed day.  Payton handed some out too.  Taylor did not... :)

Our first day of Homeschooling 2011-2012

Well... to say that our first day was eventful is an understatement!  But it was a good day... a very good day...   I was up all night with Addison she was sick with her weird thing that we have no idea what it is or what to about it at this point.. we were up every hour with her vomiting.  But life goes on and I told myself a shower and a BIG cup of COFFEE and we are good to go!

The curriculumn for the virtual school was due to arrive on our first day. Nice... a little frustrating cause I like to be prepared but it's free and well there wasn't much else I could do about it.  Instead of waiting I still wanted to start on Aug 22nd for the routine purpose and the fact that we had been counting down the days with the girls to when school started and they were excited.  So we did some work that we had left over from PreK with Taylor and worked on those sheets.  We are doing a bible story a week and we read our story... which was Creation.  Why not start at the beginning! 

 Taylor on her first day wanted to wear the most beautiful dress! :) That's what she said.

Addison on her first day of PreK still a little under the weather but very excited to do school!

 Addison working hard...

Addy did this on her own... which really impressed me.  She circled all the Uppercase and Lowercase Ff!

The girls worked on some fun activities too...

I got out the shape sorter to entertain Jackson and it did for a little bit...

Then he proceeded to take ALL the books off the shelf...

Payton was working on her colors but she got upset with me over a crayon and peed on the chair and pouted and was done with school. (which was perfectly fine by me!) she played with the Dora house.  Which was nice for her b/c there is usually 3 girls playing at the same time. So she could enjoy it all by herself.

 
We did a color mixing experiment and this was ALOT of fun!  I added food coloring to water and each girl had an empty bottle and we mixed the colors to see what other colors we could make!  I had a brain fart and for some crazy reason thought it was a good idea to save some glass jars... yeah I have NO IDEA what I was thinking... so Jackson grabbed one dropped it and it broke... no one was hurt but still glass everywhere to clean up.  I won't do that again!

Addy made organge

Taylor made blue/green

Payton ended up with black... but here she is with blue

Jackson kept trying to drink them all :)

Then while cleaning up the color experiment and taking all the bottles to the recycle bin, Jackson did a face plant into the driveway and scraped his forehead really good :(

 Taylor's Calvert curriculumn was delivered early in the day and she was so excited to open it!  This curriculumn would normally cost $380 but signing up for the Virtual School it's free!  I see why it cost so much there is alot of material!

Here is the big Kindergartener with all her lessons and books!  We did Lesson 1 during naptime.  So our first day was definatly FULL but FUN! :)

Homeschool...part 2... getting ready!

I want to first say that homeschooling is not for every family.  In my opinion it has to be a God thing.  I think alot of Christian moms feel pressure to homeschool and if they don't that they aren't a good mom.  And that is so NOT the case.  If all christian moms homeschooled or sent their kids to private christian schools then we would not have christians in public schools!  We NEED christians in public schools.  It's a calling to homeschool... it's a calling to go to public school (to minister)...  now that is said... :)

I finally had my answer it was time to get the ball rolling!  I learned alot homeschooling Pre-K and that is organization is a MUST!  We moved last year in November and that kind of put a kink in our schooling... in the organizational department.  I had papers everywhere!  And it drove me nuts!  But I had no idea what to do with them... and honestly cleaning up our school rooom for this new year I took all those papers and they now sit on the window seat in my craft room :(... gotta do something with them!  But I have a plan for this new year.... I hadn't heard of this until after starting Pre-K a Portfolio... who knew!  Sometimes the answer is so simple.  Once they are done with their work we'll put it in a big binder. :) Nice and neat... hopefully...  Now with Virtual School for Taylor I am going to have to scan her work and send it in... but I'm sure I have to keep the original copy and it will be nice to have as a keepsake too.  The other problem that we had was work space.  We have a big "backroom" and it is used half as a playroom and half as a school room.  After moving we were still trying to figure out furniture arrangments and such.  The girls were sitting at a coffee table to do work which worked fine, UNTIL Jackson became mobile. :)  He would grab their work and mess it up and the girls would get very frustrated.  I also couldn't sit with the girls comfortably to help them I was more hovering over them. So a bigger table was in order.  Craigslist to the rescue!  We found a deal!  I love it!  So with some rearrangements and organizing... we are ready to start!

Here is our school room.

 Our table! I love it!

Other view of room...

Bookshelf full of goodies! :) Books, games, curriculumn. Notice the bottom 2 shelves are empty... that's b/c of Jackson :)

I hung up cork board squares to display the weeks work and so the girls can show Daddy what they did for the day.  The cubby organizer another Craiglist find and it's a great thing to have!

Chalkboard and drawers full of manipulatives and such...


I did get this idea for Pre K HERE and for teaching multiple children it's a great idea.  All the girls wanted to help with the big calendar and we would take turns.  But this seemed like it would work better.  I made some adjustments for us and it has worked great.  The girls have their own binders and like the ownership of it.  I added a pocket thing to keep a pencil, scissors and glue stick.  So we're not hunting for anything and they each have their own and know where it is.

So here is Taylor's School notebook.  Instead of using this just for calendar time we made it a School Notebook.  It holds their Calendar, supplies and folders to organize their work.

So here is Taylor's School notebook. Instead of using this just for calendar time we made it a School Notebook. It holds their Calendar, supplies and folders to organize their work.

 I actually really like the idea for the calendar cause it gives them extra practice at writing numbers :)

I added folders with numbers inside them so they know what order to go in.  For now it's usually something that they can do on their own.  So this way when they are done with one worksheet they aren't asking me what's next Mommy and I'm looking around for their work.  It's all organized and laid out the night before and they know when they are done with folder they move to the next.  They love their folder work! It also helps for them to see how much work is expected for the day.



The folders is my spin of doing the WORKBOXES. If you haven't heard of them check it out!  I think it's such a great idea!  I did not read the book I get the concept and came up with the folders to make it work for us.  I love the way it's done in the blog that I linked to and will probably change it up and do it that way eventually but for now this was a simple and cheap fix.  Google workboxes for more ideas... there are all sorts of ways to do them :)



Homeschool... Part 1... the decision

So I always thought that I would homeschool our kids... I really didn't think it would be a hard decision. And then I got a taste of homeschooling with PreK.  Most of it was fun and I/we really enjoyed it.  But there were alot of struggles... having 4 kids 4 and under.  Trying to get school done AND spend time with all the kids AND house work AND laundry AND cook dinner (well on the nights that Nathan was lucky otherwise we had sandwiches) ... you get the drift.  And then I found out I was pregnant with #5!  Come January we will have 5 kids 5 and under... ??? WHAT! How am I going to get homeschooling done!? It was overwhelming... and then I started to freak out... if I feel like this now how am I going to feel next year and the year after!  I talked to alot of people... The advice varied some people thought we should send our kids to school... no questions asked.  How on earth could we teach them everything that they needed to know... and it's good for them socially...etc.  All these are good points and would make me quetion myself.  I would talk to some homeschool moms and they would (obviously) make me feel so much better about the homeschool life.  This was NOT helping me... I was on the fence so much and had NO IDEA of what to do. Then a friend gave me great advice.  She said... STOP talking... and START praying!!! DUH! Sometimes I need reminders.... :)  It doesn't matter what people think and people who don't homeschool don't get it... and thats fine... They don't have to.  So I really started praying...  I really wanted to get to the root of the problem... why was this stressing me out so much.  I realized its the planning of the school... the curriculumn... and another great friend of mine said to me... you are doing way to much!  Just enjoy the simplicity of PreK.  I was planning on schooling through the summer... that same friend told me to take the summer off and ENJOY!  So I did! :)  Thanks!  Sometimes we moms need permission to stop and enjoy... well atleast I do.  So now I had my answer of what stressed me out so much and I had to find a solution.  After lots of prayer and research and talks with Nathan we decided that for now homeschooling is the answer.  Homeschooling was still important to Nathan and I for a number of different reasons.  I had to find a solution to being overwhelmed...  we talked about hiring someone to clean... or do laundry! I then heard there are curriculumns that you basically open a book up and its all there... so I started to research those.  That sounded great!  Well to make a long story short we decided to give Virtual School a try.  I've heard great things about it.  Everything (including art supplies) is sent to your door for free because you are technically enrolled in public school.  It's basically a 7 day school week.  You have a certain number of assignments to turn in each week by Sunday evening.  So we can go at our pace but still be accountable to get it done! They offer field trips.  Your child has a teacher that helps and  grades the work.  I TEACH!  Sounds like fun to me and less stress.  I really like to plan the fun craft projects.  We are going to add a bible curriculumn so I will be planning that... but I can handle that.  If at any point it's not working for us we can opt out of the program.  So that is what we are doing... Virtual School for Kindergarten!  Our house may lack alot in the cleanliness department and we'll deal with that... but this feels right for our family! 

Homeschool Preschool 2010

We decided that we are going to homeschool. We love the idea of having a close nit family. Our children being best friends. We can teach them bible (without the high cost of private school). For now this works for our family. I love the idea of being there when the light bulb goes off in there head and they learn something. However I did find myself freaking out about 2 weeks ago. I had thoughts like, Can I really do this? How am I going to make this work? Will they actually learn anything? How will I get all the house work plus spend time with the kids and teach all done in 1 day!? The more I thought about it the more I stressed. I'm a big picture kind of girl - I don't just plan for the week, I plan for the next 5 years. Nathan told me, try it this year and we'll go from there. DUH! I calmed down. This school year also really snuck up on me.... I don't know where the summer went? I had a baby at the end of April... so I guess that can be my excuse???? School started on August 9th here. AUGUST 9th... what in the world! I didn't like that at all... it's still summer. So I'm homeschooling... beauty of it... starts when I say :) Preschool is starting in September :) me happy now! From all the advice that I got from all my homeschooling friends, and the internet, majority say they don't spend much time on preschool. Nathan and I talked about this and decided that we wanted to homeschool preschool and have them be ready for kindergarten. Maybe even ahead of the game? So my plan is to teach preschool to Taylor and incorporate Addy when she shows interest. Like I said I was stressing over the thought of homeschooling and September seemed to be hanging over me... So one day last week I said "Lets do school!" Taylor was so excited! We did the whole weeks work in 2 days. She loved it! So we "officially" started today. LOL again the beauty of homeschool - it's on our time frame! In our house we have a formal dining room. We didn't have a table for it, the room was really hodpodge mess and junk cluttered in there... oh and Nathan kept his guitars in there too. So we decided to make this our school room. Everything isn't done but we will grow with this each year I'm sure.

First "official" day of Pre-K

Taylor 4 years old

First "official" day of preschool when she wants too :P

Addison 3 years old

Class Clown to say the least! I have to explain the picture... I was trying to get the girls to take pictures next to our door for their "first day" picture. They were not cooperating b/c they wanted to eat cheetos and not take pictures. So I gave them 1 hoping that would get a smile enough for a good pic.... I said to Addy "smile" and this is what she gives me! Unprovoked... My Addy.... oh goodness, child you crack me up! Yes that is cheetos in her mouth, yummy! I thought it was hilarious, that I am trying to get first day of school pics and this is Addison's reaction. We'll see how she does. :)

Our schoolroom walking in the doorway from the living room. Nathan's guitars are still being kept in here until we really need the space. And my beautiful bistro table that I wanted for such a long time... I believe is going to have to be sold on Craigslist and get a more practical table. It works for now.

View of room from kitchen. Bulletin board, days of the week, month and weather. Pics of my cute kiddos.


Left of the bulletin board. Chalk board (we did the letter B today) That is their learning posters. Where we hang up what they are learning that week. This week's theme is the jungle. Addy got all excited and said "oooh boy! I want to go to the jungle! I want to take all my friends!" :) I think I'm going to really like homeschooling! If she were at school I would not of heard her reaction and what she said.


Addison standing on Taylor's desk. I am on the look out for more desks!

A place to display our work. Ok seriously. I have to add more hooks. It is already full! :) That is our letter tree from the book Chicka Chicka Boom book. We are going to add the letter that we learned that week to our tree.

Our letter B scavenger hunt today. We searched the house for things that started with the letter B. Book, Boots, Bottle, Block, Butterfly. That is Taylor's picture that she colored today and how she wrote her name. :)

I am so glad that I am blogging (again). I really want to be able to remember these sweet things that are going on in our life. The way that Taylor first wrote her name. My plan is to have my blog printed each year to have as a family scrapbook. :) Heres to planning! lol