Week 6: Joseph Part 2 (and a few other weekend events)

So this week went considerably better than last week.  Both of our cars worked and even though I had Back to School Night one night this week, we were on schedule this week and didn't have to "do school" over the weekend in order to finish things up.  

This week's letter of the week was "E" so we did some practicing writing letter "E" in our copybook.  She really isn't quite getting the concept of writing "on the lines" and I'm thinking I'll probably order this same book again next year for her to complete again.  She likes most of the activities and it'll be really fun to see the difference a year makes and how much she'll, I'm assuming, improve.   

  She also completed her "Hide and Seek" page for the week where she circled all the "Es" she finds in her weekly fingerplay poem.  By now, she knows the drill since this program is pretty repetitive. When she gets the Hide and Seek page, she knows exactly what to do.

Our stories, this week, focused on Joseph after he is out of prison and has told Pharaoh what his dreams meant!  We made a little picture of a person (we, because she wasn't to sure about drawing a person by herself, so I helped by holding her hand as we drew our figure) that we named "Joseph."  We talked about Egypt and gave him and Egyptian headpiece made out of construction paper.  Mommy's not the best artist so it kind of looked a bit more like a football helmet but it was close enough. :-)  We talked about how Egypt is in a desert area and that the desert has sand.  We raided her sandbox in the backyard and glued the sand to the bottom of the page using a spoon.  She had a blast with this and, although it was pretty messy, it cleaned up just fine.

After naptime the next day, I put our giant masking tape letter on the floor of the living room.  She decided that this week she wanted to drive her toy car along the letter and then after she was tired of that, she took her Bear and "walked" him all over the letter.  I think I'll let her decide more what she wants to do with our giant letters each week.

Same day, we glued beans to the letter "E" and what was great about this time, she wanted to glue it herself and she did a great job!

After schooltime, we were able to head out to the park and get some energy out.  It was a beautiful day and for a a while we were the only people at the park and had the whole place to ourselves!

That evening, we settled in for the 1st postseason Dodger game against the Braves.  They won, which always bodes well for the rest of the postseason. . . we hope.  Normally, I'm a stickler about "no eating on the carpet" but we made a "baseball picnic" exception.  I have a feeling that if the Dodgers continue to do well this postseason, we may be making many exceptions to this rule in the next several weeks.

Saturday was a huge day for the girls. My parents have moved into a new house.  The girls are liking it since the backyard has a pond with huge Koi fish.  I'm excited that this will be the house that the girls will be creating memories at as they grow up.  It's not far from my high school and from friends in the Whittier/La Habra area.  It's nice to be back in a familiar area to visit them.  

 Speaking of, a dear friend of mine since high school threw a 1st birthday party for her little boy on Saturday afternoon.  The girls had a BLAST over there with the other kids at the party.  It's nice to have friends with whom you can pick up with at any time, like no time has passed. . .

Saturday night ended something like this. . . Claire thought Ashlyn's tummy was perfect for a canvas and decided to draw all over sister.  Ashlyn didn't seem to mind.  Only problem. . . she'd just gotten out of the bath.  Oh well.  I always say, "good thing kids are washable."

Week 5: Joseph Part 1 (Letter Review A-D)

Well, as an addendum to my last post, here's what we accomplished this week during the crazy week we had (sickies, car trouble, lost diamond, plus a few hard/frustrating things at work and church).  But "doing school" is the fun part, at least right now.  I don't feel like I'm frazzled because of it.  It's because of everything else.  It's like when people say things about how "stressful" life is when you have small children.  I usually answer that my life is stressful because of things happening outside of my children.  Not because of my children.  I, truly, do enjoy them. Do they do frustrating things?  Sure.  Does my 16 month old still wake up to nurse at night.  Uh huh.  Am I tired? Yes. But I don't blame them.  It's everything else that, at this point in my life, keeps my mind racing and my heart tied up and my house cluttered. But upon posting my last entry, I had several great friends tell me, "hey, it's ok. It's homeschool.  Take a week off if things are insane."  Oh, yeah.  I have to remember that.  It's where my decade of teaching is actually a hindrance to our homeschool.  I don't want to be doing "public school at home" with my kids.  I want it to really be "homeschool" or "learning in the real world."  Will we use textbooks and plans?  Of course, but the pressure to cram everything in at a certain time during a certain period of 5 days a week is something that I want to spare us all from.  Will our kids learn about deadlines and follow through?  Well sure.  But I don't want to overall timbre of their education to be marked by this all the time.  Learning isn't just for "schooltime" and a frazzled week without doing out specific curriculum, isn't going to be the end of the world.  We have the freedom to catch up.   

This week, we kept plugging along in Claire's little book. We talked about colors, we matched pictures of words with letters to demonstrate letter sounds.  Claire traced and colored in shapes.  She does well 85% of time with shapes.  Sometimes she forgets which name goes for which shape.  Other times, she's right on the money. I haven't figured out the common denominator when it comes to why she does well and remembers some days and why she seems clueless when looking at a triangle on other days.  It's interesting, for sure.  I love that I can do this, "one on one" with her and make these considerations for her.  I can do that with certain kids in my regular classroom but it's next to impossible to do that with them all in a traditional setting.  

The story this week revolved around Joseph.  We were introduced to Joseph, reminded of his father, Jacob, and were introduced to his brothers, who didn't like him very much.  We talked about jealousy and being a good person regardless of what happens to you and how you might be treated.  
Christian is much better at drawing than I am and I needed a figure for our Joseph so he drew one and I created a little coat for Joseph.  We talked about how his coat was from his Daddy and that it had many colors in it.  She colored the little paper coat and placed it on Joseph after I cut out Christian's figure he drew.
This activity also taught something new, too.  Claire drew her first happy faces.  We practiced first on some brown paper bag I have taped to the kitchen table (this has become our homeschool room for now) and then after she tried a couple, she drew the happy face on Joseph.  Pretty simple but pretty fun.  :-)

 Another little activity had to do with money.  We talked about how Joseph's brothers didn't like him, were jealous of him and so they took him and sold him to people from another country!  So we talked about money.  I brought out of pile of change and I showed her the pennies, nickles, dimes and quarters.  She sorted them into piles and worked on identifying which was which.  She liked this, a LOT.

 Since this was review week, we did a "Hide and Seek" page for letters A-D.  She circled all the As with one color, all the Bs in another color, all the Cs in yet another color and all the Ds in a forth color.  Then she matched the uppercase letter with the lowercase letters.

 Last assignment of the week was a birthday card for my mom.  She really loved making a card for Gramma's birthday.  She got to draw whatever she wanted on the front (this was actually MY grandma's idea for her) and she chose to cover it with stickers.  Then, I wrote "Happy Birthday! Love," on the inside in dots and she traced the words. She signed her own name on the inside.  She was pretty proud of it!

Well, upon writing this, I'm almost at the end of week 6!  Hoping to get "Joseph Part 2" post in this weekend :-)

Just keep swimming, just keep swimming. . .

A whole lot of irritating . . .

Last week was ridiculous.  Ridiculous.  It was one of those weeks where nothing terrible happened, everyone is still alive and life turned out alright but it was one of those "first world problem" after "first world problem" weeks.  Everything turned out good, however, and I'm grateful for that!  We have lots to be thankful for, for sure.
The girls started feeling sick the week before.  I was able to keep both girls relatively healthy and felt like the colds they came down with didn't last nearly as long as usual, thanks to Essential Oils  I used.  When Ashlyn started to come down with it, I rubbed lemon oil on her with some fractionated coconut oil and diffused it in her room.  She was considerably better in the next day or two.  Claire was hit next and I did the same, although I added a bit of the Protective blend to the back of her neck and feet.  When I started feeling terrible I started taking capsules of the Protective Blend and Oregano Oil.  I still felt sick for a day or so but was much better by the morning of day three.  Christian started getting sick but he wasn't hit with it long at all.  He definitely got the least of it.  He did, however, have much more warning than the rest of us and was able to fight it off early with the oils and some Airborne.  So from about Saturday to around Thursday, the virus moved through each of us, but didn't completely knock us down and for not terribly long.  And not a single co-pay did I have to shell out for any of us.  I'm a firm believer.  But since the sickness didn't totally evade our house, throughout all this we had the cloud of the common cold hanging over our house.
Monday morning, Claire wasn't feeling great and we didn't want to pass the sickies on to her babysitter and her little boy so we had Christian stay home with the girls while I went to work that morning.  On my way home, I stopped at the chiropractor and turned the key to my car and. . . nothin.'  Noth.ing.  Soo, I turned again, shook the steering column but after a few tries, it randomly started. . . .Oookaaaaaaay.  So I drove it to Vons to pick up a few things (namely chicken soup for my kiddos) and when I came back out, same problem.  Car. won't. start.  I jiggle the key, try several different ways of maneuvering the key and, presto, the car starts.  I'm concerned but the concern fades as soon as I get into my house and begin dealing with my home and family.
The next morning, I get up, get ready for work and get out of the house by about 6:15.  I turn the key. . .nothing. I try all my tricks.  Nothing.  I get Christian out of bed and he comes down and tries to give the car a jump.  Nothing.  By now, it's about 7am.  I contact my Booster Club President and the Band Director to let them know I won't be in for 0 period and send a last minute mass email to all my  Vocal Ensemble parents.  I email the school secretary and tell her, "sure hope a sub shows up since it looks like I'm not going to. . . "  The choir kids watched High School Musical that day, I'm told.   Christian only had until around 10am to get ready and to figure out what to do about the car. Which, after taking out the battery, getting it tested and then looking up on youtube tutorials on how to take out and replace the starter, getting IT tested, discovered that it was, in fact, the starter that was nearly totally dead and needed replacement.  So each night Christian would come home at 8pm and work on my car.  In the meantime, I borrowed cars from family to get around.  First it was my mom's car one morning while she babysat my kids while I went to work and then I borrowed my grandparents' Buick the rest of the time.  My great aunt and uncle were kind enough to let my grandparents borrow THEIR car so I could borrow my grandparents' car.  Good things.
Amid all THIS, Thursday night I was doing some laundry and picked up a large pile of towels. One of the towels got caught on my engagement/wedding ring.  I went to pull it away and found my center diamond gone.  Just gone.  I sat down and carefully touched and folded every single towel.  And found nothing.  I looked all over the bathroom before deciding to get Christian to help.  The thing is, I had no idea if I'd lost it in the bathroom that minute or earlier in the day or at work or in my car or. . . where.  I pulled him into the house and told him.  He washed the grease off his hands from the car and flipped on a flashlight and we began to search the house, starting in the master bathroom.   Eventually, after crawling all over the house, I found it.  Sitting on kitchen floor under a horse shaped push car that belongs to the girls.  Just sitting there, looking like a rhinestone or sequin from a dance costume. Later during the weekend, we took a trek out to my inlaws and tot he jewelry store to get it fixed.  Turns out 3 of the prongs were in need of repair so the whole head is getting replaced.  My mother in law plans to pick it up tomorrow and I'll figure out when I'll be getting it back.
Friday, I still had my grandparents' car and due to the fact that my own car (that was now working thanks to my industrious, smart, hard-working husband) had no gas and I needed to leave for work in the morning.  This translated to me using it the rest of the afternoon (too lazy to move carseats) and mentally agreeing to fill it up with gas prior to returning it to my grandparents.  After work, I picked the girls up at the babysitters at around noon and then too them home.  Unfortunately, Claire brought her bear (the one we can't live without, THAT bear) to the sitters and forgot it on her way out.  We didn't realize it was gone until we were home and about a half hour away and really couldn't turn back since Ashlyn was already sound asleep for her nap.  Claire's nap consisted of a very sad little girl who whined and cried and, eventually, woke up her baby sister.  It was a complete loss.  So, I called Christian, told him to get the bear on the way home from the sitters and decided to brave the Carter's store for their sale since both of the girls needed pajamas.  What did I have to lose now, right?   Well, the girls got pjs (and a few other impulse buy items) and we got back to the car to head home and make some dinner and the Buick wouldn't start.  I mean, it would start but then it would die in about 5 seconds.  This happened over and over and over again.  Are you kidding?!  So, I called my grandparents, partially afraid that I'd done something to damage the car over the course of the week and partially aware that it was, most likely, more bad car luck.  I felt horrible to bother them but they insisted on coming out. They live, with no traffic, about 40 min away, but, see, this was a Friday evening at around 5pm.  So, we had some serious time to kill.   We walked over to In N' Out for dinner and then I let the girls wander around Best Buy for a while.  I kept thinking how perfect life would have been if there had been a Pet Store in the Chino Spectrum.  Ultimately, they came out and they had the car towed.  I felt bad they had to do that but it turns out it was some sort of computer glitch inside the car.  I don't know the details or what it all really was about but, thankfully, they were able to get it fixed soon and it was back up and running early the next week.
All this on top of the normal, everyday stresses of our life (Christian getting off so late every night, my crazy job, dance class, swim class, diapers, preschoolers, homeschool, etc.) was a little nuts but we made it.  I DO have a homeschool week post to do for last week. That's what this was supposed to be.  But I remember a college professor I had in a Travel Writing class talk about how we come to a piece of writing with an agenda and then you find out that the piece really wants to be something else.  And that's what's happened here.  Christian has a book from his childhood called Too Much Noise about an old man who complains to a wise man about the noise level in his house.  The wise man, over the course of the book, tells him to add a cow, a donkey, a sheep, a hen, a dog and a cat into his home.  Obviously, things only got worse for the man so finally the wise man tells him to remove all the animals and, suddenly, the house that was so loud and stressful in the beginning was, suddenly, exceedingly quiet and he was happy.  So, this week's stress is "back to normal" and, surprisingly quiet.
So I'll be doing my usual homeschool blog either tonight or tomorrow afternoon, I imagine.  I'm off to Back to School Night and our predictable chaos at the Herman House

Week 4: Isaac and Jacob and a lot of catching up. . .

Tap/Ballet Class

Well, another week has come and gone and I'm here blogging about it on Tuesday of the following week.  I feel like this past school week was so crazy and smashed together I almost thought about not blogging it.  Tuesday night was the first Booster Club Meeting for the parents in my Choir program and it put a bit of a wrench in our schedule, so several of the days melted into one and you'll find that several of our pictures from the week have Claire doing all the activities in the same outfit. . . this is because for a day or two I was putting plans for two or even three days into one.  It worked out fine, but the veteran teacher in me feels terribly guilty about it.  But then I'm reminded of why I'm doing this in the first place, to give my child and myself freedom and flexibility in our learning (among other things, of course) and I stop feeling so bad.  

 Somewhat homeschool related this week- Claire started her second week of the Fall Semester of her Tap/Ballet Class at To the Pointe Productions.  The class is adorable.  Six or seven of the funniest three and four year old little girls tapping around the studio and then halfway through they all bound out the door, into the waiting area to get their ballet shoes only to run back to the classroom ready for more.  The girls, when waiting for their turn, are usually talking, sitting on the floor, twirling around or lying on the floor kicking their legs into the air.  It's incredibly lady-like. But she's loving it, even if she, thus far, dances like a, er, three year old.
I went back and forth with my decision to put Claire in the class, but seeing her dance around the house, at my rehearsals at school and listening to her beg for "ballerina" stories, I had to go for it.  I chose the studio because it's commitment to modesty and it's Christian roots (it's not, specifically, a Christian studio but it retains much of those values in performances and at recitals, so I'm told). If Claire decides to continue with dance over the next several years and into her teenage years, I'm not sure I'm real interested in taking her to a place where I have to, constantly, fight with instructors over what is appropriate.
So, for now, here we are.  Preschool dance parents.  She loves it and so far the other parents have been nice.  Ashlyn likes to walk up and down the long hall in the studio while sister dances for an hour.  At some point, it might be nice to be able to leave her for that hour and get some grocery shopping done (our supermarket is down the street) but for now, she needs help with her shoes. . . and it's incredibly entertaining to watch the class.






Isaac, Jacob and the Letter D
This week we told stories about Isaac meeting Rebekah, Jacob and Esau, Jacob's Dream, Jacob and Rachel, Jacob Wrestling with an Angel and Esau forgiving Jacob.  Now that I write this all out, maybe my feeling of the week getting crammed together was not just me but also the nature of the concepts brought up this week.  We talked a lot about traveling by camel (Isaac's servant travels to Rebekah, Jacob travels to Rachel, and Jacob travels to meet with Esau). And character traits like honesty (Jacob deceived his father and stole his brother's birthright), what a "blessing" from the Lord might be (this was brought up a few times, especially with Jacob) and forgiveness and what that might mean. . . all concepts and character qualities we'll have to continue to reinforce but ones, I believe, are never too early to bring up.

So this week we did a few activities surrounding the letter D.  I try not to get too hung up on her writing and am trying to focus more on the process.  For "D", it was "top to bottom, back to top and around to bottom."  She's shaky.  She's three.  But she likes writing her letters. Sometimes, I'll get a, "I not can!!!!"  To which I always say, "Try."  I've found that sometimes, when she thinks a task is too hard, she'll do it wrong to try and get out of it.  Example, if she's too nervous to write a letter for fear of messing up, she'll grab her pencil or crayon and hold to wrong, usually with two fists.  She'll look at me with a look that says, "Is she gonna buy it?!" I never do.  And, 90% of the time I can get her to try the letter and we yell and cheer when it's done.  Cue huge grin.  

 The crafty/art activity to go with one of the Bible Stories was also a writing activity.  After reading the story of Jacob deceiving his father to gain his brother's birthright, I write Claire's name with dots so she could trace her name. Then, she assignment was a color over her name.  Draw designs and scribbles so that her name was hidden by other colors.  Jacob deceived his father and said he was his brother, Esau, and hid who he really was.  

This time, with the giant letter D on the ground, Claire wanted to do Ballet over her letter.  Did I mention that she really, really loves that class? Then, (Yes, in the same day. Yes, this was supposed to be two separate days) Claire glued cotton balls to a "D" on a sheet of construction paper.  Great, but full, school day.

One story had to do with Jacob travelling a long way to meet Rachel.  We put long pieces of artists tape a opposite areas of the living room.  Claire jumped from one end as far as she could and then we taped down the distance she jumped.  Mommy joined in, too!  After jumping several times we picked which tape was furthest from the "Rachel Tape" the closest?  Etc.  Ashlyn joined in on this one, despite her inability to jump. :-)

This next activity went with Jacob wrestling with the Angel/God.  The yellow ball (remember the yellow ball?)  was supposed to be a balloon.  This might have been significantly easier with the balloon but it's what we had and she didn't seem to care anyway.  We threw the ball up in the air and she was supposed to catch and throw it back up.  After a while, I told her she could not use her legs. Only her arms.  She had to kneel and play the ball game.  It, obviously, got a lot harder.  We related this to the story of Jacob when the angel touched his leg and while they were wrestling we he could not use it much.

 Fingerpainting letters, remains one of Claire's very favorite things, so even if it's not listed in the book, I try to let her fingerpaint at least one thing during the week if there is time.

 And we've discovered Starfall.   Here is a game she played that showed a picture of the word and she had to complete the first letter.  We also played a little pumpkin decorating game as a treat after we did the word games (which she didn't realize was school anyway, so it was all just fun before bedtime!)

But one of my favorite homeschool adventures with Claire this week was during "Saturday School" :-)  I had to do a lot of things in my garden out in the backyard.  Too many plants were overgrown and needed some serious pruning.  I also needed to dig up a mint plant that was taking over (if you warned me beforehand, yes, you were right, I'm just slow at getting this sort of thing done).  Claire was determined to help.  I love how she loves the garden and being outside.  Both girls do, really.  It's such a joy to be out with them, since there's so, so much to see out there and learn from.  I want to continue to have them help me, no matter how "in the way" they seem since, someday, they won't be "in the way" and keeping them interested in "work" when they think it's "play" is something I want to keep up.  They are valuable in our home and loved beyond measure :-)