Homeschool, here we are!

I haven't posted on here in quite a while. Last post, I pondered whether we should homeschool or not. I guess that's why I haven't posted. We did decide to homeschool! We pulled our girls out at the Christmas break. It was quite a nightmare! The school relented and allowed us out of our contract for the preschooler. But the kindergartner, not so much. One of the reasons we cited for leaving was financial hardship. That was true, oh so true, but more important was that we felt the kids were not getting what they needed at school and would do better at home. The school offered to put the kindergartner on scholarship so we wouldn't have to pay for the rest of the year. But we insisted on pulling her out anyway. So they made us pay. I can't blame them. We signed a contract and all, and it would be bad for them if other families thought they could jump contract whenever. I guess they made an example out of us.

Either way, we are beginning our third year of homeschooling. Due to a crazy story I made up but can't remember, we no longer have Butterfly, Monkey, and Alligator. They are Beeswax (wish that wasn't so hard to type), Mooshu, and Acorn. Beeswax is in third grade, Moosh is now a big girl kindergartner, and Acorn is a wee preschooler. We also moved to a new state. This one is pretty easy on homeschooling. I just meet with the attendance officer once a year to sign a paper promising to teach my child and to receive a release for said child from compulsory school attendance. Boom. Done.

I choose to record our school work anyway. I know that I could unschool or something like that but that just isn't me. Beeswax needs guidance. She needs written-out goals. Mooshu needs schedule and consistency and predictability. I need those goals, too. Poor Moosh, I'm not much for schedule and consistency but I'm working on that!

I thought about (and tried) homeschooling without textbooks and workbooks. I made up my curriculum for the first year. That's also not me! I've got the education degree, I've got the smarts to do it, but it's just not me! I need a book to help me reach those goals. You give me a spelling book with 36 lessons, that helps me make sure I get at least that much done this year! And we shoot for more :)

Our schooling is all based around The Well Trained Mind by Susan Wise Bauer and Jesse Wise. They've got such wonderful recommendations. There are myriad homeschool resources out there. Without a guide, without someone to point you in the directions of resources that might be good for you, it's just too overwhelming!

This year, we also added Catholic Schoolhouse to our schedule. A chapter just opened up near us (I use the term "near" very loosely) and it sounded good to me! I figure, even if they learn nothing, at least they're getting some educational field trips and are meeting some other children. Turns out, I'm one of the main teachers! Oops, I mean, Surprise! And I think my kids are learning some valuable info. Win/win for sure.

So that's the last few years in a nutshell. I've been making all sorts of resources for my kids as we go along. Maybe I'll see if I can share them on here. We'll see!

Homeschool?

If I can't plan lessons any better than I can keep up with blogging, maybe it's not for me... But we're seriously considering homeschooling next year. Hmm.

Butterfly is an avid reader. She's reading waaaay beyond a Kindergarten reading level. She's in private school because we hoped with a much smaller class size and a real love for our child, they would make sure to keep her moving forward instead of trying to keep her back with the rest of the students. and yes, I know public school teachers love their students. I have been a public school teacher and I loved my students dearly. Cried when I left. But this love is different. Maybe it's the prayer? I don't know, but alas, I digress.

We were hoping that this hefty price tag would help her progress academically. But it's December and they've just finished learning all the letters. Butterfly can read. Like really read. I don't mean like she can put together some sight words she has memorized. No, she can really read, probably at a second grade level. She doesn't need to be working on learning what sound a dadgum T makes. Would she benefit from homeschool? She could keep pushing her reading skills while catching her penmanship up. She's on track with math, no struggles there so she could move faster in homeschool. Hmm.

Monkey goes to the same school for preschool. She has struggled with sitting still so long. This school loves these kids but they are a little old school about demanding such small children to essentially behave like mini adults. My Monkey is not ready to behave like a mini adult. I suspect she might have some kinesthetic learner in her; she needs to DO, not sit. She's gotten multiple spankings at school because she just has difficulty sitting still. I don't like that. I support the spankings for disobedience (sorry if you disagree) but I think open defiance or hitting sound more like reasons for a three-year-old to get in trouble. Would homeschool help her? She could move more freely, get the wiggles out, and not be punished for being her. Hmm.

Financially, homeschool would be great for us. The daycares are too creepy here for me to go back to work, so I'm home with Alligator anyway. And as I mentioned above, I was a public school teacher, so I do have a degree in education, after all. Maybe I could do this.

Oh dear, what a lot to consider.

New Routines

Well I sure didn't keep up blogging about Monkey's learning adventures very well, did I? Almost as soon as we started to get in our groove, she went to stay with out-of-state family for a long visit. Everything we had worked on flew out the window. And I had had such high hopes!

Not long after she came back, school was out for the summer. All three kiddos were home. All. Day. Long. Again I had high hopes,but in truth, I'm just lucky we survived. We did visit family, which was nice, and when we got home, we participated in the public library's summer reading program. All three kids maxed it out! They also had guest performers each week that we tried to attend. If you don't take your kids to the library, you're most likely missing out.

So now Butterfly is in kindergarten, Monkey goes to preschool, and Alligator and I are hanging out at home. He's still not walking yet and I'm not as high achieving as so many of those other blog moms. So I'm not sure what all educational things we'll get done that I can post about. I'll do my best, however! I should probably start on some Tot School or something but he's just so little yet.

I did attempt an activity with Alligator today. We sang "Mr. Sun" to which I added some motions. Then Alligator used do a dot markers on a coloring page of a sun. As I expected, he's still too little for that. He also tried to color it with some crayons. Those pesky big sisters broke them all, though, so that was a struggle, too. Every time I get a new pack of crayons to hoard and keep nice, they somehow find and destroy them. Perhaps for Alligator's sake I need to try again.

Letter E

I wrote this back in March but forgot to post it:

This week hasn't been going as well for us as last week. We've had bad weather, closing Butterfly's preschool on Wednesday and Thursday. That's really thrown things off!

I tried just talking about several letter E words all week rather than focusing on a different word/theme each day. I'm not sure it's worked better. I think that focus each day really helped drive home the point. Monkey could name several M words by Friday. I don't think that's happened this week. Again, that could be because Butterfly has been home...

Monday

• We read It Begins With E from This Reading Mama's letter E pack.
• We stamped E's inside the capital E from the same resource.
• We sang the ABC song while pointing to the letters on the big E page from Enchanted Homeschooling Mom's Sing With Me Through the ABC's.
• The big hit was a pan I filled with rice and plastic Easter Egg halves. Monkey had a blasty-blast scooping, pouring, burying, and just generally making a mockery of my living room floor.

Tuesday

• We read It Begins With E from This Reading Mama's letter E pack again. 
• We cut the letter sound pictures from the same resource apart and glued them outside our big E from yesterday.
• We again sang with Enchanted Homeschooling Mom.
• We colored the E crown from the same resource. I cut it out, too, and wanted to put it together for Monkey but of course I couldn't find the stapler.
• We read through (multiple times) the Letter E Songs and Rhymes Mini Book from The Measured Mom. We skipped the elephant song to wait until tomorrow...

Wednesday. Here's where things seemed to go awry. We did get some stuff done, just not what I had hoped.

• We read It Begins With E from This Reading Mama's letter E pack again. Then we pretended to be all the E words. We pretended we were elephants and eagles, we pretended to crack an egg, etc. We each also chose one and acted it out and the other two of us tried to guess which one it was. They loved this and it helped me make sure they understood the vocabulary.
• We again sang with Enchanted Homeschooling Mom.
• We read through the Letter E Songs and Rhymes Mini Book from The Measured Mom. This time we did sing the elephant song, using Finger puppets! again from The Measured Mom.
• Monkey and Butterfly spent a good long while cutting and gluing on their own while I rocked Alligator. Butterfly cut words off the front of a Sophia the First coloring book to add to her art. It turned out pretty cool. Monkey just kept gluing scraps in one spot in the middle of her paper, one on top of the other but it kept them busy for a while, thank goodness. They made that activity up on their own but I'm going to count it as scissors and pasting practice. Kindergarten readiness, here we come!

Thursday saw two dentist appointments, story time at the library, a trip to Target, a doctor appointment, and another trip to Target to get a prescription with all three kids in tow since school was closed again. Whew. We did look for E's in the car! Not enough, I know.

Friday

• We finished putting together our crown! Monkey loved it.
• We read It Begins With E from This Reading Mama's letter E pack again.
• We used an E stamp and an elephant stamp to decorate the lowercase E from the same resource.
• We used do a dot markers to cover the E's on the elephant page, still from This Reading Mama's letter E pack.
• We decorated an Easter egg. I cut a large E shape out of construction paper and gave Monkey do a dot markers, some crayons, and some lengths of fancy tape and let her decorate to her heart's content.
• We practiced coloring elephants.
• We again sang with Enchanted Homeschooling Mom and then we used play dough to make E's on the play dough mat from that resource.

We again sang with Enchanted Homeschooling Mom.

Original Busy Bags

All over the internet, busy bag ideas abound. Every blogger has their top twelve list of creative busy bags. But if you check them out, they're the same twelve ideas, over and over again. My little Monkey has quit napping. She needs a quiet time after lunch in her room so I can spend time with the baby. I don't think I'm asking for much. Just 30-45 minutes of Monkey-free time. Or at least 30-45 minutes of quiet time.

So we've started MonkeyTime. The rules are simple:

1. Stay in your room.
2. Don't play in your closet.
3. Stay in your room.
4. Put everything away when you're done.
5. Stay in your room.

We are having trouble with rules 1, 3, 4, and 5. It'll get better as we settle in to this new routine, I know.

I give her a MonkeyBox full of busy bag activities for her to do during MonkeyTime. These are things she only gets to do by herself in her room during MonkeyTime. It's so hard to come up with ideas to keep her engaged! She's too big to be happy stringing straws/beads on string/shoelaces/pipe cleaners. She's too little to be trusted with play dough/crayons/pencils/scissors by herself. She's too big to care about discovery bottles but too little to do any clothes pin or counting activities. So what's a mom of a too big to be a toddler but too little to be a preschooler to do?

Here are some ideas!

1. She does enjoy the Lego Duplo Letter Mats from 123Homeschool4Me.
2. Practice cutting veggies from Melissa and Doug.
3. Small crocheted swatch with a loose long end and a crochet hook.
4. Any workbook page that can be completed with stickers alone.
5. Bowl, spoon, measuring cups.
6. Wipes box with a few baby wash clothes for folding and stuffing.
7. She likes lacing cards with shoelaces, just not often.

Oh, how I wish I had more ideas! If you have any original busy bag or quiet box ideas, please share!

Letter M

So this week we worked on learning the letter M! I chose to start with M because my little preschool monkey's name starts with letter M. I'm not too worried that it's not easy to write yet. I really just wanted to work on letter recognition and sounds right now.

We started off Monday with Marshmallows.

• We filled the outline of a capital M with marshmallows.
• We used Measuring cups to move Marshmallows back and forth between bowls (counting our scoops as we went.)
• We sorted out big and small Marshmallows.
• We glued small Marshmallows to the center of our letter M outlines. That was super easy for me and the girls thought it was super cool.
• We read the letter M book from This Reading Mama. We read it multiple times and acted out all the M words.
• We played Mother May I? and Mommy Says (instead of Simon Says.)
• We went to McDonalds and had McNuggets and Milkshakes. While there we looked all over the place for M's. They really enjoyed that and continued looking for letters as we drove back home.

Tuesday was all about Monsters.

• We put together a Monster puzzle from 1plus1plus1equals1
• We read the Monster Eyes book from 1plus1plus1pequals1.
• We built Monsters out of play dough. I gave Monkey and Butterfly each two colors of dough, cut up pipe cleaners, pom poms, and pony beads, and told them to make monsters. They each approached it completely differently, which was neat. Monkey grabbed her scissors and went after her monsters with them. I liked that, too!
• We played How Many Monsters are at the Door? from A Teaching Mommy. I cut along the edge of the door so we could slide monsters in the door and do a Monsters at the Door version of Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed. We also pretended there was a party. One of us would pick how many monsters were at the party and the other would put that many monsters in the room.
• We used small circular reward stickers to fill out the Letter M Dot a Dot page from The Measured Mom.
• We practiced cutting with University Monsters from 123Homeschool4Me. It was a little too hard for Monkey so I cut the paper in half so she didn't have to cut as far. I think we need to work up to cutting a whole page.

Monkeys climbed all over Wednesday.

• We used do a dot painters on an M is for Monkey page from Confessions of a Homeschooler.
• We put together an M is for Monkey puzzle, also from Confessions of a Homeschooler. I glued the puzzle to a foam sheet to make it easier for her to handle. She still had a lot of trouble with it. I think next time, I'll cut her puzzles more like a jigsaw puzzle so she can more easily tell if she's right or wrong.
• We colored Monkey Masks from First Palatte.
• We used a Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed story Retelling Set from 1plus1plus1equals1. Wow, that was a hit. We did it over and over again. We took turns being the mommy and calling the doctor. Even little baby brother got to call the doctor. At six months old, he wasn't impressed. He did try to grab the bed picture and eat it, though.
• We painted Monkeys with Marshmallows. I just drew a monkey on a piece of construction paper. I then put a few colors of tempera paint on a plate and gave my little Monkey some big (and now hard and stale) marshmallows left over from Monday to paint with. She would dab them in the paint and then use them like sponges or stamps. It was pretty cool. Then she experimented with using her elbow to paint. Then her hands. Then she just painted her shoulder and arms. Thank goodness for bathtubs and soap!
• We practiced cutting with Cutting Practice and Matching Cards from This Reading Mama. We didn't cut the moon strip yet. We're saving that for tomorrow. After she cut them apart, we put them all in a bowl and then she sorted them into a monkey stack, a marble stack, and a milk stack. We can't do patterns yet and I'm hoping that sorting practice will help us get there.

On Thursday, we went to the library for story time. After that, we met Daddy for lunch and went grocery shopping. By the time we were done, it was time to pick up Butterfly from preschool so our day was pretty much gone. At dinner we did find out that Monkey and Butterfly had been sneaking some of those hard yucky marshmallows. Ick.

Friday we reviewed some of our favorite activities from the week and watched some Disney Jr. Yeah, it was that kind of a day. Monkey woke up yelling and bouncing off the walls so we just did the best we could!

Welcome!

Hi! Welcome to the Wagues Pack! We are a family of five. Butterfly goes to preschool, Monkey and baby Alligator stay home with me, and Daddy works his tail off to keep us all clothed and happy.

I am writing this blog for myself. I want a record of what I've taught my kids. I want to see what worked and what didn't work. I want to be able to find all these resources again when Alligator gets old enough to learn his ABC's and colors. I certainly don't want to do all this research again! I know from my days teaching that I do have to keep a record of what I've taught. Not to keep the principal happy, but so that I can keep myself on track. I tend to forget what I have and haven't covered. Hopefully, this will help.

What? Scissor skills aren't there yet? Maybe that's because we worked on sorting extensively last week. Should we do the apple or the jungle unit? Well, we covered lions two weeks ago and it's been two months since we talked about growing things. Sounds like time for an apple unit! See what I mean? If it's not written down, I'll have no clue!

Like I said, this blog is for me. But if you see something you'd like to use, please do! If there is a link to another blog or website, that's where I got the resource I'm talking about and I encourage you to go to their site and use it, too! Hopefully the time and effort I've invested putting together lessons that I think both teach my wee ones the skills they need and keep them having fun will be of some use to you as you work with your wee ones as well!