craftyerin
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Posts posted by craftyerin
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ugh. It's going to be a wet one here in NOLA.
http://belo.bimedia.net/WWL/weather/stills/ssite/640x480/sela.gif
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I wake up 45min to an hour before the kids. It is essential for me if I want to be ready for them and happy to see them.
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I'm reading Amy Chua's Tiger Mom book now.
(Yes, I'm dropping a bomb with no explanation, hahaha.)
LOL I actually really enjoyed that book. I read it just to see what the hype was about.
I want to re-read the grammar stage section of TWTM, plus read at least one book on Charlotte. Either one of her actual books (I own the set) or, more realistically, When Children Love to Learn.
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We're breaking from FIAR since mama wants a planning break, but we'll continue with phonics and handwriting through the summer because we're at a place in both where losing momentum would be foolish. I am undecided about math.
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We use Ikea Expedit cube shelves with Target Itso fabric bins. My kids never have used tables in a play room. They prefer the floor. I even got rid of the train table, but kept he trains/tracks/accessories. They'd rather build it all on the floor.
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I don't order big batches of curriculum all at once. Rather, I buy the next ETC book when we're a couple of weeks away from finishing the current one, same with the "B" half of Singapore books, etc. I tend to buy from CBD, RR, or Amazon based on whoever has the best price.
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I have never had a kid complain about writing in ETC. We have done the Get Ready, Get Set books, and now I have a one kiddo in book 1 and two kiddos in book 2.
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Is there really a huge difference between the programs? I'm so confused, lol.
No, IMO, there is not. I own several, and they might introduce things in a slightly different order, or use more or less games/activities/flashcards/worksheets, but a good phonics program is a good phonics program. Really, pick the one you like the samples of the most, and go for it. You'll be fine.
We are using a mish mash of Phonics Pathways, Explode the Code, and some Happy Phonics games.
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How much rhyming and phonological awareness type activities are there? I wish there were samples to look at. Unless I'm not finding them.
There is a phonological awareness game in every lesson. That is when you use the puppet--to teach the games. SO FUN!
For me, it was absolutely worth every penny, and I recommend it to everyone I know. I used it with three kids, and when we finished, they were already to read. It was open-and-go, no prep, and FUN. That was exactly what I was looking for in a letters/reading readiness type program. It was perfect!
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I have an ADHD almost-6yo. If I required him to sit for a morning circle/basket time, he'd be DONE and I'd never get anything done with him afterwards. I tend to do basket-ish things at meal times when I have a captive audience and focus on the 3Rs first thing in the morning.
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oh, sorry. I did the list for the current year. I can list what FIAR titles I plan to do next year, if you're interested.
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We did the following FIAR titles as units, pus a variety of go-along books selected from the library for each (didn't keep a list of those titles).
Harold and the Purple Crayon
The Story about Ping
Mr Gumpy's Motor Car
Madeline
The Salamander Room
The Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Gray Bridge
How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World
A New Coat for Anna
Katy and the Big Snow
Peter Rabbit
The Story of Ferdinand
Make Way for Ducklings
Mirette on the High Wire
Papa Piccolo
We also took breaks from FIAR to do a couple of self-made units on the Summer Olympics, Thanksgiving, and Louisiana (our state), so there were books that went with those, but again, I didn't keep a comprehensive list. LOTS of library books.
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We are in the midst of K right now and I have been THRILLED with what we've done. I'd do it again in a heart beat. FIAR, plus 3Rs. For the 3Rs, we are using Singapore Essential Math, Phonics Pathways, Explode the Code and Happy Phonics games (never all three phonics options on the same day), and handwriting.
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I have three in this age range, 4.5yo boy/girl twins and a 5.5yo boy. Their abilities to do the things you listed vary WIDELY. My daughter can (and does!) retell you the events of EVERY day in excruciating detail. She draws, she colors, she writes. The boys? Yeah, not so much. They can usually give you the "big event" of a day, but just as often if you ask them what the best part of their day was, they'll tell you something random like "We ate sandwiches." True, but it was AT THE AQUARIUM. They seem to miss the point a lot. :lol: Both boys can write their names, but it doesn't look good. And my oldest one is just as likely to write the 4 letters of his name out of order as in the correct order. He (the 5.5 yo) just learned to draw a person with a body last week, like I literally had to show him how to NOT make the person's legs come straight out of their heads. I thought all kids grew out of that phase? He didn't.
Short answer--I'm not worried. I don't think you should be, either.
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Parenting with Love and Logic
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the videos that Rosie has at http://www.educationunboxed.com show a lot of wonderful ways to work with younger kids on math in a concrete way. Her youngest daughter is 4 in the videos.
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I sweep under the table and bar in the kitchen after every meal. I use my swiffer VAC (no liquid) almost every day. LOVE that thing. It takes me ~5 min to breeze through the main areas of the house before I go to bed. I have cut up some plain tshirts to use on it instead of the disposable swiffer cloths. IME, any substitute thicker than one layer of tshirt makes the vac part not work so well (lifts it up too high off the floor and it doesn't have that powerful of a suck). For bigger dirt (like the sand and leaves that get tracked in the back door), I use my regular vacuum on the hard floor setting (Shark Navigator). And once a week or so, I steam mop (I have a Bissell and a Eureka, but I prefer my Bissell). I adore my steam mop, have used it on laminate floors in two houses over the last 4 years and have had no issues.
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You can keep a specific person, or group of people, from seeing your posts without defriending them by changing the privacy settings on your status updates. The updates won't show up on their newsfeeds, but they also won't be able to see them if they go to your profile. It will just look like you're a boring facebooker who never posts anything. :) I don't know of a way of blocking them from one place but not the other. You can easily change the privacy settings for any specific post in case there are some you don't mind them seeing.
Yes, you can put them on a "restricted list". https://www.facebook.com/help/206571136073851/
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Someone linked just last week to Susan Wise Bauer's video about "rest time" that everyone does in her home, even the high-schoolers. I hadn't seen it for a while, so it was good to be reminded:
Susan and her mom talk about the sanity-saving rest time in The Well-Trained Mind: 1-2 hours in the afternoon for quiet reading/rest/playing for each person in a separate space. It is a huge time-saver.
I'm a fairly sensitive person, and definitely an introvert. There are threads here regularly about strategies for introvert homeschool mom sanity. I lock myself in the RV a few weekends a year for lesson planning and general sanity. I also let my husband pretty much take over from dinner onward. When the children were younger, I always did the grocery shopping by myself. Heaven. And sometimes my husband would take the children to the park on a Saturday morning or long summer evening. And I would stay HOME by MYSELF.
Yes, this is KEY for my survival as a homeschool parent. We do mandatory kids-in-rooms rest time every afternoon from 1:30 to 3. I putter around, fold laundry, play online, watch Downton Abbey, crochet, read, you name it. Really, though. If we skip it, I'm FRIED and have a very hard time having any of me left for family time in the evening when DH comes home. like WTMCassandra, I run errands alone whenever possible, and my husband takes the kids out for a couple of hours almost every Saturday morning. I truly enjoy homeschooling and rarely feel overwhelmed to the point of wanting to quit, and I think we can attribute that mostly to the helps we've put in place to protect my energy level and emotional health.
eta: do make sure you watch the "part 2" of that video where SWB goes from room to room to see what her kids are doing during rest time. Cracks me up!
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I identify as an introvert, homeschooling at least 2 children who are NOT introverts and a third I can't tell about yet. I have found much encouragement recently from a series of posts on the Simple Homeschool blog. The author is an introvert, and has posted several times lately about how that affects her life as a homeschooling mom.
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school room from my blog almost a year ago: http://lookwhaterinmade.blogspot.com/2012/06/school-room.html
BUT I'm moving it this weekend! I've decided that I don't like it separated from the main parts of the house (it's in a room that was formerly a garage, and has been converted). So I'm swapping it with the living room. School stuff will move to the living room, right smack dab in the middle of the house, and the TV, etc will move to the "front" room, and that room will become known as the "den". I'm excited! If this thread is still going next week, I'll post an updated picture.
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Here's one of our favorite storybooks, about Louisiana food!
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Are they pronounced differently? I always thought they sounded the same, just spelled differently.
I pronounce them the same!
He insisted that my name should be pronounced Air-in (which is pretty much how I personally would say both versions) and that the boy would be a-ron, with a short a and an obviously vowel difference in the 2nd syllable. In theory, I see his point, but when he was calling on kids to answer questions and said one of those two, there was no way to distinguish which one he had said! He disagreed.
FIAR - Science Question
in K-8 Curriculum Board
Posted
We do not add any science to FIAR, besides an additional library book or two on a science topic of particular interest, or maybe a related Magic School Bus video. I think that science is one of the strongest parts of FIAR. Many times the manual has multiple options for the science lesson for a unit and they're too good to choose just one! We often choose to do a couple of them and spread our rows out to 6-7 days.
Isn't that funny? We actually add *more* biology since that is what we tend to love. Most of our add-on library books are about animals or life cycles. We read a few bear books this week in conjunction with Another Celebrated Dancing Bear, despite the science lesson in the manual being about the boiling and freezing points of water.