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LoveMyBeautifulGift

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Posts posted by LoveMyBeautifulGift

  1. Hmmm...some good food for thought here. I think the way to go will be more taking school outside than outdoor classroom, as others have stated. I've been browsing Pinterest and drooling over Hugglepods today. Maybe we will string up a clothesline and hang some sheets/toss down some cushions and read outside this week, since I don't see one of those in my a near future we, lol.

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  2. Renai's Digging in the Dirt thread has me thinking...when DD was little, we did the whole outdoor classroom thing. Granted, at the time I didn't think of it as a classroom, but we took everything outside. Finger painting on the easel, reading in the tent, exploring various items at the sand table, chalk, bubbles, ride on toys, stilts, digging in the dirt for worms....

     

    Then, it stopped. We sent DD to Kinder. Outside time was limited to afternoons, and slowly afternoon activites ( story time at the library, gymnastics, play dates and, later, homework and afterschooling) took over the afternoons. We pulled DD out at the end of 2nd, started officially HSing at the start of 3rd. We are nearing the end of 4th, and as I said, Renai's thread has me thinking.

     

    We haven't recaptured that enjoyment of the outdoors-that relaxed, soak up the sun and the knowledge spirit that marked the early years. Yes, we go to the park or the nature center. Yes, DD goes out to the backyard for breaks and rides the scooter or plays fetch with the dog. But it's not the same. I would love to take the learning outside, I just seem to have forgotten how.

     

    Part of me feels that it may just be that DD is 10 and has outgrown the age and stage of an outdoor classroom. She's too old for sand tables and the Step 2 easel and whatnot. But another part of me wants to believe that we can create an outdoor learning space.

     

    So,if you made it through that, does anyone want to share ideas about creating a backyard learning environment for older children?

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  3. Hi all!  9yo DD has decided she wants "stuff to start knitting" for Christmas.  I have never knit, no on in our family knits, I don't know of any friends who knit...I am at a loss...can anyone recommend some good starter supplies?  Point me in the direction of good websites/resources?  We have JoAnn's, Michaels and Hobby Lobby nearby, and I am not adverse to ordering online.  Thanks!

  4. We have settled into a routine for W&R.  Everything before Writing Time is done out loud.  I read to her, we discuss, I lead with questions (from the book and based on our conversation).  I usually mark her answers/notes about our discussion on the pages as we go.  Starting at Writing Time, she writes in the answers until its time to amplify.  Finally, she does the amplification using Dragon (she does most of her longer writing assignments using Dragon).  She edits as she works (working with Dragon she has to tell it which punctuation to use) and prints a copy to share with me.  Sometimes, she will edit the printed copy, sometimes she is happy with it and doesn't want to make corrections.  The last two weeks, we have begun doing it all in one day, as she has wanted to get through the rest and get right to writing her story.  We discussed it today, and she said its easier to write the story when we've just done the work (we were breaking it up into 2 or 3 days of work each week).  Oh-and every 3rd week, we do Igniting Your Writing instead of W&R.     

  5. The Ass and His Driver:

     

    Once upon a time there was a donkey and his driver and they were heading up the hill. Then the donkey took it in his stupid, stubborn head that he could go his own way. he decided that since his barn was on the other side of the hill, he could just walk on over. But what he didn’t see was that the Valley below the hill was filled with Wildcats! He started walking down the hill when his driver caught him by the tail and said “don’t! If you go into that Valley you’ll be ripped to shreds!†But the donkey, being stubborn, pulled and pulled with all his might trying to get to the barn. So the driver said “fine! If you want to get ripped to shreds, I’ll let you. see what I care!†So the driver let go of the donkey’s tail and stormed away. The donkey, now seeing the Wildcats, thought to himself, no way! The driver was right, if I go through that Valley I WILL be ripped to shreds! So the donkey decided to go around the Wildcats. One of them, however, did see the donkey. Though it was only a kitten, it charged after him and gave him some nasty scratches on his hide. But, except for that, the donkey made it out and to the barn all right.

     

     

    The Mice in Council

     

     

     

    Something had to be done about that falcon! The beavers lived in fear of her sharp, menacing talons, never coming out of their huts in fear of her gobbling them up, which she has done to relatives of the beavers. One day, the beavers decided to gather everyone, and have a meeting. All of the beavers had good ideas, but none of them seemed good enough. Then one of the beavers had an idea that the others thought would be just crazy enough to work. “We’ll tie a mirror to the Falcons head! When she’s flying we’ll know because the sun will reflect off of the mirror!†The beavers thought it was a great idea, and started shouting and dancing around for joy, when the eldest beaver stood up and said, “it’s a great idea that the young beaver has had, but I have one question, and that is… Who will tie the mirror to the falcon?â€

     

     

    The Hunter and the Doves

     

     

    A fruit bat had stolen a blueberry from her neighbor and decided that she would fly across the river. But, as she was flying across the river, she saw her reflection in the water. But, she didn’t know it was her reflection. She thought it was another bat with a bigger blueberry! “hey you! Yes you! Give me your blueberry right now!†said the bat. The other bat didn’t move. The bat said, “all right, but you asked for it!†and she dove into the water, dropping the blueberry. She now realized it was just her reflection, and she found herself flapping her wings in the water for dear life. She made it out of the river sad and hungry, but safe.

     

    The Hunter and the Doves (totally missed this one earlier):

     

     

    Once upon a time, a flock of doves was flying over a field when they saw sunflower seeds scattered below a tree.  The doves flew down and started eating the salty, delicious sunflower seeds when, a hunter with big broad shoulders and an unshaven face jumped out of the tree and threw a net over the doves.  The king dove with silver feathers and a white crown shaped mark on his chest told the other doves “if we want to escape we are going to have to use our brains and our beaksâ€.  He whispered the plan into the other doves ears.  They each grabbed a corner of the net and lifted it up with their beaks.  The net lifted away and they threw it over the hunter when they flew into the skies. 

     

     

  6. DD9 started Fable back in August, and I've been meaning to post here, because we LOVE this program! 

     

    The Lion and the Mouse:

     

    Once upon a time, there was a gray mouse. and an ant saw the mouse and, in trying to get away, hurried over her tail. Awoken from her nap the mouse grabbed the ant and squeezed it in her paw. “Please let me go!†Said the ant “I may help you someday, but only if you let me go!†The mouse chuckled at this thought “you, an ant helping me, a mouse!†But, being a kindly mouse, she let the poor creature go. Now, one day, mouse was in her hole when, she smelled cheese outside her door. She went outside the mouse hole and to her surprise there was cheese out there! She grabbed the cheese, but before she could go back inside she found her tail snapped in a trap!! “Oh no!†Said the mouse “what will I do!?†And hearing the troubled shouts, the ant rushed to the mouse’ s rescue with her brothers and sisters “ we’ll help you!†Said the ant “ ready everybody?†The ant’s family said “ready!†The ant said, “ push!†The ant and his family pushed with all their might, and eventually, the mouse was free! “Thank you!†Said the mouse, “don’t mention it!†Said the ant. And everybody lived happily ever after

     

     

    The Crow and the Pitcher:

    Once upon a time, there was a crow who was very hot during a terrible drought that made all the plants wither.  She went to the river and saw only sand.  She went to the watering hole, and there only cracked ground.  She flew to someone’s windowsill, where it was shady, and found a pitcher with water in it.  But the water was at the bottom of the pitcher, and the neck was too narrow for the crow’s beak to reach the water.  The crow had an idea.  She flew to the watering hole and found small pebbles that she carried back to the windowsill.  She placed the pebbles into the pitcher, one by one.  Finally, she put in enough pebbles that the water flowed to the top of the pitcher.  When the water rose high enough, the crow dipped her beak into the cool water and took a drink. 

     

    The Fox and the Grapes:

    Once upon a time, there was a turkey who wanted to get into a silo, because it was full of corn, but the turkey could not get to the silo, because he was in the chicken house with a fence made of chicken wire. The turkey pushed and pushed at the chicken wire with all his might, but it wouldn’t budge. He decided to try to cut the chicken wire with his beak, and so he ran up to the chicken wire, raised his head, and tried to cut through the chicken wire. It wouldn’t cut though, because it was made of very hard plastic and the chickens ended up having to carry him inside. When the turkey woke up from his unconscious state, he decided to give up. “That corn is probably as hard as a rock.†Said the turkey “I wouldn’t eat it even if it was in the chicken house with me right now†and he went outside and started walking around, like there was no corn to start with.

     

     

     

     

     

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  7. Yes!  I jotted notes to myself on my copy of the schedule throughout the week so I could make adjustments Sunday when prepping for the week.  Made a couple of changes and printed the fresh new schedule (which so far has fewer notes).  Most of the changes were timing.  Hoping that within a couple of weeks we will have worked out all the kinks and worked out what our realistic routine is. 

  8. Hmmm....I once made cornbread from scratch with corn starch instead of corn meal. DD had been in the hospital and I was exhausted. I couldn't figure out why it was so flat and it wasn't until halfway through the meal that I actually tasted a piece-it was like eating a sand cake, lol, and my poor family had been choking it down bc they knew how tired I was and didn't want to hurt my feelings. It was only when I went to clean up after the meal that I realized why.

     

    Another time I served raw chicken-that was the night we realized that the oven was going out and that I vowed never to serve meat w/o checking w/ a meat thermometer again. I haven't been able to cook or eat that particular chicken dish since ( I was three bites in before I realized-blech!).

  9. Hmmm...things that have made my life run smoother:

     

    -Each room/area has a day that it gets a deeper clean that just the basic pickup/wipedown...so no room ever gets out of control, but I don't spend hours cleaning the entire house every day...

     

    -Fridays are takeout night.  Fridays are also when I give the kitchen its deep clean.  I go through the cupboards/fridge/freezer as part of the clean to check for boxes that have only one serving, or expired yogurt or whatever.  Then I pull out my recipes/make a grocery list that lists EVERYTHING (salt, pepper, oil EVERYTHING) needed for the recipes/meals for that week.  Then I stand in the kitchen and cross off the items that we have (often, I know, but if I don't absolutely know for sure, I double check).  Then, what remains on the list gets re-written in the order found in the store.  The list thing was an older trick I learned from another forum, that seriously cut down on the number of last minute trips to the store during the week.  But I recently started doing the Friday night takeout/kitchen clean, and it has tremendously cut down on how long it takes to write the list & how long it takes to get everything put up Saturday after we shop. 

     

    -If I fall off routine, I pick up where I should be, rather than trying to play catch up with the whole house-so if I miss the bathroom one week, oh well, it will get done next week...this especially helps when we are way off routine and it seems overwhelming to start back up-I just need to implement the routine for that day to get back on track.

     

    -Sundays are planning days-I look at HS schedule, Girl Scout schedule, whatever else is going on that week and make a to-do list (which I then re-write by priority). 

     

    -I have been trying to break the bad habit of "hopping on" the computer "for a minute" when DD is otherwise occupied.  Often, a minute turns into an hour (or more) and then we need to scramble to make up lost time.  My goal is to limit myself to only after DD is in bed for the night. 

     

    -I am also trying to get back into the habit of getting up at least 1/2 hour before DD...days used to run so much smoother if I had a little time to myself in the morning. 

     

     

  10. I saw these at B&N about a month ago.  It seems like they broke the original version into 2 books.  Having attempted to use the original with DD9 last fall, I actually appreciate the changes.  (DD9 was fine with the text, but the tampon pictures freaked her out, lol).  Book 1 is written more for girls like my DD-a much broader view of puberty, a good starting off point for girls who aren't ready for quite so much detail.  Book 2 has all the details.  Or, at least, that was my impression after thumbing through both books while DD9 hunted down a book from a series she was mid-way through (the only one from the series the library didn't have).  HTH!

  11. Well, we're only half-way(ish) through our first year, but we had 2 flops this year-

     

    DD9 LOATHES Sequential Spelling-somehow I thought since she was a natural speller, this would work...especially since she got to work with a whiteboard...I even did the pretest and started her out where it recommended, but it was still WAY too repetitious/easy for her (I've decided we will just skip spelling altogether-maybe we might try vocab next year, maybe). 

     

    Discovering Great Artists-DD9 is just not interested in the projects.  She enjoyed reading about the artists (actually read through all of the artist notes one afternoon), but most of the projects were less than inspiring for her. 

      

     

     

  12. Okay...realized I mostly listed drawbacks and benefits of being with a charter, soooo....benefits of no charter: 

     

    Not tied to the charter's school year

    No outside pressure to produce tangible output

    No guilt over playing hooky when you don't do school on an official school day

    No testing

    No scheduled meetings/check ins

    No additional paperwork for the school (attendance records, progress reports, etc.)

    No ordering deadlines

    No waiting for order approvals/school processing before your order gets shipped

     

    Hmmm....I'm sure there are more...

     

    ETA: Everything you buy belongs to you forever...some of the items we purchase through our charter are expected to be returned to the charter at the end of year (example-microscopes)...so if you wanted to use it over the summer or whatever, you would still need to purchase out of your own funds anyway.

  13. :bigear: Listening in...this is something I have been considering for the last few weeks myself.  We used a charter this year for a few reasons (was our first year and wasn't sure we were ready to be completely independent after 3 years in PS, had heard a lot of positive feedback about this particular charter, and of course, the $1600 budget was very tempting).  Looking back, I can see how being with the charter has boxed us in a bit.  Where I might have been entirely relaxed/project based, I did choose a couple of workbook/busywork type things at the beginning of the year, just so we would have something to "show our work" at our monthly check ins.  As we have progressed through the year and I have collaborated more with our supervising teacher, I have realized that I was actually imposing more limitations (in curriculum choices, in what we could cover) and expectations (in how much work we had to show) than were actually expected from the school (and more importantly, from our teacher), which has helped me to relax a lot more in the last few months.  On the positive side, we have had many opportunities through the charter that we wouldn't have had on our own-a spelling bee, science fair, horseback riding lessons, and many other things that we didn't have with public school and wouldn't have if we were completely independent.  The co-op/hs groups around here tend to be very religious or for preschool ages, so the charter has connected us to other families (there have been quite a few park days/local outings organized by the charter).  As I placed our final order for the year w/ the charter and independently ordered a few things I want for next year that I know the charter wouldn't pay for (but they have no objection to us using), I find myself weighing the pros and cons of staying w/ the charter vs. complete independence.    

  14. We are using Writeshop Jr.  Last week we discussed different funny story ideas, and DD8 outlined a story (1 quick sentence ea. describing beginning, middle and end) in which screeching squirrels were driving a town crazy and a detective investigated and discovered that they had accidently been hypnotized.  Today (after a bit of a struggle at the beginning-which was solved by my reminding her that it was just a rough draft that she would be editing, and to quit worrying about creating a perfect first sentence and just start writing down the story as it came to her) she wrote this (copied as she wrote it) in about 30 minutes (two 15 minute sessions). 

     

    The Case of the Screeching Squirrels

     

    Last Saturday, Detective Bella ate some cheese.  Then she took a shower.  T hen she pet her hamster.  Then a squirrel was flying outside her house.  Then she caught the squirrel & it hooted.  She dropped the squirrel.  She picked the squirrel back up & finds out it was hypnotized!  She looked at it's eyes & saw it wasn't blinking.  She took it to the hypnotist's and he un-hypnotizes the squirrel.

     

    The hypnotist's office was a clean, organized place that smelled like honey & jasmines.  The hypnotists saw her & said, "Ah, I see you found my hypnotized-on-accident squirrel".  He took out his pocket watch & threw it at the squirrel.  It hit the squirrel & he snapped out of it.

     

     

    So-would anyone like to share some feedback?  Would like to know what others think, so I can compare my thoughts/expectations.  She will edit this week, then I will review with her before she "publishes" her final draft, so I would love to give myself a reality check before we review together, since this will be our first endeavor at editing together.  Thanks!   

     

     

     

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