lea1
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Posts posted by lea1
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We were planning to be our own GC but have now decided to hire someone to do it for cost-plus. I will still officially be the GC and will be helping out a lot but he will be on-site at least 4 days a week, ensuring things are done right.
There is a book by Carl Heldmann called Be Your Own House Contractor that is very good and he also has a web site with tons of information on it. He answers questions on his web site and also has an architect who answers questions.
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My favorite was MaMa Gorilla, rather than Grandma Rilla.
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We also have both, although our sand box is homemade wooden frame that my husband made. Our sons love to get buckets of water from the hose or their small pool and put it in the sandbox and we are ok with that. It doesn't have a bottom though so it drains and evaporates fairly quickly.
As for sand in the pool, when they had a plastic pool, the sand in the pool was actually a good thing because, for some reason, it delayed the build up of the slime significantly. Now we have an inflatable pool so we try to keep the sand out of it because we are concerned it might puncture it, although I am tempted to try it because it would mean I would not have to clean it as much:).
I think mixing sand and water is just too tempting and fun for kids. If you really want to keep it separate, you might have to keep one covered while they play with the other or be out there with them all the time. I personally don't see it as a very big deal around here. The boys have a ball playing in both and, let's face it, sand is just much more fun when it has a bit of water in it, as you can do so much more with it.
The only toys we allow outside are toys that can be played with anywhere outside, for the most part, so we have not had an issue with that one.
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Our two sons are both from Russia and they both came home 3.5 years ago, when they were 14 and 15.5 months old.
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We let each of our two sons pick a book to read, after putting on PJ's and brushing teeth. We sit in the beds in their room and read the Bible, then pray, then read the two books they have chosen.
After that, there is one last trip to potty then to bed, lights out. Each one gets a short back rub and then I say good night and leave the room. It normally takes about 30 minutes total, including PJ's and brushing teeth.
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When we do our quiet time, one child is on the living room couch and the other is on the smaller couch in the library or playroom. They switch every other day, as they both prefer to be in the living room.
When we get ready for quiet time, they each gather books, puzzles and/or quiet toys to play with. We are currently doing 75 minutes a day.
I normally do quiet time with them, as I enjoy the peaceful time. I normally sit in a chair in the living room and read.
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One of my sons will come downstairs after bedtime once in a while to tell me he can't go to sleep. It is not a fear or stress thing, just that he took a nap that day during quiet time so he is not quite sleepy yet. He has a small CD player on his night stand and we have a few CD's that he really enjoys listening to, mostly Christian music for children. He comes down to get a different CD sometimes but this really seems to work for him.
Not sure if it would help with your son, since it is a fear thing, but it might help to give him something else to think about.
When we did have to sit with our sons until they fell asleep, my husband and I took turns and we would take a laptop with us and read news or whatever while the boys fell asleep.
It is very tiring to have to sit with them every night, especially when you are already exhausted with all you are going through. I hope you find something that helps.
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My guys are only 4.5 years old and they love the first CD of poems. We listen to them in the car and they repeatedly ask to replay various poems. They think the poems are very funny, they are increasing their vocabulary and after we listen to them for the next year or so, we should have them all memorized.:D
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I have been registered since April of last year but have lurked for much longer. Before we were married, dh and I discussed and agreed we would home school our children. I started researching it not long after our children came home from Russia when they were 14 months and 15.5 months old.
One of the first books I happened across was the WTM and I loved it. It just made so much sense to me and seemed like it would be such a great education. Not long after, I searched WTM on Google and have been a regular here ever since. :lol:
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My 4.5 year old son is ready to quit trying if he can not master something quickly. For instance, he is a natural athlete and can hit the ball with the bat really well, even though he has an incorrect stance (he stands straight up and faces the pitcher:). My husband and I have tried to gently correct his stance. At first he simply refuses. He does not want to be told how to do something (can you see how this might be a challenge when it comes to homeschooling??). This happened yesterday and, after much coaxing, he finally tried the more correct stance. Unfortunately, with the more correct stance, he missed the ball most of the time...and then he quit. I told him it just takes some practice to get used to it and coaxed him into trying again. After missing again once or twice, he quit again.
I have seen the same behavior with learning how to hold his pencil and learning how to write letters. He does not want me to tell him or show him how to do anything.
I have had discussions with him about learning from others, using examples, etc. He just finished taking a first session of swimming lessons and did very well with receiving instruction from the teacher. There have been times when we were "doing school" (practicing writing some letters or whatever, at their request) and I told them about brick and mortar schools and the teachers there and we pretended, with them calling me teacher and he responded well to that at the time.
Do you think this is a personality thing or something he will grow out of or what? Any suggestions or ideas for how best to deal with this? So far I have not pushed, other than some coaxing at times, but most of the time I back off when he refuses. I have been hoping he might out grow it. What do you think?
ETA Wow, this is my 100th post!
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Thanks to everyone for the great feedback. I really appreciate it. My husband and I are a bit nervous about moving to the country, since both of us have always lived in cities or smallish towns.
We would be living about an hour and fifteen minutes from Tulsa, so it would be quite a hike to get back here, although there are smaller city/towns closer to where we would be living.
We believe it would be a fun place to grow up for the boys and a nice, safe, peaceful place to live for all of us. We could have a garden and chickens and whatever else we decided we would want (horses, cows, etc.). We would have a view of a very large lake and we would definitely be off the beaten path. There would be around 400 acres for our boys to run and play...plenty of room:).
I need to further investigate homeschool groups and potential activities in the surrounding smaller cities and towns. We might be able to find things like sports and music lessons closer than Tulsa.
Thanks again for the feedback and I would love to hear anyone else's comments.
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We currently live in Tulsa, OK and are contemplating moving to the country. For those of you home schooling in a country setting, what is your opinion of how well this works? I'm concerned about the availability of sports or other activities.
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My doctor husband has seen many trampoline injuries while working in ERs, so we are very anti-trampoline. We also have one of the small ones inside the house and the boys enjoy it.
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My grandmother's name was Rilla and her sister's name was Parrill. I don't think I have ever heard those names before. Has anyone else?
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My sons are still little so we have not gotten into this yet but I was very impressed with Andrew Pudewa (director of the Institute for Excellence in Writing and a homeschooling father of seven) at the Midwest Homeschool Conference. He is an awesome speaker and has many of his talks available online pretty inexpensively at his website. He also tends to gear his materials and discussions towards boys to some degree also, as he thinks they tend to be left out when it comes to learning to write. He has a great CD of poems for memorization that are geared towards boys also. I highly recommend checking out his CD's because he sure has a lot of good knowledge about teaching and how to provide correction without damaging the child's excitement for writing. He really knows his stuff. I will re-listen to these CD's many times over the years. If you have an MP3, they are only $3, I believe.
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I have two sons who are 6 weeks apart in age and they are using it together, although somewhat unofficially. They are only 4.5 years old right now so we are using it here and there, when they feel like doing it. They do not like the book so I read ahead and make up index cards with the words. Then we play games with the index cards, such as if they can sound out the word, they get to keep the card and then we count cards at the end. They think that is a lot of fun and they have both learned a lot that way. I write little notes to myself on index cards also so I can remember to teach them the rules and about the words that do not follow the rules. I have to do this because I am learning it with them, since I did not learn phonics when I was in school.
We all sit together to read the readers too. To begin with, we would each take turns reading one sentence, which worked great for them because they were still challenged but not so much that they wanted to give up. Now they can each read an entire book but they still like to sit together and take turns reading the readers....although, again, we only do it when they feel like it at this point.
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From my very limited experience to date, I am finding that it is pretty much hit or miss for selecting something that I end up liking, much less whether or not my sons will like it.
What are your tips or advice for selecting a curriculum that fits. For you experienced homeschoolers, what is your process? How do you do it? Does it get easier to know that you have found what you are looking for...or not?
Any tips of the trade that you can pass on to us newbies?
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My two are 4.5 years old and were very reluctant to sit with me and use the book. They were clearly ready to learn to read but I needed to make it fun. I printed the new words for each lesson on index cards and then we would play games with them. If they could sound out the words, they could keep the card. If not, I put it at the back of the set and we continued on. Eventually they would have all of the cards. They loved counting them at the end to see how they did.
Since they didn't like reading from the OPG book, I got a set of Bob books. They really were not motivated by those either so I ordered the ones recommended in the WTM (Modern Curriculum Press Phonics Practice Readers). The boys love them and are very motivated to learn to read them.
We are going very slowly (pretty much only when they are interested, although I will remind them by suggesting it). We did the short vowel sections and now we have skipped ahead to the long vowels because that is what comes next in these phonics readers.
For now, it is working for us. Good luck. I know you will find some fun ways to do it.
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But at 5 or 6yo? You have to think of it as "mandatory" for a 5 or 6yo?
I believe the WTM suggests starting mandatory learning of phonics/pre-reading at around 4 or 4.5ish, starting at 5 to 10 minutes a day, increasing gradually to 30 minutes daily. She even says not to ask if they want to practice reading or if they want to learn to read because they will say no. She says to simply tell them it is time to practice our phonics or something like that.
It seems that it is pretty common to start some amount of mandatory schooling around 5 or 6 in the homeschooling environment.
The wonderful thing about homeschooling is that everyone can have different opinions and do it the way they believe is best. :001_smile:
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But why would it have to be *mandatory*?:confused:
I believe at some point it will have to become mandatory, as they will not willing work on a lesson because it is more fun to play what they choose to play, when they choose to play it.
I have been teaching them (very slowly) to read but doing it through creative, fun, game-like activities. Even then, they would not want to do this every day or even every other day. It is actually quite amazing they have learned as much as they have learned in the small amount of time we have spent working on it. The Leapfrog DVD's and StarFall.com have helped also.
Thanks so much for all of the feedback. It is great to hear about everyone's experiences.
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Just curious about what age you started doing mandatory school time with your littles?
My two guys have late birthdays so they just miss the cut off to start K in the fall (if they were going to public school). Of course, since we are homeschooling, we can start when ever we want. We do lots of learning while playing but I have yet to make school time mandatory.
It is very tempting though because they are already reading cvc words/readers and are trying to write words and such.
I will have to double check but I believe in the WTM they recommend starting about now with 5 or 10 minutes a day and working up to 30, of mandatory learning-to-read time. I need to re-read that.
When do you start your littles?
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We adopted both of our sons from Russia at 14 and 15.5 months. Of course neither of them understood any English. We never heard either of them speak Russian, although they might have and maybe we just did not recognize the words. They picked up English very quickly though and were right on target (if not ahead) within a year.
Sorry if this was not what you were looking for but thought I would contribute, just in case it might be helpful.
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:bigear::bigear::bigear: --Mom of two little 4 year olds :001_smile:
What do you allow your kids to do during quiet/rest time?
in General Education Discussion Board
Posted
We started quiet time each day when the boys gave up their naps. In the beginning, I only allowed books or puzzles and found out quickly that they had to be in separate rooms if we were indeed going to have 'quiet'.
Over time we have now evolved to being in the same room, although I am in the room also and they can not see each other very well. They take turns, one on the couch and the other on the floor with two bean bag chairs behind a large chair (it's kind of a fun little hidey hole kind of place). I also allow them to have lots of other kinds of toys, although they have to be quiet toys. They love having the building toys, such as Tinker Toys and Trios. They still look at books and they also enjoy listening to books and music on CD through head phones.
I sometimes wonder if I should have stuck with just books and puzzles. Once they learn to read, we may go to just books.