Phoebe Singing

This is Phoebe singing the theme song to Barney and then The Itsy Bitsy Spider.

Math

My least favorite part of homeschooling is math.  And I know it's likely to not ever get easier as they get older and the work gets harder.  Every math class I remember from school had more than half of students frustrated and confused. I'm not completely satisfied with our math curriculum but at the same time I'm afraid to switch to something else.  Bella does just fine with it, but John leaves me wanting to bang my head on the wall.  I swear half the time he's simply playing dumb on purpose, and the other times it's the way things are worded that messes it up for him.  So I've been busy researching different math options for next year.

This weekend we went to the bookstore and got some little math workbooks for the kids.  John did 20 pages in his subtraction book yesterday, voluntarily.  He was actually enjoying himself.  And he got all the problems right.  Bella did 30 pages.  Definitely money well spent.  They chose math over TV last night.

At Ikea

We're Weird

Unseasonably Warm

It doesn't feel like winter here at all.  It's only snowed a few times and not even enough to stick to the roads.  The kids are sure ready for some real snow to play in.  It's nice but I'm kind of afraid it'll all come late and we'll have no spring.

After school today the kids all went out in the backyard to play, for the first time in months.  They had a blast and it was nice to see them get some of that extra energy out.  I can't wait for the days of summer where we're outside all day long.  Where school, lunch and even dinner all take place outside.

School Today

School went great today.  We got lots done and there was no complaining, on John and Bella's part anyway, can't really say the same when it comes to Hazel.

Our work for the day




We finished our 1st grade handwriting book today.  This is their final check page.  Bella does better with lowercase letters and John does better with capital.




Bella also finished level one of 1st grade phonics.


Hazel was a total butt today.  Getting into all kinds of trouble from the start, like getting into my yarn and unwinding balls.  When the big kids stopped to get some water from the fridge she decided she wanted a juice.  When I told her no her world came to an end for awhile.




And today Phoebe decided she was sick.  She looks absolutely miserable right?  Yeah, I'm not buying the whole sick thing.  But she was totally happy to lay on the couch and watch a movie while we did school so I went with it.  One less kid in my way complaining is always a good thing.

Lunch

John's Fashion Sense

This is John's "super cool" outfit from yesterday.  I love it.

Bingo

The kids love to play Bingo.  We have a United States Bingo game but it's a lot of work to play because the kids can't identify all the states on their own.  So this weekend while we were at Lakeshore Learning buying more pencils (we seem to lose pencils faster than socks around here) I picked up sight word bingo.  I haven't really pushed sight words but the kids have picked them up on their own and had no trouble at all playing.   It's definitely a fun way to practice words.





Phoebe didn't know how to play but had fun pretending.  Everytime one of the others said "I have that" she'd say the same.  And when they said they didn't have something then neither did she.  About halfway through the first game she lost interest in it altogether and left.





And John told her how to spell "Bella" and she wrote it down.

Her favorite place in the house

Inside Phoebe's toy wagon.

She wrote her name

Phoebe wrote her name for the first time today.  She loves to do school at the table with the big kids.  She has two dry erase books for letters and number and then a tracing book.  I taught her how to properly hold a pencil last summer but have just let her go at her own pace since then.  She usually does a couple pages and then goes off to play.  In the last month she started writing the letters "H" and "O" but that was it.  Today she made a bunch of scribbles and said it was her name so I wrote it down and she copied it.  Then she did it again herself on a different page.  I had written her name out like that before but she showed no interest in copying before.

Very Interesting

I was killing time on youtube last week and happened upon these videos.  It's about how education (or the lack of) is handled in Sweden during the early years.  Basically it's all play with no emphasis on formal learning (like reading) until they begin school at age 7.  And within a few years the Swedish have higher reading skills than other countries.

There's quite a few in the homeschooling world that agree with this stance and I wasn't exactly sure how I felt about it before.  I do believe too much is pushed too early, but the thought of doing nothing before age 7 just feels so odd to those raised with preschool and such starting at age 3 or 4.

When we began kindergarten John was not ready to learn to read, that was very apparent when I began working with him (at age 5.)  I decided not to push it and did absolutely no phonics work with him throughout kindergarten.  When we started 1st grade I pulled out the kindergarten box and he progressed through it wonderfully.  Bella did the kindergarten level all through last year.  Now halfway through 1st grade John has almost completely caught up with Bella.  He is a year younger than her but has done a year and a half worth of work in half a year.  And honestly Bella's a faster learner than him. 

I'm definitely rethinking how I want to do things with Phoebe and Hazel.

I can't think of a title for this post, but Corey hates untitled posts so...

Last night was the second time I found him asleep in this chair.

School Pictures

Bella's math pages


And John's


 And this last one is old but I don't think I ever shared it.  John wants to learn the piano, I can play but I taught myself with a made up method of my own that apparently makes no sense to anyone but me.  So I'm not sure whether I'll actually be able to teach the kids.  Perhaps we'll get them real lessons eventually.

I did sit him down for a lesson though and his hands could use a little strengthening.  He can't push down only one key at a time.  One finger goes down and the others go with it.

More Dominoes

I got of video of Bella building a tower with dominoes this time.  It was actually the first time I'd watched her make one start to finish.

It's in fast motion because it was nearly 10 minutes long.  10 minutes of domino building gets boring.

Chipmunks

Today Corey took the older three kids to the movies to see the new chipmunk movie.  Hazel and I went to do some knitting for charity.  I'm so not at all upset that I missed out on the movie, I really don't think I could sit through it without getting a migraine.  They loved it of course, Corey not so much.  I'm very glad he was willing to suffer through it for them though.

Playmobil

I LOVE Playmobil sets.  The amount of teeny tiny pieces can be overwhelming at times though.  This evening it brought 2 hours of semi-quiet playing from the older three kids, with only few moments of fighting here and there over stolen pieces.

Lunch at the mall

John Reading

Just a short video of John reading.  He really didn't want to give me a high five at the end, I guess he's too cool for that now.

Hazel Talking

Hazel is doing great with speech therapy.

She can say:

• Bella (it was her first word)
• Phoebe
• Bob-o (her word for sippy cups)
• Mommy
• Daddy
• down
• eat*
• please*
• water*
• more*
• bye*
• no

* Words she doesn't use on her own, only repeats.

And she's still using sign language for eat, drink and more.

My New Cookbook

I'm loving my new cookbook.  I rarely buy cookbooks because  it's so much cheaper to just find recipes on the internet.  But we love quinoa and I just wasn't happy with the lack of recipes involving it on the internet so I ordered this.  Tons of variety and so far what we've tried has been good.

We had the chicken fried quinoa on Monday (like chicken fried rice but with quinoa instead of rice) and the kids LOVED it.  Tonight was tuna casserole, this one had quinoa instead of pasta, and it was also a big hit with the kids. 

The kids keep begging me to try one of the cookie recipes so we'll have to do that soon.

Monster Trucks

On Saturday Corey took Bella and John to a monster truck show.  John went last year and has asked many times when it was coming back and Bella wanted to go too.  They of course had lots of fun.  This morning John told me he had made a monster truck video with his iPod so tonight I sat down to take a look.  I found 14 minutes of video of him playing monster trucks, all with one hand as he held his iPod in the other.  So here is the extremely shortened version of it.



Gotta love the sound effects boys make.  It seems there's rarely a time when some sort of engine noise isn't coming out of his mouth.

It's so nice to clean the kitchen while the kids quietly read at the table.

Potty Chart Complete

Phoebe filled up her potty chart yesterday so we're done with that now.  She's still doing awesome and has no fear of public toilets now.  In fact she seems to really like them and always wants to go.  I try my best to avoid public bathrooms so I'm not too happy about that.  The whole process could not have gone smoother.

Now if only I could get John and Bella to stop wetting the bed...



Dominoes

Bella loves to build towers with dominoes.  She's really good at it too.  The fact that she manages to do it with a 3 year old and 22 month old playing next to her makes it even more impressive.

Silly Girl

Everytime Hazel gets one of these plates she walks around the house looking through it and laughing.