The 2012 school year begins!

Well, we're back in the swing of things.  I decided to go ahead with "My Father's World" Curriculum for Kindergarten and with some advice from my Sister in Law, to add on "Math U See" for the math curriculum as MFW is not too strong in the Math department.  
So far, so good.  We're 3 weeks in and I'm enjoying that we have a new 'Unit' each week. 
Week 1- 7 day creation
Week 2- The letter S and study on the Sun
Week 3- The letter M and a study on the Moon.  This is where we're at right now.

I'm actually enjoying going to the Library and picking out the suggested reading materials for the girls.  This usually ends up being about 3 or 4 books from the local library - out of a suggested 20 or so.  I havn't ventured to other librarys due to time constraints.

Our daily school time begins when lil 'I' goes to sleep for his morning nap.  We begin with calender time and counting (a suggested activity).  Then we move to our activities where I spend 40 mins one-on-one time with "K" to learn her numbers and letters (curriculum activities) while "M" quietly plays with special "school time" toys.  She's pretty good at playing by herself. It's then snack time....and I'm finding this is a blessing because K gets fidgity and is ready to get up and stretch by that time. 

Math time is when "M" and "I" go down for naps.  K is breezing thru this so far.  My struggle, however, is that this is the time I want to take a nap too. 

My prayer now is that my enthusiasm remains and that my fatigue is fought off. Not sure if my fatigue is normal with 3 youngsters, an ailment, or selfish, laziness? I wonder if all mom's fight the fatigue monster at 11am in the morning?  By 2pm, my eyes are closing.  After an hour nap or so, I'm able to face the rest of the day.  NORMAL? I don't know.

A Break

So I took a long break from this blog.  I didn't go public.  I got bogged down and tired (or exhausted) and truly started to freak out about what homeschooling demands will look like.  Well, God gave me a fluke break from work (8 day stretch of no shifts) and placed people and truths in my life to direct me in the way He wants me to go.  I have been trying to do too much....when right now, less is more! I have been spending many fun filled, relaxing days with my children and have been seeing where my lack of focus on their character has been playing out.....temper tantrums, etc.
With some new direction, a breath of fresh air, and letting go of my high demands on myself, we've decided to start K in kindergarten this fall.  She'll be 5 in October, so if things don't go as planned, she could always repeat it next year. 
I believe I have found a curriculum that will work well for my needs and my childrens'. 
Now, aside from homeschooling.....
'I' is now 6 months and practically sitting on his own!  He is growing so fast!  M is a little spit fire who asks many questions and talks all day long!  She has her own funny sense of humor and cracks herself up....which cracks us up!  K challenges us daily with her own thoughts and feelings.  She is becoming a little woman already...and she's only  4 &1/2!  We have to be so careful in growing her character!  She can see hypocrisy in our actions.  For example:
Me- I think you girls need to be watching less TV during the day.
K- but you and daddy watch a lot of TV at night, are you going to stop watching TV?
Wow! Ouch!  How do you answer that one?  She wasn't answering with attitude, but just stating the fact. 
And on one more note....
We'll be going to Disney Land next week for the first time with the kids!  This should be fun...and I'm trying to stay as stress free as possible.  Is that possible?

Time to go public!

OK, I think I have enough posts to prove that I can do this blog thing.  It's time to tell my family and friends about my blog.  I'm already interested in what comments I may receive..and maybe some great advice and encouragement as well from mom's who have done this in the past.  Here goes nothing :)

Was today a complete flop?

So yesterday I woke at 10 am after getting home at 2am and falling asleep later than that.  Tired, I decided it would be a Library day.  The girls enjoy the library where they pick out books and videos for the next week.  After that, they play at the little park right outside the library. 

A comfortable spot to read.  She's never tried to read at the library...so this was a welcomed first!

Following her sister's lead at the Library

Today, I thought we'd have another smooth, successful 'school' day.  I was wrong.  This week, M is learning the letter B and some numbers, where K is learning her numbers. K has 1-10 mastered, but she's struggling with 11-20. 
This was day 2 reviewing the double digits with K.  She became quickly frustrated while working on a worksheet and so we pulled out the flashcards.  She wanted nothing do with these as well. 

M was also struggling with her numbers.  Instead of a 1-10 activity which I knew would be overwhelming, I started with 1-4. Fifteen minutes in, she still could not properly identify the number 1-4, though she could count different items 1-4.  I pulled out the flashcards for her as well.

5 minutes into the flashcards, they were uninterested and the morning was turning into a power struggle.  I completely lost them when it was time to feed the baby and so we moved on to the pattern block puzzles which took them 10 minutes.  I then read them a few library books and it was lunch time.  After lunch, I had them watch the Numbers Ahoy video which is by Leapfrog which they enjoyed.  I found the video at the Library yesterday.  God's providence knowing I would need some number assistance today.  It's neat to see that He even provides for our small needs- as well as the big ones...like my sanity.

So maybe it wasn't a complete flop.  I'm learning to go with the flow and tune in to their frustrations and learning styles.  I guess I'll try again with the numbers on our next "school" day....which will be next Monday.

Last weeks revelations

After working 3 different nights and long into the night, I found myself warn down and drained.  This brought out bad attitudes with me; which of course led to bad attitudes in my children. 
I contemplated that maybe I was becoming a slave to the thought of a "perfect schedule" and "perfect learning day"- the type I would never achieve. It was time to take a deep breath and let it go!  For the sanity of all of us.
The girls are still under 5 and I need to focus on their character and obedience...not only their ABC's and 123's.  So I pulled 3 days worth of great material from the weekly curriculum (instead of 5) and decided to give myself 2 weeks to cover these 3 days.  It may seem like barely any 'class' time, but we truly have a busy week of learning. On Tuesdays, we are at my church for my Bible study where the girls have their own classes and on Thursday mornings we always get together with a handful of women for a breakfast/playdate that my friend hosts. Then factor in 2 days of week that I work and Sunday church...and I'm left with 2 "free days" to do class.
So this last week, we went through 2 class days.  They were smooth, not stressed, and the girls were practically begging for more "school work". 

We learned the 'vowel' song. M decided they should be underlined a few times

Color and letter matching

She loves to color

A glueing craft with multi-colored tissue paper. From the curriculum I'm using found here

I love the curriculum I use, which makes learning time feel like play time.  I've posted some of the pictures of last weeks activities. 

I did it!  The first day of the new curriculum.  The morning went well with a few bumps and some learned lessons.  Such as
1. I have too many things in different places, I need to put them in the same place to decrease "search time".
2.  My 2 year old's attention span is longer than my 4 year olds.  (I knew this...I just forgot to schedule activities for it).
3. I can do this.
Once again, this is from borrowed ideas from bloggers found in my first post.
Here's a few pictures of the day....


Our monthly calander



Needs some work..but here's a rough draft of season, weather, etc



M- starting on her letter A



K- matching her lowercase and uppercase letters.  She lost interest halfway through.



M wanted to try too!  She actually matched quite a few!




K decieded she would thread M's apple since M didn't want to.




1st attempt of tracing a letter.  She did better than I thought



They loved the do-a-dots

And he loved his tummy time!

Early Saturday

I've been taking some random shifts at the hospital, which has meant that I've been coming home at midnight for 3 nights this week.  Factor in the baby waking up at around 1am for a feeding (and of course I want to be the one feeding him after being away for hours) and not getting much sleep, means a sleepy me in the morning waking up at 9am.  Not a very productive hour and definitely too late to begin a home school routine for my rambunctious little ones.  I know I'm going to have to figure something out for days like this.

I didn't work yesterday, so I said a little prayer that I would wake up early with the girls (0645) to begin this day with a pep in my step.  Sure enough, the time came and I was not feeling chipper...but I got up anyways.  Made my coffee...and an hour later I'm almost done with my calendar which was started yesterday.  God truly blessed me this morning!!  Getting up this early is actually very helpful.  And now I'll be using my new laminater to laminate away all day!  Have lots to do to be ready for Monday morning.