It has been such a long time since I updated here, and so much has been going on.  Long story short we have had so much happen in our lives that this fell by the wayside along with any structured instruction.
 
We had to evict our tenants, who were family members.  We spent a month cleaning up from them, and trying to make repairs.  We got new tenants in this summer, and have been steadily working on our side as well.  We have turned our downstairs bathroom into a pantry closet, and our kitchen closet now has pots and pans and such, like a giant cabinet.  I now have a sink in my kitchen!  Which is amazing!!!  It saves me so much time, and I love it.  Next up is to put a bathroom in the old pantry.  We also have had a lot of work in the garden, which has also fallen by the wayside in the past few, ridiculously hot, weeks.  We have been harvesting some, but a lot of the plants have had troubles this year.  Next year will be better. 

We have been making frequent trips to the Science Center, CJ's new favorite place.  We had coupons and just decided to go one day, and the kids loved it so much we bought year passes.  We go at least once a month and the kids look forward to it so much, and it always teaches them something new.  It helps drive our science instruction by showing us where the kids' big interests are.  Last week we went to Southwick Zoo, and the kids thought that was amazing too.  They prefer zoos and museums to carnivals and amusement parks.  The Southwick Zoo, though, also has some kiddie amusement park rides, and they let you bring in your own food.  I would love to go again. 

Rich and I went to a homeschooling conference, but were underwhelmed.  We went to a few workshops, only one of which I thought was a good use of our time.  It talked about book discussions, and how to get kids to really get the most out of what they read, and what we read to them.  It was practical and appropriate information, unlike several other workshops.  We did enjoy the vendor area, which gave us some ideas on building and buying curriculums.  I still haven't decided if I want to buy one or not.  The kids are ahead on what they need to know by grade level, but physically are not.  They can't do all the writing associated with a first grade curriculum, but are beyond what most kindergarten curriculums include.  So we are still deciding.  For now, I am building what they need, and doing it as we go.

We instituted a new routine recently.  I prepare some activities or worksheets they can do independently each day.  I put it all in a binders on their desk with whatever they will need.  Each day after breakfast and cleaning their rooms they do that independent work while I do some chores and clean up from breakfast.  This gives us more time to do fun things together like board games, and crafts.  We still try to go to the library once a week, do computer work, listening centers, and cooking projects. 

It has been such a crazy crazy spring and summer, but we are all looking forward to this "school year".  I don't think we are going to be taking summer breaks as most schools do.  The kids love learning, and over the summer kept doing science projects, brainquest workbooks and other learning activities on a daily basis.  I just felt a little out of control with it, no planning ahead, no thoughts as to my goals.  From now on I want our learning to be a little more intentional.  Next week I will post some ideas and plans I have for the year, along with some of our resources.  Thank you for joining our homeschooling journey!

Kids in the Garden

So with several days of nice weather we decided to play outside and prep the garden beds for planting.  It was of course a lot of work, which we wanted the kids to take part in.  They weren't too keen on the weeding, so I told them the story of the Little Red Hen.  That is the tale where the hen plants, harvests, and grinds the wheat alone, uses it to make the bread by herself because her friends didn't want to do the work.  Of course they wanted to eat the bread and she told them no, since they didn't work at all at making it.  Both CJ and Eliza didn't need me to explain the story.  They told me that meant they needed to help weed in order to help do the fun stuff like planting the seeds and eating the vegetables.  They understood that it is important for them to be a part of the work.  After that they weeded almost an entire garden bed by themselves, and did it so well.  The whole rest of the time we were out there, they helped us by bringing us tools, turning the water on, and helping in a myriad of ways.  I love that I didn't even have to explain the reason I told them the story, that they were intuitive enough to understand the story as it was told. 

It is amazing to me how fast this year is going, and it is so full of memories like this.  Every day they learn so much and become so much more grown up than I can ever expect.  They are so happy, healthy, smart, and hard working.  They get so upset when we don't have time to do school activities in our school room.  We always do something.  We have listening centers, computer work, library, art projects, cutting practice, lacing practice, all kinds of prewriting activities.  We do play dough, coloring, even yoga most days.  They just crave learning, and it makes me incredibly proud and happy.

Pictures of Our Updated "School Room"

I know these are long overdue, but as things get crazy I forget to take pictures, then it is a mess and I don't want to take pictures.  But alas here they are.

This is where we put more bookshelves.  These are only part of the kids' books.  They also have many in their rooms, and downstairs in the living room.  Also a couple of the new cabinets, which I LOVE!  They hold their centers, educational toys, puzzles, craft items, and any other learning material I or they can think of.  The space on top also holds crafts in progress and centers that are often changing.

More with the cabinets and drawers.  They can now get their own paper, crayons, puzzles and stencils.  I can also get to my laminator, three hole punch and post it notes so much more quickly and easily.  One drawer holds their educational videos and tv games, as they call them.  Another holds their cds and listening center activities.

Here we have our fire safety posters, an amazing Coral Reef Food Web poster, thank you Megan! and a center I made to introduce them to money, showing most of the American coins and bills. 

Our new calendar, thanks to Tiffany, who always finds us cool stuff at Staples.  We write up our appointments, keep track of the weather, and what our special projects/themes are for the week and individual days.  This helps keep me on track.  On the small gray board I wrote everything we try to do daily: alphabet, counting, writing our names, coloring, calendar, practice our phone number and address, etc.  Whatever we feel is really important.

This is our rotating nursery rhyme center.  I took this amazing book of printables out of our library called kindercenters, and they are all kindergarten skill centers based on nursery rhymes.  I change them every two weeks or so, and it is a great independent activity for them.  This one is Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and it focuses on patterns.  The kids love it.

So that is our new and improved work space.  I have spent a lot of time organizing it in a way that is easy and efficient. I find it is so much easier to teach and learn when the space is conducive to it, and all our materials are easy to find.  We have been getting so much accomplished since we improved our space.  I also love having several independent and educational activities at hand for the kids whenever I am busy making dinner, doing laundry, or any other things that require my attention.  It has made a huge improvement to my ability to manage lots of things at once, as all us moms need to.

I have on my to do list this week to post pictures of the school room and update.  It has been crazy lately.  I have been doing a lot of reading about homeschooling and sort of figuring out where to go from here.  I realized why I hated teaching in public school, because it doesn't teach children the way it makes sense to teach children.  I love being able to adapt our learning to the styles and needs of the kids, and encouraging independent learning.  It is sort of like a mini Montessori.  I am so thankful to have the ability to do this, and to feel like the whole reason I went to school for teaching culminates in my confidence to teach my own children.  Teaching license isn't needed to teach your own kids, but for me it really made me feel like I could do it, I really had the confidence to make the attempt.  Best decision we ever made!  More later in the week on pictures and specifics of what we have been learning.  :)