This Week

Posted in Crafts, Family, Home, Homeschool, Josiah, Motherhood, Organizing, Shopping by karlamcurry

This week has been a busy one.

We brought Josiah into the hospital for minor surgery. Recently he was diagnosed with both lyme disease and a hernia (both inguinal and umbilical - though the latter should resolve itself on its own). I was really discouraged at first, but the diagnoses looked really good and Josiah has been the healthiest of all of us (I swear it’s the extended nursing and alternative vaccine schedule).

I didn’t get as emotional as I thought I would since we were waiting for a while and I was more concerned with making sure he was alright. I had to get all gowned and masked up to take him into the operating room, where I was allowed to hold him while they put him to sleep. They said he would start to get fidgety once the bubble gum-smelling gas turned nasty, but he just stayed there, getting limp. Before I knew it, they were taking him off my lap and putting him on the table and I gave him a kiss before they whisked me outside. I think the hardest part was actually seeing him afterwards – still doped up, and once he finally came to he kept crying that he hurt and his voice was all raspy from the breathing tube.

He was tired for most of the day and one of his legs was numb so he couldn’t walk - and actually fell over and hit his head! Poor little guy. Phil went to work the next day and I told him that he was back to his “usual, slightly annoying self,” saying no and refusing to share with his big sister.

This kind of experience puts things into perspective… but it still doesn’t make it easy when the kiddos misbehave. Boy, how I was wishing for more of that medicine to knock them out! Lately I’ve found myself in tears much of the time, the way the kiddos act when they’re with me. It’s like they think I’m a joke as a mother, totally ignore me and disobey, and it’s only when I go all apeshit on them (without wanting to, of course) that they sober up and realize I mean business. *sigh* When Daddy’s home it’s a different story; sure, they’ll misbehave, but they pay attention to him and he doesn’t have to repeat himself a million times a day. He knew I was having a hard time of it and surprised me with a beautiful bouquet of flowers.

One of the things that drives me absolutely insane is when the kids take out every single toy they own – including baskets of blocks, tiny LEGO pieces, puzzles, pom poms, board games and their many pieces, in addition to the usual dolls and cars and so forth - and throw them around the house. I try to let them be creative and not get on their case every two seconds about putting things away, but they inevitably fuss and whine when I tell them it’s time to pick up. Gwen will slump over and say she’s too tired; Josiah will matter-of-factly say, “don’t want to.” It’s either punish them over and over or do it myself. I finally decided something had to be done and went on a cleaning spree. Sure, I’ve simplified in the past, but I got more serious about it and took a lot of toys ‘n’ stuff out of rotation. I cleaned off their bookshelves, reorganized a big cupboard with games and toys, cleaned up their rooms and rearranged some of the furniture to be more conducive to our new season of homeschool – which we start tomorrow!

Ah… it feels so nice and clean… I better enjoy it while it lasts.

I never got around to blueberry-picking this year, which we usually do, but earlier this week we made our annual trip to a nearby orchard for fresh peaches. If you’ve never had a fresh peach or nectarine, you haven’t really lived! I’d say fresh peaches are one of my all-time favorite fruits, and the stuff at the store just doesn’t compare. We filled two bags, overflowing the brims, and have been eating them like crazy. I’m hoping to make a peach pie and peach shortbread, but I don’t know if we’ll have enough at the rate they’re disappearing!

I met with the lady who’s going to place my handmade items in her store so I’ve been on a sewing rampage. I’m getting really excited about this venture and hope it works out! I wanted to have some more samples of my work to show her so I cranked out some crayon rolls, cedar sachets, another clothespin apron and some orange spice therapy bags (I sold the one I had in my Etsy shop!). Since I’m trying to build up the inventory for her store I haven’t stocked more items online but am hoping to do so in the future.

Oh – and I got my sew-in labels just in time! They seemed a bit on the thin side, especially because I can’t fold them, but I love the layered look with fabric scraps.

10Aug2012

Five in a Row {aka FIAR}

Posted in Books, Family, Homeschool by karlamcurry

Last year we began preschool at the end of August, and seeing that the end of this August is almost here I’ve been feeling the pressure of deciding once and for all what to do for the kiddos this time around. I’ve been hemming and hawing over curriculum – there are so many great resources out there! - and finally made up my mind. I think.

Have you heard of Five In a Row (also know as FIAR)? It has caught my eye here and there; one of our librarians actually recommended it last year but since I was already in the midst of our routine I filed the thought away for future reference.

credit: fiarhq.com

I really like the concept of this literature-based program. You read one book from their reading list for five days in a row (hence the name), touching on a different subject matter each day. For instance, on Monday you read the story and then discuss the geography or culture portrayed in the story, on Tuesday you talk about some of the literary concepts, and so forth.

Including geography and history into a homeschool outline was stumping me. I already have lots of math and phonics workbooks but I’ve been wanting to branch out. This way, I can use the workbooks as a supplement to the FIAR program.

There are four manuals in the program (plus supplementary materials and the story books themselves), and while I understand homeschool is an investment, shelling out $35 per manual just isn’t reasonable for me. I don’t know how other families pay hundreds of dollars for one curriculum – sometimes for each child! There’s a wealth of resources out there – it can be very overwhelming at times! – and while just sticking to the manuals could really simplify the process I’m going to try it on my own. I have a few of the books already and will utilize my local library for the rest; if we like the stories well enough I may consider purchasing them.

credit: delightfullearning.blogspot.com

My plan is to go through each book a week or two beforehand, write down concepts for each subject category, check online to see how other people may have “rowed” the same book, then come up with a list of activities for each day.

I’ve already found some excellent blogs that have already done a bunch of the books – like Our Homeschool Fun, Delightful Learning, Homeschool Share and All-of-a-Kind Family.

I’m already compiling a list of ideas on a FIAR Pinterest board, in case you’re interested. Since there are so many books spread across the four volumes - I even included some during the summer months and holidays – we definitely won’t touch on all of them.

Feeling a little more prepared for this school year and hoping it all comes together well. It should be interesting to see how this all works with a newborn in the house come February!

17Nov2011

Preschool: J is for Joy

Posted in Gwendolyn, Homeschool, Josiah by karlamcurry

Whenever I change the bulletin board at the end of the week, Gwen gets excited about what’s up next. She saw the letter J and chanted “J is for Josiah, Jesus and jam.” Hehe. I’ve been busily working on projects in-between school stuff with the kiddos – knitting a pillow for my sister which I stayed up late one night to complete, trying some new recipes and experimenting with natural sugar, putting together some Christmas gifts and getting just a tad stressed about how busy the upcoming weeks will be.

Bible
We’ve been using 100 Bible Stories, 100 Bible Songs for the scripture part of our curriculum, but this week’s story wasn’t in there. I vividly remember the story of Gideon on the Superbook VHS tapes growing up – how God chose him, whittled his army down to very few men, how they smashed jars and lit torches and blew their horns to win the battle against the Midianites. I found a children’s Bible lesson online and read them the simple story, after which we made trumpets. The kiddos were positively tickled pink with their trumpets and they walked around “playing” them and making “music.”

Since I also wanted to capitalize on the jars and torches, I cut out some pictures, pasted them onto construction paper, and the kiddos helped me decorate them. Torn-up pieces of construction paper symbolized the broken jars, red and yellow tissue paper were the flames, and aluminum foil made the trumpets shiny.

Another day I decided to break into the stash of toilet paper rolls I’ve been collecting, covered them with foil, and stuffed tissue paper inside to make torches. The kiddos resumed their rompous blowing their horns and waving their torches. *grin*

Our memory verse for the week was short and sweet and went along nicely with the story - Judges 6:12 The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.

Theme
Our theme of the week was feelings and emotions - a good thing for little kids to talk about! Oftentimes Gwen gets upset and has a hard time vocalizing her underlying feelings; it can be easier talking about these feelings in third-person, especially in the form of stories.

I put together a feelings lapbook using some resources from 1+1+1=1′s Feelings Tot Book and 2 Teaching Mommies’ My Feelings Unit. Some of the elements are too simple for Gwen - she already knows her colors, for instance – or just too repetitious. This is one of the neat things about working your own curriculum – you can pick and choose what works best for you!

We read the feelings minibook, played the emotions matching game…

used the emotion faces and story prompts to figure out how someone might be feeling in a given situation (I even had Gwen create some scenarios)…

cut out faces and matched them with colors that symbolized specific emotions (eg blue=sad, red-mad), and made shape faces.

As always, there were a few ideas that fell by the wayside. I wanted to look at photo albums and identify emotions in pictures, make paper plate emotions and use a blank face template for Gwen to draw some faces. One of the feelings units actually came with a round face that Gwen used to draw her current emotion; I think I’m beginning to rub off on her.

Letter
J is for joy! I told Gwen that JOY stands for how we should place our priorities: “Jesus. Others. Yourself.” I think it went over her head, but you never know what sinks in!

We did our Do-A-Dot page…

some workbook pages…

our letter poster (strawberry jam J!)…

letter hunt page…

cut ‘n’ paste…

and “j is for jellyfish” craft.

Oftentimes I find myself off-schedule, putting off starting school work because the kiddos are having so much fun playing. Sometimes this bothers me because I’m not getting things crossed off my To Do list, but most of the time I remind myself that this is one of the benefits of educating children at home – having the freedom to learn and explore through creative play, not bound by academics.

They make an excellent team – at times – and work together putting the train tracks together.

And when Daddy’s home, forget it – they’d rather be outside working on projects with him. They’re becoming little homesteaders!

After lunch Gwen and I do her school trays, have computer time (we always start with Starfall) and read some stories before her nap/quiet time. Sometimes it takes a while cleaning up and getting Josiah down, however, so I often set her up with an activity she can do by herself – like her Highlights hidden pictures magazine or a puzzle.

I don’t remember to focus on it each week, but every so often I remember her name activity and we work on the letters in her name. After Gwen finished the alphabet puzzle she had to find and identify the letters that spell her first name, in order. Since she usually writes ”Gwen” when I ask her to write her name, it’s somewhat of a challenge to spell the whole thing – but she’s doing really well!

Number
I think this was the only week we actually didn’t get around to coloring the number 9 poster, though we did do a lot of dry erase, workbook pages, and stories.

Color
Gwen’s favorite color – or what she’s been told should be her favorite color – is pink, of course. She colored with crayons and markers and we read some Pinkalicious books.

Rhyme
“The world is so full of a number of things I’m sure we should all be as happy as kings.” Aint that the truth.

Daily
We haven’t been as consistent with the Starfall calendar, but we do talk about the days of the week. We’ve also been doing Gwen’s chore chart and weather jars. The Prayer Pail has become our new dinnertime ritual.

Bulletin Board

Book Basket
Theme/Vocab
My Many Colored Days
Yesterday I Had the BLUES
Birdy’s Smile Book
The Way I Feel

Letter
My “J” Book
Sheep in a Jeep
Jack and the Box: a toon book
Jessica
Jimmy’s Boa and the Bungee Jump Slam Dunk
Jeremy Draws a Monster
Skippyjon Jones and the Big Bones
Julius – The Baby of the World
Jag

Number
Nine Ducks Nine

Color
Paddington’s Colors
Pinkalicious – Pink around the Rink
Pinkalicious and the Pink Drink

Movies
DK Eyewitness – Jungle
Cedarmont Kids

I’m so glad next week is a review week, which means I don’t have to plan any new material. What with the kiddos’ birthdays, Thanksgiving, and the official birthday party, I’m feeling a little swamped. I will get to try some new recipes, however! A few things from my Pinterest boards: vegan chocolate avocado cake with coconut cream frosting for the kiddos’ birthday cupcakes and crock pot mashed potatoes and cranberry curd bars for Thanksgiving. And I’m sure we’ll have time for some Thanksgiving crafts; I’m really looking forward to making Thanksgiving Story Bracelets with the kiddos.

Linking Up…

Gwen is 3 years old (47 months) and Josiah is 1 (23 months).

26Oct2011

Preschool: week nine – a review

Posted in Gwendolyn, Homeschool, Josiah by karlamcurry

Last week of preschool was a review of weeks five, six, seven and eight so I didn’t have to stress about printing out or working on new material unless I wanted to. I try to use the review to accomplish some things that we didn’t get to before or perhaps cover familiar, favorite ground.

Since I like to be organized, I printed up one of my planning sheets for the week with something from each of the previous weeks to work on each day, but we ended up jumping around and going with the flow.

I started each morning with a review of one of the Bible stories and memory verses, asking Gwen what happened, what came next – Noah’s ark, Joseph and his coat of many colors, baby Moses, and Moses and the Red Sea. For some of the Bible stories I have sequencing cards or story books, so we used those in conjunction. I finally got “The Prince of Egypt” from the library so we’ll be watching that this Friday during our homemade-pizza-and-a-movie picnic.

We broke out the seasons lapbook and talked about different kinds of weather; Gwen did the matching cards and puzzles.

Since it was in the same pile, I got out the color-matching game for Gwen; it’s really too easy for her but she enjoys putting the bees on the correct flowers. Since there are two colors per piece that he has to match, it’s slightly more advanced than matching a single color.

There are days when I seriously don’t know how my children and I survive, putting up with their constant whining and bickering. But all that melts away when I watch them playing nicely and cooperatively together, working on some joint effort, collaborating on a project. At those same times, it occurs to me – they will gang up on me when they’re older.

One evening they were playing grocery store in our small kitchen where I was trying to make dinner; it was so cute I didn’t want to discourage it. Josiah lined up his food on the counter, Gwen got the cash register, they each had their own stool, and Josiah proceeded to “buy” groceries. I kept smiling as Gwen said things like, “You can’t buy strawberries when they’re thirteen sixteen!”

One of the things I started putting together for our week of the letter E was “E” eggs (oh – and the wooden Es with popsicle sticks). I unearthed a few plastic Easter eggs and filled them with small items that begin with the letter E (elephant, elastics, earrings, erasers, a tiny envelope and mini birds’ eggs). I could have made it more complicated by adding items that didn’t begin with the letter E so Gwen could sort them but I just kept it simple. She and Josiah both enjoyed going through the eggs.

During our week about the moon, we colored and cut the moon and star shapes for a mobile but never actually strung them up. We picked a branch from the back yard, I punched holes in the pieces, and Gwen told me in which order she wanted them hung. The moon-and-stars mobile decorates the mirror above her dresser.

Coming up with alphabet projects is always easy – I particulary love the Now I Know My ABCs crafts from Totally Tots – but coming up with math activities can be more of a challenge. Each week we’ve been making up an index card with the number for the week and the corresponding amount of stickers; Gwen has to write the number and count the stickers. I took these out and she put them in order. I also broke out the foam number puzzles and toy tool sets again and the kiddos and I hammered the foam pieces back in after counting the pieces and matching the correct number.

During our F week we did a fish craft and this week we got around to Kiboomu’s “F is for flower” craft I had bookmarked. We used green pipe cleaners for stems and leaves, two cupcake liners layered for each flower, and a few pom poms for the middle. The kiddos enjoyed this one and the finished flowers adorn the fridge. Gwen also went fishing again with her felt fish, which she has enjoyed immensely… until the magnet at the end of the fishing pole fell off and got lost in the depths of her room. Arrrgh.

On Saturday, Gwen got very upset when I told her we weren’t doing school (I’m quite certain she was just trying to avoid her nap, but whatever). Since she seemed so enthusiastic I gave in and let her do some of her dry erase workbooks, which she enjoys. I also remembered her name activity, which I still hadn’t done for the week. Previously I had written down her name and had her place matching letters underneath, but this time I put scrabble tiles with the letters of her name on the table and had her put them in correct order. She did it all by herself!

We kept some of the books from the previous weeks in the book basket and I put a few favorite completed crafts and activities on the bulletin board. I’m surprised how much we’ve covered in just a few weeks! I was just telling Phil the other day how, not too long ago, I was thinking she could use some help recognizing her letters and so forth. Now, she has a firm grasp on her letters and the sounds they make, even quizzing Josiah on them! Leapfrog Letter Factory has become a favorite; she and Josiah will sing the song and make the sounds. My two little babies are growing up! *sniff sniff*

12Oct2011

Preschool: F is for fish

Posted in Homeschool by karlamcurry

We began week seven of our humble preschool program having just returned from a weekend of camping at Deerfield Fair in NH. Since camping took priority over school, I didn’t get much done for the week and decided to give us a break on Monday. I pretty much let the kiddos do what they wanted, and even when I don’t suggest or initiate activities, they’re pretty good at keeping themselves busy.

Bible
The Bible story of the week was about baby Moses, one with which Gwen is already familiar, and by the end of the week she was telling me all about how Moses’ mama put the basket in the river to save him from the bad guys and that the princess took him from the water. To get us started with the school day after breakfast cleanup, I played a few songs from the CD that comes with 100 Bible Stories, 100 Bible Songs. We danced around with instruments, and then I read the condensed story of baby Moses.

Theme
“F is for fish” proved to be a very easy, versatile jumping board for learning a variety of things. Inspired by Counting Coconuts, I spent way too much time making a set of counting felt fish.

I love how they turned out and the kiddos were super-excited; Gwen actually started crying when we weren’t finished with it before she went to bed. Daddy made a little fishing pole with a magnet, we used a blue cloth for “water,” and they went fishing. Gwen had to say what number was represented on each fish when she caught it.

I got a couple simple books about fish from the library. One of my favorite fish stories is The Rainbow Fish, and I found a cute rainbow “f” fish craft to go along with it.

After reading the story we used Crayola’s Flower Book Report to talk about it. Here are Gwen’s answers:

What happened?
The rainbow fish swam away to the cave. The rainbow fish at first didn’t give the other fish the shiny scales, and then the rainbow fish shared his shiny scales.

Who was in the story?
The rainbow fish, the different fish, the starfish.

Where & When?
In the ocean.

What did you learn?
That the rainbow fish didn’t share. Share!

What was your favorite part?
The starfish.

Since our vocabulary word was “fin,” I found this cute story called Feather Fin, particularly nice because it glorifies listening to your parents.

I haven’t made a sensory bin since our B is for bird week, though I have gotten good at dumping interesting items into a container for the kiddos to play with. I saved the rice and beans mixture from the creation bin and have used it on a number of occasions. Josiah’s favorite would have to be using it to load all his dumptrucks, making trails through the rice. I got sick of finding piles of dried rice around the house and stuck it outside on nice days.

The last time I got a sensory pan out for him, he made such a mess, and another mess after I cleaned the first one, that I decided to nix the rice for a bit.

This time around I got out the pasta I colored with vinegar and food coloring (should have used the rubbing alcohol because I can still smell the vinegar!) and created a simple Hide-n-Seek Bowl with a bunch of toy fish and colored aquarium rocks. The kiddos loves it, and eagerly dug in to find all the pieces.

I dumped the contents into a bigger pan and let them play with it some more, letting them “fish” for pieces with little nets. These kinds of things can entertain them for hours - just be prepared for some clean-up!

Letter
Most of our letter posters have been decorated with stickers up until this point, but for the letter F I thought it would be neat to do fingerprints. I got out some inkpads and Gwen and I stamped our fingerprints all over.

It’s on our bulletin board, but I don’t always remember to show Gwen the Funny Font Book from Happy Brown House. We got around to it this week, and I showed her how there can be lots of versions and variations of the letter F – plain, fancy, whatever – but that they all represent uppercase and lowercase letter Fs.

During Josiah’s naptime we do the work I’ve put out on our trays, and afterwards we jump on the computer, I hand the mouse over to Gwen, and she does Starfall’s letter activity.

Number
The number for the week was number five; even though I keep forgetting the previous numbers, we’ve been consistent tracing the numbers while saying the corresponding number rhyme from ABCJLM.

I worked math in with the felt fish, some workbook and dry erase pages, and a fish counting mat that I got from the KidSparkz fish theme page. I laminated the water page, laminated and cut out the fish pieces, and when I wrote a number in the box Gwen had to place the appropriate amount of fish in the water.

Color
I’ve been alternating between emphasizing a shape one week and a color the next. This week was the color green, so we did some tracing/coloring, and I broke out 1+1+1=1′s color puzzle that I finally got around to laminating. In the interest of maximizing laminating sheets, I made the main puzzle pieces two-sided.

I guess I forgot to take pictures, but I printed out Homeschool Share’s story resources to go along with The Big Green Pocketbook. Gwendolyn asked to do this over and over, and had lots of fun putting the elements from the story in her “pocketbook.”

Rhyme
Since it fit nicely with the theme and the number for the week, I chose “1-2-3-4-5 Once I Caught a Fish Alive” for our rhyme. A while back I got scored a free VHS copy of “Playtime – Children’s Book of the Month Club;” I’m so happy I grabbed it because I love the compilation of songs and animation. 1-2-3-4-5 is just one of the songs on the tape.

Etc.
It was pretty easy coming up with food and snacks to go along with this week, but I will admit that it can be a challenge finding healthy options. Phil tells me I don’t need to bother with coordinating snacks, but it’s nice to tie everything together. I ended up getting goldfish crackers, and put some gummy fish in some [sugar-free] green jello.

One of the activities that the ABCJLM curriculum emphasizes is name recognition. Each week has some sort of name activity, and the past few weeks have centered around matching the letters in your child’s name. This week I wrote Gwen’s name on her dry erase board and she had to find the corresponding Scrabble tile and put it under the correct letter.

Sometimes I’m overly ambitious and bookmark a whole bunch of ideas for the week, using only two or three when it’s all said and done. Check out my F is for fish pinboard for other ideas.

Daily
We haven’t been as consistent with the Starfall calendar activity, though almost every day we talk about what day of the week it is and Gwen usually sings her “Seven Days” song from the first two weeks. Every night we do our weather watching jars, and Josiah has insisted on helping us with the pom poms.

Bulletin Board

Book Basket
Bible
The Story of Baby Moses (a board book)
The Moses Basket