Accidental garden

This is what happens when you ignore your compost bin for a couple of months

Planning the first week of school

It only took about an hour. Hopefully it will not take this long every Sunday night.

We're starting school on Wednesday. I originally thought we'd start on Tuesday, but Brent doesn't have to work so I gave us the day off too, knowing that trying to do something like that while 'fun Papa' is home would be a waste of time.

So here's the initial plan of how it's going to go.

Every day will start out reading a passage from the Old or New Testament (alternating days). I got the passages from here.

Then is math. I'll make up worksheets daily. First day is counting and some adding (with circles to count). He does know how to count, but he forgets how to write the number symbol. So that's partially what we're going to be practicing.

Next is Reading Practice. We're starting out with Little Bear and then will move on to Frog and Toad.

Every day we'll have 'Drills' which is not memory drills (although we'll have that too) but exercises like touch your toes, jumping jacks, etc.

Then it varies day to day
Poetry: Mother Goose
Literature: Aesop's Fables. We're also reading the Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe before bed.
Science: This term we're learning about Spiders
History: Learning about Knights
Geography: Reading Paddle to the Sea which unfortunately has not come in the mail yet, so I'm not sure what we'll do this week. Probably just play around with the globe a bit.
Art Appreciation: We're learning about Winslow Homer this term. Not sure if he's related, but I did pick him because of his last name. First painting we're studying is The Dinner Horn
Song: Jesus Loves Me. Also one day a week we're doing rhythm practice since he really likes to play the drums and we can't get lessons for him yet.

The day concludes with:
Copywork - this is really just handwriting practice, but it is copying a sentence from something we read that day.
Dictation - which is spelling practice, but in sentences instead of just lists of words. We're starting easy with God is love.
ASL is our foreign language for the year, so we can talk with my niece
Then Scripture Memory - this week is "Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good. His love endures forever." (Psalm 136:1)
We will end the day by going outside to play, and taking a nature walk once per week.

Whew - that's a day. It will be fun I think. I have a lot of ideas for the future, but I'm trying to take one step at a time for Andrei and not overload him. The passages are pretty easy, because if it's too hard he'll tune it out. The only reason he listens to L,W, and the W, is because he's seen the movie 10 times so he knows the story. I'm a little nervous his knight book is too hard, but we'll just take it slow and steady. I won't ruin him.... i hope.

Do you have a permit for that?

So just after I got done posting about how we weren't going to do nature notebooks this year, a perfect opportunity came right in our back yard. Andrei found the beginnings of a wasp's nest under our picnic table.

So I got out my nature notebook and Andrei got his and we both settled down and drew pictures and watched the wasps build their nest. I almost don't want to destroy it, but I also don't want a huge nest by my knees every time I go outside! :shiver:

Day 2 and 3

I would like to say, that if anyone wants my notes from any of the classes, I'd be glad to share them.

 

So, day 2

 

First session I went to was Adapting to Students with Special Needs with Val Gray.  She was one of the panellists from the day before, and really a great and nice speaker.  Her career is working with differently abled students, whether they be learning delayed or gifted or medically disabled or whatever.  Her first job was in an institution, so I had a long conversation on the side afterward and picked her brain about some of Andrei's specific issues.  The focus of her talk was about the barriers that criticism puts up and how, as parents, we have to praise so much more often so our children don't become hardened and wall themselves in.  She said especially for me, it will be hard because Andrei has nothing but walls from the orphanage, and I have to work and chip away at that as my primary job.  She also said that the only consistant thing she has seen that leads to a productive adulthood has nothing to do with acadamia, and everything to do with love and relationship.  So, again, Tracy - RELAX!  :)

 

Second session was Learning Styles with Heddi Craft.  This one was very infomative and it talked about all the kinds of learning styles and intelligences.  Every book has their own way of describing, so she condensed them all and gave lots of ideas how to help your children learn better - even things that they may be contrary to.  I listed some things for Andrei since he likes to move around all the time - to help him learn reading and more of the sit still types of subjects.

 

The third and fourth sessions of the day were both by Catherine Levison about the Charlotte Mason method.  This is why I wanted to go to this conference.  Actually someone had lent me every one of her sessions on tape just days before I left, but I still wanted to go to all of them in person.

 

First was an Introduction to Charlotte Mason just giving a rundown of the program.  Here's her website with the basics -  http://www.charlottemasoneducation.com/index.html  What drew me to this method was that it's literature focused and I love to read and hope my children will too.  Also, I know I have learned so  much more about history, geography, culture etc. from reading than what I did in school.  So I was really looking forward to hearing more.  Here's a couple other points about the CM method - no tests, no workbooks, no textbooks, short lessons, lots of outside time, focus on beauty and art and loving learning.  Doesn't that sound fun?  It does to me anyway.

 

The last session of the day was History and Science with Charlotte Mason.  Basically - read interesting books about science and historical figures.  Get out and enjoy nature.  Read biographies.  Find out how people lived day to day.  Connect with ideas, don't just memorize facts. 

She also talked about two ideas that we will save for the future.  First - a nature journal.  She recommends getting outside daily and going for nature walks at least once per week.  The nature journal is where you observe and draw the things you saw that day.  Secondly she talked about the Book of Centuries.  This is just a binder with paper - each piece representing 100 years (like a timeline - but in a book) and you just write interesting things you come across on the appropriate page.  Very casual, but for all the facts that you don't have to learn - and also to compare what was going on in the rest of the world when big things were happening somewhere else.

 

That was the end of day two, but since the last two sessions on day three were also Catherine Levison, I'm just going to keep going.

 

The third session was titled - Language Arts for Almost Free.  Read good books to learn literature.  Read good books to learn reading.  Read good books to learn grammar.  Write beautiful quotes to learn writing.  Write beatiful quotes to learn spelling.  Learn a foreign language (or 2 or 3) and do all of these things in that language too.  That's it.  Okay, there is a bit more to it, but that's the quick version of it.  Good books are defined as - not dumbed down for children, beautiful illustrations if you're still reading picture books, about real people or real events and culture. 

 

The last session was about how rigid of a schedule, and I'm getting sick of writing so I'll just quick summarize.  Short lessons are great for mom and kid so you don't burn out.  Also, kids are only kids once so let them have all the free time they can.  Do what works for your family so you are all happy because the most important is family relationship and a love for learning.

 

Those were all the sessions I went to.  I'll write tomorrow about other parts of the conference and also what we plan to do this coming year.  :)

 

All about the homeschool conference

It's so hard to remember to blog when I can just quick go to Twitter and write a oneliner about what I'm doing and where I am.

 

So for you all who are not on Twitter, get with the program!  And, I was just in California for the weekend at a homeschool conference.

 

I went by myself.  I needed some alone time, and also we couldn't afford plane tickets and conference tickets for everybody, so I ventured on my own. I had an amazing time and I definately will go back to some type of conference next year.  I almost think it will be a neccessity.  

I know that there are conferences in Wisconsin - that's what everyone seems to tell me - but by the time I found out about it, it was over.  Plus the keynote at the CA conference was someone I really wanted to hear, so it was worth it.

 

Here's the rundown of the weekend, and all the things I learned - for all of my  homeschooling friends.

 

I left on Thursday afternoon, and didn't get to my hotel until close to midnight.  I got up pretty early the next morning to register, and had a lovely breakfast and coffee before the first session.  I have to put that because the flight was kind of hectic and I hadn't had time to eat or drink anything since the afternoon before.  So the coffee bar with the perfect mochas really was the start to my weekend.  yum.

 

The first class I went to was Deschooling Gently by <a href=http://justenough.wordpress.com/>Tammy Takahashi</a>.  She's an unschooler, and an excellent speaker.  I think I would be an unschooler at heart if I were left to myself, but it doesn't work for our family.  Anyway, Tammy was very inspiring and really helped me relax for the rest of the conference.  I wish I had my notes in front of me to say more... The main thing I remember was not to be afraid of failure because that is how we learn.  And, that we are the moms and we know what is best for our kids, no matter what. 

 

The second class I went to was Ways to Find and Accept your Limits by Kimberlee Davison.   I think I will find myself going back to these notes through the school year, especially during busy or bad weeks.  Now that I think back on it, actually, what she said kind of went with the theme of the weekend of - don't worry, enjoy your kids, praise them at every turn, focus on the relationship rather than the acadamia.  Also, she had adopted 5 of her 8 children from Eastern Europe, so afterward I talked her ear off and asked some questions.

 

The third class was also by Kimberlee Davison - Teaching Math Without A Text.  This class was absolutely excellent and I'm planning to use her method with Andrei.  She said she was very frusterated because she had half gifted children, and half special needs children so she couldn't find one cirriculum that worked with all of them, or even one that worked with the same child from one year to the next.  So she made up her own.  The very basic rundown is this:  She takes a piece of paper, writes 5-10 math problems on it and has the child do the math.  She doesn't correct or make them re-do the incorrect ones.  Then the next day she looks at how the child did and taylors that day's work page to their skill level - sometimes a little easier and sometimes a little more difficult.  If she notices a pattern of errors or is introducing a new concept, she'll sit down and give a lesson, but usually not very often.  This method is great because you can increase the difficulty in small enough incriments that the child is able to handle, and give them just the exact amount of review.  To figure out what to teach or teach next, she just looks at a scope and sequence online or in a book.  She said this has worked for every single one of her kids, all the way up to algebra -then she had to send them to a text book.  I was really stressing about a math program for Andrei, but this seems good for the first couple of years.  Andrei already picked out a Spiderman notebook to do his math in. 

 

The last session of the first day was a panel on Atypical Children.  It really was mostly about autism and aspergers and that kind of thing, which Andrei doesn't have but he does have obvious learning and emotional delays.  Plus we really don't know what else is going on in that mind of his yet.  So it was interesting even though not geared toward me.  And I was getting the idea that the message I needed to hear was relax and just let it go the way it will go.

 

So that was day one.  I had the hotel shuttle take me to the grocery since the hotel food was very expensive.  Then I just went back to my room and veged out for the night.

Officialized...

Just got off the phone with a (different than before) homestudy agency. We will be receiving an application in the mail next week.

yikes. I'm excited and nervous. Are we making the right decision to do this so quick?

un-official announcement

The very recent birth of my new niece (beautiful Corgan) has caused Brent and I to start talking about starting paperwork for #2....

shhhhh ;)

Andrei gains skills in reading notes, ignoring them

We don't watch TV on Saturday mornings, but every other morning that's the first thing Andrei does when he gets up. Brent usually lets him watch a show or two so he can sleep later. But on Saturday, I'm home so I hang out with him instead.
This Saturday I had to work, so I left a post-it for Andrei that said "NO TV" I was fairly confident that he would be able to either sound it out, or ask Brent what it said.

When I got home I saw that my note was crumpled, but still on the TV, so I knew it had been seen.

What actually happened is this...

Andrei: Look papa, what's this say?
Brent: (still half asleep): I don't know
Andrei: It says - no TV!
Brent: .... Didn't you already watch a movie?
Andrei: yeah...

I'm not sure if I should be proud, or ticked.

Adoption Questions

Andrei just asked me where my other mama is, and how old I was when I came to America.