I have to get better about posting here! So sorry. We had some illness here, school was pushed aside for a while..more informal stuff. Since I last posted we have done a few co-op classes, and our regular stuff.
I did want to post this article a friend passed my way. I think it is really good.
I will try to post here more regularly.
Jess got her learner’s permit today. I took her driving a bit this evening, and she really did quite well. 
She is SO excited!
Hi all, just a real quick update before I go to bed. Today Allison had her first co-op class. It was the puppetry class that I told you about. They watched a show, then they decorated some puppets. They got to meet and talk to the puppeteer, and then they enjoyed a lovely lunch in the courtyard where they played in the water and picked fresh fruit from the garden. It was a lovely day. At the next puppet class, they will read various puppet plays and stories and try to select which one they hope to perform upon completion of the class. Allison had a great time! Met some new friends and really enjoyed the puppet show.
Didn’t do as much as I wanted today. My allergies were really bothering me, so I didn’t feel good. We did do 2 reading lessons, and my gosh, that girl is going to be a READER very soon….I feel it in my bones. She has wanted to learn to read for a long time – at least a year. We started with 100EZ lessons when she was three and first started to ask me to teach her to read. Those lessons, while EZ, were not fun, and while she begged for them, I quickly began to dread them. She did great with them, but started puttering out after a few minutes, and there was so much dry repetition that she got bored, and I think that even though she was doing great, she found it to be frustrating..and definately not fun. So we stopped. If she asked, I would still do it, but I sorta hid the book and she eventually stopped asking. We let it rest for a while and just now I got alphaphonics and we started doing that. It focuses primarily on a systematic introduction of the letters…no rhyming games, no say it slowly, say it fast, etc., etc., etc. and it goes a bit quicker, so she doesn’t need to stay focused for a long length of time. And she starts reading words in the very first lesson! Very affirming. Today we did two lessons…And she read some sentences. And she asked for a third lesson, but it was dinner time! And she and I are both having more fun with this. I am going to print out some little books from readinga-z.com that I think she can read right now or in the next few lessons. She doesn’t care for the worksheets that I offered. Which is fine by me. I am pretty anti-worksheet anyway, but I know that some kids LOVE them, so I thought I would have some available that tie in with the alphaphonics lesson and if she wanted to work on them, she could, but I wouldn’t force it. She did choose to do the “x” mazes yesterday, but that’s all…and I think that it is only because they were mazes and she really likes mazes.
Other than reading, we didn’t do much. We did read How the Leopard Got His Spots, from Just So Stories (Rudyard Kipling), and she enjoyed it a lot. She also did a great deal of work on a science CD-Rom that we recently got. I don’t know what she learned, as I was laying on the couch with a huge sinus headache while she did that. But she claims she learned a lot. . She also did a great deal of drawing and played monopoly with Benjamin, where I am sure she got a lesson in economics as well as some math. Benjamin says that she is very good at that game….hmm.
So that was today. Tomorrow we will do more reading lessons and reading out loud (we read at least 30 minutes a day…AT LEAST – and always have, so I feel a bit funny counting it as school stuff..but it is!), and we are going to make that calendar too…and while we are making that calendar, we will discuss the days and months and the seasons, so it will be a combination math/science lesson as well. The next day she has her first co-op class (the puppet one). She is very excited.
I am so sorry I haven’t updated this in a while. It has been a busy summer! Lets see….
Jess started back to school a few weeks ago. She was a leader on the wilderness trip this year and her current advisor as well as the advisor she had last year were very impressed with her and her willingness to tackle this challenge. She did great. She reports that at the wrap-up, all the students thought that she did great, was a lot of fun, and was so chatty that she scared off any bears.
She also just turned 15.5 last week so is chomping at the bit to get her learner’s permit. Probably Friday. So everyone clear the roads for this weekend.
And she has found a girlscout troop nearby. She hasn’t been active in girlscouts since we moved. I am so glad and hope that she makes some friends nearby, as right now all of her friends live 45+ minutes away so hanging out is very difficult.
Allison started soccer yesterday. She did great! Her team consists of her and her friend Celeste and then four boys. She was right there with the boys chasing that ball! But I think that as of this moment, she may be a little too polite for soccer. Instead of going after the ball when someone else has it, she seems to just chase it and wait patiently for someone to offer her a turn, lol. We’ll work on instilling some sports(wo)man-like aggression in that girl! Her first game is Saturday. I WILL be taking pictures for the other site!
Oh, and we started preschool at home yesterday. Or I should say we started “officially” preschooling at home…we have always done educational stuff just as play, etc. I created another blog just for our educational stuff, so if anyone worries that she isn’t getting a well-rounded education or whatever, they can just go over there and see exactly what we are doing. There is also a link to that site over on the sidebar, if you forget or something. In addition to what we are doing at home, we did join a homeschool co-op, where she can take all sorts of classes. This quarter she is taking several including some cool field trips and community service. Her first class starts this Friday. They are going to a puppet show, and then they will meet every two weeks to create puppets and ultimately put on a show of their own. How is this educational you ask? Well she will be gaining experience in story-telling, which aids in future reading comprehension and enjoyment. She will also be doing arts and crafts, which contains a wealth of educational opportunities (such as learning about color, textures, form etc) as well as helps develop fine-motor skills necessary for writing.
Meredith turns two later this month. She is a doll. An ornery doll, but a doll. She talks a LOT. Uses complete sentences and everything. She likes the potty in theory, but is still working on the practice part of the equation. Yesterday we did have the following conversation, which I thought was cute:
Meredith: POOPY, potty. NOW!
Me: You need to poopy in the potty?
Meredith: YES! POOPY in the potty
*we rush in there, where she sits for a while*
Meredith: All done. Poopy stuck
Me: Oh, the poopy is stuck? You want to get down?
Meredith: yes, poopy stuck. Done.
*I get her down, we put another diaper on her and start doing something else. Minutes later:*
Meredith: MOMMY! Poopy back, poopy back!! POTTY.
Me: Your poopy is back? Hurry lets get to the potty.
*She is already starting the deed, but we make it in time for her to finish up on the potty*
Gotta run. Will try to post TONS of pictures on the other site before the end of the week.
Today we did our first day of “school”. We’ve been learning all along, but I think that I needed to label it “school” in order for us to provide some structure. Allison was very excited. She put on her “back-to school dress”, and told everyone we met that she was starting “school” today. We had two school sessions, although we discussed things throughout the day (as we always do). In the morning we sat down with some marbles and did some estimating and counting. Allison counted up to 115 almost completely by herself! I had to help her a bit with the tens (40, 50 etc.) but she grasped that the base numbers of 1, 2, 3, etc. continue in each grouping of ten without me even having to explain that to her. She has never counted that high before, but when combined with the estimating game, it was completely fun! We estimated that there were 150 marbles in the basket, but we were wrong. There were 302! We also did some pattern stuff. Then as we branched off of the pattern stuff, we went into a bit of a science/math combo thing with the plastic animals. We talked about many of the animals and how they were the same and how they were different. She pointed out many things that I didn’t even think of. This led to a discussion of the characteristics that mammals share. That topic re-emerged throughout the day.
Later in the day we did a phonics lesson. She was very tired from not napping, so in the future, I will try to squeeze this in earlier. But she did great. She remembered almost all of the sounds we had discussed when we were doing that other reading program. And she remembered how to blend sounds. She read five words with complete ease, and even asked to move on to tomorrow’s lesson. We decided not to though because it was obvious that she was tired and loosing her focus. I didn’t want to make it a chore for her or frustrating for me. She then did two worksheets on the letter “X”, which was a new sounds we discussed today. She liked the sheets because they were mazes. She likes mazes a lot! And then she had soccer in the afternoon (P.E.) and had a blast. This was her first practice and she really enjoyed it.
Tomorrow I plan to do the phonics first. Benjamin comes tomorrow, so school work will be around his time here. Allison has already asked to do more estimating with the marbles. In doing that, I may introduce counting by 2s (we discussed it briefly today), and may do some number recognition games. I also plan to incorporate a read-aloud time right before naps. AND, we were going to make a calendar today, but didn’t get to it, so I plan to do that tomorrow.