Homeschooling Preschoolers

Dec. 16, 2007

December 2007!

It's been awhile since I've posted a blog so I thought that I would add one! Of course, you know that I love posting pics! Kaiya is still working on her phonics, she can read a lot more now than she could when we first started. Mark is highly interested in phonics/letters so he has been participating in the lessons too. His new favorite site on the computer is starfall.com, one of Kaiya's favorites as well! We had our first snow on the day before Thanksgiving: That was just a minor storm. This past Thursday we had 12 inches!! Today we had another few inches, maybe around 5 with some ice on top!! We also took family pictures recently for the first time ever!! While I am happy with how they came out I don't think that we will do it again for another couple of years due to the stress of getting ready! I am still working on painting the house. I had a lazy month in Nov and didn't do much with it. I am finished with the kids' room, here is Mark posing especially for this color pic: I also painted the other room which I have decided is going to be a NO play room. Only reading and quiet activities will be allowed in there. No toys!! I am going to put my bed in there to make it a guest room and I will sleep in there since I never sleep in my bedroom (because it is downstairs far from the kids). If all goes as planned I will also do homeschool lesson prep in there and catch up on my scrapbooking. The color is a lot less purple than I thought it would be but I like it. We got our first real Christmas tree this year!! It is nice to have the fresh smell of tree in our house everything someone touches the tree, which the kids do ALL day long. We made gingerbread cookies yesterday, the kids' goal was to get the most amount of icing on their men.... I don't have much else to update about, I hope that everyone is enjoying their homeschooling journey! Have a Merry Christmas! Jennifer

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Oct. 12, 2007

Just moving along....

I haven't posted in awhile because there had been nothing to post!  We aren't doing much new these days, still moving along with the A Beka and living life!  I don't know if I mentioned a possible move but we are now staying put where we are.  I changed my hours at work and went from working full-time to working 20 hours a week.  I had a little anxiety about money so I was going to move to a much smaller place.  I called to get info and found out that the waiting list was 6 months!!  My lease was up in 3 months!  So I thought that perhaps my landlord would let us stay until March.  A couple of days later I received a card in the mail from my landlord who wanted to know if I would stay.  He is moving to FL so if I wasn't staying he would have to find someone else to rent and quick.  SO, I agreed to stay because it was the most reasonable option.  I couldn't go homeless for 3 months waiting for the cheaper place and I don't want to be moving and then moving again in 3 months.  The kids have had enough changes in their lives.  I also asked the landlord if I could paint in here and he said that I could do whatever I wanted and that hopefully we would stay for a long time!  So I started painting, which I am already sick of, but it will be sooo nice to have this place feel more like home.  We really like it here and I'm glad that things worked out the way that they did!!  As for money, that stress is going away.  I work from 3-11pm and sometimes my job asks me to stay and do a double until 7am.  I then get to be off on my next scheduled day so I am working no additional hours.  HOWEVER my job is great and they really reward their employees for going out of their way to help out so I get paid double time for staying overnight!!  This has been a HUGE blessing for us.  It makes a real difference in getting to stay here at this house and being able to survive off of 20 hours a week.  If anyone is a nurse in CT and looking for a place to work I highly recommend working where I work, feel free to e-mail me.... The other small issue going on here is that we got too busy.  We were out and about doing something every day, sometimes 2 things a day (morning and evening).  The kids started misbehaving, especially having smart mouths.  I was getting grumpy.  So I put our house on grounding until next week.  It's been nice to stay home and get to spend time reading to the kids, doing things as a family, etc etc.  It worked out well for us because it has rained the entire week so we would have been stuck at home anyway.  Oh, one other thing... I can't believe that this happened but I met someone IRL who read this blog and that is how we met!! One day I got an e-mail from someone who came across this blog and saw that we had kids the same ages and were both from CT.  We found out that we live 20 minutes from each other and then got to meet at the homeschool convention last week!!  Our daughters are around the same age and we both have toddler sons too!!  It is great to know that Kaiya may finally have a girl friend her age that is homeschooling!!  So, that is all of the update for now.  Nothing major but we have had many great blessings over the past couple of months.  I think that I have slowly been learning to trust the Lord and now I can see how present He is in our lives.  I'll post some pics as usual! You can kind of see the new kitchen color in this pic:

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Sep. 15, 2007

Another Haircut!!

Well, I gave Kaiya her first haircut ever today!!  (except the time that she cut a huge piece out of the front of her hair which is still growing back)  I only took a couple of inches off of the very back so noone will even be able to tell.  She had one layer though that was longer than the rest and the ends kept getting tangled and then her hair would end up getting pulled out when I tried to untangle it.  Hopefully this little trim solves the problem.  We joined a Christian homeschooling co-op/ support group in the area.  All of the women there are very nice and have WONDERFUL tips!  It is nice to get to know some other homeschooling families IRL.  We are still working on the A Beka K4 here at home.  Unfortunately I shouldn't have bothered getting the math portion of it because Kaiya isn't learning anything from it.  The program is great for my 2yo DS but not for Kaiya.  If I felt like spending the money I could get her the K5 program but I think that we have enough to do already with activities, phonics, bible, etc.   Mark has been giving me a run for my money at home!  Last weekend he threw my cellphone into the pool!!!   Then today he was rocking in his chair and the whole thing fell over and broke!!!  Grrrr.  I am going to post some pictures from Kaiya's haircut.  Also there is a picture of the "mountain" that my kids made.  I was busy and I told them to go play and that is what they decided to do...

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Aug. 31, 2007

Mark's Haircut

Mark has needed a haircut for awhile.  I decided to bring him to the barber last week to have it done but then changed my mind and decided to do it at home.  I didn't cut that much off this time, next time it will be shorter.  I would have been mad if I had paid for it because it will need to be cut again in no time.  Here are the pics, he did better than I expected.... Not much else has been happening here.  We are enjoying the end of summer.  I am thinking about moving in Dec when the lease is up but I haven't decided yet.  We can go somewhere smaller and save hundreds per month but we really like it here.  I don't want an emergency to come up though that will force me to go back to working more hours so I should plan ahead.  Yesterday the battery on my car died (thankfully that was all it was) and I had to get a new one.  That really made me think about the unexpected expenses..... Here are a few more pics.... Jennifer

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Aug. 23, 2007

Children are Gifts from GOD

"He called a child over, placed it in their midst, and said, 'Amen, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.  Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.  And whoever receives on child such as this in my name receives me." (Matthew, 18:2-5) This is one of my favorite verses in the bible, and one that I especially need to keep in mind when I am having a bad day at home.  Today was not a bad day at home but there have been many in the past and I am sure that there will be many more.  I also look at my four year old daughter, who I had soooo many behavioral problems with in the past, and I am amazed by how much things have changed.  I used to be so worried that she was going to have a rough future, she was agressive, didn't listen, destructive, you name it.  I had little faith and sometimes thought of her as a chore.  Sure, I loved her and was happy to have her, but I was not thankful for her personality.  But now she is old enough to have real conversation about her thoughts/feeling etc.  Her behavior problems are gone and she is just a regular four year old.  But when I look at her I think, "Wow, I wish the I could have faith like her!"  She talks about Jesus as if she could see him and talk to him.  She asks so many questions about him and doesn't have the slightest bit of doubt.  She doesn't dwell on how things in the bible are possible.  I am starting to understand what it means to become like children.  God is Good!  Well, I am off to bed for tonight, I have to get up early! Jennifer

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Aug. 18, 2007

The start of our homeschooling journey.....

Hello and Welcome to everyone who may read this!!  My name is Jennifer and I am the mother of a 4 year old girl, Kaiya, and a 2 year old boy, Mark.  We live in CT and this is the first year that we are doing anything that resembles schooling!!  Here is a picture of us, although not a good one, I don't have any!!  This year my older child will be doing K4 at home.  I hadn't planned to start this early but she is the type of child that loves to "play" school and loves the one on one work, so I figured, why not start now?  We are using A Beka for reading, writing, and math.  We are also using an Abeka bible song book and CD which both kids are really enjoying.  We are also using some extra lessons from Hands of a Child.  We are using a children's daily devotions book that goes over a bible verse every day.  Oh, and of course both kids are learning a lot from REAL life... We use our kitchen table as our main academic area, and I keep all of the homeschool books/worksheets, etc on a shelf in one of my kitchen cabinates.   Not the best looking classroom that I've seen, but it works for us!!  A Beka provides a lot of learning materials that can be displayed on the walls, I just haven't put it all up yet, and some of it is for later in the year.  We began "school" in July and work on it usually 4 times a week for less than an hour a day.  Kaiya actually gets mad when I plan a day off.  Of course, even if I am planning on doing a lesson if a really fun opportunity comes along (like a swimming invite) we take the day off!! The kids are so young that childhood comes first right now!  Oh, a little more about our family... We are a Christian homeschooling family and that is a very important factor for me in homeschooling and choosing curriculum.  I am also a single mother and I work part-time, 2-3 evenings a week as a nurse.   My daughter is very caring, she loves to help me out around the house (and is old enough to actually be helping), and she enjoys reading.  My son has never ending energy, he loves to run, throw balls, read, climb, and jump.  He also can undo any "child-proof" item.  Well, that pretty much sums it up!!  Here are some more pics..... Math at Home Working on Jesus lapbook Working on Jesus Lapbook Kaiya's Locust Snacks Music Me and Kaiya Science If you've made it this far.... Thanks for reading!! Jennifer

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