Learning Day by Day

• Nov. 18, 2009 - Stuck in a Rut

Our home is quite scheduled. My husband and I automatically plan and schedule a routine for tasks that need to be completed around the house. We will quickly fall into a routine without discussing what should be done. For example when our housekeeper quit and we began cooking and doing dishes for our business my husband took over preparing the main entree and clean up during cooking. I automatically prepare the sides, desserts and get the trays for each room ready to go out. We really did not discuss it, it just happened. Clean up happened the same way in that we automatically fell into the jobs that we do each day. I love it that we work well together.

The problem is that sometimes it makes for a very boring predictable day. Homeschool is no different at our house. We are scheduled and routine. I have lesson plans. We know what needs to be accomplished for the day, week, semester and even school year. Our lessons are very textbook centered and lack personality, projects, and hands on excitement. It seems to have that excitement at the beginning of the school year, but then looses its newness little by little as the days move along.

I am on the hunt for ideas that will excite my daughter and me. We have to work around our business schedule at our home and cannot leave the house during the day. Sometimes she has me to work with but most of the time she works independently. I've often talked about combining our business with what she is learning, but that would mean breaking this intense schedule that my husband and I have to teach my daughter new things. I realize how that sounds, but I must be geared to take the easy route. Only we pay for it in the enthusiasm department.

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• Oct. 28, 2009 - Time Keeps on Ticking

I'm amazed at how quickly time passes. School is going, going and keeps going. I'm not sure we are enjoying it at much as I anticipated, but it is going smooth. I wish that I had more time to take field trips and enjoy the projects that we do or do not get to for lack of time.

Things are getting ready to get a little more complicated around here with a new baby coming. We are all so excited about the unexpected arrival of a new family member. Since my husband and I are not able to have anymore children of our own, I did not expect to be blessed with another child at 41. If things go as planned we will be adopting a baby girl in December.

I am on a mission to get this house running like clockwork before the baby arrives. Of course I realize all of this organizing will be thrown into chaos by such a little person. But at least I know that I did my best to prepare for what is to come.

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• Feb. 26, 2009 - Spring is just around the corner

Actually spring has arrived in our part of the country. The trees are beginning to turn green again. Flowers are appearing, and occasionally a puff of flower fragrance fills the air as you walk by a neighbors yard. I love spring and I am really enjoying the view from our new homeschooling area.

We have moved our desk area into what used to be our breakfast room so that Kastine can be next to the kitchen as I am working most of the morning in it. We have a wonderful view of our neighbors yard that is overflowing with beautiful plants and trees. It is a great attraction for the many birds in our area. We have started a butterfly garden on our side of the street and our Lorna's Savory has been covered this week in butterflies. We added some window boxes in front of the windows so we hope to get a close view of butterflies right from our desk.

The bird bath and bird feeders are going to be perfect for the new science curriculum that we started this week . I heard so many wonderful things about Apologia from reading the other homschool blogs so I thought I would give it a try. We are starting with the zoology books, On the Fifth Day. So far I love the reading level, the pictures, the let's try sections and the notebook assignments. I'm hoping the notebook assignments and the narratives encourage her writing.

Another way I decided to encourage writing is by using a blog that includes the Homeschool group we are involved with. Along the lines of a class newspaper, she is doing a blog in which she features a homeschool family every week. She interviews them and then writes an article about their unique style of homeschooling. Stop by her blog at www.homeschoolblogger.com/harlingenhomeschool

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• Nov. 10, 2008 - The Election

I have gone a long time without posting. I'm not sure why. Kastine has been busy learning about the campaign and election. She has had to listen to Christian come home from school complaining about politicians, which sparked a little interest within her. It was quite an election year and a wonderful time to be homeschooling. I do feel like we covered much more on government and the whole democratic process than the public schools. If the TAKS test doesn't cover a subject than some schools don't cover it.

Since President-elect Obama is "the man of change" I hope that he will overhaul the public school system for the better. If anyone requires more testing than President Bush has put in place Texas students might turn into one big test themselves. Well...we can always hope.

Tomorrow we will be attending a Veteran''s Day Ceremony at the school I taught in. Kastine's Papa will be a speaker for the event and Kenny will also be part of it. I haven't been to my old school this school year so I'm looking forward to seeing the teacher that mentored me during the first year I taught.

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• Oct. 2, 2008 - Learning Spanish

One of the things we are learning this year is Spanish. I am happy with the Spanish curriculum that I got from Bob Jones, because Kastine can't do the lessons on her own. It is set up so that the teacher and student are having conversations, which is forcing me to learn Spanish right along with her. I decided that when she finishes a unit she will have to do a project that demonstrates her being able to use the words we have worked on.

For this last unit Kastine decided to write and perform a little skit which she put on Movie Maker. I hope that we will put these on periodically and that you will be able to see some improvement.

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• Sep. 26, 2008 - The Zoo

Kastine, Kenny and I had a wonderful Friday to close out a smooth school week. The weather was beautiful yesterday morning, not too hot and not chilly. The animals were more active than I have ever seen. The young gorillas were playing what looked like a game of tag. The small monkeys were calling so loud it could be heard though out the zoo. The cockatiels and parakeets were feeding from Ivy's (a cousin) head. The Lion roared as we were observing him. We watched a tiger get down and then pounce on another tiger (playing). We also saw the Galapagos Turtle eat celery right in front of us. Of course the best moment was when we were in the aquarium and Kastine saw a fish that blended in with the rocks and said that is what we read about yesterday, the fish is being camouflaged. Yes it is a simple concept, but nice to know that she is remembering what we studied and can refer to it.

We have been trying to attracted a little nature to our own backyard with a butterfly garden. We have had quite a few butterflies stop and stay a while on our Heliotrope plant. I need to get a couple more of those since our garden is a little sparse. We even saw a caterpillar on the fence which is what we are hoping for so we could observe a butterflies life cycle in nature.

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• Sep. 19, 2008 - Social Studies and Chemistry

Social Studies

This week we used our new and improved schedule. We were able to begin discussing the upcoming election using our new subscription with Time For Kids. Time for Kids has a wonderful website that has grade level lesson suggestions to use with each issue. They also have a printable quiz that has about 10 questions in TAKS format to go with each issue. Brainpop has also selected some of their videos for TFK readers to use for free. Actually anyone can use it, just go to www.brainpop.com/tfk/.

Chemistry

Kastine and I looked forward to this weeks lab.... marshmallow molecules. She learned a few rules when it comes to bonding and atoms. You can see in the pictures that the marshmallows represented the atoms, we had Carbon and Oxygen and the small ones were Hydrogen. After she made the molecules we enjoyed a snack, but we did not eat the atoms that were labeled with a Sharpie.

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• Sep. 10, 2008 - Adjusting the Schedule

We are well into our third week of school and I need to adjust my original schedule. Our Sonlight history is taking a great deal of time everyday. Our read aloud books are taking the most time. I do not want to leave out the read alouds because Kastine really seemed to get quite a bit from our reading. I did not think that she was paying such close attention as I was reading. But, today when she read about Esteban in the book that is equivalent to a text book she was so excited and wanted to tell me about what she read and she had questions. That was due to the read aloud about Esteban in Walk the World's Rim.

How am I going to adjust the lessons? That's not the only thing that I have to adjust. I need to cut back on math and rethink her spelling.

Speaking of spelling I found a great spelling site that I decided to use. I am able to type my own spelling list for Kastine and then she can access it during the week to play games using the words. At the end of the week she takes her spelling test on the computer and prints out the results. The site gives her the word and will even say it in a sentence for her. We love it!!, especially since I am personalizing her list to just what she needs to work on from what I've seen her mispell in her writing assignments. Check out Spellingcity.com if your child likes to work on the computer.

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About Me

I am going on my 5th year of homeschooling and have taught 2 years in a classroom. I am enjoying staying home and teaching my 11 year old and hope to be able to continue for a few years.