My Little Corner of the World - Homeschool Blogger

Around the House and Other Stuff....

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 12:23:00 -0500

Is it wrong of me to keep this blog just to direct my homeschooling friends to my blog at Blogger?

I hope not. See what I'm up to over at Around the House and Other Stuff.

So Sorry.....

Thu, 13 Dec 2007 11:24:00 -0600

I was going to come back to homeschoolblogger. It does truly seem like the bugs got worked out. But It is just so easy to post over at blogger and I'm all set up over there... and the effort of moving everything all back it just too overwhelming at the moment. So, please just keep visiting me over there.

My other blog: This Is My Spot

Might Try HSB Again.

Sat, 8 Sep 2007 22:27:00 -0500

Well, I left HSB to blog over at Blogger awhile back when things were running so slow. However, I've still been visiting friends blogs over here. I decided to do an experiment post to see how things are running over here now. My post went through real smooth. So I may come back to posting here again.

Emily is Reading!

Sat, 8 Sep 2007 22:21:00 -0500

I have to tell you I was very nervous about teaching Emily to read from scratch. Brandon learned to read in PS. I didn't start homeschooling him until 2 grade. So, I just improved his reading. But Emily .... Emily is all my responsibility. What if I don't give her a good foundation in reading? I mean really, in my mind, if you can read you can do just about anything! The how-to is only a book or internet site away! Emily has known all her alphabet sounds for ages. I've just put off actual reading while I tried to figure out the best way to get started..... I had bought How to Teach your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. But she hated it. So I sold it.

This school year I was still floundering and just had her working over some kindergarten workbooks. Finally I pulled out the Explode the Code and Bob Books that I've been sitting on for a while and decided to start her on those. OK like 2 days into them and she reads her first book all by herself!!!! Not only that but she read it over and over and over.

"Mat. Mat sat. Sam. Sam sat. Mat sat. Sam sat. Mat sat on Sam. Sam sat on Mat. Mat sat. Sam sat. The End."

OK, not Shakespeare, but hey it's her first book!

Then she demanded to read the second Bob Book and when I told her she wasn't ready to read it yet...she ignored me and read it anyway. Could she read it? Yes! She stumbled in a couple of places but she did read it! I guess it is time for momma to get out of this child's way and accept that she can do anything once SHE wants to do it!

Love Them! Love Them! Love Them! They go great together! I already have the Explode the Code books 1, 1 1/2, 2, and 2 1/2. I only have set one of the Bob books (that I picked up at a garage sale) but as excited as Emily is about being a reader I think I'll need to look into buying the next few sets soon!

My new blog site.....

Tue, 15 May 2007 15:58:00 -0500

All my posts after April 14, 2007 can be found at:

http://april-thisismyspot.blogspot.com/

Moving Blog

Fri, 13 Apr 2007 06:22:00 -0500

I'm moving my blog. I've finally decided to set up a blog else where. I had been waiting every since the big update back at the beginning of the year for homeschoolblogger to work out all the bugs. But it hasn't gotten any better in four months so I'm setting up shop at This is My Spot.

Please come see me there. I loved that we were all home schoolers here and already after only being set up for just 24 hours feel a bit lonely over there in every thing world...

Trip to the Library

Tue, 10 Apr 2007 17:55:00 -0500

Today was a dreary day. What do you do on a dreary day? You read. So, off to the library we went!

BranFlake got two books:

Dragon Rider by Cornelia Funke
The Ice Dragon by George R.R. Martin.

(Think the boy likes dragons?) The real trick will be getting him to read them before they are due back. He is not an avid reader. However, he would still do just about anything to have me read out loud to him. He’ll even sit and listen to me read little kids books to his sister! He is wanting the second book in the prophecy warriors (about warrior cats) but the library doesn't have it. Since he read the first book faster than he has ever read anything and he read it with out trying to talk me into reading it out loud, I guess I'll have to go buy that series for him. Soon the third book in the Eragon series should be out. (another dragon book) I’ll really have to buy that when it comes out. Of course I’ll end up reading that aloud.

Emily got several books:

Goodnight Moon (again)
Llama llama red pajama (again)
After Dark by Louis Baum
Winnie the Pooh Everyone is Special
Wild about Books by Judy Sierra
The Castle Mystery by Gertrude Chandler Warner ( This is the first non picture book that Emily has ever picked out. I really think that she just picked it out because of the castle on the front but we’ve read three chapters already and she seems to like it. I didn‘t notice until we got home that it was a boxcar children book. I‘ve been trying to get Brandon interested in those because they are more his reading level. May be listening to me read to his sister will peek his interest. Right now he wants these huge epics that are beyond his reading level and guess who he wants to read them?)
Just a Minute by Yuyi Morales (This is a cute book about an old woman that tricks death into waiting around for her until he gives up. It also has counting in both English and Spanish all the way up to ten.)

I like historical and fantasy fiction. I guess Bran has my taste. For myself I got The Last Kingdom by Bernard Cornwall and The Spirit Gate by Kate Elliott. I hope I can still time away to myself to actually read them! I used to read and read and read. But it has gotten hard to make the time to anymore. After all I'm always having to read to my kids! LOL

It's a Lime Easter!

Sun, 8 Apr 2007 17:08:00 -0500

We usually don’t color coordinate our outfits but when I bought Emily’s little dress I just happened to see shirts in Brandon’s department that matched on sale. It was all lime for us after that! So here we are the lime family on Easter.

The kids had a great Easter. Emily has been talking about Jesus all the time for weeks now. I’m beginning to think it will soon be time for her to start asking about being saved and baptized. Brandon was about 6 or 7 when he accepted Jesus and got baptized.

They had more eggs than their baskets could carry and had to resort to plastic bags to help them out.

Brandon has always complained that the eggs are too easy to find so this year I hid some hard ones for him. This is him playing hot and cold. The prize is in the gas door of the car. It took him a long time to find that one.

Spring Soccer Has Started!

Wed, 4 Apr 2007 14:23:00 -0500

Home School Easter Egg Hunt and Funny Weather

Sat, 7 Apr 2007 12:16:00 -0500

Yesterday our home school group had our second annual Easter egg hunt at the Goodman Museum.
There were two changes made this year. One is we invited the families staying in the Salvation Army temporary housing to join us. The other is that this year our tour through the Museum was guided.

The Museum has beautiful park grounds that we do our egg hunt in. The tour took longer than expected so after the tour the kids where really chomping at the bits to be set free to hunt eggs! It all happened so fast I didn’t even get a chance to take a single picture of the kids actually hunting eggs! In total we hid way over a thousand eggs but they were snatched up fast.

I did manage to get a few pictures of all the families sitting down together for a picnic after the egg hunt. The way everyone set down together, shared food, and laughed and talked like we were all one family really touched my heart. I hope we get another opportunity to serve the Salvation Army families again in the future.

We were worried about it raining or turning out too cold for families to want to be out in the weather but the day turned out to be perfect egg hunt/picnic weather!

Today on the other hand……It is snowing!!!!!

You got to love Texas! You have got to LOVE God’s sense of humor! Thanks God for waiting one day!