| The Magic School House |
My New BlogI have moved over to blogspot.Here is a link to my new place. Come by and Visit sometime. http://themagicschoolhouse.blogspot.com/ 9:03 PM - Sunday, September 23 - comments {0} - post commentOut of Season?We built some new bookshelves this week! Hooray for girl power! I thought it was high-time that Beautiful learned to use a hammer. Anyway. We had new bookshelves so we needed bookends so we could rearrange the books. You would think this would be easy. Go to Target and get some bookends. Well, actually NO. Apparently, bookends are a SEASONAL item. Yes. They are SEASONAL.. As in there is a specific season for bookends just like there is for Easter bunnies and Christmas trees. So now I am off to Amazon to find out-of-season bookends. I wonder if they will be on sale since its not bookend season. 12:37 AM - Sunday, June 10 - comments {0} - post commentEat my ImaginationOkay my last entry was so depressing I had to add one that wasn't.My 2yo dd is about the cutest child imaginable. We were sitting on the couch eating lunch one day. She had requested that her sandwhich not have crust on it. There was just a little bit of crust on one side. I said, "There's no crust on that sandwhich. Its just your imagination." She promptly pulled the piece of crust off, handed it to me and said, "Here, eat my imagination." 12:00 AM - Sunday, June 10 - comments {0} - post commentA HeadacheI have migraines. I started having them when I was about 16. I stopped when I was pregnant with my first child. Now at 38 and having weaned my last child, I started having them again. They started in March. At first it was just one, then another, then five a month. Now I am the proud owner of an astounding two mingraines a week. They have taken over my life.I had one yesterday. My head feels bruised from the experience. My brain seems to still ache from the trauma. I am having them so often that I don't even have sympathy for my own pain any more. How can I expect sympathy from those around me? I want to tell myself to just "Buck up and quit complaining." I want to just crumple onto the floor and cry at the thought of getting hit by another train of a migraine. I know that there is a maelstrom out there with my name on it, just waiting to catch me and pull me under - back into the pain. My new medicine helps, but it doesn't take away all of the pain. It doesn't make it quit hurting. It really just takes the pain a little further away from me. I still feel it. Its just futher away, maybe easier to deal with. I'm still trying to find out what the trigger is. I am terrified that there isn't one. I am afraid that I am just going to devovle into a constant state of pain. 11:45 PM - Saturday, June 9 - comments {1} - post commentThinking of Cultural Geography for First GradeI have a plan for next year. I really do. Its right here for Beautiful who will be in First Grade. Handsome will be in Twelfth Grade and taking more cc classes and doing Literature and some SAT prep at home. Of course SweetPea will be 3. Now somebody tell my why I am planning next year. I think I just like to plan. Maybe I would be better off writing detailed lesson plans. That would be cool, but I would never follow them. I like to learn about different topics and write lists, but I don't like to follow directions - even my own. I think I want to do a Cultural Geography class next year with Beautiful. We will be doing earth science so this would be great. I like the idea of studying a different country each week. Beautiful loves to plan parties. We could spend two weeks on each country. One week we could learn what I want her to know about the country and the next week she could research on her own and plan a party for that country. I was inspired by the Children Around the World from Winterpromise, but after looking at the books for that program I decided that the themes were just too much for my sensitive little girl. We will look at the conditions of children and families in each country, but I don't want to focus so much on the hardships of people. Here are some of the books I am looking at for this. I think I will check them out from the library and go through them. I'll buy the ones I like them plan out which countries to use. Once I plan the countries, I will make a list of fiction stories for each of these countries that I can get from the library.  Hungry Planet: What the World Eats How People Live  Kids Around the World Celebrate!: The Best Feasts and Festivals from Many Lands (Kids Around the World) The Usborne Little Round The World Cookbook: Internet Linked (Children's Cooking)  Children Just Like Me A Life Like Mine  Stories from Around the World 10:46 PM - Sunday, April 29 - comments {0} - post commentNot Liking Modern World HistoryI was revising my grand master plan and realized something interesting. I really dislike studying modern world history. I noticed that I did not schedule to teach this to either of my girls. My son and I are struggling through it. It has been painful. I know that war and genocide are not unique to the twentieth century. Maybe it seems more personal to me than older history since I know people that were alive when these things happened. I have pictures of family members that were witness to these events. I was witness to some of these events. I have heard first-hand personal accounts of these wars. I have seen scars from these wars. 10:51 PM - Saturday, April 21 - comments {0} - post commentDoubting myself againI am doing it again. I am wondering how I could possibly be qualified to teach my children anything. I cannot be the one who is responsible for thier education. I just don't see it working. There, I said it. I am a bad homeschooler. My son is thriving in his college Japanese class. We sat down and registered him for fall. He will be taking three classes this fall at the local CC and will jsut do one class at home. One. He hates math. He is pretty good at it and he has always been capable of doing it, but he hates it. My middle dd is only 6 and in her K year. She is great at math, but guess what? She hates math. She can add and subtract single and double digit numbers. She can carry and borrow. She can count by, 2, 5, 10. She can multiply by 4. She is learning to divide. I still don't feel like I can teach her math. She was constantly asking me to spell words for her so I got her a spelling program. She didn't want to be taught to spell and proved that she didn't need to be taught by spelling all of the words from every spelling lesson in the book. I thought she needed more reading practice so I got her some reading books at her level. At first she enjoyed them. Then she realized that I was trying to teach her again and she started chosing books "above" her level and reading those. It goes on. Maybe I can teach my littlest dd who is only 2 something someday. Maybe I am just not good at chosing the material for my kids. Maybe I am picking the wrong levels. Maybe I don't understand thier learning style. Maybe my idea of being a relaxed classical homeschooler isn't working for us. Maybe I should be more rigid. Maybe I should require more work from them. Maybe textbooks are better. Maybe unschoolers are right and kids don't need to be taught things. Maybe I have no idea what I am doing. Maybe they would be better off at school Then again, maybe this is working. Maybe my expectations are the problem. 12:02 AM - Saturday, April 21 - comments {0} - post commentTaxes, Chemistry, Tea Party, SleepoverI think I have probably bitten off more than I can chew. Here is my plan for this week
Its going to be a long week, but I think we can have fun doing it. 8:58 PM - Sunday, April 15 - comments {0} - post commentLittlest in the ClosetI don't usually post pictures of my kids for privacy reasons, but this was too cute. She fell asleep in my closet. 
4:34 PM - Sunday, April 8 - comments {0} - post commentKinder fell asleep last night readingWe had a tough day yesterday. Kinder has a tummy bug. Oldest has a sore throat. Littlest needed lots of attention since her sister was sick.I got the girls to bed on time and littlest was asleep before 8:30 (Thursday is my night to do this hubby does it the rest of the week.) I read a couple of extra chapters of the Odyssey to kinder as we snuggled together. She even guessed that Mentor was Athena in disguise. The night was going well. Hubby was at the bookstore. I was watching Survivor. The girls were in bed. Oldest was on the computer and laughing at me and Survivor. Then of course, kinder wasn't feeling well and couldn't sleep. I gave her a snack and turned on her night light and got her favorite book for her to look at until she got sleepy. Later, littlest woke up crying. When I went in to check on her, kinder was sleeping with her book on her chest. it was very sweet. However, I wondered how many kindergarteners consider Time Traveler history books to be their favorite. It does make me glad that I decided to start reading history with her. I thought she was ready for the more complex ideas - maybe I was right. 7:14 PM - Friday, April 6 - comments {0} - post comment
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Description A homeschool and life blog about the adventures of one mom and three kids (my ds Handsome who is 17, my dd Beautiful who is 6, and my dd SweetPea who is 2) and a wonderful husband (known here as hubby). I work full-time three days a week. Hubby works 5 days a week. I am a relaxed classical homeschooler that is making it all up as I go along. Home User Profile Archives
Curriculum Choices
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