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BAK SAL

Posted by on January 27, 2012 Leave a Comment

All day long Emily talked about this bake sale she wanted to have and she even made a sign. After the 40th time she said something about it, I clued in and thought we’d better set up a bake sale and add some silent /e/’s to the words BAK SAL. Then we dug out some pennies and sent daddy for tim bits.

This bake sale included reading, writing and math…all unknown learning goals for two tiny tots who devoured 4 cent tim bits and 2 cent glasses of pink lemonade. Gotta love teaching practical things. I was even brave enough to let emily pour juice in the living room…what a day!

Also, you cant see it there, but Avery has been accident free for 2 days! Potty training is significantly easier with non-sensory kids…just saying…

Filed Under: Avery Faith, Blog, Emily & Avery, Emily Grace, Faith, Homeschool | Tagged:

Pointillism

Posted by on January 21, 2012 Leave a Comment

African Violet Pointillism – by Emily

Homeschooling Lesson of the week…patience! For the both of us, or should I say for ALL of us because this included Avery and Daddy too.

We had a regular week of school followed by a completely irregular weekend. Normally, I dont use words like irregular unless Im talking about the potty, but Ive been studying my spanish way too much and Im all about verbs! regular ones and irregular ones, but I got of track there.

We have been doing progressive phonics for reading. Emily is pretty much good to go with short /e/ words! We just finished the “Secret World of Og”, which was definitely one of my favorite books of all time! Math U See feels a bit boring at this point, but I think she finally starting to recognize 6 and 9. I got a couple new apps on the ipad that are helping with that sooo much too. And we started a new science unit about creation from Our Fathers World.

We finally got into the groove…then morgan got appendicitis and kablooey(technical term)…the routine was gone. Mk is recovering well. Lucky guy is now less an appendix and plus three tiny scars. We will have to wait and see what next week looks like, but I’m planning on taking it easy and starting potty training…Avery, not me…

 

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Winter Class

Posted by on December 2, 2011 Leave a Comment

Homeschooling in the winter is super cozy. We spend as much of our day as we can curled up with a good book, or sitting at the table, looking out the sliding doors at the snowy wonderland. We’ve been trying to get outside when the sun is shining, but this is the biggest problem we have…

Avery hates it outside! I usually bundle her up, which is a challenge, and take her outside even if she doesn’t like it. I keep hoping she’ll get over it. The last time we went out was better. She didn’t cry and scream for the whole time. Maybe she’s getting used to it. Or maybe she just realizes that no one is going to take her inside for at least a little while.

She’s only sort of smiling in this picture because I told her that if she smiled she could go inside. I know, bribe parenting…bad Courtenaymomma. Mr. Snowman nudist there is apparently named “Alina Melina”. I’m thinking that is one confused snowman. Or should we perhaps switch to snowperson…

Emily and I have been talking a lot about how snow works and the weather. “Why it melts”, has been the question of the week as it warmed up so much. First his teeth fell out, which left him looking a bit like a hockey player. Then his nose fell off. Then the mits. Now he kind of looks like a zombie snowman. His face is all messed up and his arms hang limp at his sides. He went from cheerful to creepy in one week.  Emily keeps saying we should fix his face, but to me, that seems just as morbid. “Excuse me Mr. He/She while I remove your head for repairs…” See what I mean.  Next year I’ll make a clown snowman that can melt and the creepyness will be complete.

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Apple Stamps

Posted by on October 25, 2011 Leave a Comment

One of the projects we worked on this week was for Phonics Museum. We were working on our short “A” sound and the final part of the lesson was to make a piece of art. We did “Apple Stamps”. We cut an apple in half and dipped it in acrylic paint (Mommy needs to find the cheap tempura paint for her painting monsters to use ALL of. It’s still packed somewhere I think.) Then I helped Avery stamp it on paper. Emily did her own, but I helped Avery more after she thought we were painting the apples and then eating them…gross.

Emily’s look a bit more like apples, but either way we still had fun with it.

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Homeschool in the Fall

Posted by on October 11, 2011 Leave a Comment

Boy are we sure enjoying fall. It’s always been my favorite season. I like all the seasons, but fall is my favorite! I wrote a paper in school based on a speech given by Carl Honore titled” In Praise of Slowness”. Basically the gist of it is that we live our lives at 100 miles an hour and we miss alot of the living to be had. So we’ve been fully pursuing slowness this fall. I love the way it makes me feel to get into a rythym and a day to day routine without so many things in the week that everyone is confused.

A day in the life of fall:

7:30-8ish get up and make breakfast. Emily is learning to do this on her own, which is one of our goals for this year.

8:30-9 – I do my devotions and spend time praying while the girls play downstairs. This is the best part of my day and without it, Im in the wrong frame of mind the rest of the day and lets just say it goes more smoothly if mommy gets some time to her self.

9-10:30- School starts. We cuddle on the couch and read Emilys bible on the iPad and go over her A-Z Memory verses. She is on “E” – “Every good and perfect gift is from above”. then we sit at the table and do some reading, writing and math. I’ve been keeping it more consistent for the last little while because emily needs the same things more than I do.  Avery takes this time to draw on a white board or play with playdough. If I have something really tough to teach Avery gets the playmobil house because it holds her attention even longer. Speaking of tough things…how dumb is English that p,b,d,q,6 and 9 are all essentially the same shape! so not fair to kiddos leaning letters and numbers!

I should clarify that all these times are “ish”, meaning that we just start when we start and when Im ready for us to start.

10:30-11 a snack and more play time. On nicer days, the girls play on the deck or outside

11- 12- Lately I’ve been throwing together crock pot meals and getting laundry done.

12 – Emily makes lunch! Just globby jam sandwiches and yogurt and carrot sticks, but its super cute that she wants to make lunch.

1- More playtime. Usually in the back yard or the playroom if its raining or windy.

2:30-3 Nap time and quiet time and mommy studies Spanish time!

4-5 reading books or playing games with the girls and then getting dinner ready.

The evenings are all over the place, but they’ve been more routine since Emily got over her issues with water on her face and started showering. Wow that makes it sound like I dont bathe my kid, but really she just prefered baths before.

All around we are enjoying the fall and the fun leaf treasure hunts that come with that. I really need to find my camera…

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Sensory Day

Posted by on September 23, 2011 4 Comments


I am super proud of my girls today.

Em has come a LOOONG way in the last two years.

When we first started suspecting she has sensory processing issues, we tried some of these kinds of things. 

They didnt go well…


She would NEVER have dug her hands in like Avery does.

But look at her now! A steady diet of sensory activities has helped her overcome her toughest aversions.
We aren’t out of the water yet. There are still melt downs in loud places and things she wont touch with a ten foot pole…And don’t even get me started on public washrooms and automatic toilets…
But we are getting there!

Homeschool make learning to write fun! 

 

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Muffin Tin Lunches

Posted by on September 19, 2011 3 Comments

I read about this on Pinterest and in a couple of the blogs I’ve been reading forever, but I finally gave it a try! Muffin Tin Lunches!

The idea is that you put a bit of everything in a muffin tray and its kind of novel, so the kiddos try some new things. It also cuts down on the bordom factor of the Peanut butter sandwich. This one is Avery’s Lunch, hence the sippy cup! Almonds, blueberry yogurt, banana, cantelope, carrot, strawberries, cheese cubes, grapes, black beans, and rice puffs. For dessert, a chocolate quarter. I think the economy has been rough on everything because I thought I remembered having chocolate loonies when I was little.lol. The first thing she did was take a bit of chocolate and a bit of black beans. Those apparently dont go together as well as you’d think because they came back out again and we added a new category to our muffin tin – Mushy ChocoBeans!mmmm.


Emily did much better with her lunch and she was thrilled to have so many choices and so little sandwich. I think her favorite was the black beans and garden carrots.

Will I make this again for lunch…probably, but not until I forget that Avery ended lunch by throwing her tray on the floor and making a HUGE mess everywhere…

Filed Under: Blog, Emily & Avery, Food & Recipes | Tagged:

Our First Week

Posted by on September 13, 2011 Leave a Comment

So I figure we need to carve out a blogging time on our schedule. I think I need to find something the girls can do a couple times a week so I can blog. Currently they are whining cause they have to clean the play room.

Emily: “I cant clean this playroom up all by my self”
Me:”Thats fine honey, only clean up the toys you want to keep.”
Emily: “I think I probably can clean them up…”

Our first week of school has gone so well. I still havent managed to get the printer working to print the signs for our first day of school photos…so I guess they will be “first month of school photos”. We did get around to weighing and measuring the girls yesterday. AVery was born at 5lbs 14oz. She is now 27 lbs! Emily was born 5lbs 13 oz and yesterday she was 42lbs! Seriously, I cant believe how much they’ve grown.

We are just starting to get into a routine. I really want to make sure my devotional time is most important in my day, so after breakfast the kiddos go downstairs and play while I have a quiet time. So far, thats working. Then they come up stairs and MK or I read the Bible and work on Memory verses. Then we dont have a set order, but we do Math ( Unit on sorting and Matching), Reading (Bob Books, and Progressive Phonics, both on /a/), Writing (explode the code – F and B) and Read Alouds (Berenstain bears and Shel Silverstein poetry). There are other subjects of course and currently Geography and Art are Emily’s favorites. We are working on cutting! Scissors are hard for little fingers, but its working pretty well.

For Avery, we are doing Tot School! She is loving the directed Free Play with Play-doh, Colouring, Sensory Bins! I’ll Blog More about Tot school another day because my Blog time for today has already expired…

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First day of Homeschool!

Posted by on September 6, 2011 7 Comments

“it’s back to school time. or as home-schoolers call it, stay-where-you-are time.” – Steven Colbert

That makes me snicker, but I’ll tell you, I really enjoyed watching the bus drive by this morning while my kiddos were in their jammies eating breakfast. Welcome to our first day if homeschool! It certainly isn’t our first day of home learning. We’ve been doing that since the wee ones were born! Today was our first day of government sanctioned school at home. I cant believe we are here already. Emily is 5 and 1/2. Wow time goes quickly. Im going to be blogging our journey as a way to remember and for our support teacher to know what we’ve done this year.

Here is our first day! Emily in Kindergarten and Avery in Preschool.

We started with Waffles! I think thats going to be the beginning tradition! I would have made real waffles, but we just got back from Calgary late yesterday and we were missing pretty much everything to make them, so Eggo was the waffle of the day.Then Emily got dressed in her back-to-school Justin Beiber shirt.lol. We were going to take the back to school pictures but the new printer isn’t hooked up, so I’ll print out our sign in a few minutes after I blog and then we’ll take the pictures.

We started with Bible. We started right at the beginning of Emily’s Children’s Bible and I explained about the New Testament and Old Testament and how they fit together. Then we read the story of Creation and had a time of prayer.

Then we moved on to Math. We are still waiting for part of our Math to get odered, so we are working out of 1 workbook for now. Its called Early bird Math We are in the 1st unit and are working on Matching.

While Em was working on Math and Reading, Avery played with playdoh. She created mushy masterpieces for about an hour before she switched to colouring.

Then we read from Book 1 from Progressive Phonics. We are starting with short /a/ sound words. Emily is picking them up really quickly. The writing portion proved to be the tough part of our day because Em isn’t very patient and neither is Mommy with this one. She thinks she know it all already, so she just squiggles whatever and says she’s done. This one is going to take patience I think! Get Set For The Code is another writing book we are using and that went better,but its less actual letter writing.

Then we tried out our back to school sensory bin!

It’s got Shredded Paper, Magnet numbers, 3 sizes of tweezers or Tongs, squishy fiddle bugs, erasers, a little burlap bag from a friends wedding last month, a scoop and bouncy balls. The girls thoroughly enjoyed it and they are already excited for the other sensory bins.

We decided to call it quits for the day and made lunch. I’m sure we will do a few things after nap time, but Mommy needed a break! They did too.

Id’d call that a successful first day of school!

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Summer School

Posted by on July 12, 2011 2 Comments

The term summer school was the worst thing you could say to a kid while I was growing up. It might as well have been a swear word. No one wanted to do summer school. It was a punishment. Well, not in our house! Summer school means FUN! Emily(*previously posted her name as “email”!How nerdy am I?!?) begs for summer school. Literally. She is so excited to work in her workbook or explore or read a book that we do summer school every day.

Even Avery is excited about it, but she calls it “doin shool.” It’s cute. I don’t need to do summer school with the girls and I don’t even have my curriculum orders yet, but we have a workbook from W@lmart and its fun. I wanted us to get into a routine of doing school in the mornings and see what happens with Avery. At this point, she is more than content to colour for more than an hour while we do school and she is not going to be left out. If I put her down from her booster seat at the table before Emily is finished, there are serious tears.

I talked to my Home school Teacher through the school we are enrolled with and she is good to go with me doing my updates each week via blog! That give me a good excuse to take pictures of everything we are working on and chronicle our journey this way. It’ll give you an idea of what we are up to too. I’m going to have to do a post on the curriculum we’ve decided on too. Tomorrow maybe…

 

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