My life as Organized Chaos
I made a toddler Sensory bin, and the girls have been enjoying it! Its full of letters, puff balls and bottle caps. Those and the usual tongs, spoons and little bags.
I love watching Avery dig in. After last weeks sensory couch fiasco, I figure, I need a bin with less dumpable stuff for a while!
Unfortunately, the couch has become a sensory bin….AVERY!!!
Today for Phys Ed, we learned to rollerskate! Months ago, Emily got rollerskate, but for some reason we never pulled them out before. So we geared up and learned to skate. I made a huge observation about my girls. I need to say “Be careful!” to Avery and ” Way to go!” to Emily. My girls both learned to skate on the same day. one at almost 6(can you believe it!) and one at almost 3. Emily cautiously walked around on her skates and Avery let loose and let roll! After a while Emily got more and more comfortable with them, but I realize she needs to feel in control before she will try something. That’s something her adrenaline-crazed-mommy doesn’t exactly understand. We’ll get there!
Some things we focus on everyday are life skills. Over the last 6 months, Emily has learned to make breakfast and lunch, pour from a full 4 Ltr Milk jug, use the toaster, load and unload the dishwasher and vaccuum! I love that she loves to learn to help. It’s neat to see her feel more and more confident in her own abilities. I certainly love to have a little extra help around the house. Especially while we are planning and getting ready for Mexico next month!
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…
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…
First Week back at school and we are reevaluating EVERYTHING! Kindergarten needs to be fun, so we are taking ourselves less seriously and playing more. This is one of our favorite Games: Kids of Catan. Gotta start em young!
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.
I did it. I dropped of the face of the blogosphere for more than a month because I took on the NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) challenge. The challenge was to write a 50,000 word novel start to finish in the month of November. You can’t finish something you started already. It needs to be a fiction novel. There are a few other rules, but that’s pretty much the jist of it. So thats what I did. I did it. I finished a novel start to finish yesterday. I even had one day to spare.
Emily helped me with some ideas for the story. We used that for some cool book writing parts in homeschool last month. I would tell her the story and make it up as I went along. I started by recording me telling her the story. It changed drastically by the end of actually writing, but that was to be expected.
It’s a children’s speculative fantasy novel. Think ages 9-12. I would have preferred to write a bit edgier and have it make the young adult class, but then I couldn’t read it to emily and that just didn’t seem fair. You, my blog reads get the first snapshot of my book. You’ll also get first choice to read sample chapters, and maybe even one day own a book written by Courtenay Kasper.
The premise of the book is the steam punk adventure of two young foxes whose parents are kidnapped and the kidnappers are coming for them next because they are actually heirs to a broken kingdom. The foxes set off in their hot air balloon airship on a journey across land and sea to rescue their parents. Along the way they meet many strange and silly woodlanders that will either help or hinder their journey.
That’s the basic premise. I kind of like to think of it as a steam punk redwallian adventure. You’ll get it if you get it. So now begins the long process of editing and developing my story until it is ready to be published. I know Morgan will publish at least one copy for us to have, so that’s a start. I’d love to see it read far and wide.
So off I go to edit!
It was a very surreal thing to get my daughters first report card. It was kind of cool to see that Im raising an over achiever who will struggle with perfection like her dad and the need to be ahead like her mom. Its weird to see something of yourself in your child’s kindergarten report card. She did wonderful all on her own. I love that we homeschool, so she doesn’t even know she gets a report card. I think I’d like to keep it that way as long as possible. I dont want her to stress about a piece of paper that says where she is at. She is where she is. I want to know all the details, but I’d rather she just tried to do her best and keep trying new things.
Emily loves her teacher too. Not me… well she does love me, but I mean our schools teacher that meets with us before report cards. I think emily thinks a teacher is someone who comes over that you get to talk to forever and tell how great you are and thats right up her alley. She literally thinks she is the best at something if she as dont it once. She is apparently a professional ballet dancer, laundry folder, artist, singer, and well, pretty much anything she does. Its a tough balance to keep her grounded and not braggy while trying to help her soar with courage to try things. Good thing I’m up for a challenge.
We started our first real book study this week. Mr. Popper’s Penguins! We’ve read many novels this year, but this is the first one we expanded on. I got some great resources from Homeschool Share and we are running with it. When we finish this book, we will be tackling Five in a Row. I’ve been playing with the [...]
Dear Emily, When did you have the time to turn six? You have been so busy planning and playing outside. You were busy dressing up and reading books to Avery. You were definitely too busy making crafts and learning to ride your bike. You couldn’t possibly have had time. You have been so busy learning [...]
My heart is constantly torn in two by sweeties like Lyla She is a gorgeous little girl in desperate need of a family and heart surgery! And Mr. Teagen and Mr. Kelton Look how tiny Teagan is and Kelton seems bigger until you know that he is 13 years old!! Their Mama is coming!! And sweet Faith, [...]
