Gamification

27 February 2012

Clean, clean, clean. I feel like all we did today was clean. That's not entirely true though. After we had most of the cleaning out of the way we practiced skip counting by 3's. Ra has 3-30 down pretty well but seems reluctant to want to learn the rest up to 99. Eldon is hardly interested at all. I need to figure out funner ways to teach them. I have been using a video from Have Fun Teaching for the skip counting but it counts too fast and the kids loose interest because they can't keep up. We will keep working on it. I broke out in bouts of counting by threes throughout the day to try and spark the interest in it again, but each time the kids asked me to stop ofter counting to 30 for the third time.

After our initial skip counting session we watched some science videos on YouTube. They were interesting enough to keep the kids attention but because they were kind of random subjects I'm not sure it really did any good. They much prefer the hands-on science activities like we did with electricity the other day.

After the science videos we bundled up and went for a walk around the neighborhood. I reviewed with Ra that house numbers on one side of the street are even and on the other side they are odd. We looked at several house numbers along our way to see if the right side was even or odd and so on. We also had fun naming the colors of things we saw on our way in German. They are getting pretty good with their colors!

After our walk we had some hot chocolate to warm up and within the hour the hubby was home and we left to take care of some errands. While we were out our fan belt on our vehicle shredded and we had it towed in to the shop and obtained a rental car for a day or so until it is fixed. The kids where practically beside themselves with excitement at watching the tow truck load the vehicle and then being able to ride in the tow truck to get our rental. They thought nothing better could have happened to them today.

By the time we got home the kids had all fallen asleep in the car so no story time again tonight, though they did spend quite a bit of time listening to the audio version of Little Women by Louisa May Alcott.

After the kids were in bed I found this fun, new background for my blog for St Patrick's Day coming up then browsed around on Pinterest. I found a video about "gamification" and it's affects on kids and adults alike. It was very intriguing and though I understand what he is saying, I don't think I agree with it completely.

I don't doubt that we can learn immense amounts through video games, however, having been a gamer for nearly ten years I have experienced the effects that the studies can't possibly test. I lost myself in the games. I wanted to be there more than in my real life. The dopamine affects can be just as hazardous to our well being as any other dopamine based addiction. Games can not possibly replace the one-on-one time with your kids.

They may learn skills and information from games, but they can not learn about tact, right and wrong, love, honor, etc. Those things are taught in the home, by the parents. And the acquisition of these character traits is most important to me. I do believe my kids need to be taught as much as they can learn, but not at the expense of their moral character.

Relaxing Sunday

26 February 2012

Today was an uneventful, relaxing Sunday. We went to church, cooked, cleaned and ate. We also watched a fair few NOVA movies. I worked a little on that cover art I was asked for, practiced some German and just hung out with the kids today. We didn't go anywhere or do anything. It was nice. I hope your Sunday was a good one too!

P.S. After consulting with the hubby we decided to stick with German as our first language and go back and do Latin after we have German down pat!

Electrical Gardens

25 February 2012

This morning we had breakfast then went (with the keys this time!) to get my husbands paycheck and we ran a few other errands on the way home. Ra listened to and read along with the read-along books we checked out from the library. I went over some of the facts of George Washington's life while we were in the car as well. I read them a few poems about George Washington that I had found online as well. I also started introducing the kids the the colors in German. Rot, orange, gelb, grun, blau, lila, schwarz, weiss, braun, silbern, and golden. (Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, black, white, brown, silver, and gold.) Time in the car has been greatly under-utilized by me and I hope to remedy that with exciting discussions and topics and books to listen to and memorization drills.

We had lunch and cleaned house a bit when we arrived home and after lunch the hubby pulled out an electricity science project kit we had bought for our kids a while ago but had not opened yet. I thoroughly enjoyed myself as I sat back and listened to the hubby explain what a "circuit" was to the kids and how electricity works. I put in my two cents now and again when I felt I had an insight I could share or another way of explaining something that the kids might be able to understand easier. We all had a good time with it.

I spent much of the rest of the afternoon planning my garden and doing research on how much to grow and where to grow certain plants in relation to other plants. I decided which plants I want to start with this year, instead of jumping headlong into a large variety garden my first year doing one on my own. While graphing out my garden on graph paper I explained to Ra what a Ratio was. I told her that for every two squares on my graph paper that showed one foot in actual garden. I told her we do this most often to scale down things into workable sizes. I couldn't very well draw out the garden on a piece of paper as big as the garden because then I may as well just do it in the garden itself. I still have a lot of planning to do, but this is a good start.

After a very good dinner the kids played around and Ra helped tend Em while the hubby and I set up my computer with Call of Duty 4 so that I could play it with him for a bit. It was fun to just chill and take a bit of time to relax from the studies I have been involving myself in during my spare time. Unfortunately the play time ran over and we didn't have time to read our kids a story before bedtime. But I was able to get in some valuable leisure time which I have been needing, but having been allowing myself. 

The kids and I also finished the Log Cabin out of twigs we started yesterday. I will post pictures of it soon. I absolutely love how it turned out.

Log Twig Cabin

24 February 2012

This morning we played around the house and cleaned up a bit until about 10:30 a.m. when I piled the kids in the car to drive the half hour to pick up my husband's paycheck from The Yard. When I got to The Yard the paychecks hadn't arrived yet so I drove down the street to a local park and let the kids play for about 45 minutes then drove back to The Yard. When I pulled up I found that it had been locked up and everyone was gone. This usually isn't a problem because I have a key to the office door, but I had left it at home. So, I took the kids to lunch since they were hungry, we weren't close to home and it was lunch time.

After lunch we went home and did our President's Day/George Washington's Birthday crafts. The first ones we did were George Washington and Abraham Lincoln finger puppets. They were so easy to make and they are so cute. It cost me one $1.04 to make four of them since I had construction paper, glue and scissors already and we needed a quarter for each George Washington and a penny for each Abe Lincoln.

The next craft was far more involved. I had cut out the shapes for the 4 walls, roof and floor of Lincoln's cabin and I had the kids go outside and collect me some sticks. We have an enormous willow tree in our back yard so the lawn was covered in easy pickings. I showed them how to do a rough measuring of the length the sticks needed to be and how to break them where they wanted. They glued the "logs" onto the construction paper and we let it dry all day. We will actually assemble the building (Gebäude in German) tomorrow.

After we were done gluing on sticks the kids wanted to go for another walk/bike ride. I called Grandma Jane because she said she might stop by our house and I wanted to make sure we weren't going to miss her if we left. She said she was still at the school (she teaches 4th grade at the public school my kids would be going to) setting up her classroom and getting ready to go back On-Track (the elementary schools here do a "track" system with A, B, C, and D tracks, all taking breaks at different times to be able to accommodate the large number of students). The school isn't much farther than where we were planning on going for our walk so I told her we would walk up there instead and help her finish setting up her room.

The walk/bike ride was quite stressful as we walked on a major road. My kids aren't yet familiar with all of the rules and whatnot of riding a bike near such traffic. They did good though. At the school we helped Grandma Jane put text books out on her kids desks and sharpen pencils and organize and decorate a board. While we were there my husband arrived back from work and drove the car over to the school to meet us. He conned his mother into watching the kids for us and we went on a much needed date. Grandma Jane put the kids to bed for us and she read some of the abbreviated children's version of Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson to the kids.

Boo-Hoo's and Ahh-Haa's

23 February 2012

I slept in this morning. I have totally ignored my "schedule" for the week. I realized yesterday that I am not inspiring my kids. I also realized that I don't know how to inspire them. A very daunting thought when I am trying to live up to the mantra "Inspire not Require". Last night I sat bolt upright in bed after dozing for a little while and began sobbing I was so overwhelmed by my task and I felt prompted to pray. I prayed earnestly that God might help guide me in my search for knowledge and help me understand and apply what I have already learned.

This morning when I woke up I realized that the kids had not yet come down to bother me about typing the the passwords for the computers (being computer day and all) which made me very curious. I went upstairs and found the kids enthusiastically playing with some ball hoop and target sets we received from Grandma B(She is an adopter grandma! She has no kids of her own and is good friends with Grandma Jane). I hadn't pulled them out until last night for the first time after the kids were in bed. I left them out and apparently the kids loved them so much they forgot it was computer day for a little while.

 I spent some time talking to my sister (which if you haven't noticed by now is what I do when I'm stressed out because she helps bring me back down to reality) and I got to thinking about the interest the kids had this morning. I decided that the computers need to take a further back seat than they have been. I cut down from everyday to two days, now I'm considering ONLY using their computer time for typing exercises and educational studies. I will probably find a way to make free computer time a reward of some sort, but I am still thinking it all out.

I want to make our basement family room into more of an educational playland. Right now it has a bookshelf, a small chest of craft activities, a children's desk and the computer desk. If we took the computer desk out of there and just put one computer in my room and put the other one away for now or in my small craft room, there would be more space for the kids to set up and play. We could get more open-ended toys and manipulatives to have down there and hopefully encourage them to do more than complain about wanting to be playing computer games.

I also know that when the weather warms up the computers aren't as bad of a problem because it is easier for the kids to be able to play outside. I decided though, that cold weather is no excuse to be cooped up inside all day. I love being outside and Charlotte Mason is a big proponent of spending time out of doors as much as possible. So we bundled up while Em was taking her nap and I raked up leaves and twigs while the kids rode bikes, and dug in the dirt and tried to help me with the raking as well.

When Em woke up I put her in her stroller and Ra, El, and Ca rode their bikes and we walked to the park where there was another little boy El's age playing with his dad and their two schnauzers. I let the kids play until Em started getting red cheeked from cold then we went home, had dinner and the kids had a bit more time on the computers before storytime.

We finished reading The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett and read a chapter in Genesis of the KJV Bible. Tomorrow I will ask Ra if she wants to listen to a book about George Washington next or the book she picked from the library (as I offered to read it to her because she wanted it so bad but it is not an easy read for her yet).

I looked up some fun activities to do with the kids in honor of President's Day and George Washington's birthday ( I know we are late) and I am sure they will have fun tomorrow helping me in the yard again and doing these crafts. I will take pictures of them when they are completed and post them tomorrow!

Happy Birthday George Washington!

22 February 2012

Everyone needs to stop getting hurt/sick. Just stop! Ok? So we all got sick with a cold/flu a few weeks ago and Ca ended up having a really bad ear infection (which we didn't know about until he fell of the bunkbed and I thought he was seriously injured when he wouldn't stop crying and it turned out to be just an earache). Ra has been coughing pretty badly for about two weeks now. Yesterday at Grandma Jane's house El got into her sewing things and cut the tip of his finger with her rotary fabric blade. Then later at home when I went to grab a tool out of my husband's tool bag I stuck my hand in and cut open the tip on my finger on the only sharp thing in the bag. This morning I decided to take Ra in to the doctor's to see about her cough and it turns out she has a sinus infection. When we got home we were cleaning the house and El slipped down the stairs and hit his head/cheek on the cement basement floor and I was worried he had a concussion  (which he didn't, thankfully), but he had a very bad headache and a large bruise on his cheek. Ca keeps hitting his feet on things by accident and getting hurt in various other ways by tumbling around the house. Then when I was saying good-bye to my mother at the door, Em fell into a bucket of water. She was fished out instantly and no harm was done but oh my heavens! I have had enough! I'm done. No more. I am going to strap them all to their beds for their own safety! At this rate they wont live to see another year! AHHHH!! Seriously though. Enough is enough.

This morning over breakfast I asked Ra what she wanted to learn today. She reminded me that today was George Washington's birthday and so she wants to learn about him. I asked her what she knew about George Washington. Her response was that he was the first president. A good start to be sure, but in all honesty that is about all I really know about him either. That is a very sad fact. I tell you, all morning (while we were at her doctor's appointment) I felt like the blind leading the blind. It is a terrifying feeling.

After her doctor's appointment we stopped by the house to gather our library books and then went to the library in search of books on George Washington. We found several good ones. Some longer, some picture books and a few read-alongs. I even checked out one for myself. The kids picked out several other books then made our way home to clean house for Grandma Debbie.

My mom (Grandma Debbie) volunteered to do Singing Time with my kids every Wednesday. Today she reviewed another primary song Nephi's Courage from the LDS Children's Songbook. After reviewing the story behind the song, (same as was done with The Wise Man and The Foolish Man) we discussed the many different kinds of boats there are and their purposes. Grandma Debbie asked them how hard it would be to build a boat that you would feel safe on for long distances if you had never done it before. They all agreed it would be nearly impossible. Grandma Debbie explained that Nephi was given instructions by God not only on how to build a boat but also on how to make the tools to build the boat! We talked about different scenarios in the kids lives where they would need courage to do the things God asks us to do and reaffirmed that God would never ask us to do something that was impossible, He will provide a way. Brings on kind of a whole knew clarity to the old adage "Where there's a will there's a way." More to the tune of "Where there is God's will he will provide a way." At the end of the lesson the kids made boats out of tinfoil and floated them in a bucket of water. (Yes the same one Em fell into.)

Ra listened to one of the read-along books about George Washington then I think she was pretty well "learned-out" for the day. My anxiety at all of the kids little traumas throughout the week keep me from being productive with anything but dinner and dishes. I talked on the phone with my sister for a while and she got my mind off things well enough that I could calm down again.

We read a few passages about George Washington from a couple books then read a chapter of Genesis in the KJV Bible and two chapters of The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. We only had three chapters until the end and we were trying to finish it tonight but by the time we finished the second chapter it was already well past bedtime. Tomorrow then!  

Grandma Jane and Inspiration

21 February 2012

Computer day. Ah... the day I get to sleep in and recover from staying up until 1:00 a.m. every night and waking up at 7:30 a.m. every morning.  I set up the computers for the kids and went back to bed until about 9:00 a.m. when Em woke up and I laid down on the floor while she played on and around me and I dozed. I made breakfast for myself around 9:45 a.m.

I didn't even look at my planner today because as I was finishing breakfast Grandma Jane called and asked if we could come over for a visit today. It was a nice break as she let me leave the kids with her for an hour or so while I ran some errands. Bliss. The kids helped Grandma Jane bake cupcakes and painted pictures, played Candyland and a Fishing (a board game). They played with wooden blocks and had all sorts of fun.

At home the kids went right back onto the computers and I replaced the tail light blinker in the car (the things us women have to do when the hubby works out of town!) and looked for some of my art supplies because I was asked if I would be interested in illustrating a cover for a client of a friend of mine. Of course by the time I actually found my art supplies it was time to get ready for bed.

We read four chapters in Genesis of the KJV Bible and three chapters in The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. Just three more chapters and we are done with this book. I am going to set up a Skype conversation with Grandma Lori who lives five hours away so Raven can discuss the book with her! It will be fun.

After the kids were in bed I did my usual research on homeschooling. I am still trying to figure this all out and find out what works and what I could be doing better etc. In my research I found a few things I am going to try.

First, when Ra gets up in the morning I am going to ask her "What do you want to learn today?" and "How long would you like your lessons to be? One hour? Two hours? or Three hours?) instead of trying to fit in what I want to teach that day. I will give myself an hour or so to prepare (if needed) to teach what she is interested in. I realize that this is practically throwing out the planning I spent so much time on preparing for this week, but if this works better I definitely wont complain about loosing the time this week to gain it from here on out!

If Ra does not want to have her lessons be an hour or more than I know that I have not sufficiently "inspired" her yet. Which I am bracing myself for because it is entirely possible since "inspiring" isn't something that comes naturally for me. This thought led me to more research of course.

I came up with a basic starting point for "inspiring". The guidelines where not meant for homeschooling application, but I figure if I can apply these principles to each subject to be taught then I will be set. I found that I have already started doing this with learning German.

-Stick with what you love about the subject. (if you don't love it, work on that first!)
-Think Big and Noble. (aim to be the best and know the most)
-Be Expressive with your students/children. (share with them your findings and excitements)
-Practice What You Preach. (don't ask them to do anything you aren't willing to do yourself)
-Keep an Open Door. (be willing to stop what you are doing to assist them with questions and concerns)
-Offer a Guiding Hand. (when they show interest offer to help them progress and give guidance)
-Be Consistent. (if it isn't important to you why should it be for them?)
-Stay Positive. (don't criticize your kids for shortcomings or inhibitions they have in achieving goals)

I know these things have been explained in the TJEd books and websites, but it is nice to step back and get a different wording and view of the same concept to make the puzzle fit together a little bit better. All in all, I need to focus on educating myself and by putting myself in that mindset I will better see the opportunities I have to share that knowledge with my children.

As for learning to reading, writing and arithmetic for the boys, I need to pay more attention to the things they do on their own and look for learning opportunities there instead of requiring them to sit down and do math with me or writing etc. If I implement more activities where these things are present as well, like writing letters to people, they will learn to do them in a natural setting. 

P.S. I also did some more German lessons of LiveMocha. I am getting better than my husband, granted he only took two years of German in high school and doesn't remember a whole lot because he hasn't used it.

Schedules, Hats, and German

20 February 2012

I managed to get my week planned out at about 1:30 a.m. last night/this morning. It includes basic ideas and guidelines for each of my three older kids in each subject, (reading, history, math, writing, science, art/music, German). This was no small task. I hope this gets easier as time goes on because it took me nearly all day yesterday to get this figured out and written up. It is well worth the effort, but I just hope it isn't always going to be such an enormous task.

Our day today was planned as such:

Ra-
Reading- A book of choice (read by self or by momma)
Writing- Notebook entry; penmanship
Arithmetic- Principles of Numeration #2
History- Ask Ra what history she wants to know.
Science- Review the Scientific Method.
Art/Music- Drawing with momma.
German- Review "nein, ja, bitte, etc."

El-
Reading- I See Sam book 9
Writing- Notebook entry
Arithmetic- Count to 100. Principles of Numeration #2 (with Ra)
History- Ask El what history he wants to know.

Science- Introduce the Scientific Method.
Art/Music- There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly
German- Review "nein, ja"

Ca-
Reading- "A, a"
Writing-Learn to hold a pencil; write name in capitals
Arithmetic- Counting to 10.
Art/Music- There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly

This morning we ran out the door at 9:00 a.m. thinking we had some things to take care of at the bank this morning and as we pulled up we had to bury our faces in our hands and say "What is all our planning worth if we don't remember holidays!?" Being Presidents Day the bank was of course, closed.

We had another errand to run which required us to drive an hour to get there and an hour to get back. Ra had brought a book with her that she had started reading while we were getting ready to leave. The book was Do You Have a Hat? by Eileen Spinelli. She almost finished it but had to stop because she was getting motion sick.

 I did not ask her to read a book and so this is a new development for her. I have only been reading to her and haven't been asking her to read anything. The reason for this is that she had been told too often that she is a slow reader in public school and so she hates reading. I have been reading stories to her though, and not just simple kids books.I read her chapter books so she can understand why a person would want to read such a long book by experiencing it without having to go through the effort herself. This will hopefully spark that desire to know what is on the next page. I believe the fruits of this effort are beginning to show forth by this act of reading a book on her own today. I am so excited!

While Ra was recovering from her motion sickness I used the time to ask her and El if there is anything in history that they are interested in or want to know more about. El isn't familiar with most any history at the moment but Ra said she wants to learn about the Statue of Liberty, Abraham Lincoln, Johnny Appleseed, and China. Since Ra is getting into the Love of Learning phase I think I will just have El listen in on our discussion and what not so that he can start to pick up on things he will be interested in pursuing in a couple years.

We reviewed skip counting by 5's and 10's while in the car as well, but mostly my husband and I talked while the boys teased each other in the back seat and Ra kept asking us to turn up the German music we had in the CD player.

After we returned home not much was done by way of the kids education until my husband left at 3:30 p.m. But while he was there I introduced him to LiveMocha, a language learning website that I found. I am going to use it as a primary resource for learning German. We told the kids that when they learn German well enough to hold a conversation we would take them to Germany. Of course, that means we need to learn it too! I think this is an excellent example for the kids of self driven learning. If you want to know something, search it out, don't wait for a teacher to hand it to you covered in worksheets and quizzes. 

For about an hour after the hubby left I let the kids watch some of the learning song/videos from Have Fun Teaching. They spent the rest of the day as they liked while I made dinner and took care of Em until 7:00p.m. when we read in Genesis of the KJV Bible and we read 3 chapters in The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. We are 6 chapters from the end and have made a goal to read 3 chapters a night so we can be finished in 2 days to be able to have a discussion about the book with Nana Lori via Skype.

So I didn't get to everything on my schedule today, but tomorrow is another day and hopefully with less distractions. It is computer day, and I have at least planned for that and planned my "lessons" around this event!

Addle Brained

17, 18, 19 February 2012

My husband came home Friday night and I have neglected to update my blog post. I now do not remember what I did on Friday before my husband came home, save for cleaning house. Ah well. That will teach me for not staying on top of it! As for Saturday we ran a few errands and lazed about the house. Weekends when my husband is home tend to be lazy as far as school work is concerned. I am making an effort to change that but he isn't entirely on board with me for the homeschooling yet.

For Valentine's Day my husband bought me an electric blanket! I am so thrilled because I absolutely hate being cold! I took a nice nap with it Saturday night but I awoke with slight body aches and a sore throat. I still have my wisdom teeth and every time they start moving I get a massive headache, body aches, sore throat and aching jaw. It finally went away this afternoon though my jaw still has a lingering mild ache. Needless to say between that and my kids coughing up a storm we didn't attend church today.

Instead we drove around Antelope Island and did some wildlife watching. We saw coyotes and antelope today! Two more species to cross off our list! So far we have seen: Bison, Mule Deer, Crow, Hawks, Jack Rabbit, Pronghorn Antelope, Coyote, Field Mice, Finches (at least that is what they look like to me), and California Seagulls. That is nearly all of the major species of the island. Only large mammal we haven't seen yet is the Big Horn Sheep and Bobcats.

I had my husband go over some points about the kids education with me today. We went over each child's needs and wants individually and came up with some ideas as to how to best approach their education based on our observations etc. It took a long time but was well worth it and should become faster as we gain familiarity with the process. 

Before bed we watched some NOVA shows with the kids. It meant we didn't do our nightly reading for the first time in almost a month. The kids enjoyed them though and they were good shows so I have no problem with the miss of our reading tonight (especially since my jaw is sore still!

Overall not a bad weekend! Hope yours was well!

Notebooking and Numerals

16 February 2012

Being computer day today I spent some time conversing with my mother and my sister and cleaning up the house while the kids played on the computers. After lunch I put on some education flash game sites for the kids. I meander down to see how they were doing about an hour later and found Ca (who is only almost 4 mind you) doing a fractions game! I don't think he knew exactly what he was doing but it was amusing to see how invested he was in it!

Most of my time was spent figuring out my plan of attack for the next little while. I came across Notebooking and Classical method of education and I believe I am going to incorporate each of them as best I can in their own appropriate places. I had already done some Notebooking and so the idea of doing more of it comes natural and is appealing. I was going to teach my kids German as their first foreign language but I have changed my mind and I am now going to do Latin. After all, if they learn Latin well enough most other languages should come easier and it will help the kids know and understand our language better. They will also be able to understand the terminology used in sciences and mathematics.

Towards the end of the day I did a quick lesson using Principles of Numeration: Learning to Think and Self-Govern with Numbers by Glenn and Julianne Kimber. We went over Principle 1 which is "Numbers can be written in more than one way and still have the same meaning." The kids drew examples of this principle in their Notebooking notebooks I had for them already. I went a little further in my explanation of this principle by suggesting that numbers are an idea and the symbols or words we use are simply our way of expressing that idea. Ra caught on to that quickly and told me it is the same way with words. She is a bright cookie! I am going to enjoy teaching her so much.

After our little lesson we read a chapter from Genesis in the KJV Bible and a chapter from The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. It was a good day even if it doesn't look like it was particularly productive.

P.S. Our Jar of Good Works had been added to a little each day! We are keeping on track with it. It was a great way to keep El's spirits up today since he got in trouble and had his computer privledges taken away. I found things for him to do and he found things to do that would earn him beans. Every time I put a bean in the jar for him his face would be bright as the sun! And speaking in similies, we watched a movie on similies yesterday and Ra has been making up her own. For example, she went to brush her teeth and she knew we were waiting for her so we could begin reading and she said, "I'm going to be as fast as a horse!" Kids crack me up! But in all sincerity, she knows what it is and she is using it! That is what makes homeschooling so neat!

Staying Within a Grocery Budget

15 February 2012

My little Ca had an ear ache last night and so I didn't get much sleep which in turn led to a late morning. After breakfast I had Ra help me put together our grocery list. I told her what we needed and she wrote it down. At the grocery store I had Ra write down the cost of each item we were purchasing.

With the produce I explained to her that the price (on most items) is based on pounds. The tomatoes were $0.99 per pound and when we weighed the two tomatoes in our sack it was 1 1/8 lb. I drew a pie for Ra to show her briefly what 1/8 means. We added the $0.99 to the $0.12 (for the 1/8 lb) and come up with $1.11 for the tomatoes. She repeated this exercise with the bananas.

At the eggs I showed Ra that they sold them in increments of 6. They had a half dozen, a dozen and one and a half dozen. I had her divide 12 and 18 by 6 and we found it to be 2 and 3. We then divided the price of the 12 eggs by 2 and the price of the 18 eggs by 3. We came up with prices of $0.99 for the half dozen, $0.74 for the dozen and $0.73 for the one and a half dozen. This wasn't really an exercise we needed to do because I always buy the one and a half dozen because that is how many eggs we use in a week, but it was instructional for Ra and I think she enjoyed it.

Since we bought two loaves of bread and two gallons of milk and two bags of cereal I had her add the price of two together. At the end of our trip the list looked like this:

eggs...........$2.19
bread.........$1.98
milk............$4.58
bananas......$1.65
tomatoes....$1.11
cereal.........$6.74
tortillas.......$0.99
tea...........+ $2.66
                 $21.88


When settled at home again I had Ra write her spelling words two times each. I used the synonyms for "symmetry" for her spelling words this week. Her words are:

equal
symmetry
balance
proportion
unity
consonance
symphony
coherence


I worked on her printing with her a little bit, asking her to focus on making her writing neat and exact. I also needed to remind her several times that it is okay to erase, that is why we write in pencil, so we may be able to fix our mistakes. I also had El practice writing with "A" and "1". After that we watched a few videos from Have Fun Teaching and then watched Donald in Mathmagic Land. I used to watch it a bunch as a kid though I never realized how full of information it is!

I did research on line trying to find some Homeschool Co-ops in my area and found that there was a group meeting in an hour for a once a month get together. I hurried my kids out to the car and called my dad inquiring if he would look after the kids for me. He agreed and I met with the wonderful ladies. They were informative and friendly. I only wished that they were a little closer. They gave me information on how to go about locating the homeschool co-ops that would be in my area. I plan on doing some of that tomorrow as I am falling asleep while typing at the moment I need to go to sleep. Sweet dreams!

Valentine's Day Driving

14 February 2012

Happy Valentine's Day! It was computer day today so I let the kids play for a couple hours after breakfast while I prepared to be driving around all day. I made lunches and snacks, collected all of the cards we would be delivering and phoning relatives for address to mail some of the Valentine's cards to.

From 11:00 am until 4:00 pm we were out delivering cards and spending some time with the cousins. After 4 I took the kids to Denny's as their Valentine's treat. Unfortunately that meant we drove the normally one hour drive home in peak traffic time so it took us nearly twice as long to get there. While in the car we have been listening to the audio recording of Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. Ra absolutely loves it and has insisted on listening to it instead of music.

Once at home we read from Genesis in the KJV Bible and a few chapters of The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. I read more of The Original Homeschooling Series Volume 1 - Home Education by Charlotte Mason. It is one of those books that hits you over the head with the "Ah ha!" bat just about every other paragraph. It is going to take me quite some time to get through this book and the other five in the series, but it will definitely be worth it.

The Best Laid Scheme o' Mice an' Men . . .

13 February 2012

Often go awry. I had my whole schedule for the day planned out. It was going to be epic! There would be cheering in the streets and many fawning and gasps of wonder. The children would be inspired and love their mother more than one could imagine. However, Ra woke up last night several times with bouts of the flu. Then El for the rest of the day spent his time running to the bathroom.

So instead of joyous celebration of what a wonderful mentor I had become over night, I spent my day scrubbing carpets, washing sheets and trying my best to keep the level of mayhem down to a minimum. By evening all the kids were well enough to keep dinner down and we spent some time watching some educational song-videos I found on Pinterest.

Source: havefunteaching.com via Candiss on Pinterest

We ended our night with three chapters of Genesis in the KJV Bible and two chapters of The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. I am so tired tonight I do not think I will get much, if any reading in of my own book, Laddie: A True Blue Story by Gene Stratton Porter. A shame because it is a most delightful book.

Jar of Good Works

12 February 2012

Today Ra went to church by herself. The boys and I are sick with a cold and I feel it very inconsiderate to go public gatherings when sick. Our church building is literally our back door neighbor which made it possible for Ra to go without me. She had a part to recite during Primary and she had memorized another of the Articles of Faith and was eager to pass it off with her Sunday school teacher. (She was also excited to try out her new church shoes we bought Monday, I couldn't have kept her home if I wanted to!)

When Ra got back we had lunch and then I explained to the kids that we were going to start a Jar of Good Works. I told them that each time they did something good they would get a bean in the jar. This could be helping each other, making their beds, cleaning their rooms, doing well with spelling or math, etc. etc. I had four different kinds of beans I had already used for some craft projects so I gave each child their own kind of beans. Ra got black beans, El got kidney beans, Ca got pinto beans, and Em got white beans. (Em will get a bean for each milestone she accomplishes as she is only nine months, i.e. her first tooth, her first word, her first step, sleeping through the night, etc. This is so the kids can see that 'good' can mean a lot of things.) All of the beans will go into the same jar and when the jar is full we will take the kids to Chuck E. Cheeses to celebrate how good they were!

I started the jar off by listing some of the things the kids had done today and last night and we managed to get fourteen beans in the jar. I hope the positive reinforcement will work well and I pray that I will be able to keep up with it and not forget about it. I think this is good not only for the kids, but for myself when I get frustrated with the kids it will be a visual reminder of all the good that they do.

Doing this reminded me of the List of Gratitude my family/extended family made during the hard months of November and December 2008 when my Great Grandma Helm and my Grandpa Stephens passed away within a month of each other. It was difficult, but to help us not be so lost in grief we posted a paper on the wall and had people write on it things they were grateful for during the hard time. The final list ended up being many pages long and it was a comfort to know that so much love was there and that God was watching over us.

We read a few more chapters of The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett tonight and I am getting ready to pull up my covers and settle in for a chapter or two of Laddie: A True Blue Story by Gene Stratton Porter.

Valentine Mathematical Symmetry

11 February 2012

Today we made our Valentine's card. It was a fun and super messy but easy to clean up. I started out with having Ra help me figure out if we had enough paper doilies for how many cards we wanted to make. We wrote a list of all the cousins and friends and grandparents we would be making cards for. We agreed that each cousin would only get one card from all four of the kids, the friends would get one card as well. The grandparents however would get one card from each of the kids that could make them on their own, (leaving Em out of the count). The initial count left us with 32 cousins, 6 friends, and 8 grandparents. So our equation looks something like this (32 + 6) + (8 x 3) = 62 . SIXTY TWO! Boy I sure am glad we aren't adding another 60 cards to that with school classes for Ra and El!

I showed Ra the packages of doilies. I had one package of red, one of white and one of pink. There were 16 doilies per package. I asked her to figure out how many doilies we had to make cards with. She added 16 + 16 + 16 and I explained that this was the same thing as 16 x 3. I then asked her if we had enough doilies to use one for every card. She said no, that 48 < 62. I then had her figure out how many more doilies we would need to be able to have one for each card. With an answer of 14 I asked her how many more packages we would need. She answered with one package. We went to the store to get the last needed package.

Finally beginning, we used construction paper, scissors, glue and the doilies to make the cards. I showed the kids how to make a heart by folding the paper in half and cutting half a heart shape around the fold. I used this as an opportunity to explain symmetry. We had fun coming up with other shapes and patterns to cut out using symmetry.  We made hearts, diamonds, rectangles, accordion people, and flowers just to name a few.

We continued the observation of symmetrical objects into dinner time and I plan on continuing to point it out whenever we see it throughout the year.    

Tonight we read The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett again. And hey, I even got some reading in of Laddie: A True Blue Story by Gene Stratton Porter.

German Bibles and Cinnamon

10 February 2012

Payday. Best day of the week. HA! We cleaned the house this morning and went to the bank and to a couple stores to pick up some resources I have wanted to have around the house. I picked up an illustrated Old Testament Stories, a Bible in German, some posterboard to make sewing cards, accounting ledger notebook, graph paper, and some posters and pamphlets which our faith releases.

After our errands we went out to eat since we weren't close to home. Elisa invited us to her house because her daughters wanted to do the Cinnamon Challenge and wanted us to watch and they were going to post it on YouTube. We stayed there and played for a couple hours before coming home to make dinner and do some studying and research.

We read some more of The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett before bedtime. I did a bunch of reading about TJEd and more homeschooling ideas. I was so engrossed with it I didn't get in my reading of Laddie: A True Blue Story by Gene Stratton Porter. Hopefully I will get in at least a chapter tomorrow!

The Wise Man and the Foolish Man

9 February 2012

My kids and I spent the night at my sister's house last night and so there is not a whole lot on the agenda today. My mom had asked to be involved with the homeschooling I am doing as so I asked her if she would mind doing a singing time with the kids.

We decided on the song "The Wise Man and the Foolish Man" from the Children's Songbook of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. My mom prepared a whole lesson around this song that started with the scripture passage the song is about and an explanation and discussion with the kids about what the sand and the rock and the house represents. Then she put a pile of dirt and a rock in her bathtub, each with a plastic cup balanced on top. She turned on "the rain" and we watched the effects of the water on the earth. We sang the song several times and watched some YouTube videos people had made with the song. It was very fun and the kids enjoyed it a lot.

I finally finished The Chosen by Chaim Potok. A very good book with an extremely meaningful ending. The remainder of the day was spent playing with cousins until 6:30pm when we drove home. We read two more chapters in The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett and then I settled the kids in bed and soaked in a much deserved hot shower. I am now going to settle down for the night and start reading Laddie: A True Blue Story by Gene Stratton Porter.

The Wild Garden

8 February 2012

Wednesday, Wednesday, Wednesday! I always (or nearly always) forget to take our garbage dumpster out to the curb on Wednesday! Good thing we have two dumpsters or perhaps that is a bad thing. Maybe if we only had one dumpster remembering to take it to the curb would climb higher on my priority "to remember" list.

We ran a few errands in the morning. I had to take Em in to get some of her immunizations and since we were across the street from the used bookstore I stopped in and bought a few more books.

My sister-in-law's sister asked me if I could give her a ride to a friends house so she could go searching for a car with him. She offered to pay my gas money and so I consented and also decided that since I had been planning on driving that direction tomorrow anyways I called my sister to see if we could just spend the night. I am very accustomed to the hour drive down there, but I will avoid it if I can. She said that would be fine so long as I helped her maintain the younger kids because she had some teenage girls coming over for a cupcake decorating activity. Before going to her house I stopped by the local thrift store to see what books they had and I was able to get a dozen books I have on my list at $0.50 a piece!

When the activity started I herded the kids downstairs (four of mine and three of hers). I knew there wasn't a whole lot for such rambunctious kids to do down there so I came prepared with The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. I told them all that they could play and didn't have to listen to the story, but it would be nice if they could keep quiet so those who did want to listen would be able to hear. At the end on the first chapter I had asked everyone to be quieter a few dozen times. By the end of the second chapter I was essentially reading to myself so I stopped reading and just maintained the kids from getting into things they weren't allowed in. Ten minutes after I stopped reading A couple of the kids asked why I stopped. I explained that no one was listening and a few of them defended themselves saying that they had been listening. Perhaps I should have picked up the book again and continued reading at the chance that someone would actually have sat down and enjoyed it, but I felt I had been thoroughly ignored so I didn't.

After the girls left the younger kids were allowed upstairs to decorate the leftover cupcakes with the leftover frosting. We cleaned up and my kids helped my sister's kids with their homework. (I know! I was surprised too!) Usually I worry about my kids being a distraction to their cousins but my sister commented that tonight it was easier to get them to sit down and do their work than it regularly was. After they were caught up with their homework we all sat to read scriptures and have a family prayer.

I read my kids The Secret Garden, from the beginning. When they were all asleep I talked with my brother a bit about homeschooling. He loves to hear about it and wishes his wife would be willing to homeschool but she does not feel adequate to be able to teach them herself. He did buy A Thomas Jefferson Education by Oliver DeMille in e-book format while we were talking. Maybe then my sister-in-law will be a little bit more comfortable with the idea. Maybe not. Who but God knows?

P.S. I didn't have a chance all day to read The Chosen by Chaim Potok. I didn't finish it last night but I only have a few chapters left! Oh well, tomorrow is another day.

Religious Devotion

7 February 2012

I started reading The Chosen by Chaim Potok this morning and by the end of the day I was nearly all the way through it. Of course, that meant I didn't do anything else all day.  It was computer day for the kids and they were happy that I didn't restrict the amount of time they were allowed to play. Ah well, I will finish the book tomorrow and get the house fully cleaned then.

Usually my kids go a little wild when I spend the day reading (or listening to an audio book as it has been in the past), but this time they were well behaved. There was not fighting or arguing to speak of and the house was pretty well still intact by the end of the day. My little Em crawled around and played by my side while I read. She had a little bit of a fever and a runny nose; I'm pretty sure she is starting to cut her first teeth. The poor baby.

I am already looking forward to re-reading The Chosen as well and looking up all of the Hebrew and Yiddish words and phrases to find their meanings. The devotion the characters in this book have to their religious studies is astounding and impressive. I am going to try to incorporate at least ten minutes of scripture reading into our hour of reading time before bed. It will be a good thing not only for the kids, but for myself as well.

Happy Housework

6 February 2012

My husband, Chris had a day off work today so we spent it doing errands, much to the dismay of our children. They really don't like being in the car all day long and who can blame them? We managed to keep the house clean and keep up with laundry (While on errands I bought more hangers. I found that when I keep all of the clothes cleaned, I can't use the dirty laundry pile as clothing storage, lol).

I decided I needed to keep my house in order about a week ago. It has always been one of those, "but it always just gets dirty right after I clean it so why bother" things for me. I wouldn't do laundry until someone ran out of socks or underwear or pants. I wouldn't wash dishes until we were out of cups or forks or spoons. I wouldn't make the kids clean their rooms unless someone was coming over to visit and I would never make them make their beds. I used to tell my husband "Why make your bed in the morning? I straighten it out at night right before I climb in, that's when it's important."

For anyone familiar with Dave Ramsey, this idea of perpetual housework to me was like the idea of the perpetual car payment. "You will always have a car payment (housework), that's just the way it is (why worry about doing it)." 

Well, obviously I have been extremely stressed about housework just about every day of my life because of this attitude. When I read Charlotte Mason stress the importance of teaching our kids these good habits, it finally clicked. My poor husband has been patient with me for eight years while he tried to get me to do more housework and not let if pile up till I was so stressed about it I didn't want to do any of it. But the light finally turned on. My kids learn the most from me. If I want them to clean their rooms, I have to clean mine as well. I need to take charge and lead. I need to make sure they do the things that will help them be successful adults with healthy habits. If they grow up to be slobs or brats, it's MY FAULT. I guess that sorta scared me into straightening up.

I have been so much happier since I have been keeping my house clean. I don't do all the work myself, actually the kids do at least as much if not more than I do now. They clean the front room and their bedrooms, they make their beds, put away their laundry (all except what needs to be hung in the closet), put away dishes from the dishwasher, load the dishwasher, bring all the dirty laundry to the laundry room, and watch Em when I need them too. I basically keep my own room cleaned, sweep, mop, vacuum, wash the laundry, fold and hang up clothes and make meals. With the chores not completely on my shoulders anymore we have a lot more family time and the kids have a greater respect for the cleanliness of the house and aren't so quick to dirty it constantly.

We went out to Antelope Island again today to show Chris some of the trails we hiked around. We didn't stay long because it was close to supper time when we were done with our errands and the kids began whining about being hungry. After supper Chris let me read more of Little Britches by Ralph Moody while he played XBOX with the kids.  At 8:00 p m I read Hansel and Grethel from the Grimm Fairy Tales to Ra, since El and Ca were still playing games with Chris.

After the kids were in bed I finished reading Little Britches and I was very satisfied with the book. It was different from most every book that I have read because their was no defined "antagonist." It is written as a memoir and perhaps that is what I liked so much about it. When I read it again I want to write down all of the advice Ralph received from his pa. They were so brief, to the point and yet thought provoking. I loved the book.

Now to move on to book number three. The Chosen by Chaim Potok. But it is late and that will have to wait until tomorrow.

p.s. I don't know why all the pictures I chose for this post ended up being B&W, oh well!

Weekend Nothings

4 & 5 February 2012

On Saturday we spent the day cleaning and running errands then spent our evening at Elisa's house. Today at church our lessons were on Gratitude and Charity. We wrote a list of 100 things for which we were grateful. The lesson on charity began with a discussing the parable of the Good Samaritan. This is a topic I have frequently discussed with my father, who is my mentor in the Gospel. Charity is the "pure love of Christ", it is giving to others and expecting nothing in return. When we can do this, then we know the love Christ has for us. I do things for my children that I do not expect to gain anything from. My joy is in their growing, their knowledge, the fruition of their lives.

Grocery Store Math

3 February 2012 

This morning I found myself lost on the internet. I was preparing my schedule for next week and decided that I wanted to incorporate some educational flash game sites on the kids "computer days" Tuesday and Thursday. I came across Manga High, a math website where you have to sign up as a school and I registered my "home school" as a school and included on the roster, not only my own kids, but all of my nieces and nephews as well. It took up most of my morning, so I didn't get any reading done before we had to go grocery shopping.

At the grocery store I began asking the kids to locate the name label in the produce department and the prices. Ra asked me why I was getting the brown pears instead of the green pears. I had her show me the different kinds of pears she saw and I helped her read the labels. There were Bartlett pears, D'Anjou pears, and Bosc pears. I had her tell me how much each cost, and which one cost most and which one cost least. I told her that was why we were buying the Bosc pears, because they were the least expensive. While picking out our pasta I had the kids find which brand was on sale and verify that it was the cheapest. Then I had Ra identify the bowtie pasta, El identified the shell pasta and Ca identified the macaroni pasta.

On the cereal isle we looked at the brand of cereal we always buy and the kids know they can pick from the "blue bag" cereals. I showed Ra where the Net Weight was written on the bags and had her compare the weight of the "blue bag" to the "orange bag" cereals. The "blue bag" was 32 oz and the "orange bag" was 39 oz. She told me there was a difference of 7 oz and that it was the "blue bag" that had fewer ounces. I then had her compare the prices. The "blue bag" cereal was $3.88 and the "orange bag" cereal was $6.79. I told her that the "orange bag" cereal was almost two times the price of the "blue bag cereal but it didn't have two times more cereal in the bag, so the "blue bag" cereal was cheaper.

We had a similar exercise when choosing Orange Juice. I started by having them identify the ones which where on sale, then had them choose the cheapest one. It was a Half Gallon for $1.99. I had Ra look at the full Gallon of the same brand to make sure that $1.99 was the best price. I had her round up $1.99 to $2.00 and figure out the cost of buying a gallon's worth of orange juice if we bought them as Half Gallons. The full Gallon orange juice wasn't on sale, but it was $3.49. Ra told me we needed to buy the Gallon orange juice and not the two Half Gallon orange juices, because it would be cheapest.

To summarize, we were at the grocery store for 30 minutes and we went over identification, pricing, grouping, colors, sorting, units of measurement, rounding, and overall I had the best shopping experience with four young kids at the grocery store I could ever have imagined. Next week I will give Ra the grocery list and have her keep track of the prices so we can know how much we will be spending before we check out.

The kids spent the rest of the day with Grandma J who is going to be out of town for a couple weeks. They went to the Aviary and the Recycle center with Grandma and had a fun time. We read for 20 minutes before the kids went to bed and I am planning on getting in a few chapters of Little Britches by Ralph Moody before I call it a night.