curriculum...

We have been doing school work through out the summer. Trying to finish up the alphabet. She knows all her letters but I wanted to complete the work sheets on them. She loves doing school work but tires quickly doing the work sheets. Good thing I and opting for a more hands on learning. Well more of a mixture of hands on and book work.

And that brings me to curriculum.... I think I finally got it.....

Math we will be going with Singapore Math. I really like the reviews I read on this one and the samples of it. But until the math curriculum comes in we will be using the math work book called... Everything your kindergarten should know. Just to keep her working on Math. She has been so curious about math even asking me about negative numbers.

Reading I am using a program on the internet called Starfall. With Starfall your able to print out worksheets and little books to go along with the computer work. She has already read one phonics minibook after a few lessons on the computer. She seems to do really good with the online phonics then going to the worksheet.

Science I will be using a Singapore science book. And supplementing with some books we have on our body, our heart, the weather and plants and the 5 senses.

History I will be using the book History for little Pilgrims.

Bible we will be using God and Me a devotional for girls. We have really enjoyed the work we have done in it already. Very practical for little girls.

I hope to be able to do many field trips to places like an art museum, the butterfly zoo, the science museum and so much more. I would like to make her learning as enjoyable as I can. She seems to have a love for learning and I want to keep her loving it.

Summer time fun.....

Wow is the summer really flying by. We have fun this summer along with finishing up the alphabet. It was more a review since she knows all her letters how to write them and their sounds. But I wanted to finish up the worksheets we had before moving on.

This summer has been filled with lots of fun. We had a few play dates with our Mops group. We also went to the beach a few times. Then off to New Hampshire to go camping and see the sites. We went to Loon Mountain, Storyland, Mini golf and Water country. Samantha loved it all. I was amazed at her going in the caves at Loon Mountain. She had so much fun exploring them.

We went to the Ocean Explorium in New Bedford. She touched and held a starfish. Then fed the sea horses. I can't wait to go back when we are working more on the ocean and its creatures

We also have been doing a book reading contest at the mall. So for that we have been going to the library to get books to read. She is loving all the reading we have been doing.

Oh she actually read a book. One of her phonics readers. She needed a little assistance to read some sight words but was able to sound out the rest of the words herself.

We went to a roller skating party. Samantha has never roller skated before. She loved it. Said it was easier then ice skating once she got use to it.

We also went to the replacement for Fall River Celebrates America. The city ran out of funds to put it on. This was much better. It was a family fun fair. Not sure what they called it. But it was all kind of free things for kids to do. She made some paintings and went in the bouncy house. Watched the dance show. Played in the sandbox looking for the treasures they had buried there. Went into the fire departments trailer home to teach about fire safety.... made me realize how relaxed I have been on teacher her that.. Yes we talk about fire safety but since moving in here we never made and escape plan. That is something we will be doing this week.

Sorry :)

Sorry for the lack of posts in May. Its been a busy month but not much to write about. Samantha has continued to work on her letters. She can write them all. We have been also working on numbers. She can do addition and its amazing at how her mind works. She is doing real good with math she can even do the simple math in her head. Summer will be here before we know it and our plan is to finish up with the alphabet and then move on to more kindergarten work. We have completed on workbook with kindergarten work. I also plan on teacher her time and money.

Last week we went to story hour and she got her first library card! She was so excited and has showed everyone that she has it.

Tomorrow she will be in the Memorial day parade. I can't wait she is going to look so adorable.

Sun Flowers....

We planted sunflower seeds on Wednesday and today we saw the first signs of the plant in one of the cups. We planted 7 seeds. Hopefully they all will grow. One seed was realy tiny so we are waiting to see if that one does grow too.

I think I made up my mind.... maybe.....

Fall Curriculum.... the catalogs are all coming in now. I have gone online and ordered a catalog from all the companies that I thought I might like to use. I do think I have it narrowed down. I am leaning towards My Fathers World with some supplementing in history. There is this adorable history book for kindergartners. Its showing them history through a child's eyes about her age. I am excited about starting the new year... yet I am not wanting the summer to be over quickly as we have many fun things planned and its not even the end of spring yet!
My fathers world is a more hands on approach to learning. If I buy the deluxe program it comes with a caterpillar habitat to watch then grow into butterflies. An ant home. And lots more fun hands on learning.

Samantha was looking at the catalogs with me and she seems excited about the things she saw in My Fathers World.

One concern I have is we have been doing kindergarten work and a lot of the curriculum I have looked at will be a lot of reviewing for the first half of the year for her. I know review work isn't bad but when we have been doing this work now for 1 1/2 years it might be too much review for her. I think with My Fathers World the work will be exciting and fun enough that even though its review she wont get bored with it.

So Mommy how do snails have babies???

That was the question she asked me last night. I was stumped I had no idea how they had babies. Well the answer to that question is they lay eggs. But one kind of snail does give live birth. LOL While outside at my sisters house Samantha and Julie were playing in the hard and found about 20 snails. Snails of all sizes. She loved the tiny baby snails. Samantha wanted to take a few of them home. Maybe one day soon we will end up with some snails but for now NO. She wants to know about about snails. So this week we might end up learning some interesting facts about them. Did you know some snails can reproduce by themselves but others have to have a mate? That might be a little to much information for a 5 year old though. LOL Well off to learn more about slimy snails!

First swim class....

Today was Samantha's first swim class. She LOVED it. All week she has been driving me crazy asking if today is swim class day. When she woke up this morning really early, she got dressing in her swimsuit and clothes and came into my bedroom and said "I'm ready for swim class Mommy!" It was funny. I had to tell her she had a long day ahead of her before class was to start.

Week of playdates.....

Since this week was a school vacation week for the public school we followed and decided this was a good week to just relax and have fun. This has been a busy week.

On Monday Samantha went and played with her cousin Kylie at while I worked. They had so much fun together playing outside.

On Tuesday we went with a few families from church to Roger Williams Zoo. Samantha enjoyed going there with friends. It was a nice warm day for a zoo trip. Not sure if she had more fun looking at the animals or having a friend to see the zoo with.

Then today, Thursday is our Mops (Mothers of preschoolers) day. After Mops we went for a play date and picnic at the playground with our Mops friends. It was a fun filled day. They all had fun playing on the swings and playground equipment. Samantha was so thrilled to show me she mastered the monkey bars. She can make it all the way across. After most of our friends left Samantha and her friends Owen, Emma, Seth and Shane played in the baseball field running around and picking dandelions. We decided it was time to go as the thunderstorm rolled in. She almost fell asleep on the way home. Now that's a sign of a fun day. Early to bed tonight.

zoo fun

I took Samantha to the zoo today. We wanted to get out of the house and let Steve rest. We were just looking at the magazine Auntie Lyette sent Sam for her birthday. In it there is a story of a little otter. So cute so we thought we head to the zoo to look at the otters and learn a little more. Well we learned some new stuff about them but................. this is the first time ever going to the zoo and the otters never came out!! The bears were out, the baby cougar was out, the beavers were out, a cute little baby duck was out, even the crane was out. But can the cute little otter be out. No. Maybe next time they will be out. There were some cute little baby ducks so tiny and adorable. Oh and the crane was building a sort of nest for its egg. I didn't look like a normal nest kind of thrown together not in any form. More like a little bed for the egg not a nest. Then something scared them away and off the ran leaving the egg behind.

Swim class

Samantha is excited. We are enrolling her in the home school swim class at the YMCA. This is the first activity that she is participating in that is for home school kids. Its really inexpensive. $35 for members. Its an eight week course. They also have home school gym class too and I think that is something we will do in the fall along with the swim class. Last Thursday I took her to watch a friends children during swim class to make sure she wanted to do it. It took all she had in her to stay seated and watch, she wanted to join right in. The did allow her to join in with them as they did the gym class. The look of joy on her face was priceless.

So we did our study on bees the past week and it was very interesting. We are almost done with it. She now wants to learn all about foxes. So that will be our study for next week or so.

More on bees

I almost forgot she learned more about bees today. how they make honey. Its really interesting. The bee takes nectar from the flower in its mouth. The enzymes in its mouth helps convert the nectar into honey. The bee will deposit pollen on the flower as it takes the nectar. The bee puts the honey in the honeycomb. Then it will actually flap its wings over the honey to remove the excess water from it. We watched a video of this. It was so amazing to see hundreds of bees flapping its wings to dry the honey. Samantha thought this was funny. we also learned that honey resist bacteria, mold and fungus and doesn't go bad due to this. She wants to learn more about the bees and watch more videos of them making honey. Off to search the interent for more information.

Samantha isn't a lover of honey. But she knows that when she has a sore throat it does help to sooth it and will take a teaspoon of it.

sick days.....

This week has been a long week and its only Tuesday! Samantha has a cold and sore throat and she kindly passed that on to me! One of the joys or not such joy is if your home schooled you can still do your work when your sick. That is if your not hugging the toilet bowl sick. Since she is not that sick I have a week of school work planned for her.

Yesterday was nice with Daddy doing all the work with Samantha. Since he didn't listen to the directions before I left for work she did double the work. HAHAHAHA. Ok that wasn't so nice of me but....... So instead of doing only 4 work sheets and some activities she did 8 worksheets. That cuts our week down for work.

Today was a fun day for homeschooling. Since she did today's work yesterday we had more of a fun day. We colored some fake stain glass windows to hang in her bedroom. I wish she had more patience coloring. When she wants to do it she can do a beautiful job when she isn't so into it well lets just say her work is not so beautiful.

Then we did some work out of our devotional on giving. Samantha doesn't mind giving away toys, hugs (to the right person) even art work that she makes. But when it comes to giving away her money well we are working on that one. She gets an allowance. How much she gets at the end of the week depends on her. We have a chore chart. Each chore is assigned an amount. Then each day I assign certain chores and if she does them she gets a check mark and at the end of the week we total up the money. Its up to her how much she makes. When I give her the money we break it down to put in her banks that we made from our mops group. Share/save/spend. So she has no problem with putting 20% in the save but she wants to put the rest in the spend. She doesn't want to put 10% in the share bank. But she knows that she will only get an allowance if she is willing to do as she is told to do with the money. One day she will give willingly and even maybe joyfully I hope? She loves putting money in for charity at the holidays even when its her own money. So I don't get why she wouldn't want to do this. She was so thrilled the few times now that we went shopping and she spent her spend money. Her own money her face lit up when she handed over the correct money to the cashier. Oh and the craft that went along with this devotional was to make a sign any kind of sign and give it away. She happily did this. She made a beautiful sign that said friends forever and gave it to her friend Chloe. She did this with great joy. I need some smiles and this one would be shaking its head is wonder or confusion.

Then we talked about the different type of clouds and read a book on them. What a great day for looking out the window (she sick remember so no outside) and try to pick out what kind of clouds are out there. She was thrilled to learn that she can make a could on a cold day just by breathing or walk through one on a foggy day. Its fun to see the light bulb go on in her mind when she learns these things.

So as I write this blog post she is in the kitchen playing with the dreaded moon sand. How I hate the stuff. Its messy and gets into everything. No matter how careful you are it just messy. She is actually playing with some homemade moon sand that works just like the store bought stuff. The only thing is it did dry up some while being stored so we just added more water. I think its because its not being stored in a air tight container. I don't even want to go in the kitchen to see what it looks like in there right now. If you want the recipe for moon sand here it is....

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups water
3 cups corn starch
6 cups sand

mix the corn starch with the sand first. Then add the water little by little until its the right consistency. If you brave add food coloring but I warn you we use red and every time she plays with it her hands are stained pink. Not that she minds. But you might want to use the colored play sand if you don't want it to be regular sand color. Keep in an airtight container.

I am about to brave the kitchen in the hope that its not covered in sand. LOL Enjoy your day!!!

A day filled with learning and fun.....

Today is Sunday and we are home sick. Samantha has a back cold so we stayed home from Church and ice skating. Its been a lazy and productive day if that is even possible. First Samantha played on the computer while I got supper into the crock pot. Then we did some school work....

We continued using bee's in our lesson....
Bee Math: we used bee shapes to count and do simple addition... If you had 3 bees and you add 3 more bees how many bees will you have? Samantha had fun doing this. Its so much easier to figure out when you have the objects in front of you. We are working on the number 9 this week so I then had her color a big number 9 then fill it with 9 bee's that she picked out of the 21 we had been using to do addition. She also did a work sheet writing the number 9 and picking out what group has 9 in it.



Before we even started doing our work I was trying to get the computer to play the radio station Klove. While I was doing that Samantha was drawing a picture. I was really impressed with her work. She showed me how she made the big person big since she was closer up to us and the other people small because they were so far away!



We are working on the letter J. So we did our usual worksheets with her writing the letter J in upper and lower case Jj. Then she had to pick out what pictures begin with J. Then she made a list of words that begin with J. She was so excited with this as she wrote them all herself. The only help I gave her was how to spell the words...

kitchen table science....

Water = liquid
ice = solid
steam = gas

On Saturday she learned about how one object can be in so many different forms. We started out with a liquid water then froze it and turned it into a solid. First she tried to break the ice with a pick. Then we melted some of the ice first with just hot water and watched the big ice block melt slowly.
Next we took an ice cube and put in over a flame to watch it melt very fast. Then we covered the pan and watched the water evaporate and fill the pan and it turned into a gas. Fun with science! We did add strawberries and grapes to the water first just to add some more fun to it. She had to figure out how to get the fruit out to have her snack. ****frozen grapes taste good but frozen strawberries are mushy and not so good****

I found this website http://www.catie.org.uk/testing_time_index.html and she had fun trying to figure out if something was a liquid, solid or a gas.

Buzzzzzzzzz

Samantha wants to know about bees so this week we will be looking into the life of a bee. When Sam was about 2 years old she got stung by a bee and still remembers it to this day. We were visiting Grandma Muriel and Grandpa Steve on the Cape. Grandma Muriel, Samantha and I were going to a fair. As we were waiting for the bus to bring us there, Samantha was looking at some flowers. One had a bee on it. She reached over and picked the bee right off the flower. OUCH he stung her. Since then she has asked about bees of and on. Then we were watching the Bee Movie and she learned that when a bee stings a person he will die. That really interested her. She wants to know why it dies. So off to the internet we went. So for this week I will be posting all kind of interesting information about bees and showing off the fun projects Samantha and I will be doing.

Oh and a bee dies because his stinger has barbs on it and when it goes into the skin the barbs holds it in place and as the bee tries to fly away it rips the stinger out and his insides come out. He will soon die. Interesting and gross. Poor little bee. Not all types of bees will die when they sting. Some bees can't even fly.

So for today Samantha said I am the queen bee and she is the princess bee. LOL
Have a great weekend.

Easter....

Happy Easter to all! Today was a fun Easter day for Samantha. We went to church, baked cookies, then got together with our family for dinner. I wanted to update the grass in the basket made it to Easter. But it wont last for much longer. Funny the cat never touched it. But if I move a plant I have in my bedroom out in the living room he will eat the leaves off. He almost killed it. Its also a plant that is supposed to make him sick. Obviously it doesn't as he will try and eat it at every chance.

Ok so how does this apply to learning. Hmmm not sure.....well every experience you learn something right? Like today Samantha learned if you tell Mommy no and stick your tongue out at church that will have a consequence... no computer time for a few days. LOL

I hope everyone had a wonderful and peaceful Easter!!!

Cat, Hat, Bat, Pog, Fog, Frog......

Today Samantha and I read a book today and she read part of the book with me. She learned some new words today..... bog, (mog, pog names from the book), fog, log, jog, hog, frog, dog, log, cat, sat, mat, bat, hat, rat, fat, pat, and many more. She was so excited to be able to help me read the book. The look of wonder in her eyes as she read them with me. Before we know it she will be reading books on her own.

She complained to me today that she didn't like to write in lower case letters as she doesn't do that as good as she does upper case. LOL So we talked about how the more she writes them the better she will do with them. She doesn't like it but understands that she has to write in lower case. I see a little bit of a perfectionist in her at times. Reminds me of Nick when he was learning to write.

Craft time...... She wanted to make a house for Cole since he doesn't' have one. So we got a box and decorated it. We spent a good part of the afternoon doing this. I even braved Cole and put his paw in paint and added his print to the house. And yes she is in her bathing suit, I knew this was going to be messy and I am still cleaning paint off the floor even with plastic down... but it was FUN!!!......

Homeschool project gone bad or crazy...Added more pictures...

A few weeks back Samantha and I thought it might be a good idea to grow real grass for her Easter basket. We got the idea from a magazine called Living Crafts, spring issue 2009. It calls for wheat grass but I couldn't find any of that so we searched and searched and couldn't find anything I would want to use with Samantha... all the lawn grass we found contained chemicals. I couldn't find any organic grass UNTIL I got the bright idea to go to the pet section. LOL. A few years ago when Cole(our cat) was eating all my plants we grew him pet grass. Hmm should be good for an Easter basket right? Maybe not....
Samantha was excited. With 3 weeks before Easter we thought we should get started right away. We filled the basket with soil. We got 3 packages of the cat grass. She placed all the seeds in the basket. We followed the directions. So we covered the basket with plastic and put in the dark room until we saw grass begin to grow. We took of the plastic then placed the basket in the sun. HMMM maybe we shouldn't have done that Oh and we watered it. Cat grass is supper grow grass. In days it stood 4 inches tall. Ok not so bad you thinking right? I cut the grass. The next morning the grass was again about 3 inches tall. The day after that it was back to being 4 inches tall. Since that day it has been cut many times. And it still keeps growing like crazy. Now we just hope and pray that the grass will stay living until Easter. LOL Here is a picture of it. I cut it last night down to about 1 1/2 inches....

Here it is on Sunday...




















Wednesday....


Oh its weird too because it keeps changing color... some times it grows back light green then other times its a dark green. Weird.... Oh and the added plus cutting the grass has my allergies acting up. Yep I am allergic to whatever is released when grass is cut. Fun fun fun. But we do find this project amusing in spite of my allergies.

Picture time....

Since the last few posts have all been my ramblings and no pictures I wanted to share some of our lastest pictures with you all..... The first picture we were at Colt state park, the last 2 are from Providence Children's Mesuem.

A little of this and a little of that.....

This post is going to be all over....I have lots on my mind that I want to share....

Last night Samantha and I participated in Earth hour. This is our second year doing so. For those of you who don't know what that is go to earthhour.org and learn all about it. Basically you shut off all lights and power sources. We shut off the tv and computer. We cheated a little, Samantha's bedtime is 7pm and we were supposed to shut off at 8:30-9:30. So we started at 6:30 and went until we were done playing games and reading stories. Since it was still early we sat by the living room window for light. We played Operation, fancy Nancy Ooh la la tea party game, tinkerbell game, and read the Easter story. When we were done she went to bed. So I did keep with the Earth hours time too. Once she was in bed I waited for it to be 9:30 before I turned the lights and computer back on. It was a fun way for Samantha to learn about saving energy. We already recycle. She has come to terms with when she outgrows clothes or toys we donate them. Mostly to the MOPS clothing swap. Which is another way to learn to conserve. We come home from the swap with some new clothes and fun toys.

At the last mops meeting we did the Resurrections eggs for the creative activity. Samantha has had fun learning about Easter and Jesus through the eggs. Her little friend came over and we decorated paper eggs. On one I drew a cross on it. Samantha then told her friend all about Jesus while creating their eggs. It was so much fun to see my daughter talk about Jesus and this coming from her point of view.

The meeting before this we made banks for our children. I am the creative activity leader and I do have an assistant. We did this craft for our children. Each mom got 3 banks. The banks teach the kids about money each bank has a meaning.... 1 share, 2 save, and 3 spend. So in doing this we decided to give Sam an allowance if she does her chores. Steve and I sat down with her and together we decided what she could do to earn money each week. She will dust, set the table every day, sweep, and clean the bathroom sink. She has the added bonus of helping with laundry and she will earn 50 cents more for this. She had a little issue with the sharing of her money part. LOL but we were firm on if she got an allowance she was to put 10% in her share, 20% in save and the rest was for her to spend. Its been fun watching her learn about money this way. Last week she took her spend money to walmart and bought a gum ball machine. She was so happy to be using her money and doing it all herself.

Decisions and concerns.....I have been trying to decide on a curriculum and I am still not sure on what I want to go with so I am going to the homeschool convention to look at them all again. One of my concerns is we have been working on preschool/kindergarten work this year and she knows how to write her numbers up to 10 and can count high with the assistance when she hits 19 I have to remind her its 20 then on to 29 she forgets to go to 30 we do this all the way up to 90 recently. She knows all her letters and how to write them. Through the program starfall she is learning her letter sounds and can identify what letter most words begin with. So my concern is will the beginning of Kindergarten be boring for her? She is already getting bored with reviewing her letters. Part of me wants to get the kindergarten curriculum for her now and start now. She has a thirst for knowledge she is forever asking questions about everything. It was fun when she wanted to know about ant eaters the fun things we learned from that question. Her latest question was about tornado's. So we are learning about them. So maybe what I need to look at is a hands on curriculum.

Things kids say...... While decorating the paper eggs with her friend Samantha and Chloe were talking about God.... Chloe told Samantha that her teacher told her that a memo went out from the principal saying they couldn't talk about Jesus when talking about Easter at all. All that is allowed is to talk about Easter and how its about Easter bunny... now remember this is coming from a 6 year old. So Sam said to me "Mommy if I can't talk about God at school I don't want to ever go to public schools!" Sam has no idea there are private schools out there... she thinks its either public or home schooling.

Decisions, learning about God and herself, working on her letters and numbers more

Before we know it and it will be the summer again. Time soon to order our curriculum for the fall. I am trying to decided what I want to use with Samantha. I have a few recommendations from friends who homeschool. I am trying to decided between, Abeka, Horizon's, my fathers world and 5 in a row. They all are excellent curriculum's. They all teach what your child will need to know but with a different approach. Abeka and Horizon's is all workbooks. My father's world and 5 in a row is more hands on. I am not sure what to pick. I hope I make it to the home school convention so I can pick out what I want. It will be nice to pick up with curriculum and look at it. Easier to decided then a few samples on the internet.

Samantha is amazing. She keeps on trying to learn to read. She will try and sound out words all the time. Just today she was trying to sound out ladder. Funny she kept saying the d's were t's. But she did get the rest of the letters. Oh what a stubborn child she is. We have been working on writing letters some more and reviewing numbers 1-10. She is ready for more. We have been talking about Easter and what it means.

We also started a new bible devotion. She really enjoys it. I think its one of the best preschooler devotion's I have read with her so far. It's called God and Me! Devotions for Girls. Its filled with stories and activities that teachers her how to walk with God. It teachers girls how to be good friends, being fair, being sorry when you do wrong, to keep trying, self-control, Easter, Joy, being thoughtful,inner beauty and so much more.

Well off to discover more learning and fun with my little girl!

when the teacher becomes the student...

Often when we are out people will ask Samantha how old she is. She is always ready with "I'm five" holding out her hand showing 5 fingers. So cute. She really can be such an adorable kid. So after telling her age most will ask me if she is in school. I usually just say no and don't elaborate on that. If asked I might have said she just turned 5. Well not Samantha. She is proud that she is home schooled. She is excited to tell all who ask her about homeschooling from a 5 year olds point of view. Besides some concerns of family members most people we meet seem curious about it. some just say that's nice others will ask many questions. So far I only met one person who responded negatively and that was a doctor who couldn't think outside the box, even with his treatments he couldn't think beyond the normal. One mom I recently met while walking along the waterfront with Samantha was really interested in what we do. She isn't happy about the schools here. She said its too bad that she has to work full time or she would try home schooling herself. So I became the student while my daughter taught me to hold my head high and be proud of who we are. We are a home schooling family. We are happy with our life style. We Thank God that we have this opportunity to do this. So if we are to go forward and do our little bit to change the world I will follow my daughter example and be happy with who we are and tell who ever asks why she is with me during the day and not in school.
Funny though she is in school..... she learns through out the day many different subjects when we are out in the world interacting with it. As the worker at Papa Gino's said to Samantha today when she was asked how old and do you go to school. Samantha said "No I don't go to school, and I home school" The girl looked at Sam and said "yes your are in school... if your home schooled the world is your school!" Samantha loved that she said that to her.

If you don't see a post from me for a week or so its because we are in the process of switching to a different internet provider and I think they got the dates wrong when to shut us off. There was supposed to be a few days where we would have both. But I don't think so we are still waiting for the equipment to get here. I will keep you posted. We have a few fun things planned with all this nice weather.

Love
Jen

Are you kidding me?????

A friend of mine just registered her daughter for Kindergarten for the fall. Well she was told that soon they will be having Kindergarteners take the MCAS tests! Is that crazy or what? I can almost see doing it in first or second grade but kindergarten?? I don't agree with that testing anyway but kindergarteners?!?!?!?! Its crazy. So glad that we are homeschooling Samantha.... we have the choice of doing those. I choose not to.

The Leprechauns have been here.....

We read a book recently on St Patrick's day and leprechauns. On Sunday we had 2 leprechaun's come to visit us. Those tricky little elf's didn't show their faces but left green paint foot prints and hand prints around our house, fun fun fun! Samantha and her friend Chloe spent Sunday afternoon looking for our little visitors. LOL Later that night Sam asked me if it was real and I couldn't lie to her so I told her no that it was me. She has been asking me questions like that for a while... is Santa real, is the Easter bunny is real. I think she knows the real answer but doesn't want to stop believing. She will admit that they are fake but doesn't' want to stop believing so tells me that they are real too.

Zoo fun with Daddy

I am lucky that Steve takes a roll in teaching Samantha and takes her to activities that will help her. This Wednesday he took her to the zoo. They were having a treasure hunt based on the cartoon Dora and Deigo. They both had so much fun helping the zoo keepers looking for the missing apple. She thought it was funny that the squirrel got it! I will post pictures later.

A week before this we had fun as a family visiting The Children's museum. There was so much to learn there and have fun with. We ended up taking home a kit of magnets from the gift shop to work into our school work.

Learning on the go.... just this week Samantha and I packed a picnic lunch. We went to the water front park and did school work, ate and just had fun.

So many possibilities to learn out there.

Hello,

Here is an interesting article I wanted to share. Some people wonder why a parent wouldn't want to send their child to the local public schools and here is one good reason...... http://www.heraldnews.com/topstories/x1526283779/Three-Fall-River-schools-identified-as-among-states-lowest-performing


I can't get the link to work. Sorry. You can copy and paste it and view the article.

Recently I met this mom at the playground. She was telling me how she hated the school her son was in and is sorry she moved to MA. She was telling me that in Maine she home schooled but when moving here was told by Fall Rivers school department it was against the law to do so. So she enrolled her child in school. She then asked where does Samantha go to school. So I told her that we do home school and it is legal. I told her to search out the laws of our state. I wonder if she will go back to home schooling.

Questions and answers..........

Samantha turned 5 recently. Its so hard to believe that she is a 5 year old now. I can't believe how much she has grown in one year. She grew about 2 inches. She loves to learn., her babies, her stuff animal's, her nieces, princess's and much more. I think she is into what most 5 year olds are into. Its been interesting to see how much she has learned this fall. She asked me to teach her to read so we have been doing some work on the computer. She can sound out some words. Her first word to read was VISA. She doesn't even know what it is. She sounded it out and asked me if she was right. Just the other day she sounded out bear and a few other words.

As for activities: she does ballet, tap, jazz, baton and ice skating. We go to our mom's group, where she is in a school like setting. She is in a classroom and the "teachers" do a lesson with her, a craft then playtime. From what I have been told she is a good student. She listens, does her work and behaves herself. We do story hour at different places. The zoo has a cute one. The library has a really good story teller. She also comes to work with me once a week, this will teacher her compassion, service to others, helping the aging disabled sick people. She will learn what its like to give of yourself. She has also learned some health related things from my client... what not to do. She has even learned from some of the doctors and nurses. She was in total amazement watching my clients doctor remove the fluid from a cyst on her hand. He then showed her what was in the cyst. The dentists and hygienist talk to her and tell her all they are doing for my client. The orthopedic doctor explained some of the bones in her hand and body. The nurse talked to her about germs. I see this as a wonderful resource of information for Samantha. Things that we can expand on in the future!

Recently some family members have expressed some concern with homeschooling again. Not sure if they understand really what homeschooling is. As it can be many things. Every family does it differently. Of course there are some standards you have to go by but so many options out there for the homeschooling family. I am going to the home school convention this year again and hopefully I will be able to decide on what curriculum to go with. I thought I was all set to go with Horizons but now I am not to sure and I want to explore what else is out there.

Some answers to the questions I was asked.....
Q What about when they get to the older grades and you don't know how to do the work?
A Well for one she is only entering Kindergarten do I really need a plan for something that is many years away? But really that is what the teachers guide is for. It helps you teach them, shows you how to do it and if you still don't understand good enough to teach it there is always someone that can help you like a home school group or a co-op.
Q What about Curriculum?
A There are many out there. So many to choose from that I am having a hard time picking one and yes we will be going with a Christian one and one that is secular A friend does one called 5 in a row and I really like what I see, its a secular one. I would use this as part of her work.
Q What about socialization?
A Did you read all she does? All the classes and activities she does I believe she is getting a lot of socialization. If that isn't enough going to work with me interacting with my client, my clients doctors and family members helps her interact with people of all ages. When she is at my mom's group which meets every other week she is with about 10-12 children around her age. Also this school year coming I am joining Fall Rivers home school group.
Q What if she asks to go to school?
A Well that depends. If we are living somewhere else then it will depend on the schools there. If we still live here well then we will have to be able to afford the private school of my choice. Sorry but if some of the school teachers I know tell me not to put my child in the schools here I take that serious. Also depends on WHY she wants to go to school. Recently my neighbors niece (who lives with her) has been begging Sam to go to school with her and Samantha did ask why did I want her to home school. After weighing the pros and cons Sam has decided she still wants to home school. I know she has never been in a school situation to be able to base her decision on but really I don't think at her age its her decision yet. But if its for a opportunity that she wouldn't have homeschooling we would look for a better option for her.

If anyone has questions I would love to hear from you. Any words of advice or encouragement I would also love to hear from you. But remember we are Samantha's parents and we do what we feel is in the best interest of our family. No one has any input on our decision. Who knows what the future will bring where we will be in say 10 years but my plan is to home school her from Kindergarten to twelfth grade.

With much love
Jen

p.s. Sorry if I offended anyone about public schools. I know there are many many awesome public school teachers. I have a few teacher friends that I would be honored to have them teach my child as I know my child would learn with them and they are awesome teachers! There are also many great public schools out there. Sadly where we live the schools aren't good. But again there are many great teachers that teach here but sadly they are working with not an ideal system. I consider myself very lucky that I am able to home school Samantha. That I have that option available to me. I have a loving and supportive husband who is on my side 100% with our home school journey. I have a wonderful resource in my sister Michelle who has home schooled for 5 years or more who will help me out if I am stuck. (Right Michelle?). I have a handful of friends who are homeschooling too who I can turn to for advice, help or support. I am also lucky to have older children who agree with me on this and Nick has even offered to help out when he is living back in New England and yes Nick I will hold you to it! She will benefit to get your perspective on things. Just think of the wealth of information my family members can share with my child! Learning doesn't just happen in a classroom it happens everyday just living life!

Ok so I haven't been the best blog writer. LOL Sorry. Samantha has done a lot of learning. She is learning to read. We are using a program on the internet called starfall.com. She really enjoys it. I was going to buy a curriculum but we decided to wait until I get her a kindergarten one. Its been interesting to see her try and sound things out. We also started learning sign language together. When she was a baby she knew about 15 signs and recently she got a book from scholastic books on sign language and wanted to learn to sign. Its fun.