Two-and-a-half students

Here are Things 1, 2, and 3.  (We were having a little technical difficulty with the glaring sun and squinty eyes.)

The two Chinese-Americans are ours and the other lives next door.  Since she finds her way to our house most every day, I figure that will continue once school starts.  I'll just plan on including her in our science and history escapades.

[The cute signs came from I Heart Naptime.  I photoshopped the P and the K into one sign.]

The Pre-Kindy Kiddo



The First Grade Girly



The Fourth Grade Drop-In


I'm super excited to get started on our first day tomorrow.


I'm linking up to HOTM again.  Click the logo to go see other student pictures.

Fun Stuff! First Grade and Pre-Kindy curriculum for 2011-2012

I've had tons of fun researching and choosing curriculum.  I had initially been drawn to Sonlight but I was leery of plunking down a big wad of cash for a boxed curriculum.  Plus I know me.  I like to tweak and change things up.  After I read The Well-Trained Mind I found the structure I was looking for as well as the freedom to pick and choose elements and resources.  I found most of our books at used-book sales.  For those things I needed to buy new, I bought downloadable PDFs when I could.  I've also found tons of free or super cheap resources here and there on the interwebs.

Here is the plan for the 1st grade girl:

• Bible: Awana + other bible story books, activity books, and devotionals
• History: Story of the World 1 (Ancient History through Christ) with lots of associated activities + a creation unit
• Science: We'll be studying animals, the human body, and plants.  We'll be doing some experiments from Janice VanCleave's books.  We'll be documenting using the student pages from Elemental Science.
• Language: All About Spelling 1 and First Language Lessons 1 (grammar) + FLL lapbook. Lots of reading pulled from WTM book lists and various other book lists. (This is an area stressing me out a little. We're not using a formal writing program but will have plenty of narration and copy work in other areas. We're not using a formal phonics program because so many say that AAS included enough phonics teaching. We'll see. I've got Explode the Code and OPGTR [see below] if needed for additional phonics practice.)
• Penmanship: no formal program but beginning to learn D'Nealian cursive following the plan outlined by Nadene at Practical Pages
• Math: Singapore Primary Mathematics 1A and 1B
• Music: Kindermusik
• Physical Activity: Thinking about karate for the fall. Might see what our YMCA offers also.  Also, daily guided activity as well as free-play time.
• Arts & Crafts: Monthly craft club kit + various activities to tie in to our other subjects.

Some days I think we are doing too much. Other days I think it is not enough. I figure that means the plan is just about right.

The plan for the pre-kindy boy is much simpler:

Bible: same as sis
Music: same as sis
Physical Activity: same as sis
History/Science: same as sis if he is interested
Unit Study: Five in a Row
Math: workbooks + Funnix Math + playing with manipulatives + free printables from the web
Language: Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading + Get Set For The Code B + various workbooks, Bob Books, and letter of the week activities
Penmanship: plenty of D'Nealian manuscript copy work

I'd like us all to start learning Mandarin Chinese, too.  We've got some beginner books we'll use if I can find the accompanying CD.  I'm looking into some additional resources, as well.  Everyone says it is imperative to get a tutor to correct our tones.  Maybe there is someone at the hospital where I used to work who could lend us a hand with that.

Field Trips: We'll putting our zoo pass to good use.  We'll take some nature walks at Burr Oak Woods.  I'd also like to check out the arboretum.  Our city has an excellent museum with some great artifacts from ancient history.  The Chinese collection was always a favorite of mine as a kid.  Appropriate.  Of course, we'll have to have apple picking and pumpkin picking trips this fall.  We'll be celebrating the Autumn Moon Festival for the first time with Families Blessed with the World's Children.

I think this will keep us plenty busy and engaged.  Anyone else out there following some version of classical education?

I'm linking up to the "NOT Back-to-School" blog hop at the Heart of the Matter blog.

Freebie! Downloadable shoe unit for first graders.

I've started following more and more teacher blogs to get ideas to use with the kids.  Today I found a new one and she is offering a free digital download printable unit using the topic of shoes.  It looks like a lot of fun and will be a nice little supplement for the girl to work on while I have one-on-one time with the boy.  Thank you Mrs. Tabb.

Why Homeschool?

I’m very excited to be bringing big sister (Ling) home to join little brother (Ping) in our homeschool adventure.  The big question is why?  She had a pretty awesome year at Kindergarten in the local public school (PS).  She learned to read quite well, excelled in math, made several friends, and really came out of her shell. 

The bottom line is that I want the best education for my kids.  While our local PS is good, I don’t think institutional education, in general, is best.  Conveyer belt education is not optimal.  Children learn at such different paces that it seems wrong to group them strictly by age.  Why shouldn’t they have the chance to interact with kids of other ages?  Why shouldn’t they be able to talk in class?  Why should they spend so much time learning how to walk silently in straight lines down the hall.  [I have visited Ling’s school on average once a week during the last year.  Seriously, the students in all grades spend a significant amount of time on that “skill.”]  I want more individualized attention for my kids.  I want them to experience more hands-on instruction.  I want them to be able to develop their personalities (and, yes, social skills) in a more nurturing environment.  I want them to spend time with grandparents.  I DON’T want to do any more fundraising!  I don’t want them to spend all day at school and then come home to do more hours of homework.  I like my kids and want to spend time with them.

Although many home educators’ reasons are bound up in their religious beliefs, that is actually not a foundational reason for wanting to educate my children at home.  My husband and I actively share our faith and beliefs with our children any way.  Shielding them from the secular humanism found in PS is not that important to us.  We know the difference between fact (the fossil record) and theory (evolution) and have no trouble training our children to know the difference as well.  We can tell the difference between the core truth of biblical Christianity versus the theology of different sects and denominations.

In my research of homeschooling resources I came across a book that completely solidified the approach I wish to take with educating my children.  The Well-Trained Mind by Susan Wise Bauer and Jessie Wise (WTM) lays out a complete course of education from preschool through 12th grade.  The educational approach is Classical, which divides up the learning stages into a trivium: grammar, logic, and rhetoric. 

WTM uses a four-year cycle of history as the spine for content areas of history, geography, social studies, art, literature, and even science.  The skill areas of math and reading are to be taught daily following some recommended resources.  From the WTM web site:

We suggest that the twelve years of education consist of three repetitions of the same four-year pattern: Ancients, Middle Ages, Renaissance and Reformation, and Modern Times. The child studies these four time periods at varying levels — simple for grades 1-4, more difficult in grades 5-8 (when the student begins to read original sources), and taking an even more complex approach in grades 9-12, when the student works through these time periods using original sources (from Homer to Hitler) and also has the opportunity to pursue a particular interest (music, dance, technology, medicine, biology, creative writing) in depth.

I believe that following the WTM model will give us a rigorous, efficient, and fun educational experience.  I know we’ll have challenges and difficult days but I believe in my very soul that this experience will be great.

Next up, curriculum choices and scheduling and our home classroom.

If you are a homeschooler, why do you do it?  If you think it is a bad idea, why?

 

PS: Here is a great video I just saw that highlights many positive outcomes of the homeschooling experience:

Gardening!

It has been a few years since we've had a vegetable garden.  Alex got tired of messing with it and plowed the whole thing under.  This year, I thought it would be fun to try again since Ty and I will be around to take care of it.  I picked up a bunch of different seeds and got the early crops started.  I convinced Alex to make some raised beds (hopefully, we can fence them in and keep the bunnies out).  The first of the seeds (tomatoes, cucumbers, and chives) are sprouted and we're ready to start planting.  Crossing our fingers that we don't have any more freezing nights.

Tomato

Cucumber
(or, perhaps, Audrey II.  "Feed me Seymour!")

Lovely, black dirt

Ye olde composte pyle

When I picked up seeds, I also got the kids a flower kit.  They've had loads of fun watching their plants sprout.  They've been measuring them daily, anxiously awaiting the time to transplant.  Tyler was proud as could be that his was the first one to be tall enough to transplant.  It is so rare the youngest gets to be first at anything.

I'm looking forward to printing out the garden preschool pack from Jolanthe at Homeschool Creations.  I hope Tyler will have fun working through the various activities.

I'm linking up to Homeschool Village to share our progress with other families throughout the spring/summer.

First official day of home preschool

Ever since leaving my job last fall I've been immersing myself in the blogs of homeschooling moms in an attempt to develop a plan for Tyler and I.  One in particular has been an absolutely fantastic resource: 1plus1plus1equals1.  I've gotten so very many ideas, downloads, and links to great resources from her.  She's got a little guy about the same age as Tyler.  She used to be a Kindergarten teacher in public school so has lots of resources and ideas from that time in her life.

This morning T and I started off with some color and animal sorting disguised as trying to find all the pieces to the UNO Moo game he got for Christmas.  This is a wonderful game for preschoolers.  There are so many great things to do with it in addition to playing it as it was designed.  We sorted all the pieces into color-coordinated bowls and then found the matching animals from each color and discovered that we were missing a green pig.  Then I got out some tongs to exercise some different muscles.





Next we worked on several items from the Fireman activity pack found on Homeschool Creations.  I supplemented this with another Christmas gift: a giant firetruck floor puzzle from Melissa & Doug (one of the best toy companies around).  After building the puzzle, Tyler likes to sit on it and pretend he's riding to a fire.  He wanted me to drive.  We hopped on and then walked down the hall to put out a fire in Annali's room.  I picked up a red tube from our musical instrument stash and pretended that was our fire house.  We got out a step stool to be our ladder.  We put on bicycle helmets to be our firefighter helmets.  Tyler got a blanket for the people inside the burning building so their clothes wouldn't smell like smoke.  He's such a considerate boy!  I wish I would have gotten pictures but I chose to be in the moment instead.  So fun!!



Tyler's attention span was running out of steam so we took a break and he watched 101 Dalmatians.  After lunch we played with our Math Link cubes and another print out from another print out from 1plus1.  The page was meant to be used with pom poms but we matched up our cubes instead.






Right now he's playing with a plush nativity set we picked up from Mardel yesterday.  Great bargain at 75% off; however, I just realized we are missing Joseph so we'll have to trek back out to the store soon to make an exchange!  Next we'll be taking a nap.

A good first day!!

PS: Tyler is 49.5 months old

Our newest pet

Slimy up close
Originally uploaded by Qcaller

Do you like him? We found the shell at the park today. I assumed it was empty but after I had carried it for a bit, I noticed a dark blog sticking out. We brought it home and fed him (her?) some leaves and named him Slimy. All four of us got very excited when he finally started coming out of his shell.

The same, and yet, completely different

Hellooooo!  Anybody out there?  Not sure if anyone still has this blog on their radar.  Between my crazy job and my personal crazy (depression) all my creative energy just got sucked right out of me over the past year.  There's been no blogging and almost no digi scrapping.

I'm still battling depression and probably always will to one degree or another.  However, this Fall I am starting on a new season of life.  I quit that all-consuming job to focus on sanity and family.  I've been working 15 hours a week for the past month (loving that!!) and will quit completely on 10/21 after training my replacement for a total of 15 hours.  Hope she's a fast learner.

Annali started Kindergarten this fall and is quietly brilliant.  Somehow I got elected head room mother and will be coordinating the fall classroom party over the next couple weeks.  After I completely quit working, Tyler and I are going to be holding preschool here at home.  He's also going to speech therapy and Kindermusik.  We'll be searching out lots of fun, FREE activities around town.  Alex is working tons of overtime to make up for my loss of income.   He has been my rock throughout my personal struggles.  I couldn't ask for a better husband or kids.

Money is the thing that scares me the most about this new phase of our life.  I want to be frugal without making my kids feel poor.  We are all going to be learning new habits.  We've been much too loose with our money and have often given in to buying worthless trinkets for the kids.  I've been totally inspired by a blog called Filth Wizardry into exploring our creativity and using things we have on hand already.  My friends at work blessed us with a gift card to W@l-M@rt.  Today we stocked up on some art supplies to supplement the recycling bin.  I'm looking forward to lots of creative fun with the kids.

Wishing you all the best,

Pam

Wild Things

Alex and the kids were having a silly time with all the stuffed animals.  They kept egging him on to pile "more, Daddy, more!!"  I just love listening to the kids being silly with their Daddy.  I love watching him be an awesome father.

Digiscrap Credits:  Papers and elements from Jungle Boogie by Kay Miller.  This started from a template by Misty Cato but was altered significantly.

Tyler2008Book

Click here to view this photo book larger

testing

testing a new feature

Shoot the pig

Well today was Study Day 0 in our participation with the sw!ne f1u vaccine trial. Both kids had examinations, blood draws, and shots. Tyler was a trooper and very quickly got over the trauma of the needles. Miss Thing, on the other hand, was quite upset. It didn't help that I had told her a few days ago that there would be shots involved. She worried herself to tears for several days and then was tense every time someone walked into the exam room. While we were waiting to be randomized (apparently involving faxes back and forth to Wash DC study HQ) she fell asleep crying that she didn't want any shots. When they finally brought up the vaccine, she awoke to Tyler crying while getting his shot. Next thing she knew, she was being held down to receive her shot. Not a wonderful afternoon for anyone, including PoPo who was a trooper about entertaining and distracting the kids. We all survived and now they can tell Daddy what brave kiddos they were. Only 2 more blood draws and one more shot to get through. They are definitely earning their study stipends. Now on to our daily diary documenting temperatures and degrees of irritability. Right now they are laughing and jumping into a pile of pillows so I don't think anyone is wounded for life.

TTFN

August 2009 update

Well, I've tried transferring my Typepad blog into Blogger automatically but apparently it can't be done. I started transferring entries individually but that is a tedious and overwhelming task. Apparently I started blogging 4 years ago. While I haven't been a prolific blogger, that is still a lot of content to transfer.

***

Life, hardware failures, and depression have sucked my digiscrapping mojo away. We've finally got things rearranged at home into something that makes sense for us. Our front room is now the office for Alex and I. We've also got an arts and crafts table for the kids. The center is open to leave plenty of room for scooters. Moving my computer & desk to the basement a few years ago was just a bad idea. I didn't like being away from the family and I hated having my desk become a dumping ground. Now I'm back upstairs, my desk is unburied, my EHD is repaired and networked, and I've got lots of new pics to scrap and stories to tell. Here are a couple recent pages (click images to see credits).

I can't wait for July!!

Just reserved a condo for our summer vacation to Estes Park. This is where you will find the West-Adkisson clan come July. Hopefully it won't be too hot to give this hot tub a work out.

This is spring?!?!?

Of course, 48 hours later it was all melted. I thought the crazy TV weather people were full of hooey when they were predicting this. Guess I'll pay more attention next time.

A day in the life

A day in the life
Originally uploaded by Qcaller

The China Digital Scrapbooks forum is celebrating its 2nd birthday. There are challenges and prizes and chats, oh my! Today's challenge was to photograph some bits of everyday life. We didn't have to scrap them but I chose to put them all together in one simple page.

I forgot to take my camera to work so the first 3 photos were taken with my camera phone. I was surprised at the decent quality.

--P

Mardi Gras

We had King Cake in honor of Mardi Gras at our noon conference today. Then I got an e-mail from the Boston Globe with today's Big Picture entry on Carnival. Call me crazy but oh how I long to wear one of these costumes:

==============================================================
COMMENTS
AUTHOR: Chubbie Hubbie
DATE: 03/11/2009 06:25:32 AM
Oh how I long for you to wear one of those costumes... :)
-----
AUTHOR: Tammy
DATE: 03/02/2009 07:31:35 PM
wow! that's gorgeous, looks so heavy though!! :)
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AUTHOR: Janet Butler
DATE: 02/23/2009 04:47:43 PM
I have a feeling that I might get charged with some sort of indecent exposure if I were to try to wear that! :o)
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AUTHOR: Sharon Adkisson
DATE: 02/23/2009 03:52:36 PM
Wow! What a costume! I don't think you could move in such an outfit, but it sure is enormous and over-the-top flashy gorgeous.
Mom

My Valentine Sweethearts

2009-02-14_BFF
Originally uploaded by Qcaller

Having fun with one of my prizes from the Amazing DigiScrap Race. Also doing a little personal touch up with Photoshop. I didn't have a chance to put on makeup before the wedding last Saturday so I used a little PSE magic to give myself some lipstick and hide my zits.

Life continues on here at the ranch. The kids are enjoying Kindermusik and think Ms. Heather walks on air. Tyler started speech therapy last week. I can't wait to hear what he has to say. Interview season is over at work. Next month we find out who matched with our program. Nadine, Johns, Marvin, and Marilyn died. Amy and Brian got married. Christmas, New Years, Chinese New Years, and Valentine's day all happened. There you go - now you are up to date on life with the Wests.

TTFN
=========================================
COMMENT:
AUTHOR: Sharon Adkisson
DATE: 02/18/2009 01:14:12 PM
Wow, you really condensed a lot of happenings the last 3 months into a very brief description! Yes, I am excited and looking forward to what Tyler will have to say to us (hopefully soon!). He really is trying to talk and put sounds together these days.
Love, Mom

Owii!

The kids are at NaiNai & PoPo's with cousin D so I took the opportunity to sleep in. It was lovely! Thanks family. Got up and made Alex play W11 bowling with me. Then I had to check out all the other W-sports games. Once I was good and worn out, I checked my fitness age (53-yikes). My arms are now pretty achy. I can even feel some burn in my core. Amazing game!

Ok enough fartin around. Time to find a home for all the new Christmas gifts and do a mega purge on all the old dried out markers so the new sets from Santa can invade the house.

Hope your holiday have been delightful.

-----
COMMENT:
AUTHOR: Teresa
DATE: 01/24/2009 04:38:29 PM
we loved the purge fun :) love our Wii too...sounds like you had a great workout :)

A little history meme

10 YEARS AGO:

I was newly married to the guy now known as The Ex and newly transplanted from Oregon to Nevada, Missouri (pronounced nuh-VAY-duh muh-ZUR-ah) with the plan of going back to college. I still miss Oregon. We lived with The Ex’s mom and had a really miserable time. She was great. He was a total slug. I finally forced the issue and got a job in Kansas City. The Ex finally got himself enrolled in school and we found a shitty little studio apartment to live in. After hearing about the second assault in the hallway we moved to a better class of poor neighborhood and carried on.

5 YEARS AGO:

I met the wonderful man who would become The Best Husband in the World ™ (TBHITW). I was stage managing a show for a community theater and he was an actor. Meanwhile, I was trying to figure out why I continued to live with The Ex. We were worlds apart and barely living as roommates. Basically he lived in the computer room in the back of the house. He worked 2^nd shift as a chef-in-training and hung out online til the wee hours of the morn. I occupied the front of the house and worked normal office hours. Although we still shared a bed our sleep schedule only overlapped by a couple hours at most. I started waking up at 4 and 5 in the morning and going to work 6 or 7 (instead of my normal 8:30 or 9:00) because I was so unhappy. Getting to know TBHITW reminded me that I was a person of value and needed to get out of that horrible situation.

I must pause a moment here to say that The Ex has turned out to be a rather decent human being. He even sent a donation to the LingLing fund. He and I were a horrible match. A bad case of friends getting married because that’s what everyone else was doing at the time. I think he truly loved me but I never loved him with the same depth. I did a huge disservice to him by going forward with a marriage I knew in my heart to be a mistake. Getting divorced was probably the best thing we ever did for each other. I found TBHITW and he has gone on to success in Minneapolis.

1 YEAR AGO:

TBHITW and I had chosen to adopt from Nepal and were settling in for the wait until our 4^th anniversary so we could submit our paperwork; however, we were starting to hear rumors of instability in the adoption program and general instability in the government. Within a few months the king would dismiss the entire government and we would dismiss the dream of adopting a little brown boy and seeing Mt. Everest on our adoption trip. I still have a soft spot in my heart for that country and still hope to travel there someday. Perhaps we’ll combine that with a heritage tour of China someday.

YESTERDAY:

Set up my new gmail account while trying to get motivated to get some work done. In the evening, my girlfriends and I made about 1500 cream cheese mints for SV & BC’s wedding.

TOMORROW:

I will go to work and earn my keep. In the evening I will clean sis-in-law’s house as part of our adoption fundraising efforts.

5 things I would do with a million bucks:

100K to God first, buy a big old house on Briarcliff, set up trusts for LingLing and the Godson, bankroll someone’s dream, quit work to become a full-time home schooler.

5 places I’d like to visit:

British Isles, Norway/Sweden/Denmark (I always think of that as one place), Nepal, Constantinople/Istanbul, Chile

5 bad habits:

reading blogs into the wee hours, not finishing things, not playing with my dogs enough, not washing my face at night, thinking about my angst so much I forget to be a good friend to my people

5 things I will never wear:

bikini, fringe, ruffles, sailor collars, anything smaller than a D cup

even after reduction surgery (which would be item #6 after the $ windfall above)

5 biggest joys at the moment:

anticipating meeting LingLing, setting up the nursery, scratching my dogs behind their ears, reading mom blogs, finding a store around the corner that carries large and luscious bras (bought a cute pink lace 34 HH last week - the girls are happy)