Grace's 1st Grade Experience, etc

So far this year we have done a lot of in the moment, review, reading and math practice. She is still only 6 years old I keep reminding myself! She is enrolled in an enrichment program on Thursdays where she learns Spanish through play, guitar, clarinet, hip hop and tap. The kids bring a lunch and move between classes in the dance studio where the program is held. She loves it so far and is really learning a lot- she drew and labelled her guitar, made up her own song, tried out a flute, trumpet and recorder before settling on the clarinet and she is making friends!

I really want to get Joy in a baby signing class and both the girls in swim programs (Joy in a Mommy & Me so I can get in the water some too!) but I have been working 40 hours a week at Starbucks. I open the store at 4:30am 4 days a week and work a mid-shift on Saturdays. I got transferred to Fashion Island and have an interview planned for the end of the month for Assistant Manager... but... well I don't really want to get promoted! I want to cut back to 20 hours and be with my kids more!! Shawn has also been putting in a LOT of hours at OC Nissan and working really hard, doing well; making ok $, but it just isn't worth the hours if I still have to work towards management to provide that stable base.

Soooo... he talked them into allowing him to work less hours and we will see what happens- this week certainly went better. I was able to get more than 3-4 hours of sleep a day unlike the previous few weeks. Joy was sleeping well until we started this crazy schedule now she wakes up every couple of hours to nurse and she is teething so she can be quite a handful when you are barely conscious and trying to listen to a 6 year old with no front teeth sounding out letters.

Grace has been such a tremendous help, so thoughtful and considerate- making me sandwiches or warming me leftovers when I get home from work, so I can feed the baby. She often watches over Joy so I can do chores or even rest for a bit. I really like the little girl she is becoming. She has quite the fashion sense and she loves to design clothes for herself and Joy- maybe in the spring we'll put together a unit study around fashion design.

Life is back on TV. I like that.

Still no Joy!

Went to the Dr again today- for fluid check and non-stress test (I feel like a car!) - she's active and has plenty of amniotic swimming room! Joy is positioned perfectly other than being up high and snug as a bug!

Grace woke up with the sniffles and a crackly little cough, but she was a brave trooper for the visit to OC- twice a week is taking it's toll on us! Last night we finished her first chapter book, a Disney Fairy book she got from her cousins for her birthday- Rani in the Mermaid Lagoon, and so she used the Barnes & Noble gift card that she got over a year ago (thank you Grandma Bernie!) to get another one, which she of course wants to start tonight!

She wants to do a theme study on Charlie and Lola; homeschoolshare has one with lapbook suggestions on I Will Not Ever Eat a Tomato, so I requested the book from the library- plus we'll also use the two we have- I've Won, No I've Won, No I've Won and I Really Must Color Now, a crafty and fun Charlie & Lola activity book I've been saving since I discovered it at a book fair last year. I hope to get going with it very soon after Joy is born so that we'll start establishing a good rhythm.

Yesterday we picked up a cute crib set- (Classic Pooh theme) from a friendly Freecycler whose son apparently never took to his crib! It is just what Joy's room needed to give it a sweet nursery feel. It has a bumper, headboard pad, ruffled skirt and an adorable wall hanging height chart- so it's perfect with the cute pink gingham sheet, a snuggly pink swaddler, all her clothes (hung smallest to largest, warmest to coolest) in the closet, the changing table fully converted back from it's bookcase status in Grace's room, shelves now stocked with onesies and jammies, sheets and blankets- oh yeah, I still need to get some diapers!!

Boy talk about baby on the brain...

Grace

Yesterday I had a Dr's appointment in OC and I went by myself- I also got to use a gift card I've had for almost a year to get some maternity jeans, and new shoes (crocs, again- but this time they are the Mary Jane style- and black so they'll go with anything!). After I stopped by my parents apartment and had a wonderful visit, including a walk through downtown San Clemente to my favorite deli in the whole wide world, Billy's. We enjoyed our sandwiches on the chilly patio and walked back to a warm cozy apartment, where with the flick of a switch a warm fire welcomed us!

When I got home and gave Grace the treats that her Papa sent for her she called to say thank you and ended up chatting for almost half an hour! She found a nice spot...


Or so she thought, as she laid across the stairs, Ford decided to jump over her and he's no little pup anymore, so one of his huge paws scraped her...


She proudly showed me the art lesson she had done with her Daddy. This first one shows her attempt at drawing Scooby Doo from memory on the top, then with a little help from Daddy on the bottom left and a third try by herself on the bottom right...



This one they did together..



And lastly she did this one all by herself...



She is now working on Shaggy...



Here is what Shawn used to teach her, his before and afters...



We are doing a lapbook on the Scooby Doo theme unit- I should have photos of it up in the next week or so...

All About Me Lapbook

Earlier this week I was reading a message from one of my Yahoo Groups that led me to http://www.liveandlearnpress.com, a nice little website with "Learn N Folders" (yet another way of presenting graphical learning)... the sender of the message had just completed the All About Me "Learn N Folder" with her 5 year old son. Grace saw the photos and wanted to do one, so I printed off the pages (luckily it was one of their freebies) and we were finished 2 days later! She really enjoyed doing it, and I was surprised at how well it provided some great "in the moment" learning adventures.

Here it is (click on any picture to see it larger)...

The rest of the week we worked on our A Rainbow of My Own Unit Study from Homeschool Share. We decided to do a folder with this one, because it is a very short unit (meant for preschool really, although several of the "assignments" in the Activity Guide are geared for older kids). It isn't quite finished yet, just a little more artwork she wants to add, and I need a new glue stick to adhere the stuff we did.

We created a new fall board to display all the units we have studied this season so far...


And we played "hide the scarecrow"- one of us went out and planted the scarecrow she made, then took a picture of it. The other had to guess where it was by looking at the picture before they went outside to re-hide it. It was fun and made for some interesting pictures! Slideshow here... at Snapfish.

She also did her own personal lapbook- just for fun...

Loving Lapbooks

We finished our first unit study from (the wonderful, amazing) Homeschool Share site. "Comet's Nine Lives" was the story that it centered around and we did a lap book on cats. We didn't include other things from the unit (hurricanes, islands, etc) in the actual lapbook- Grace preferred it to be mostly about cats- but she did enjoy the other activities. Lapbook photos below...

All in all we did about 20 activities that related to the book, which we read at least 12 times- each time with something new discovered. We used the free version of Homeschool Tracker and I found it really easy to follow our progress. After a few hours of customizing it and setting up the subjects, activities, resources etc it was a simple matter of entering each activity as an assignment, as well as adding in "assignments" after the fact when we would follow a "rabbit trail".

It took us just under 3 weeks- but of course we had more interruptions than usual- I expect that normally we'll spend 2 weeks or so on a unit. According to the cool report I generated in HST to give my ES (we are still reserving judgment on our charter school experience) over 14 days we spent 4.25 hours in Creative Arts, 6 hours in PE, 3.33 hours on Language Arts, 1.5 on math, 5 on science, and 2.75 on social studies. Plus of course all the "in the moment" life skills type learning that doesn't get tracked as easily- although now that I am getting used to using HST I might start throwing in those unschooling, "teachable moments" as assignments, after the fact like I did with the Unit Study "rabbit trails".

The next Unit Study one is set to be "The Art Lesson" although yesterday at the park day where we met with our ES we got some of the supplies we ordered with our Educational Funds and one of the items is a Butterfly Nursery- so she wants to do a Butterfly unit. I need to read the instructions and see if we can even do it in fall! It may be better to save until Spring. I ordered The Art Lesson through Paperback Swap (Swap Your Paperback Books - PaperBackSwap.com and it is on it's way to me, along with 2 others (A Rainbow of my Own and Mama, Do You Love Me?) for future unit studies.

Today we met with our new "girls club" at the park near our house. This was the group of girls we got together to start our own Daisy Girl Scout Troop (which we decided was too much paperwork, legalism and cookie sales)! So we are each going to take a turn doing something simple and fun for the girls- today I organized a simple craft, game and snack (the Pampered Chef Apple/Peeler/Corer/ Slicer was a big hit!) around an Apple theme (since yesterday was Johnny Appleseed's birthday). It was lots of fun and Grace really enjoyed playing with her new friends. She decided as soon as we got home to fill in the inside of the Apple Book that she had decorated a cover for at the park. Apple theme photos, click here...

Our cat lapbook...

Starting Week 2 of "kindy"garden

My parents and hubby tease me because I call it "kindy"garden (and Grace still calls it KittenGarden) but whatever the name, we are loving it so far!

Last week's duck theme went well, we didn't stick to my "schedule" much, but we covered much of what I was prepared for and she learned a lot. Trying to categorize it into subjects is what I am trying to learn, now that we are officially enrolled in a charter school.

Last week we also made slime (three times- once unsuccessfully at the park day, so we scientifically approached this project, guessing at what needed to be changed, experimenting and then trying another idea- the last batch came out wonderful. She decided to make some for her friend since the park day version didn't work for her either) and she used it to shape letters and then to make me "food", (we played restaurant for as long as I could stand on Thursday, using "credit slips" to tally my bill and add her tip)

She also worked on the activity from her book club, although it still isn't finished! She told me it just has to be done before the next "level" (I think she got that from playing Monsters Inc on the Playstation, she is on level 2). I'm not sure we will stick with the book club, it is a bit... stiffer than our style. The energetic and incredibly organized woman who is running it has put a lot of time and effort into making it great, and the 30+ kids who are participating seem to have become like a class to her. She would make a terrific preschool teacher! But we do a lot of reading already and our style tends to be less "school" like, so I'm not sure. I'll let Grace decide after we have finished this first book, if we will continue on to the next...

She also learned to fingercrochet, and to be honest I was surprised. She wasn't really getting it at all when I showed her the basics on Monday. Then all the sudden on Thursday she asked me to show her how to start it again and she proceeded to make me a beautiful necklace, with matching bracelet and ring. She has already gone on to make collars for three of the kittens...

Friday we capped off the week with a visit to the duck pond with a homeschool buddy and we enjoyed lunch at Pat & Oscars as a special treat (sharing the breadsticks with the ducks afterward of course! See the very short photoshow here...

This week I have decided to try a "prepared" unit study from Homeschool Share after reading rave reviews on my homeschool group's message board about the FIAR unit studies style. Our book is Comet's Nine Lives, and we were able to pick it up at the library this morning and do 3 out of the 20 "lessons" today. I particularly like how it is broken up by subject- making it easy to track for the charter, but it is so thematic that I can also very easily guide her to the "lessons" with very little preparation and follow her interest and curiosity after reading the story in our morning "Circle Time". I've chosen related poems, songs, fingerplays and handcrafts for this fun morning ritual, which is our Waldorf inspired part of the day.

The puzzle we started for both the first and second week's themes is done already- we had help from my mom and dad when they stopped by Sunday and it just flew together!

Today I finally got our "order" together for using our Educational Funds from the charter, I submitted it to our ES. I wonder how long it will be until we get everything? I just hope it is in time to join the classes we want to this month- the Music Circle starts on Friday!

Food & Nutrition

We started our last summer theme today- Foods and Nutrition. I love being able to expose her to my idea of the best food choices, since we have been leaning more and more towards a raw, vegan lifestyle.

We both played detectives investigating the sickness of so many stuffed lovies. We found clues along the way and jotted them in our notebook. We discovered that the "junk-food joke-ster" was behind it all, and we interviewed some witnesses. A kindly firewoman (it was the only hat I could find that fit me!) gave directions so she could draw a map to the 5 scrolls of food groups (Veggies, Water & other Superfoods, Fruit, Dairy & Grains, and Meats & Treats) We talked about how some people ate of the last group and began to worship pyramids of food. And how several people we knew had allergies to the dairy and grains so that maybe we should go easy on those if we choose to eat them.

We started a report for the police chief, compiling our notes and planned out how we could learn enough to capture and defeat the junk-food joke-ster. We learned about the 5 senses and how important they were both for being a detective and for preparing food. Healthy Sally helped us with a few tips and showed us how to make a "magic green elixir", it came out a lovely shade of green so we froze what was left into popsicles for tomorrow. Recipe below if you are interested. We both loved it!

We juiced the following (all organic)-
4 small leaves Lacinato Blue Kale
6 Romaine leaves
1/2 zucchini (just the skin actually)
2 large Red Leaf Lettuce leaves
a bit of cilantro from the garden just for fun!
1/8 honeydew melon
3/4 Pear

Then we blended the juice with
1/2 pear
1/2 zucchini (the flesh left after juicing the skin)
1/8 honeydew melon
1/4 cup frozen chunks young Thai coconut
4 oz Aloe vera gel

Tomorrow we will continue the investigation, or maybe the next day- since it is so hot and with Shawn already having to drive into OC for work we may just go to the beach all day.