Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Test your Brain

Today was an easy day for Candice. We did some Brain Quest, which she got every single one right. Then we worked in her Preschool Workbook on Matching Uppercase and Lowercase. She struggled a bit, but finally got it. Mostly with J, D, A and N. Then we read from her new opposites book I got her yesterday and the library's book sale. She can ace the opposites, we are using it more for sight words and high frequency words. We have also been using a little counting game to get her to pick up her toys. We tell her a number and she has to pick up that many toys. So far its working, though she tends to cheat at the bigger numbers- 10+.


Monday, April 18, 2011

Read Candice Read!!!

Today we found an AWESOME deal at the library's used book sale! Bob Books! Supposedly, they help with reading and since I couldnt find a complete, set, ill work with what we found. Candice CAN read 2 word sentences, if you help her sound out the words of course!! I am more and more amazed at her. Last week we worked on Time/Clock. She does well with the numbers she knows, but gets stuck on 7 for example. Now every time has O'Clock after it according to her.
"What time is it?"
"9:45"
"9:45 O'Clock?"
"no, just 9:45"
She'll get it im sure. We also have been working on adding and subtracting, we worked on that tonight with M&Ms. She had 6 and I asked her to place them in groups of like color- 2 brown, 2 orange, 1 blue and 1 yellow. Then I had her tell me how many of each color and what color and then i added 3 and 3 and she told me 6. Over the weekend, we went with my mom bowling. This was Candice's first time and she had a blast! Not really school related but it could be classified as a field trip, if i called it that i mean. ;) I also picked up an Ohio Prof Test workbook to test where Candice is and then i picked up 2 1st grade workbooks to get through. She still has a long way for September, but she can do it!


Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Hop on Mops and a deep thought

Today Candice and Lana went to MOPS with me, Candice is so excited to go and play with the kids. I think Lana is a bit in the middle really. They talked about Easter/Jesus and made a little picture of Jesus and the tomb. After Candice and I went to her Library class. They made a little chick inside of an egg. I had Candice write her name on the back and she gave me some trouble. After that, we went to see the horses. She loves to see the horses! Finally today was concluded with reading If You Give A Mouse A Cookie together and playing Dont Spill The Beans. In addition to this, Candice has been introduced to Books on Tape and I have to say, they have cut down on fights in the car. Candice also had a brief music lesson, if you want to call it that. She got one of Lana's formula cans and banged on it with a plastic and then a metal spoon to see if they made different sounds.
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 What Do They Know? What Do You Think They Know?
This is my deep thought. I would of never considered that Candice is not driving me crazy by not answering me correctly, she is simply answering from her perspective! Here i was thinking otherwise! Now, i will focus on the beauty in this, not the anger.

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Even at its worse....its better than the alternative

Oh boy. We had one of those days that I got by on just a thread of patience. We havent had one of these days in awhile. I hate them and Candice does too. There were several times I had to just tell her to find something else to do and then we'd try again. It took several times and finally she got it all done.
First we worked on Zoodles.
We did a few cute new games. I upped her games by her age. They are for 5-6 year olds now instead of 4-5 year olds. A Bit harder. She did a Time Telling game. She had to match the Analog to Digital. Candice did really well. She watched a few videos. Then we did an Elmo counting game where he had 6 flowers and she needed to match the number 6 to the 6 flowers. Shes always sort of had trouble with this.
After Zoodles, we got out the wipe off board and did A-H and their sounds. She didnt know A, D, and G. Then we did more with the clock, which she needs to work on. Finally we finished with COME again.

Monday, April 11, 2011

See the sights.

Today we worked on sight words, this to me is a new concept because i am not really sure what to do. I found SpellingCity and I decided to do the word 'COME'. I wrote it on the wipe off board and did the magnetic letters, Candice did really well. Im not sure how we'll do it, but we'll give it a try. Then we worked on Skip Counting by 2. She was lost. I cant blame her. I drew a pattern of Triangles and Squares and wrote numbers 1-8 on them. I told her as if she was playing a board game, if youre on number 1 and you need to go 2 spaces, what are you on? She was lost. I think Ill try to find something else to teach her.


Saturday, April 9, 2011

The work and surprises begin.

Friday, we worked out of the Math Workbook, she did really well except when it came to "Which has Less?" Saturday, the kids went to the library and did an Easter craft. Oh the vast differences in each! Lana's does not look like a bunny, Candices looks very well put together and Nathans, well the librarian ended up doing his. Candice and I worked on reading, we got 2 simple "beginner readers" and we sounded out the words and began to explain that letters make up words. She did better when some of the words were replaced with pictures. Then we got out the wipe off board and I wrote some simple words and I wrote the phonetic and actual spelling and then had her write the actual spelling. She began to understand how to sound out words. (I did find out Nathan can sound out the syllables in words but is not quite able to put them all together yet). She worked on Zoodles and we played Dont Wake Daddy. And the surprise? She counted to 20 OUTLOUD! Ok, Lance helped her a tiny bit when shed get stuck on a number, but she knew about 98% of them!

Friday, April 8, 2011

Placement Tests begin.....and the results are in.

We started some simple placement tests for Candice today to see if we should do Kindergarten or 1st grade. We know we can still work with her and catch her up, but we need to see where she is now.
The results as of today:
MATH-
Horizons Math: Part A PASS Part B FAIL - K part 2 rec
K12 Math: Part 1 PASS Part B FAIL - K part 2 rec
Saxon Math: Part A PASS - K rec

L.ARTS-
K12 L.Arts: Part A PASS Part B FAIL - 1st grade

So we need to work on skip counting, money, numbers 11-20+, etc and L.Arts she just needs to begin understanding simple words, syllables, etc. If we can get her on 1st grade Math and Kindergarten L.Arts, id be OK with that.


Thursday, April 7, 2011

And our curriculum we chose is.....................

After going to my moms house and asking her and after looking at the catalog 10billion times, this popped out at me: The layout and how everything is connected. We are going with......

HORIZONS!! from Alpha Omega :)
OR
do we choose Kindergarten where her age is or do we challenge here and do 1st grade? Plus we need to figure out how well pay for it all. I thought of having a donation button on here and all money goes towards her curriculum, but i dont feel right about that and I know well find the money somehow. 


Wednesday, April 6, 2011

A Horse Of Course!

We started going back to library class today. The librarian read a story about Dora and a kite and then the kids colored, glued, and put together their kites. Candice did really well with coloring in the lines and gluing. I cut them out for her. Then we checked out two books on Horses since yesterday we went to the local Horse farm.
Indian Creek Horses is where we went. They are around the corner and we have always stopped and just looked at the big male horse they usually have outside. When we stopped, the owner asked if we wanted to see the new baby horse! Of course Candice got excited! She was a little scared to pet the baby, but she pet the mom. The owner said they had a horse in labor and due today, so Candice has been asking if the horse is born yet and if we can go see it. I told her maybe next week.


Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Zoodles Toodles.

Today we just worked on Zoodles. Candice really likes the paint option. She is so funny in that she will ask the most random questions: What is a groove? How does a lightbulb work? Today I got; Why don't some boys and girls have babies? We did really well with the TV fast. So far no one has had a melt down.

I also joined back up on TheHomeschooLounge.com. I have to say it is very good for support. The ladies on there are wonderful. They also have a great chat feature for when you have those quick questions during lessons, which I have to say i have done many times. Tonight they had a chat and tonight I won a devotional! Which will be really helpful.

I also as you can tell made some changes to the blog. Changed the name, added a button (steal it!), added some links I like, changed our banner and Im hoping more people will "follow" and comment!! I am using this blog as accountability but if you have a thought, opinion, or twinge, please comment. :) Edited To Add: I use to post pictures along with what we did that day, but we lost the card reader and the SD card. Hopefully soon i can get a cord or card and re-post pictures!


Monday, April 4, 2011

TV Fast means getting creative! Curriculum Choices too!

We are doing a TV Fast this week. Aside from DVDs from the library. We started out this morning with Candice and Lana doing their Sensory Box. They played with it until Lana and Candice tried to sneak and eat the marshmellows. I let Candice do some of her letters with Starfall and then she got on Zoodles for a good long time. Now she is watching Veggie Tales Twas The Night Before Easter. I think we will finish out the day after dinner with a family board game, likely Dont Wake Daddy. Day 1 has been good...4 more to go. Through God, we can cut down TV.

I think I jumped into K12. I dont think it will work for Candice. I think it will work for ME, not her. That is not the point of Homeschooling. Last night I went through all the brochures we got from the convention and every one i picked was christian based so I think its a safe bet to say thats the one sure thing we are going with. I have a few top contenders but Ill need to look into them and pray about them because its a year long commitment.

Keep an eye out for my next Convention review!
CHEK Convention June 24/25 in Louisville, KY

Shes sort of enrolled/Fasting

We signed Candice up for K12. At least for now. I dont like that its "public school" and is strict, yay for living in Ohio. I think though it will be good to at least get us started. I dont feel 100% on the choice, but for now I will be ok. I need to start working on saving money for Bible Curriculum and maybe see if we can save for something else too- Sonlight or something. I did looked into Switched On Schoolhouse and I REALLY like it, but its for grades 3+. I would just keep doing our own thing until then, but i feel like I am cheating Candice by not doing anything.
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After hearing The Duggars, this week we are doing a TV Fast. Myself included. No TV for 1 week. No exceptions. We will fill our days with schooling, games, fun, and I hope by the end of the week, we can see TV is an extra, not a NEED.


Saturday, April 2, 2011

Midwest Homeschool Convention Review

I attended the Midwest Homeschool Convention tonight. At first I was expecting booths upon booths of vendors giving brochures and little talks and then of course the Duggars at the end. Before we left I wrote out a list of vendors I wanted to visit.....

  • A Beka - didnt look beneficial
  • Accelerated Christian Ed - did NOT visit
  • All About Spelling/All About Reading - Nice Supplements
  • Alpha Omega - did NOT visit
  • Heart Of Dakota - did NOT visit
  • Homeschool Channel - Neat and good for a resource/updates
  • Homeschool Legal Advantage- VERY GOOD!
  • Homeschool Spirit Wear - good but pricey
  • Math U See - Specifically math based. 
  • My Fathers World- christian based
  • National Bible Bee- for 7 and up, did not apply to us
  • Old Schoolhouse Magazine- VERY GOOD!!!
  • Saxon - Not a lot of info available
  • Charlotte Mason- Seems very structured. 
  • Sonlight- Christian Based but seemed very flexible and easy
  • Usborne- did NOT visit
  • Switched on Schoolhouse- did NOT visit
  • K-12- VERY GOOD and very flexible
  • Ohio Virtual Acad - VERY GOOD
  • Rod & Staff- overly christian
  • Applied Inspirations- very techy
  • Bible Curriculum- Christian based but flexible and Sunday School like
  • Lamp & Quill - Not much info given
  • In The Hands Of a Child- Lapbook and VERY GOOD
We got there and at 2:30 Michelle Duggar was speaking but the room was too full and we were disappointed. we decided to listen to Family Man speaker- Todd Wilson on "help I married to a homeschooling wife" and he was FUNNY! Im very glad we heard him! Then we then went on to see the above vendors. We did not get to all the vendors, the last 3 rows actually because we ran out of time. Next year we will give ourselves an extra hour to walk around. Food Prices were expensive. Next time I will bring a drink at least.  At about 4:30 we stood in the VERY long line to see The Duggars that started at 6. Finally we were able to be seated. They introduced everyone and they started off singing and playing their violins. Everyone was there but Josie. I missed the Meet & Greet as it was this morning. They then talked about how they met, their basic values and beliefs and how their show got started. They made me re-evaluate things in my life, as a wife and homeschooler. No TV/Internet and Slow to Anger and when you commit, commit to God. They will be back in Cincinnati for a book signing in june. I plan to attend, I can also say I WILL attend next years Homeschool Convention! Well worth the money, especially for a new homeschool family.

as for which curriculum we are leaning towards- K12/Sonlight/In The Hands Of A Child/Bible Curric most likely.

We also missed Tim Hawkins, who is SO funny! timhawkins.net
Every Homeschoolers Theme song

Friday, April 1, 2011

Easter Sensory Box & Foam Beads

This is our first box and i think it was a BIG hit! They used Playdoh to make ducks and bunnies. They loved the cotton balls and sparkle eggs. I will add little things through out the month and then we already have a schedule of sorts for the rest of the year.

April- Easter/Rain
May- Flowers
June- Summer/Sun
July- 4th of July
August- Kids Pick!
September-Fall
October- Halloween
November- Thanksgiving
December- Hanukkah/Christmas
January- Winter/Snow
February- Valentines Day
March- St Patricks Day

We also attempted to make foam bead bracelets. I got them clearance at Walmart. The bracelet part worked, but the foam beads didnt. They kept breaking. I am thinking I might make some basic beads out of the extra Sculpey I have and then let Candice and Lana make bracelets. 


Keep an eye out for my review of the Midwest Home School Convention!