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This is where I will keep an online journal of "a day (or week, or month) in my life".

Just a disclaimer before I ramble!  I am very sarcastic some days and then surprisingly upbeat on others.  If any of this offends you please accept my deepest apology.  And when I get sarcastic about my children just know that I love them so much that it amazes even me!  So with that, let the rambling begin.  Also, this is my "blog" so my punctuation and other things may not be totally proper, please be patient with me.

January 10, 2005 Homeschool Blog Entry

Just came off of a little vacation with the children.  They are so incredible and notice so many little details that the rest of us take for granted.  

Going to set some new goals this year.  I'm anxious to get my children reading even more and math has not been my biggest talent so I am hoping to do more.  I would also like to incorporate more hands on learning activities regarding science.  My children learn so much by doing, not just reading or watching.  I suppose this is true of a lot of children.

If you have set new goals for homeschooling this new year please let me know!  I would love to start a page of good ideas!  Contact me!

January 5, 2005 Homeschool Journal Entry

Well, the holidays really came and went.  It all seems a big blur but if I remember correctly it was a blast and I hope that my children feel the same way!  It has been hard getting back into the school stuff.  The kids have read non-stop so I guess that has been a bonus.  They are big on the Magic Tree House books   and the The Series of Unfortunate Events .  We have a rule that they can't see movies until they have seen the book.  This does not mean they can see any movie, we approve it first.  But, overall it has done wonders.  The greatest part is that the children know that the book is always better than the movie.

This year I want to focus a bit more on music, dance and other art.  The main subjects for school get so much attention and yet the extra curricular things take a back seat.  I would like to have them get an equal chance.  Would love to hear from any of you as to what you are planning on for the New Year!

Happy New Year!  Hope your holidays were wonderful!

November 4, 2004 Homeschool Blog Post

Hope everyone had a great Halloween!  Ours was great.  All three of my kids got colds but nothing was going to keep them down so we went and did the trick or treat thing.  My husband and I even got into the magic of it all and dressed up!  So fun to watch them enjoy all the costumes and everything else.  We all get to enjoy  the sweets so that is a great thing.

School has been going great.  The kids are interested in everything that has to do with animals and my oldest remembers all of the facts that he hears or reads.  Their little minds are amazing.  I am hoping to put together some really great things to help them have a good understanding of Thanksgiving.  I also want to try to incorporate other holidays from around the world so that they understand other cultures and religions better.  If anyone has ideas on this I would love to hear from you.

I have been amazed with the number of e-mails I have been getting from parents wanting to start homeschooling.  More and more parents are becoming dissatisfied with the education that their children are getting.  What is alarming to me is that they claim to go to their schools for help and nothing is being done.  Of course I know there are two sides to every story but too many people are having problems to just ignore this.  My greatest wish would be that we could come together as parents with the schools to just make things good for children.  Too often it becomes a power struggle.

Well, off to finish our week.  My children love school but they are always grateful for a weekend.  After all, that is when they can play video games!

Have a good one!

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October 27, 2004 Homeschool Journal Online

Time seemed to get away from me the last few weeks.  So for those of you that visit this page often, I apologize.

Reading is the main focus of everything we have been doing lately.  Where last year seemed to focus on learning to read we are no "reading to learn".  Very fun and very different.  I find it a challenge to find books on subjects that are on the reading level with the children.  

It amazes me how different two children can be in their learning styles.  I enjoy watching them learn and noticing the differences.  This is (in my opinion) one of the main reasons I homeschool.  I have unlimited time and resources to notice and research learning styles and tailor curriculum for the children where a teacher with 20 or 30 students doesn't.  Teachers (in public schools) are wonderful for the most part but I think that they have too many children to attend to.

I recently received a letter from one visitor who was put out about my immunization information.  I would just like to clarify here that this is my personal web page and I do believe in immunizing children.  I have to stay true to what I believe and I do think that if we were to have Child Protective Services ever show up at our doors that all homeschool families would benefit from having all of their "ducks in a row".  There are some things that I think are important for us to conform to.  I do not have a problem with families that choose a different way and I don't mind reflecting that here.  I just want to be on the safe side.  If I offended others I apologize.  

Well, school is over for the day and I feel like we have done well.  Isn't that what we are all after at the end of the day?  Now my kids can go play with their many friends in our cozy cul-de-sac.  

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October 7,2004 Homeschool Blog

This has been such a busy two weeks!  The kids are doing so great!  I just purchased Times Tales to help them with multiplication.  I will post again and let everyone know how it goes.  My boys are only 6 and 7 so they may learn their multiplication facts and not even realize what they are called.  

The greatest thing that has happened in the last two weeks is that I had a little "revelation" concerning reading!  My six year old loves to read but it has always been a struggle for my seven year old.  It is a serious lack of confidence.  So after thinking this over for a long time and being clueless the thought came to me to have him read scriptures aloud.  We have always read daily but my husband or I always do the reading.  Anyway, what a difference.  It is quite the little miracle.  I think he was so used to the language of scriptures that it built confidence.  Now, both boys have to read five stories (that I choose, not repeated material) daily.  This adds up to about 30 minutes of independent reading each day and it has worked wonders!  I don't know what clicked in their minds but it is so good!

Now that reading is going smoothly the rest of school is bliss.  My 18 month old is still having her little jealousy issues but she is my clone so I understand her.  Hopefully that will just work itself out.

In recent years I have learned a lot about genealogy and have really been wanting to get back into the research of it all.  I decided that for about one hour per week I can have the kids help me.  I have a huge family group sheet for a wall and I am going to input all of our info so that the kids can literally see the family tree growing as we find more information.  My thought is that hopefully they will learn about their heritage as well as cultures and world history.  This way, history becomes personal.  They may see how choices made years ago are still affecting our family today.

Nothing else is new.  We just keep plugging away!  Thanks for everyone's comments!  The visitors here are so kind!  I have enjoyed getting to know so many of you.

Have a great weekend!

September 22, 2004 Journal Entry

Normally I wouldn't write again so soon but I wanted to share a few great ideas I have come across in the last two days.

The first idea was a unit study on clouds that I found.  I loved this idea.  It was broken into four parts and we just did the first one.  We talked about the four major cloud types and looked up pictures on the internet of each kind so the children really could tell the difference.  They then went outside and looked at our current clouds (it was a perfect day for this).  They discussed the properties of each cloud thoroughly.  We then got out blue paper, cotton balls, gray paint and glue.  The kids made some of the clouds themselves.  Being the mom that I am, my favorite part of this was that science and art were combined!  I love anything that is efficient!  The kids really enjoyed this and it reinforced what they had learned through the artwork.

Second, today they were out for "recess" and a giant bird came swooping down.  They immediately came running in to tell me what a "once in a lifetime" thing this was.  Too funny!  They couldn't name the bird but they described it in detail.  I had them draw the bird and was very impressed with the detail.  We then were able to find a picture on the web and figured out that it was a red-tail hawk.    We called this science and art and everyone was thrilled!

I have concluded this morning that PBS is a great channel for children and very detrimental for parents.  I have a second grader telling me about different types of conductivity and stuff that my brain just doesn't care about.  Thank heavens for fathers (especially in this house).  My husband is the "brain clutter" king.  Tonight they are going to do some experiments together while I soak in a tub!  Just how it was always intended!

Hope you all have a great day!

September 20, 2004 Homeschool Journal Online

This is going to be a great week!  I got some free lesson plans online and am teaching the boys about the different kinds of clouds.  They are going to love that.  They love anything related to science.  

Found a great show on PBS that I have been letting the kids watch called the "Music Factory".  I think you could find out when to watch it on www.pbs.org.  My children learned so much in just one episode that it was amazing.  I already teach them piano but this was a great thing.  After they learned about tone and pitch we made a water xylophone outside and they made a major scale by testing the sounds and adjusting the water.  It was a great learning experience and fun for all of us.  The kids got extra creative and made drums to add to the music!  The great thing was that we could leave it up for as long as they wanted.  This is one of the bonuses of homeschooling!

My toddler is doing better with her jealousy of school time because I have found some creative ways to include her.  I never knew an 18 month old child would love to color so much!  She is addicted and this is a blessing.  She is totally content if there is a writing utensil in her hand.  She is her mothers daughter!

The scary thing about our toddler is that we tell her to do something (like sit down in a chair instead of standing) and then we count to three to give her a chance to obey and if she doesn't then she is removed.  This was great until she started counting with us and thought it was just fun to count.  Now she will purposely stand in a chair so we will count with her!  YIKES!  Children are too smart!

Tonight for family night we are going to have some fun together by watching Home on the Range.  That will be relaxing!  A nice reward after a busy day.

Have a great week!