Getting Ready For Homeschool

I have had a couple of sick kids this week, so I have used this down time to begin preparing for homeschool. We have talked a lot about how we are going to set things up and what we want for curriculum and such. This week we have finally gotten serious about getting things together. One of our problems was how to set up our learning space. Ruth, Kate, and Johnny are enrolled in an online charter school. We had to have a space where several family members could use the internet at the same time. We talked about buying a number of cheap laptops and sitting them at the dining room table-- a good solution, but a costly one. We looked at larger computer desks. We have two old computers that more than fit the minimum requirements for the school. The problem with computer desks is no matter how large they are, they only allow room for one chair. The extra space is filled with drawers and things. We then talked about buying one of those large, long, plastic Costco tables. The problem is they are very ugly and I do need to feel happy in my home. Then I went to Shopko (a local department store) for school supplies. Without little hope of finding anything, I thought I'd look at their dining room tables for our computer space. They had a very large table the very same color of wood as our banisters, bookshelves, and kitchen cabinets (our dining room table doesn't even match that.) The table was on sale for $150. I told John about it, but we never got back to look at it, and we had the big car bill. On Tuesday when I had to go buy crackers and soda for the stomach flu, I thought I would look and see if the table was still on sale. It was. Not as good. It was $20 more. I made a snap decision (I never do this with anything above $10) and bought the table. To my great joy, John was pleased at worst, and excited at best. He got the table set up right away. John has always wanted a line of computers. He collects old computers for me to throw away ;-). Since I had not thrown out the last two yet, and they are better than his normal finds this has worked out very well.

I have also been addressing the subject of curriculum for my kindergartener and first grader. I have always home schooled pre-school. I have also been the main person to teach my children how to read. But I know that I need to broaden what I do. Here is a sample of what I have always done.

My homemade flashcards. These are letter combinations that usually make a certain sound when found together in a word. I have a lot of these

These are some of Adam's high frequency words. I found a nice list of first grade high frequency words here. I will be doing one list a week.

These are a sample of some of my pre-preschool flash cards. Right now Joseph is using these.

 

 

 

 

 I have also used this website for math papers since about 2006 for my kids. They have worksheets up through algebra and a small amount of geometry. I like the five minute drills for teaching my kids to do their math facts quickly.

So now I need to add upon what I do. I bought a workbook (it hasn't arrived in the mail yet). I found it on Amazon.

Looking at the reviews of this particular workbook, I think I will need to have the kindergarten, 2 first grade and the second grade workbooks for kindergarten and first grade. I only bought the first grade book because I wanted to look it through and I did not want to be stuck with a whole curriculum that I do not like. (This is also due to my inability to spend money on anything besides food.) I will still use my homemade flash cards, and the math worksheet site. I will have Adam and Rachel each spend a half hour reading from the Book of Mormon Stories to me, and another half hour reading to me from the easy reader books we already have and what we can get from the library.

At this point I have no idea what we will do for science or history. I want to cover the classical composers and some of the Impressionists artist. Does anyone know of a curriculum for classical composers or is this something you just make up on your own? Also I quite welcome other suggestions for reading, math, science, and history curriculums.

I have a tentative schedule written out. I am not sure how this will work. (I post that in hopes of better suggestions later.) The online school begins Aug 29th, the public schools begin Aug 22, so I think we will take the week the kids friends start school as a before homeschool vacation week where we will not do any school stuff at all, and then we will begin full swing. Until Aug 22, we will continue our summer schedule of 2 days a week field trips, and 3 days a week with 2 hours spent on education-- that is math and typing for the older kids and reading and math for the younger kids.

I am feeling both excited and apprehensive. This will be a big change for our family.

Media Free Week

Media Free week was not what I was hoping it would be. I was hoping we would suddenly have a lot of time together and all. But it happened to fall on a very busy week with a lot of errands and car repairs and such. So on Monday we did our normal stuff in the morning, and then Ruth and Kate babysat for me in the afternoon while I took Johnny on a date and Costco shopped. Then Ruth and Kate all the kids went out to play with friends. It was kind of funny to see Johnny bring a friend home and embarassingly say, "we can't play wii."

On Tuesday, we did our normal morning nonmedia stuff. After lunch I made all 8 kids come with me on errands that took us past 6pm (ughhh!!) By the time we got home, it was time to get dinner and do chores and then bedtime-- not terribly exciting.

Wednesday, I paid bills and such in the morning. Then we had lunch at home. Ruth and Kate took Joshua with them to a friends house while I took the rest of the kids to join the rec center and we went swimming for a couple of hours. We all got home just in time for Kate's achievement days at 6, and Ruth's Young Women's activity at 7. After dinner was cleaned up and chores were done. John played blocks with the littlest kids while I took Kate, Johnny, and Adam swimming. Again, not a very special day.

On Thursday, things were a little tougher for the kids. We were less busy. We followed our morning routine. The van was in the shop to get the brakes fixed for registration, so there was no going anywhere anyway. By 2 o'clock I decided Joseph and Joshua should take a nap at least once during the week so we had naptime. This is usually when we play a movie and I read to the older girls. Well, I read to the older girls and whoever did not settle down into either their own book or drawing or listening to the book I was reading had to lay down in their bed. All the girls either drew pictures or listened to the book. The boys had trouble and were sent to bed for a nap.

On Friday, we did lots of chores and then played together in the morning. Usually we go out this day, but the car was still being repaired. However, just as I finished reading to the little kids, I got the call about the car. John started a new job last week and couldn't make it to get the car before closing. So Ruth and Kate babysat Anya, Johnny, Adam, and Joseph while I walked myself, Rachel, and Joshua the 5 miles in the 90 degree afternoon heat to get the van and pay a whopping $872 for new brakes and such. (That is all of our food money for the month). I got home at 4:45. John was home about 45 minutes later, and we were planning on going to the temple. I knew babysitting without TV was really hard on our girls, it had been a tough week, so I let them watch Phineas and Ferb while we went to the Temple and out on a date.

Saturday was very busy again. Near the end of the day we took the family swimming and had an 8:30pm dinner and a rush to bed. Sunday we had a baby blessing for a cousin and a family dinner. The kids thought I would give them unlimited media today. Hahahaha. We already decided it was time to get back to having media days only on Fridays and Saturdays unless they are invited to do something with a parent.

We did have the pleasure of a rare Utah summer thunderstorm to dance in.

After our media free week, I have to say we are just too busy. I would like to find a way to have more unscheduled time for the kids to think and create in. That is just hard to do with a family this size. And it is weird to say, "I am going to schedule in unscheduled time." As we approach the school year and our first year of home school, I would like to make sure some of that time is for crafting and free play with me. How we are going to make it all fit is beyond me. Sorry I didn't come up with great ideas to do besides media. However, Kate did say, "Without TV, reading is a lot more entertaining." :).

Can We Do It: Media Free Week

This summer my kids discovered Phineas and Ferb. They are obsessed! Without permission, some kid goes and puts on Phineas and Ferb and suddenly Joshua is my only child. All we can hear is Phineas and Ferb. I can do whatever I want, the house stays clean, and voila, I am addicted too. This is not good of course, so I have declared that starting tomorrow we are having a media free week. This will include, no TV, no Wii, no computer games, and no social networking including blogs. All we are allowing is email, and really just for Dad. Can we do it? Will we survive? (I think we will join the rec center this week).  So farewell facebook, farewell blog world, farewell video games, and farewell, Phineas, Ferb, Candace, Perry, and Dr. D....until next week.

Anxiety

About a year ago I read a blog about sleeping in a robe or with a robe nearby in case of a middle of the night fire, and then having to evacuate into the street. Before then, it never occurred to me that our house might actually catch on fire in the middle of the night. So of course, I slept in whatever I felt like when I went to bed-- no worries. Sometimes, I wore pajamas, sometimes, I dropped them by the side of the bed. Recently with the warm weather, I have not wanted pajamas on, and for the first time in my life I have been worrying. I worry that if the house starts on fire in the middle of the night would I have to make the choice between putting on my pajamas or getting my babies out. If I put I my pajamas, well sure, I am decent in the street with my neighbors watching my house and possessions burn. But what if those few minutes makes it so I don't get to all of my children in time. What if I lose a child because I put my pajamas on. On the other hand, what if I don't put my pajamas on and we all make it safely into the street with the neighbors and ALL of my clothes burn and I am left standing with the neighbors and... well, you get the point.

Joshua at 6 months

I am a bit behind on this post. Joshua hit that 6 month mark on July 17th. He was 13lbs 12ozs and 26inches long. That puts him in the 33rd percentile for heighth and below the 3rd percentile for weight. In fact, he has only gained about 3 ounces in the last two months. He seems to be following along the same growth curve as Anya did. So as long as he isn't one of my picky eaters, I am sure he will be fine. Still the doctor wants me to push the solid foods. I will, but my experience with all of my other children tells me it won't make any difference.

Joshua is now sitting on his own, but he prefers to roll around on the floor. So when I sit him down he will only stay that way for a little while before he flops down on his belly. Joshua doesn't seem very close to scooting or crawling, but sometimes my kids have surprised me. He is grabbing at toys and experiencing siblings who do not want to share their toys or his toys. He is still generally pleasant towards his siblings except when they take his pacifier. He is NOT okay with this anymore.

Joshua is no longer our "chill baby". He has learned that if he screams loud and long enough there will always be someone available to hold him. So we had to say farewell to our chill baby and take turns holding him when he doesn't want to play on the floor. Fortunately he does have enough able siblings who will take the hold Joshua chore over trading jobs with mom. The next step for Josh will be moving here and there and getting into everything. I think he will be Joseph's apprentice fairly soon.

Privacy

Recently while changing Joseph's messy diapers he has been telling the other kids to go away because "it is a poopy diaper."

Our Temple Square Trip

Our trip to Temple Square on Joseph's birthday is a story all by itself. We waited for John to get home from work so we could all go together. We got there and as we were walking up to Temple Square from the parking lot Ruth accidently slapped Johnny on the face . They were fooling around, and somehow Ruth's hand and Johnny's face met. Ruth got a quick scolding, and that put Ruth in a rather obnoxious teenage pouting mood.

I had to get a picture of "the mood".

First thing, I wanted to take the littlest kids to see the Christus and to feel the spirit up there. I also thought it would be a great place to take a picture of all 8 of my kids together.

 

It was hard to get them to look at the camera. But I am glad that they enjoyed looking at the Christus. This didn't melt away Ruth's mood, though.

So, of course, I had to get another picture of "the mood".

We then went and looked at the neat displays in the lower level of the large visitors center. Then we went out to see the flowers, the fountains, and the Temple. I thought I would try again to get a picture of all 8 of my children with the pretty flowers in Temple Square.

But, it was hot on the cement ledge. Joseph was holding his legs up saying, "Hot, hot, hot, hot...", Kate and Johnny kept standing up and Anya and Rachel were squirming. Most of the kids said those flowers were not the pretty ones. But these flowers and the hot seat melted Ruth. We gave up on the pretty pictures by the flowers and went to the reflection pool.

I sat the kids that are capable of sitting up to look at the water and for some more pictures. That may have been a good idea, if Joseph did not get an idea of his own. He sat right in the water.

With Joseph all wet, we thought we'd take a break and go and watch the movie in the Joseph Smith Memorial building. That went really well at first. We got there just as the movie was about to begin, and we didn't even plan that. The kids were being good and quiet and even Joshua and Joseph were watching the movie. Until about 3/4's through the movie. Joseph, Rachel , and Anya got bored and started trying out some empty seats. I let them wander a little because they were being quiet. That is until we heard Joseph really start to scream. Ruth and I rushed toward him and he was upside down in the the seat , the seat popped up and his head got stuck in the crack. At first we yanked his head a couple of times. The movie played on and Joseph screamed louder. Then we tried  pushing him through the bottom. That worked. I promptly took Joseph out of the theater, and we waited here for the movie to finish.

We headed outside. On the north side of the Joseph Smith memorial building, there are these meandering river-ish fountains. The kids started to walk along the ledge. I wanted to go up to the Temple steps for one more try at a picture of all 8 kids. So we meandered along

 

Until....Rachel fell in Backwards.

 We laughed. a lot. She cried a lot.  We decided not to go up the Temple steps for a wonderful "Families are Forever" picture of all 8 of my kids. So went went back to the reflection pool. 

Joseph got in again. Sometimes, we just can't learn. 

With so many of us wet, we decided to head home. That we did, but we did stop for one more photo. This time it was only the willing victims.

I know this sounds crazy. But we had a lot of fun and a lot of laughs. Thanks for the attitude Ruth, getting your head stuck Joseph, and falling into the fountain Rachel. I had a lot of good laughs. I love my big family-- teenagers, toddlers, and everyone in between!