(FINALLY!) We are Ready to Begin!

Hello! I'm so excited that Monday will be our first day of homeschooling! FINALLY! It seems like I've been waiting for this day forever! (or at least a few months) :0) The classroom is (mostly) set up and all of my curriculum materials have been collected.  We are ready.  I was a little concerned about Wiggly's attitude toward the homeschool idea now that the public school year is over and he knows he's not going back (at least of a few years).  But last week he asked me, "When are we going to start homeschooling? I want to start." YAY! At least he doesn't hold too many bad feelings about the new change.  I've been keeping him up on the different materials and curriculum I've been gathering for him so he's at least informed about what he's going to be learning.  I also make sure to keep the kids out of the classroom and the materials "sacred" to only classroom use.  I think that's made them both more curious about all the building blocks and manipulatives I've been collecting because NO ONE is allowed to just "play" with them. 

I know I haven't blogged in awhile, so I'll update you on what's been going on this last month.  My blogging absence has been due to some major room shuffling once we found our that baby #4 is going to be a GIRL! Yes, that makes one boy and three girls to complete our family... having two daughters makes me uneasy some days, so the idea of having THREE girls has been a bit of a shock for the whole family! I can hear them now; "so-and-so stole my favorite shirt and RUINED it!", or "so-and-so has been in the bathroom for an HOUR!"... and all of this is screamed through my entire house at a high pitched, panicked level... Wiggly will thank me someday for moving him into the upstairs space above our garage, trust me. 

So recently, the rooms in our house are currently being shifted from one purpose to another.  The classroom is being shifted into Wiggly's new room, and the playroom has now become the classroom.  Since our playroom space has been dissolved, the toys will be going back into the rooms of our children (dread).  Hopefully our unfinished basement space will be on its way to serving as the new playroom soon, but in the meantime... toys in the kids' rooms.  Blech.  Am I the only one who hates having the kids' toys in their rooms??? I definitely have been spoiled to have the playroom upstairs and off the main living area of our home.  It could be messy and I didn't have to see the mess unless I was brave enough to actually go up there.  Now, all the toys will slowly trickle out of the bedrooms into the main part of the house constantly.  Like I said, blech. 

Anyways, since we no longer have a playroom and the kids will have to store their toys in their bedrooms, Miss A will be getting Wiggly's old room and have a room to herself with all of the girl toys (since she's the oldest girl after all).   She and Peanut Pie have always shared a room, so it'll be interesting to see how Miss A adjusts to being by herself once her room is finished.  The two littlest girls will share Peanut's room; Peanut's not going to minds since she's already used to sharing a room.  I think it'll all work out. 

So, the part I feel guilty about is moving Wiggly from the only bedroom he remembers.  My mother painted clouds and an awesome fighter plane on his walls when we first moved in.  It is HIS room.  And his sisters are forcing him into a faraway wing of the house that isn't nearly as close to the bathroom.  (Ok, it's not THAT far away, but still...)  So I've been spending quite a bit of time on Pinterest finding some pretty cool "bigger" boys rooms to make the move a little easier.   I bought some paint, and today I'm going to paint his dressers.  I'm pretty excited about it.  Here's the before picture of the dresser and night stand.  I'm going to paint them a deep navy blue, possibly with a red stripe... but we'll see.  I'll be sure to post a pic of the finished products too!

And here are two pictures of our classroom in its current state.  I'm guessing once we start using the space and find out what works and what doesn't it'll change again.  Thank you to my hubby for ordering and installing our awesome whiteboard this week! I can already imagine complex mathematical problems just like in Good Will Hunting scrawled across it on a daily basis from my prodigy seven year old child... ok, definitely not, but it made me smile. :0) Wish us luck!!!

 

 

I love my Laminator!

Hello! I just wanted to share with you all how much I love my laminator as I continue to prepare to start our homeschooling adventure this summer.  

I am SUPER excited about homeschooling; Wiggly, less so.  We talk about it frequently and he knows that he's going to be going to school at home, but he tells me he's sad about not being able to see his friends everyday.  I feel for him.  I told him that there's a group of other homeschooled kids in our community (a VERY small group) and he'd make some new friends as well as keeping in touch with his old friends.  He's still going to be in cub scouts and sports activities.  I hope he comes around and isn't too upset about taking him away from his social group.  Homeschooling is definitely out of the norm for our small, rural community. 

Ok, I got off topic... on to my laminating adventures! 

 We bought the Scotch Thermal Laminator and it was the last one our store had in stock. It has been very much worth the investment so far, mostly for Miss A's preschool activities.  The paper activities are going to last so much longer than just plain card stock.

Our laminator in action... Laminating the Chicka Chicka letters for the tree and letter E activities from Erica's Letter of the Week Curriculum.

As I was laminating and trimming, Miss A couldn't wait to try out her new "school stuff".  Here's she's working on a lacing card.  

I also decided to get the Chicka palm tree and monthly calendar laminated, but had to use our local printing shop because the pieces were bigger than what my laminator could do... I'm really embarrassed to admit this, but I didn't ask for an estimate... it couldn't be more than $30... I've run things through the laminator when I taught school and I know it's not that hard. They called me last week to tell me it was finished... the total is $103.  My fault for not asking how much it was going to be before I handed the stuff over. Hard lesson learned... (gulp) 

Getting Started: Gathering Materials

    I'm sitting here this morning sipping my tea, cutting out little apples for Miss A's letter of the week lessons, and thought I'd share how thankful I am for the Internet and blogs and the homeschooling community I've found since deciding to go down this very unfamiliar homeschooling path. Before, I felt like I was on my own little island in this, but now I see this island is full of others just like me!

    Yesterday morning, I stumbled across The Ultimate Homeschool Blogroll by Hip Homeschool Moms.  I was pleasantly surprised to find so many homeschool moms and even a list of "first years"!  I have to admit, I spend more than my share of "mommy's morning time" looking at other experienced and first year blogs, and I got to peak at what other homeschool moms are doing in their classrooms.  It really got me motivated to continue planning what our own homeschool year is going to contain.

    I've spent the last three days researching and creating plans for Wiggly's 2nd grade curriculum.  Since my idea is that he will rejoin public school in 5th-6th grade, I'm keeping with our state's content standards so he's learning the same concepts as his peers in public school.  However, it's just like being a first year teacher again; I'm gathering information and materials for his entire school year without using any text books or pre-made lesson plans. I'm starting from scratch.  So far, I've decided to use Everyday Math after talking to a few teachers who are both familiar with this set and the Saxon Math program.  Also, since we're not using a combined spelling/reading text book set, I've been reading up on how to teach spelling and word work.  My sister-in-law taught talented and gifted for a couple years in the elementary grades and recommended Word Journeys: Assessment-guided Phonics, Spelling, and Vocabulary Instruction by Kathy Ganske.  It's not a riveting read by any means, but it does explain the different stages of spelling and how to choose spelling lists based on the student's ability.  It also gives lots of ideas and activities for students to do other than just 'worksheets'.  It's been very helpful for a former middle school teacher; although I had one phonics class in college, my students came to me already knowing how to read.  The mechanics that go behind teaching a child to read is completely unfamiliar territory. 

    Another resource that has been wonderful to have was finding Erica at http://www.confessionsofahomeschooler.com/.  It was her blog that I found when I first started researching this whole homeschooling business.  Prior to discovering her blog, I was really unsure if I could do this at all; how was I going to organize everything and run my school day?  I was overwhelmed at just the thought of homeschooling. After spending a few mornings searching around and reading up on her blog, I realized that this (hopefully) won't be so bad after all. I'm adopting the Workbox System, and I have since seen many other homeschoolers use this or a similar concept in their classrooms as well.
   
I've just recently downloaded Erica's Letter of the Week Program for Miss A.  Since I've been spending most of my energy compiling lessons for Wiggly's curriculum, it's so nice to have a preschool program all ready to go!  She's included everything you can think of that you'll need short of the yarn for the lacing cards and the Velcro dots for the lessons themselves. I'm so excited to get started and I know Miss A is too.  As I was cutting out the apples for the letter "A" lesson, Miss A asked if she could play with them.  I told her not until we have them laminated... So off to Walmart we go: our shopping list includes milk, eggs, and a laminator.  :0)