One for the Record Books

Our first week back-to-school was superb!  I am so encouraged how everything panned, even the character building moments. We completed everything on our Agenda List and even more importantly we have fun!

I can't help but link our success back to the Texas Home School Coalition Convention I attended earlier this month. While at the conference, I had an opportunity to RESET, RETOOL and RELAX. I walked away from the conference feeling at peace with the plans that were set forth and determined to change how we were doing some things so that we could truly enjoy God's blessing of home schooling.  Some of the changes were character and heart issues, while others involved tweaking our daily agenda. I added daily devotions and exercise time to our schedule.  How can you not have a good day when you start your day renewing your heart spiritually and physically?

During the course of the week, we played a lot of board games, painted while listening to our Latin lesson, started designing our own board game, traveled through the bible with history, worked on phonics and spelling. The boys also attended their first writing and art coop class. This week was a huge success and I am glad I decided to ease into our work load.  Over the next few weeks we will add a few more subjects until we have a full course load. Next week, the plan is to add Geography and Math.

Math Adventure: A Bold Change!

BREAKING THE MATH MOLD

Well, I decided we were not going to use a math textbook for say this upcoming school year. Yes I said, NO math textbook. I know some of you are thinking what in the world ... rest assured, I have put a lot of thought and prayer into this decision and I have decided this year and more than likely next year our math world with not be defined or confine by a textbook. Trust me, I looked high and low for a textbook that would fit our needs, but with no avail I decided to step out in faith and come up with my own plan.  When I started the process of building my own math schedule I had knots in my stomach, but now I am jumping at the bits to get started. My plan includes a lot of living math books, hands on projects, online resources, and board games and of course worksheets.  

Throughout the school year I will be sharing in great detail our math adventure with you in hopes that our adventure will encourage you to bring math to life in your household, but for now here is sneak peak into our math adventure. Please keep in mind this a general schedule and we are a MATH FAMILY! That said; don’t have a heart attack when you see what I going to attempt to teach an upcoming 1st and 2nd grader this school year. The living books listed, are books I have in house, we more than likely will not read all of them, but it is always good to know what you have at your disposal.

September 

Subject:  History of Numbers, Addition and Subtraction, Multiplication and Division, Integers

|Living Books: Fun with Roman Numbers, Why Pi. Numbers, Everybody Counts, Mouse Counts, Sir Cumference and All King Tens, Ben Franklin and Magic Square, Shark Swimathon, Counting on Frank, Mission Addition, The Biggest Soap, Double Duck, Multiplying Menace, Divide Menace

Hands On Activity: Make Board Game

October

Fractions, Decimal, Exponents

Living Books: The Number Devil, Math Curse, Big Numbers, Negative Nine, My Full Moon is Square, Full House, Let's Fly a Kite, Apple Fraction, Life of Fred

Hands On Activity: Square Root Painting

November

Charts, Money

Living Books: Twizzlers, Lemonade for Sale, Once upon a Dime, Dave Ramsey: The Super Red Racer, Dave Ramsey: The Birthday Surprise, Dave Ramsey: Careless at Carnival, Dave Ramsey: My Fantastic Field Trip, Alexander, Who Used to be Rich, Monster Money Book

Hands On Activity: Set up store

December and January

Measuring

Living Books: Bean Stock, Sir Cumference and Isle of Immeter, Pepper Journal, Mathopolis: Estimate and Measuring, Heatwave, Millions to Measure, Exploring with Time, Grandpa Gazillion, Just a Second, Game Time, Polly the Pen Pal

Hands On Activity: Estimate Candy, Plant Bean, Make Watch

February

Triangles

Living Books: Greedy Triangle, What's Your Angle Pythagoras, Sir Knight of Angleland

Hands On Activity: Build Bridge

March

Circles 

Living Books: Sir Cumference and Dragon Pi

Hands on Activity: Bake Pie, Make Round Shield, KNEX

April

Other Shapes

Living Books: Mummy Math, Sir Cumference and Sword in the Cone, Caption Invincible and Space Shapes, Jack the Builder

Hands On Activity: KNEX, Build Shapes out of Dots

May

Patterns and Equations                                            

Living Books: Math Potatoes

Hands On Activity: Hands on Equations

Official Swimmers

Official Swimmers: Both boys passed their swim test at the Y. They had to swim the length (25 yards) of the pool. The enjoyed hanging out in the 5 feet. I enjoyed having them swim along side me. — at YMCA.

School Logo

Blue- is the color of inspiration, sincerity, and spiritually and represent boundless power.

Green – is the color of nature and life and symbolizes self respect and harmony.

Gold – is the color of wisdom and symbolizes strength and optimism.

3 Star - represents my family unit

Circle - represent Gods love

Time Flies When You...

ime flies when you are busier than all get up.  It is hard to believe is has been 3 weeks since I implemented the work box system and I am so loving it. We get twice as much done in half the time.  Everyday we do critical thinking, math, reading, writing and a hands on activity.

Reading: Nigel at Phonics workstation

Reading: Sight words

Hands on Activity: Shane making right angle and obtuse angle.

Hands On Activity: Does it Float or Sink?

Hands on Activity: Nigel making triangle.

IPAD Time: Nigel working on picture analogies.

Ipad Time: Grammer Time

Board Game Club: Fun, Fun Fun

all me crazy or whatever you want except for boring.  Home schooling is not about sitting at a desk pushing worksheets. It is about taking every opportunity to mold your child's heart and character in a positive manner.  My boys love playing board games of all sorts.  They are very competitive and at times have a hard losing.  I started a board game club, so they would have an opportunity to play board games with their fellow home school mates and get practice losing gracefully.  During club meetings the winner get awarded along with the all members who exemplified good sportsmanship.

On secondary note, the kids are learning how to play some great games.  Thus far, we played Blokus, Connect Four, Checkers, Ants in the Pants and Rumis.  Each week we play two or three games, have snacks and some outside time.  I tried to pick games easy to learn, but hard to master.

Blokus: In deep thought

Connect Four

King Me

I have "Ants in My Pants"!

Work Box on Steriods

Shane and Nigel's Weekly Work Box System.I finally came up with a weekly work box system that fits my busy life style.  For over a year now, I have been contemplating using a work box system for Shane and Nigel, but the thought of having to refill the boxes "daily" was too daunting.  So I came up with a system that incorporates a work box system and a weekly assignment board.   I have to confess it did take some time to get everything up and running like I envisioned it, but the rewards far exceed the hard work. I will try my best to explain how my work box system works in hopes my journey will inspire you to take the plunge. Weekly Student Assignment Board. You will need one per child.

As you can see from the picture of the student assignment board above, Shane and Nigel's week are full of planned activities.  At any given time, I can see how they are progressing on their daily and weekly assignments.  Another great thing about the student boards it is teaching Shane and Nigel to take responsible for their own work.  Every morning after they finish their morning household chore they go to upstairs to our classroom and start their school work.   The far left hand column tells them where to find their assignment.  For example, if there is picture of a computer they know they need to go the computer to complete the task, a picture of a work box means their assignment is their individual work box and etc. The next five columns, which represent Monday thru Friday, details more of what they are suppose to be working on.  In our case, Friday will almost always be blank because, Friday is our field trip/fun day.   I tried to make their board very user friendly, clear and concise.   My goal was that they would to be able to look at their board and know exactly what movie, computer program, Ipad app or book I wanted them to work on. 

Once they finished, they put assignment tag in their respective bowl.

Their finished work that needs to be graded goes in their respective orange trays. They place their assignment tabs in their respective colorful boxes. I keep all my unused assignment tab in the white crate behind their colored bins.

 Within a few days, Shane and Nigel both had master this process.  To make my life a little easier, I made my weekly planning sheet mirror their boards.  Also it is important to me that  Shane and Nigel get a full range of daily work box assignment.  Looking at their assignment board you will note their assignment tag start with various letters.  The letter help make sure my basis are covered.  The "A" represents Critical Thinking," B" Hand On Activities, "C" represents independent reader, "D" represent file folder games and "E' represents  handwriting. The numbers following the letter really don’t mean anything, but allows me to prep in batches.

My weekly planner. (One sheet per child is needed)

Several weeks of worth of activities at crates ready to go.

Crate full of critical thinking activities already prepped and ready to go in their work boxes.

Here is a copy of my activity log, detailing what I have prepped, what crate and what bag it is in.

In a later blog, I will share more on  the activities that I have prepped and are ready to go.

Time of Reflection!

Every Christmas for as long as I can remember I make cookies during the Christmas season.  The cookie recipe, who get the cookies and and who I bake the cookies with changes year to year, but the joy baking them does not.

For the past few year the boys and I have been making "create your cookies".  Basically we make a big batch of cookie dough and everyone adds in their own flavored chips.  This year one of Shane and Nigel's friends joined in on the fun.

Adding butter

Adding in sugar

Tick Tock, Will the dough ever finish mixing? We want cookies.

Too many choices: Cherry Chips (my favorite), Mint and chocolate, Pecans, Dark Chocolate, White and Dark Chocolate Swirl, Nuts

Hard at work making their unique cookie blend.

Everyone enjoying their cookie creation.

Climbing High

Shane and Nigel try their hands (and feet) at rock climbing.  They both took to the wall like Spider Man.

Nigel climbing like a pro. I am so proud of him.

I wish you could see his face..He was beaming with pride.

Pure FocusAin't no mountain high enough. Shane reaching the top

Scaling the wall.

Missing Candy Cane

Today we went and made mosaic Christmas Ornaments at our homeschool coop.  The boys nibbled on cookies, drank hot chocolate and savored candy canes while they made their ornaments. Well Shane did anyway, because Nigel LOST his candy cane.  We looked all over the table, on the floor, everywhere we could think of looking for the elusive candy cane.  After about five minutes of looking, I decided to give him mine in order to keep the peace.

FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER..when it was time to leave and we were putting on our jackets..Guess what we found.... the missing candy cane. I laughed so hard.

Nigel at this point does not know the Candy Cane is stuck on his shirt.

Just found it!!

Giving Back to Others

Shane and Nigel with Angel from Mansfield Methodist .

For the past three years Shane and Nigel have been taking toys to our local United Methodist Hospital.   The hospital distributes the toys to children who find themselves at Mansfield Methodist either by illness, abuse situations or accident related incidents.  

The Giving Back to Others project originated in 2009, when I was trying to figure out a way to teach my children about giving and being grateful for all they have.  The original thought may have been mine, but the boys took the ideal and ran with it.  I gave them a few options and they where gone ho on helping other children.  What is so exciting about this project is that the boys get to reflect on helping others all year long, not just Christmas time when most focus on being giving.   Shane and Nigel work on collecting toys all year long, by saving their money, selling their used toys and even reserving some of their fast food toys for the project.   Over the past three years they have donated over a 100 toys to Mansfield Methodist.

Me and boys with Mansfield Methodist representatives.

Things that melt your heart

Nigel (age 4) searching for God's plan for his life.

For the past few weeks, Shane and Nigel have been working on memorizing a positive affirmation entitled "I am Somebody".  Shane has memorized it in entirely and Nigel has 80% of it down.  Part of affirmation states "God has a plan for my life", well today Nigel sat down and started reading the Bible all on his own.  He sat there for quite some time "reading" the Bible, so I asked him what he was doing.  He stated" I am trying to find what God's plan for my life is".  Aww melt my heart. So we looked at Jeremiah 29:11 and his eyes were filled with joy.  

I AM SOMEBODY 

I am smart, important, creative and loved.  I have the power to control my actions, speech and thoughts.  God has a plan for my life and I am perfect according to his plan.  I am a leader and my actions affect others in a positive manner.  I am confident and happy.   I feel good about myself, family and friends.  I am somebody.    (copyright pending)

A child with a Gifted Mind

Caculating the number of vertexes, edges and face of solid shapes.

It has been a great struggle for me to figure out whether or not to accelerate Shane's grade level or add just grade level enrichment activities.   At times I feel like I am on a boat by myself because there are so few resources or educational road maps for gifted kids.  I have spent hours upon hours researching curriculum, posting questions on various blogs and on my home schooling coop forums and to my dismay, little or no feed back is provided.  I teeter tooter between two thoughts, one being he is just "six" so he just needs to play and enjoy life and the other being God has ordain him to be gifted for a reason so his talents should not be waste. 

From outsiders or persons unknowledgeable about gifted children, it appears you are pushing your child too fast or too hard.  Trust me, I have those comments enough, and I just grin and smile at  how naive they are, because the true fact is, a gifted child pushes their parents or educator too hard and too fast.  I have been woken up in the middle of night with thought provoking questions from a five years old, now six,  all too often to know this fact to be true.  There is no off switch for a child with a gifted mind.

Last Sunday, I "think" I finally came to some decisions regarding which direction I want to take with Shane.  I am going to let him fly.  I am going to let him accelerate as much he wants to and possible can.  I took a tiny step in that direction by moving him up to the 1st /2nd grade class at church.  Before last Sunday, he has been bouncing back and forth between the Kindergarten class and 1st/2nd grade class.  He is ready; in all honesty, he has been ready for quite sometime.

Thanksgiving Feast

The spread!

The past few days the kids have been busy planning  a Thanksgiving Festival.  They learned so much during the process. They learned how to plan an event, various aspect of cooking and how to come up with a grocery list and how to be a good host.  They set the table, greeted and tended to their guests and made sure everyone had a great time of fellowship.

Shane writing menu and other important.

Shane's Planning Sheet.

Going thru pantry to see which item we have and which items we need to ad to grocery list.

Making cornbread.

Slicing cheese for macaroni and cheese

Nigel adding milk for mac and cheese.

Peeling eggs for deviled eggs

Cutting eggs for deviled eggs

Filling in deviled eggs.

Draining juice from green beans for green casserole

Nigel adding secret spices to green bean casserole.

Getting the cranberry sauce out the can was no small task. It took alot of shaking and tapping.

Slicing cranberry sauce

Cleaning up after cooking.