August 2009 Archives
I have a couple of funny stories to share about Jacob.
The first one was two Sundays ago when I was smothering him with kisses. He pushed me off and said "Stop Mom. I hate kisses." He then went on to say, "And I hate boobystraps (booby traps), baby soap and baby costumes." It was so random and the boobystraps part had me rolling on the floor.
The second one happened today when we were just about to eat lunch. I was reading a Magic Treehouse book to the boys as part of school time and at the end of the book, the characters get home to a lunch of peanut butter sandwiches. So I asked the boys if they'd like to have peanut butter sandwiches for lunch. Seth said yes, but Jacob said, "I don't want a peanut butter sandwich, I want a Lucky Charm sandwich." I had to ask him what exactly a Lucky Charm sandwich was made of. His reply was, "Well, there's bread, and then you put Lucky Charms in the bread, and then you eat it." While I made Seth's PB and J, I gave Jacob a piece of bread and he proceeded to make himself a Lucky Charm sandwich. He ate almost all of it too, before deciding that it was "disgusting" and throwing it away. I'm not sure he'll try it again, but the boy sure has a great imagination!
The first one was two Sundays ago when I was smothering him with kisses. He pushed me off and said "Stop Mom. I hate kisses." He then went on to say, "And I hate boobystraps (booby traps), baby soap and baby costumes." It was so random and the boobystraps part had me rolling on the floor.
The second one happened today when we were just about to eat lunch. I was reading a Magic Treehouse book to the boys as part of school time and at the end of the book, the characters get home to a lunch of peanut butter sandwiches. So I asked the boys if they'd like to have peanut butter sandwiches for lunch. Seth said yes, but Jacob said, "I don't want a peanut butter sandwich, I want a Lucky Charm sandwich." I had to ask him what exactly a Lucky Charm sandwich was made of. His reply was, "Well, there's bread, and then you put Lucky Charms in the bread, and then you eat it." While I made Seth's PB and J, I gave Jacob a piece of bread and he proceeded to make himself a Lucky Charm sandwich. He ate almost all of it too, before deciding that it was "disgusting" and throwing it away. I'm not sure he'll try it again, but the boy sure has a great imagination!
Today was the first official day of school. Things have been working out pretty well so far. Seth's school area is all decorated and mostly organized. I'm still tweaking some of the organization things as we go along, but what is organized so far seems to be working well. The only thing our classroom lacks is some overhead light. I tried to wire in some track lighting, but another wire has to be pulled from the existing lights to work and we haven't torn that part of the basement ceiling down yet. :( The lighting we have works ok, but I would prefer for it to be a little brighter down there.
We start each day talking about the date, weather and about what order Seth wants his subjects to be taught. Then we will say the Pledge of Allegiance and work on the poem we are memorizing for the month. I might switch it to a poem every week though because Seth is extremely good at memorization.
Then we get right into lessons. Today we did Math, Science, Art, Phonics and Language Arts. We also had a welcome assembly with the school. They do nearly everything online and the assembly was no different. The school uses an interactive classroom program called Elluminate. It allows the teacher to talk to the students, the students can talk back or type questions, they can raise their virtual hands, tell the teacher if they are confused or if they understand, they can write on a virtual whiteboard and do problems with the teacher too. It's a pretty cool setup.
Math was fast and easy today, so it only took us about 20 minutes. Seth's favorite subject so far, is Science because it is so hands on. He has learned how to measure length in centimeters, mass in grams, and today we measured volume in milliliters. This involved using a graduated cylinder and some water dyed blue, we took common household items (a measuring cup, an ice cream scoop, etc.), filled them up and then poured the contents into the cylinder. Then Seth had to read the measurement and log his results. It was pretty fun, but the table was soaked by the time we were done. Art was all about using lines to draw things. We talked about the different types of lines (i.e. wavy, zig-zag, diagonal, long, short) and then looked at some famous art work that was drawn using lines. At the end Seth got to draw his very own picture using different kinds of lines. In Phonics we reviewed the short o sound, reviewed and spelled sight words, did dictation and then read some sentences. Language Arts was about writing sentences correctly; making sure the first letter is capitalized and that there is a punctuation mark at the end. We also reviewed a story we read last week and did some critical thinking about what happened in the story.
We started the day at 9:00 and were done by 2:30, that included at least an hour for lunch and about a 15 minute recess before lunch. So it wasn't too bad time wise. If we hadn't had the assembly we would have been done at 1:30. Seth is still supposed to do some reading tonight and I am planning to incorporate that into our traditional, nightly story time. I also need to figure out how the school's handwriting program works, it's a separate curriculum and I'm not sure what to do with it yet. I plan to study it tonight after the kids go to bed.
Seth seems to love the work he's been doing. We did some last week just to get a feel for things and yesterday (Sunday) he kept asking me if he could do some school work. I feel so good that I am helping him learn and that he is getting such great one on one time with me as his teacher.
I'm still a little worried about what to do with Jacob and Lia while we have class. Jacob is interested in some of the stuff we are doing and I let him help and mimic what Seth is doing as much as I can, but sometimes having him down there with us is a bit of a distraction for Seth. Lia has been sick since Friday and is sleeping a lot, so she hasn't been too much of a hindrance so far. I have some toys next to our classroom area and a portable DVD player so hopefully Jakes and Lia can find something to do while I'm helping Seth. Jacob will also be attending a "Joy School" two days a week with some neighborhood kids, so that will free up a couple of hours where I can work exclusively with Seth. Although, the weeks I am in charge of Joy school, will be extra hard instead of extra easy.
So that's our first day. It went better than I could have hoped for and I am excited to see what we will learn about tomorrow!
We start each day talking about the date, weather and about what order Seth wants his subjects to be taught. Then we will say the Pledge of Allegiance and work on the poem we are memorizing for the month. I might switch it to a poem every week though because Seth is extremely good at memorization.
OUR DAILY WHITEBOARD:
Everything is magnetic so Seth can move things around and change the date and weather
(the flash blew out the "Subjects" label).
Everything is magnetic so Seth can move things around and change the date and weather
(the flash blew out the "Subjects" label).
Then we get right into lessons. Today we did Math, Science, Art, Phonics and Language Arts. We also had a welcome assembly with the school. They do nearly everything online and the assembly was no different. The school uses an interactive classroom program called Elluminate. It allows the teacher to talk to the students, the students can talk back or type questions, they can raise their virtual hands, tell the teacher if they are confused or if they understand, they can write on a virtual whiteboard and do problems with the teacher too. It's a pretty cool setup.
Math was fast and easy today, so it only took us about 20 minutes. Seth's favorite subject so far, is Science because it is so hands on. He has learned how to measure length in centimeters, mass in grams, and today we measured volume in milliliters. This involved using a graduated cylinder and some water dyed blue, we took common household items (a measuring cup, an ice cream scoop, etc.), filled them up and then poured the contents into the cylinder. Then Seth had to read the measurement and log his results. It was pretty fun, but the table was soaked by the time we were done. Art was all about using lines to draw things. We talked about the different types of lines (i.e. wavy, zig-zag, diagonal, long, short) and then looked at some famous art work that was drawn using lines. At the end Seth got to draw his very own picture using different kinds of lines. In Phonics we reviewed the short o sound, reviewed and spelled sight words, did dictation and then read some sentences. Language Arts was about writing sentences correctly; making sure the first letter is capitalized and that there is a punctuation mark at the end. We also reviewed a story we read last week and did some critical thinking about what happened in the story.
We started the day at 9:00 and were done by 2:30, that included at least an hour for lunch and about a 15 minute recess before lunch. So it wasn't too bad time wise. If we hadn't had the assembly we would have been done at 1:30. Seth is still supposed to do some reading tonight and I am planning to incorporate that into our traditional, nightly story time. I also need to figure out how the school's handwriting program works, it's a separate curriculum and I'm not sure what to do with it yet. I plan to study it tonight after the kids go to bed.
Seth seems to love the work he's been doing. We did some last week just to get a feel for things and yesterday (Sunday) he kept asking me if he could do some school work. I feel so good that I am helping him learn and that he is getting such great one on one time with me as his teacher.
I'm still a little worried about what to do with Jacob and Lia while we have class. Jacob is interested in some of the stuff we are doing and I let him help and mimic what Seth is doing as much as I can, but sometimes having him down there with us is a bit of a distraction for Seth. Lia has been sick since Friday and is sleeping a lot, so she hasn't been too much of a hindrance so far. I have some toys next to our classroom area and a portable DVD player so hopefully Jakes and Lia can find something to do while I'm helping Seth. Jacob will also be attending a "Joy School" two days a week with some neighborhood kids, so that will free up a couple of hours where I can work exclusively with Seth. Although, the weeks I am in charge of Joy school, will be extra hard instead of extra easy.
So that's our first day. It went better than I could have hoped for and I am excited to see what we will learn about tomorrow!
James and I have been disappointed with the school choices for Seth here in our neighborhood. We considered homeschooling but I didn't feel very qualified or organized to try homeschooling. Yesterday, I was reading the blog of a relative who home schools and she mentioned that her kids had been in a state sponsored program and really enjoyed it. I decided to check out if Utah offers something similar and opened a whole can of worms. I started to research a charter school here called the Utah Virtual Academy. The school allows parents to teach their kids at home with the support of accredited teachers and they provide all the cirriculum and supplies all for free because they are a public school.
After looking at everything I could find about the school and the cirriculum online, James and I decided to try and get Seth enrolled. We weren't very hopeful because it is so late in the year, but James called them to see if there were any openings and we were surprised that they were still enrolling. I filled out the enrollment application online, and then I went to my mom's house to check out her new kitchen cabinets. I asked her what her thoughts were on trying to homeschool Seth with this method. The cirriculum the school uses is called K12 and my mom said that one of her students had used K12 and that his mom really liked it. Then my sister, Marrisse, walked in and overheard us talking and she says, "I got a DVD in the mail from K12 today." She had been thinking about homeschooling her kids at the beginning of the summer and had requested information from them then. We decided to watch the DVD and while we were watching it Marrisse got a phone call from the Academy asking if she was still interested in the school. So in one day I went from knowing nothing about K12 to having several encounters with it from different sources.
James and I attended an information session for the school this afternoon, we both felt really good about it and decided to give the program a shot. I kind of feel like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders even though it's going to be a lot of work for me. I hope I feel the same way when we are in the midst of the school year. :) I'm going to try and keep this blog updated regularly and let you know how the program is going and how Seth and I are enjoying it. School starts on the 24th so wish me luck!
After looking at everything I could find about the school and the cirriculum online, James and I decided to try and get Seth enrolled. We weren't very hopeful because it is so late in the year, but James called them to see if there were any openings and we were surprised that they were still enrolling. I filled out the enrollment application online, and then I went to my mom's house to check out her new kitchen cabinets. I asked her what her thoughts were on trying to homeschool Seth with this method. The cirriculum the school uses is called K12 and my mom said that one of her students had used K12 and that his mom really liked it. Then my sister, Marrisse, walked in and overheard us talking and she says, "I got a DVD in the mail from K12 today." She had been thinking about homeschooling her kids at the beginning of the summer and had requested information from them then. We decided to watch the DVD and while we were watching it Marrisse got a phone call from the Academy asking if she was still interested in the school. So in one day I went from knowing nothing about K12 to having several encounters with it from different sources.
James and I attended an information session for the school this afternoon, we both felt really good about it and decided to give the program a shot. I kind of feel like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders even though it's going to be a lot of work for me. I hope I feel the same way when we are in the midst of the school year. :) I'm going to try and keep this blog updated regularly and let you know how the program is going and how Seth and I are enjoying it. School starts on the 24th so wish me luck!
