Day Four -- New Crayons and the Library

A friend of mine recently posted on Facebook a story of school supplies. While gathering school supplies for her children this year, she came upon a small box full of crayons she had purchased last year while they were $0.25 a box. She opened the box and said, "Mmmm. Don't you love that smell?" Her kids (who are teenagers, except one) looked at her like she was crazy, but I believe she has a point. I love the smell of a fresh box of crayons. So, finally, today, my girls got their first box of fresh crayons. I have to admit something. I am somewhat of a school supply junkie. We have tax free weekend the first weekend of August here and I love to go and stock up on school supplies. It was considerably less expensive this year. I spent less than $80 on both girls for school supplies and didn't have to pay additional school supply fees at school (another $130 for two girls). While I did spend that and a little more on textbooks for the year, I will at least be able to reuse most of them in the future, so I consider that a little more of an investment.

In light of those great colors, I wanted to share a few more bits I found on www.technologyrocksseriously.com

Since I was talking about crayons, I thought this was completely appropriate. I love bright colors. I love them in my classroom. I am off on Friday after school to pick up some color ink for my printer because some of these signs seriously need to be in my room. Here's another one I love. And if you love them too, just head on over to her site and print them. They are free, she just asks that you remember to give her credit for them. She does great work and will most likely do a custom for you if you ask. I am thinking of asking her to play with my sign from my room...

"Let's eat Grandpa.

Let's eat, Grandpa.

Correct grammar...it could save a life."

This is one of my favorite sayings and I use it all the time with my Kadoodle because she has a tendency to give up when she doesn't get something right the first time.

Great words of wisdom that every teacher, whether homeschooling or brick and mortar, should remind their students every now and then. (something about that sentence is grammatically horrific, but I can't quite put my finger on the fix.)

So, I have crayon rolls that my girls use in our classroom. They are available at my site if you can't make your own, www.facebook.com/OneDivaThreeDolls and eventually there will be a tutorial on my other blog, www.divamommydiaries.blogspot.com so if you are interested, you can check them out. Today they got their fresh crayons. The joy in our room was palpable (okay not really, but they were happy).

Kylie is working on a little back to school math fun. I scanned the worksheet she is using and I am adding the jpeg below. If you right click it, you should be able to use it as well if you like.

The idea is to color the trees and add the amount of apples listed below to each tree. With a little photoshop creativity, you could change the numbers and create new worksheets too.

Oh, and the title of my blog for this day is "New Crayons and the Library" because we decided to hit the library as part of our day today. Our public library isn't free anymore, but our church has a very large library so we decided to head there. The girls enjoyed getting books and I enjoyed being reminded of what is available there. We don't have a lot of Dr. Seuss books in our house because our book buyer (who is not me) doesn't buy them so I was very happy to find a large selection at the library. While we were there our former pastor who is also the father of our current pastor stopped into the library. All of the girls' ears perked up and I said, "Hey, I hear Brother Bob out there." To which my youngest replied, "Brother Bob! I haven't seen him in weeks! I need to go say hi!" And so, much to his delighted surprise, they did. I am so grateful for godly men and women in our church family that always have time for a smile and a hug for three little girls.

Day Three -- Finding a Groove

So I wasn't able to actually blog on Day Three because that evening my computer decided to take a nose dive and for some reason attempting a blog on my tablet just didn't seem to be a good idea. BUT I did take some pictures and we are finding our groove. We did very well today sailing on through our day and completing all of the tasks I had hoped as well as catching up on some day one and two tasks.

Nayney sat at a table for a full 30 minutes and colored in a coloring book. I also got out the blocks today (something different from Play-Doh) and the girls took breaks from school work to play with her. We started at 8:15 (we are getting later each day!) and went straight till 12:15 without any stops. The girls are also enjoying one thing I did NOT expect...teaching each other!

So, I have discovered in these three short days that Kadoodle is a very hands-on learner and needs a little more stimulation than her sister. For science today we talked about our sense of sight. To help them with that, I went around the house with a small bucket and gathered items from their rooms. I placed ten items on a tray and let them look at the tray. Then I had them each close their eyes and I would remove an item from the tray. They had a great time trying to figure out which item I had removed. Of course, each one of them had to have a turn at it! Here is a photo of Bailey working out what I took.

Working away on math...in our pj's!

And now I have a confession to make. Hubby looked at my blog today and said, "People know you don't actually wear high heels while you are teaching, right?" To which I indignantly replied, "If I wear them cleaning the house, what makes you think I don't wear them teaching?" He looked pointedly at my poor feet. I am not, sadly, wearing high heels ANYWHERE at present. The week before school started I broke my baby toe on my left foot. This wouldn't be a big deal if it were not 21 days shy of the one year anniversary of me breaking said toe while getting Kadoodle ready for the first week at Kindergarten. I thought homeschooling would be less dangerous, but alas, someone left a tennis racket where it should not be and my toe is broken...again...for the third time in less than a year.

But do not dismay, homeschool friends, there WILL come a day when I will be able to wear my high heels again and there WILL come a day when I will wear them in my classroom. I just have to find the right pair for teaching the same as I found the right pair for cleaning house. Maybe I need to go shopping...

Day Two: Survive and Thrive

I don't have any cute pics of my girls barefoot at their desks today, but I did get some great ideas to keep our 3 yr old busy today and I thought I would share them. A friend online recommended this site: http://www.artfulhomemaking.com/2012/07/keeping-little-ones-busy.html
It had tons of great ideas on how to keep our littlest princess occupied. Some of them I already knew and some I will be implementing in the coming weeks. I'll let you know how they work out.

And I found this little bit of wisdom on timing for our class...

In light of this wisdom, we decided to make an adjustment today. Instead of starting at 7:30 (which I thought was WAY too early) we decided to start at 8. Then when Nayney woke up at 9, I fed her breakfast and she watched cartoons till 10. Then from 10-10:30 and 10:30-11, each of the girls took a break to play with her and the Play-Doh for 30 minutes. From 11-11:15, I did PreSchool workbooks with her.

We broke at 11:15 for lunch and didn't finish "school" until after she went down for her nap at 1:45. We finished at 2:30, getting all of our work done and without any tears!!!

Tomorrow we will move on to castle blocks!


p.s. I found my awesome bit of wisdom here:
http://www.swtblessings.com/p/faith-signs.html

Day One: Survival vs. Success

Was Day One a raging success? I don't know. Does survival count as success? Because if so, yes. It was a huge success!

We started at 7:30 (their idea, not mine) and by 8:15 my middle child wanted to know if we were done for the day yet. At 9:30 she asked again and at 10, 10:15, 10:30, 10:45...I think you get the idea here. I asked her if she was bored and her answer was no. But she also told me that she didn't expect there to be this much work involved. Hmm...maybe we need to have a conversation about expectations. My oldest opted to pay more attention to her sister's work than her own and ended up with quite a bit of homework (mean old mom is making her finish her math, all two sheets of it and actually write her spelling words because that is how she learns them really well. ugh.)

At first, things were great. Kylie and I did a lot of phonics work and they had some time on their own for independent work. They seemed to enjoy it alright.

But then the "baby" woke up. Naynay isn't exactly a baby, she will be three in a few weeks, but she is our baby and she is not used to the girls being home during "school" and it was very difficult for her to leave them alone. Especially Kadoodle who is closest to her in age. She kept coming in and asking me if she could hug her. How could I say no?? I do have things to occupy her but I am not sure if I have the time to take away from the other two to get her on track and keep her on track. I think I will be cleaning the living room today so that tomorrow I can avail myself of my secret weapon...PlayDoh!!!

All in all we had some fun, did some hard work and of course they also shared with me one of the many reasons they already like homeschooling...

No shoes!!!

And I must admit that I am guilty of the same. I didn't wear shoes either. BUT that isn't to say that you will not, at some point, see me teaching in my high heels.

After all, I DO clean the house in them.

We are READY!!!!!

And we are ready to begin. I have had a few set backs but hearing my pastor say last night that the previous week he experienced an extreme case of "cold feet" for the day really helped me a lot. It is encouraging that they are on this journey with me. They homeschooled one child last year, but this year they will do all four. I feel like we are all embarking on an adventure together.

I finally finished my room...for now. I didn't get to do what I wanted and we opted to change rooms, but we are organized and we do have a classroom where I can teach and my girls can create, explore and begin our year. This isn't the room as it will look three months from now, but it is the room as it is now and since we start school one week from today, I think we have done pretty well.

We originally thought we were going to sacrifice one of the girls' bedrooms for this and we changed our mind and decided to use the dining room instead. After all, we don't "dine", we just "eat" around the kitchen table anyway and big family dinners are done at my mom-in-law's house so I don't NEED a dining room all the time. I encountered some obstacles here though. See, I run a full time business out of our dining room. Check me out at www.facebook.com/OneDivaThreeDolls or on Etsy at www.etsy.com/people/OneDivaThreeDolls . Anyway, I currently have to have a usable dining room, complete with storage for my heirloom dishes, a complete shop with three machines and a large cutting area and school. So, I didn't take pictures of my sewing corner or of my mannequin Bridgette standing guard in the corner, but here is where I ended today...

Organization is important to me. Each shelf is for a different child (except the top shelf, that's mine) and you may notice that there are wipes containers across the top. I took the entire cabinet load of puzzles we had, popped each lid on my printer and scanned it smaller. Then I dropped the newly shrunk (shrunken?) photo and the puzzle pieces into a ziploc bag and stuck them in the wipes container. I also took all of our card games out of their boxes and put them in ziploc bags and their own wipes container and did the same with our flash cards. What is now in four wipes containers used to take up an entire cabinet. Yay me.

We have a little person in our house. She is almost three and is desperate to claim her own territory and supplies in our room. Because of this, I had to find some out of the way storage for small items. All of our art projects, stickers, extra markers, etc. are up here as well as a few projects the girls made me last year in girl scouts. What you can't see is the plaque at the top of the shelf. It says, "My daughter is becoming just like me. Lucky girl." :)

I still have a business and home to run, so Mommy had to have her own space (pretend not to see my mess under the desk). Above our bulletin board (which will not stay empty for long) is a sign that reads,
Let's eat Grandpa!
Let's eat, Grandpa!
Correct grammar...it could save a life!!

(My rising fourth grader found that hilarious)

And here is the room from one angle. If you look carefully you can see my sewing machine and serger in the china hutch and a second sewing machine on the floor by the window. Bridgette was upset at not being in the photo, but she is over my right shoulder.

And here is our room from the other angle. I am standing in the doorway to our living room. The goal is to put up a curtain so if we are messy in our classroom, no one who visits our living room needs to see it. I think I am in love. :)

As soon as I got the desks in, my middle child sat at her desk. She was still sitting in it a few minutes later when I came back around the corner. I finally asked her if she planned to sit there for the entire week. She said no, but she was going to sit there for a little while. :)

Well, I'm off!!! to shop!!!

Here I go! I'm off to see the A Beka man to buy my new books for the coming year. We have had so many book blessings already this summer. I am excited to finally purchase these last items I need.

The bonus is that since I waited till he came, I got one of my books at the used bookstore for $13 less and since I'm ordering live, I don't have to pay shipping!!!!


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So I went to drop of the girls so I could do this in peace and of course, I get there and there is no line and I'm in and out in under 10 minutes (and $171 lighter) and I'm wondering, what should I do for the next half hour? The girls will be furious with me if I take them from Granny's after only a few minutes. So I'm thinking it's a time for Mama to get a refill on my Roo Cup and sit somewhere quiet for a few minutes. Wow, there's a novelty. With three kids underfoot 24/7, there isn't a lot of opportunity for "quiet". I'm not sure I'm comfortable with that concept!

So, I guess I'll go get them and forget quiet. It's not like they are going anywhere in the fall either. Might as well get used to it! :) (And I wouldn't trade it for all the world!!)

Stay tuned for more adventures as we return from our annual family vacation to plunge head first into the foray that is prepping our room! I think we are gonna have us some FUN!!! I'm gonna let the girls help me with this job. It will be good for them.

Books, Books, We've Got Books!!!!!

I am so excited!!! We have textbooks!! I sat down on Saturday and figured out everything I have and everything I need. It looks like I have about $200 left to spend. We have spent about $130 so far...that's for TWO children and that's NOT settling for anything I didn't actually want! Mind you, I did spend two hours and 5 erasers on a text book that had been partly used, but since I only had to erase 50 pages and there are 264 in the book, I'm pretty happy about that. Especially since I picked it up at our local used bookstore for $3.00 instead of the $15.65 list price!

Also, since I blogged last, I have been very busy, but not very chatty here. (I do have three kids ya know!) I have gathered my textbooks and planned for what to buy. I have chosen my curriculum as well as a supplemental curriculum that we will be adding to our regularly scheduled program. I have redesigned our homeschool room and changed which room we will be using. I have chosen our umbrella school. I have kept my own business (www.facebook.com/OneDivaThreeDolls) going well. I have taken my girls to Florida for a week and my big accomplishment...I HAVE POTTY TRAINED MY TWO YEAR OLD!!! WAHOO!!! I have changed diapers for nearly nine years, so the idea of NOT having to do that anymore is just phenomenal!!! :) It's the little things for us moms!

One of the things I have decided not to do this year is CO-OP. For those of you who are new to homeschooling, a CO-OP is a cooperative parenting group of homeschool parents that get together and team teach different subjects. There is usually a fee involved in being a member and then a fee for each class. You can teach a class or simply allow your children to take other classes. This is a great additional enrichment program if your children want to do a newspaper or music class or something along those lines. I have nothing against the CO-OP deal, I just want to get in our own groove this year first. I want us to be comfortable in our own homeschool skin before we branch out. Besides, with my in-laws, I don't need to pay to be in a CO-OP. They are more than willing to pitch in and help out anywhere I need (my dad-in-law is a retired teacher). So I have decided the CO-OP can wait at least one year.

Also, we have decided to use the curriculum from A Beka out of Pensacola, FL. Their curriculum is heavy on old fashioned values, old school grammar and mathmatics and filled with scripture from our favorite version, so it will fit seamlessly into our everyday lives. However, my gifted rising fourth grader decided to check out our science book. She flipped through the text book, dropped it on the table and said, "That will take me about six weeks. What else ya got?" After I corrected her grammar (ever the teacher) I told her that I would look into other options. That is when we discovered Apologia. This was my recent "OH WOW!" moment in homeschooling. To find an amazing and well written curriculum that teaches science from a creation standpoint and does it in a way that excites and interests a variety of ages, well, THAT was something worth checking out! I just won my first ebay auction for our textbook ($22.01 after shipping for a book that retails for $39.00 before shipping) and will be purchasing their Notebooking Journals from the website. The thing I love about this is the Notebooking Journal. Not only does this text teach creation science, but the Journal has two publications. One is the regular Notebooking Journal and the other is the Junior Notebooking Journal. The Junior one is designed for K-3rd grade and the regular for 4th-6th grade. I love it because I have a first grader and a fourth grader and we can do the same science curriculum together while it is on THEIR level and it fits seamlessly into our day (I'm really big on the "seamless" concept!).

Another thing I am learning is to cook more in my crockpot! I know it sounds weird to link that thought to homeschooling, but I am collecting these recipes to allow me to spend more time playing with my girls after we are done with school and less time working in the kitchen. Feel free to comment with any links you know of with great recipes! :)

So, that is where we are...for now. The rest of this week we are focused on Vacation Bible School (RAH! RAH! RAH!) and then there will be more trips to the used bookstore before I order any new books! I don't know about y'all, but I am ALL about a deal! Bring on the erasers!!!