Child Neglect: Guilty

Every mom experiences some Mommy guilt, sometimes justified, sometimes not. I do too. Usually I can tell when its pointless mommy guilt, because it is something I can't do anything about. I try to let it roll off my back. But then, sometimes I experience Mommy conviction (for lack of a better term). When someone says something, or your kids say something and it suddenly clicks, it hits home. Suddenly you see what you have been doing wrong, and the consequences it will have.

I had one of those moments this past week.

I was at a homeschool meeting when the speaker began discussing how to structure your day if you are homeschooling more than one child. My ears perked up naturally because I have more than one child to homeschool and I have been tweaking our schedule lately. She explained that it is a natural inclination to structure your school day around your oldest child. However, her advice was to structure your homeschool day around your youngest child (even, and especially if they are not yet school aged). In other words, you meet the youngest child's needs first. This is a family activity and the whole family should be involved. If I spend the whole day shooing John away from school, or just giving him busy work and not giving him my attention, then I am creating a negative association with school. Guess what I had been doing all this time? When it is his time to start school in a few months, he won't want to have anything to do with it.

Wallowing in what is going wrong is so unproductive. Thankfully the meeting is held in Barnes and Noble so I could run two aisles over to get some solutions. Here is what we have changed.....

• We start each morning with play-dough. It is John's favorite activity, and it will strengthen the girls motor skills as well. We do it until John is bored, which is usually about 30 minutes.
• We do our joint learning classes like history and science first so that John can participate as long as he wants to.
• While Chloe reads to me, Emma and John do math, or vice versa. Emma is doing her math and John helps her count out her manipulatives or he comes over and laces cards with me.
• After lunch we sit down to have craft time before we restart school.
• I have special sticker books for John and some pattern manipulatives that we work on together. The difference now is that instead of having him do his work on his own quietly, I make him a part of everything. He is in the "attention rotation".

We have been homeschooling now for close to three years and it has become more and more a part of our lives. School time doesn't just happen during specific hours, its a lifestyle for us, it has become a part of our family life. So it follows that we don't have to stick to some magical date to begin John in schooling either.

Why Reading Aloud is so important

"Few children learn to love books by themselves. Someone has to lure them into the wonderful world of the written word; someone has to show them the way."
-Orville Prescott, A Father Reads to his Children

I have made reading aloud an important facet in our homeschooling. Typically we read aloud for an hour a day. But, regardless of the education method, reading aloud should be a cornerstone of every child's education.

While reading grade level material, or board books aloud is important, and it can be a great moment of intimacy. That isn't the type of reading aloud I am discussing here. The reading aloud I find so important is reading aloud on a higher level than the child is currently reading, and reading highly engaging, timeless, imaginative books that will open the natural curiosity of a child. Reading aloud won't teach a child how to read, it will teach them how to want to read. My children are early elementary and a few of the books we have read aloud this year are The Secret Garden, The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, and The Hobbit.

Reading aloud creates the following in a child:

• greater reading comprehension.
• create an association for the child reading=pleasure.
  
• increased desire to learn to read, or to be reading, thus creating a lifetime learner.
  
• build vocabulary from hearing new words used in context.
• provide a role model for reading. Children who see their parents reading, are more likely to read themselves throughout their lives.

If you are more interested in this subject, I recommend with the absolute highest regard Jim Trelease The Read Aloud Handbook. He outlines in detail the benefits of reading aloud in the first part of the book, and provides reading lists for every age range in the second half of the book.

She wants to look surprised, but she had too much Botox

You know, once the kids hit four years old they just start to look all wrinkly and aged. That's why in our house we like to start them on Botox at age 5. Ha!

We went to the Dermatologist to get one of Chloe's warts frozen off. She was so very brave that the Doctor wanted to give her a treat. Since she can't have candy with the artificial colors, the doctor gave her this shirt!!! It is her favorite color purple, and its sparkly. What's not to love? Cracked me up! They also gave her a juvederm headband that matches.

Next stop the Preschool pageant Circuit!!!

Using the Wii Fit for Homeschool

Okay, can we pretend for a minute that you can't see how messy my house is? Cause really, I almost didn't post the pics. These were taken very close to Christmas when I was in full craft mode (not cleaning mode).

Anyway, we got the Wii for Christmas. It has worked unexpectedly well during our homeschool hours. I have used it for TV on rainy days. And we have used it to get the wiggles out in between classes. When I need to do classes with just one girly, the other sister can take advantage of the Wii. I feel very much that it has done what it advertises, it has upped the fitness of our family without any of us realizing we weren't just having funtimes.

AD Players: Do you hear what I hear?

We went to a holiday play this morning by the AD Players. It was really nice. We have enjoyed all the plays we have gone to by them.

For this one they dramatized the Christmas Carol "Do you Hear what I Hear?". They added in lots of physical comedy which made the kids laugh.

I wish I had better pics. If I take a pic with my cell phone, no one can breathe, or blink, or it blurs out. You can imagine how difficult this makes it with wiggly children... New mantra: must remember camera, must remember camera.

Homeschooling in December

This past Monday we met our friends at the Space Center for a play date. We LOVE space center. Perfect for a laid back play date. Which has been awesome, because save for this play date I would have nothing to post about.

I am almost beginning to think that trying to school during December might be an exercise in futility. And it has nothing to do with the kids, this one is all me. Being "Santa's little helper" is exhausting work. It tends to eat into my time. This is my FAVORITE time of year. I can barely stand it, I want to do everything, wring all the holiday cheer out of the season that we can. And I find that my mind is just... elsewhere. I am the one with the sugar plumbs on the brain. Plus, we have had wonderful field trip opportunities. So, although we have managed to squeeze our reading in faithfully, I have been elfing around on the rest of it.

It was also probably a mistake to give the family the Wii early. We knew we weren't going to be able to do Christmas on Christmas day, so it just got to be "why wait?". Well, to be honest, I was the why wait person and being that we are both HUGE gamer nerds, it wasn't hard to talk Brian into it. So, I should amend that to: "We have faithfully done our reading, and our PE on the WiiFit". (I highly reccomend that PE part, we have a BLAST!). Also, I might have Wii elbow, and that is embarassing. I have been officially injured by a video game, and hoping it will heal, I don't look forward to explaining that to a DR.

So, I still wanna have fun. I am not overly worried, we do school all year round, but I would like to do a tinsy bit more of our regular work so I can save us the awful "review period" after the holidaze. How do you cope with Decembers?

Nutcracker 2009

I left my camera at home and had to take the pictures with my phone. So the quality is lacking. We went to see the Nutcracker this week. The kids had a BLAST! The performance was
wonderful, and I loved how they stopped at intermission to explain how the props, costuming, and stage managers contribute to the show. The second picture is of the device they use to create realistic snow. Is sifts the fake snow down onto the stage in a realistic manner.

I also realized it has been awhile since I have posted. Man, the holidays, or the holidaze has set in full force. Thankfully, I have all the shopping done, most of the crafting done, and all the presents are already wrapped. So I am looking forward to settling back down to school this coming week!