Field Trip: Houston Livestock show

We took a trip to the Livestock show with some friends. The kids really loved it. Besides just getting to hang with their friends, there were plenty of fun learning opportunities.

• They got to learn about bees, and see bees building a hive.
• We saw a baby calf be born. Mommy got to answer lots of questions about the afterbirth hanging out of the poor mommy cow. TMI? Yeah... it was for me too.
• The absolute favorite for Chloe and John was petting the bunnies.
  
• They had newly hatched and hatching chicks.
• We saw a milking demonstration too. It was fun and educational, but with my dairy allergy I swear just thinking about milk made me itch.
  

The Playdough Miracle transition activity

If you have had any experiences with "group education", or public education, then you probably know all about transition activities. A transition activity is all about mentally preparing a child to move from one activity, or frame of mind, to another. Saying grace, or washing your hands before dinner is a very common transition activity.

We have started using playdough as our transition activity into school. Yeah, can you tell we just rolled out of bed? I think the kids are still a little bleary eyed in the photos. It has worked well for us. It flips some nice switch in the kids brains for school time vs. play time. It creates a nice little bridge for us, and my youngest just L-O-V-E-S it. The one day I tried to skip it in the interests of getting school done so we could run errands, he totally called me out on it.
On the one hand, playdough is kinda messy and requires some clean up. So it does take some time. But not nearly as much time as trying to drag mentally unprepared children through a day of school.

Some other transition activities could include:

• songs at specific times/reasons of the day.
• visual cues: flicking lights on and off.
• using verbal cues: after we ____, then we will ____.
  
• setting timers for when activities will begin/end
• having a written schedule on the wall for older children to look at for transition cues.
  

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.