Oh happy day!!!

Well, I just published my new ebook.

I've been working on it for quite some time now, then I suffered a bit of stage fright LOL Anyhow it is now published. This is something that I've wanted to do forever and a day now and finally I've done it: I've written my own ebook!!! I'm so psyched and thrilled. If you'd like to check it out, here's the link. I don't mean to go on and on but there's something great feeling whenever you achieve a major goal. I think that this is something that we as homeschooling parents are truly able to teach our children. I wish each and every one of you the best of success in the coming new year.

Play dates...

...are not all that they're cracked up to be. We had one today and by golly my daughter must have cried for no good reason at least 5 times. For some reason she seems to be going through a rebellious stage. It is absolutely driving me crazy. She can be soooo sweet for her grandparents and then soooo bad for me :( I keep threatening to send her to public school even though I would never do it. I'm trying to crack through her thick skull that she can't act this way. I know that kids are always better for people other than their parents but by golly I just am about my wits end. I love this kid to death and love spending every waking minute with her but I'll be greatful once this stage is over. Anyhow, I'll stop ranting now LOL

Wowsers

Well, I finally got caught up on my email today. I'm glad about that but I have so many great articles that I have written while away that I'm having a hard time getting caught up there. I also have an ebook ready to convert to a PDF file to be published and sold. I think that this is going to be a good year. We're going to meet some new friends tomorrow. They're unschoolers. I think that we'll get along just fine even though we're more eclectic, only bordering on unschooling. At least my daughter will have some friends now. Plus I can have her best friend over too which will be nice. There's also a homeschool group that this mom is a part of that I'll start going to in January. My daughter now will be with kids 4 out of 7 days of the week. It will be good for her. We'll just need to learn how to do school around all of these great new things that will be going on. I'm actually truly looking forward to it though. After all this is really waht homeschooling is all about in my opinion. Well, I'm off to bed... Good night!

Goodness I missed being online...

...but I sure did learn a lot and now that I'm back I look forward to sharing everything with you really soon. I'm just trying to catch up on a few things now and my dad will be here soon to hook up my Vonage phone line. I'll chat with you soon though, promise!

:-( I'm lost without the Internet :-(

Unfortunately Verizon offers very poor service. I moved from one apartment to another and they have totally messed up my account. Thus, I am waiting for Comcast to give me service. Unfortunately they cannot do this until Thursday. As such I will be offline until then. Missing you all...

Taking a small, short break!

I'm going to be away from this blog for a few days because real life has me busy. I'll be back Monday or Tuesday. For now though, I'll leave you with this "song" that I found online (sorry, I don't know who to give proper credit to as it was floating around a few groups that I'm in and all by different people posting it) and really liked so I thought that you may too. Anyhow, I'm sure I'll have a lot to tell you when I get back...

The 14 days of Homeschooling( sung to The 12 Days of Christmas)
On the first day of homeschool my neighbor said to me, “Can you homeschool legally?”
On the second day of homeschool my neighbor said to me, “Are they socialized, can you homeschool legally?”
On the third day of homeschool my neighbor said to me, “Do you give them tests, are they socialized, can you homeschool legally?”
On the fourth day of homeschool my neighbor said to me, “What about P.E., do you give them tests, are they socialized, can you homeschool legally?”
On the fifth day of homeschool my neighbor said to me, “YOU ARE SO STRANGE! What about P.E., do you give them tests, are they socialized, can you homeschool legally?”
On the sixth day of homeschool my neighbor said to me, “How long will you homeschool, YOU ARE S0 STRANGE, what about P.E. , do you give them tests, are they socialized, can you homeschool legally?”
On the seventh day of homeschool my neighbor said to me, “Look at what they’re missing, how long will you homeschool, YOU ARE SO STRANGE!, what about P.E., do you give them tests, are they socialized, do you homeschool legally?”
On the eighth day of homeschool my neighbor said to me, “Why do you do this, look at what they’re missing, how long will you homeschool, YOU ARE SO STRANGE, what about P.E. do you give them tests, are they socialized, do you homeschool legally?”
On the ninth day of homeschool my neighbor said to me, “They’ll miss the prom, why do you do this, look at what they’re missing, how long will you homeschool, YOU ARE SO STRANGE!, what about P.E. do you give them tests, are they socialized, do you homeschool legally?”
On the tenth day of homeschool my neighbor said to me, “What about graduation, they’ll miss the prom, why do you do this, look at what they’re missing, how long will you homeschool, YOU ARE SO STRANGE!, what about P.E., do you give them tests, are they socialized, can you homeschool legally?”
On the eleventh day of homeschool my neighbor said to me, “I could never do that, what about graduation, they’ll miss the prom, why do you do this, look at what they’re missing, how long will you homeschool, YOU ARE SO STRANGE, what about P.E., do you give them tests, are they socialized, can you homeschool legally?”
On the twelfth day of homeschool my neighbor said to me, “Can they go to college, I could never do that, what about graduation, they’ll miss the prom, why do you do this, look at what they’re missing, how long will you homeschool, YOU ARE SO STRANGE, What about P.E., do you give them tests, are they socialized, can you homeschool legally?”
On the thirteenth day of homeschool I thoughtfully replied: “They Can go to college, yes you can do this, they can have graduation, we don’t like the prom, we do it cuz we like it, they are missing nothing, we’ll homeschool forever, WE ARE NOT STRANGE!, We give them P.E., and we give them tests, they are socialized, AND WE HOMESCHOOL LEGALLY!
On the fourteenth day of homeschool my neighbor said to me, “How can I get started, why didn’t you tell me, where do I buy curriculum, when is the next conference, WILL PEOPLE THINK WE’RE STRANGE? I think we can do this, if you will help us, we’ll join a sports team, and we’ll homeschool legally.

Curriculum

In my opinion there are 2 real ways in which to get content. One requires money while the other requires time. I am so glad that I have tons of time on my hands because I'm on a strict budget. As such I end up making most of my own curriculum. That's what I just spent the last 3.5 hours doing and I still have some stuff to finish. I don't think I'm going to get it done tonight but at least half of it is done. I have fun doing this so maybe I'm crazy. I'm not complaining really, just taking a deep breath.

Finding a homeschooling style

Each of us as parents has to find a method that works for us. However, I am finding that mine is so much different than a lot of the people that I'm around. I don't honestly even know what to call my method and I wonder if it even matters but sometimes it does because I try to tell people what we do and can't just say "CM" or somethin as easy as that LOL Instead I have to tell them more than they probably wanted to know. This is why... My homeschooling method is a lot of unschooling, with about 30 minutes of worksheets per day. The rest of the time my daughter is playing educational games either with me or on the computer, reading with me or looking at books alone, doing file folder games by herself or notebooking/coloring. (I probably forgot a few other things along the way LOL) It works for us though and that's my point: If you find something that works for your child: RUN WITH IT!!!

Lapbooking

I know that I just recently had an article published about lapbooking but in all honesty I cannot sing enough praises about it. My daughter is learning so much from it and she really enjoys doing it. All I have to do is ask her if she wants to color and away we go on a journey into learning without her even really realizing it. Another thing that I like is that most of the material is quite inexpensive and can be used over and over again (well at least 2 maybe 3 times it can be used). I don't know if you realize how much money this can save you. The fact is that most material is expensive but not this. Of course you do sometimes have to look information up online but it's not that difficult to do. Anyhow, I just wanted to encourage you to read my lapbooking article if you don't know what lapbooking is. Then if you want to try some great lapbooks out, you can even find a free one to try, just go to HandsOfAChild.com OK I'm off my "soap box" now LOL I just get so excited when I see something working :-)

A word of wisdom

I just spent the past 1.5 hours putting together my daughter's portfolio because I hadn't done it yet this year. Yes, I know, I started our school year in August and had all the papers lying around because I keep finding other things that need done. Well, I swear I'm going to fix that. My "new year's resolution" is to start putting her papers away each and every Saturday and keep better records too. I'm just barely going to get my 180 days into my homeschool planner as it is now. Everything is due June 30 and I'm playing catch up yet again. It seems like that's the story of my life ;-(

Milestones

We all have them but I wonder: Does anyone get so excited when they see their children accomplish something that they could jump up and down. My daughter just read her first 3 words: red, blue and yellow. I'm so thrilled I could jump up and down clapping for joy LOL

What a night!

I've been up twice now. Once because I couldn't sleep and now because of a domestic violence situation happening in front of my apartment's window. I swear there must be a full moon. I have so much to do that I can't afford to be up and down like this because now I'll be exhausted. I'm just wasting time right now while the police take care of it then back to bed with me IF I can fall a sleep. UGG!!!

Christmas!

I can't honestly believe that it's almost here. I just looked at the calendar and there is less than two weeks until Christmas day. I didn't think that it was that close because it sure doesn't feel like it is. Wow! I guess I'd better figure out what I'm getting for my parents really fast. I was hoping to get a Christmas lapbook done before then but in all honesty I may have to finish it the week after Christmas which won't be a big deal. There's just way too much other stuff going on right now. I hope everyone is a little more prepared for it than I am. I do have all of my daughter's shopping done but need to figure out what to get for my parents and do it soon. Oh well! There's nothing I can do about it today.

The things you learn

I've been reading through the homeschooling laws for PA and found that there's not much difference from what we're currently doing. I was quite happy to find this out and have made the small adjustments that were needed. I'm surprised that I knew this much though because this is the first time reading through the law. I have been homeschooling for 2 years but my daughter hasn't reached compulsory age but I still want things to be done right ahead of time. I'm such a perfectionist LOL

I'm always amazed...

...at just how much I learn whenever I homeschool my daughter. I am learning right beside her and I really enjoy doing it. While it's been a busy day here, I think that we've learned a lot today and I'm learning how to homeschool on the go. I think that the reason this works so well for us is because we're a bit on the unschooling side but nonetheless we're still learning and having fund doing it. That's what really matters the most!

I don't get some parents

This has been bothering me for a while now. I was at the library the other day and heard some parents complaining that books were too long. They went on to say that their child would sit there all night and let them read to them. Well DUH why wouldn't you want to feed your child's brain on good books. I just don't get it. I think some parents are getting really lazy and expecting that the school is going to do every drop of work for them. What a shame!

I must be getting old LOL

I'm getting reflective and interspective anymore and I don't know why. I'm only 31 years old so it's not like I'm old so I'm not sure what it is with me but it is happening LOL I guess we may all go through periods of life like this but this is something new for me. Maybe I've matured or something or it could also have something to do with the fact that I'm reading the book "Christy" right now. I don't know but a lot of it has been about God and about homeschooling. I'm sure that it will spill out here sooner or later but I'm not quite able to put it to words just yet. Whatever it is and however I say it I'm sure you'll all read it soon enough. Good night!

Another day draws to an end...

and I don't even know where it's gone. It's almost 8:30 so it's definitely bed time but goodness. I don't know what I did today. I did a couple of errands this morning then my daughter's therapist was here for 4 hours and we baked cookies, did some science work and played games. After that I read for about an hour and now it's bed time LOL Good night! Maybe there will be something more and better to say in the morning LOL

Why do kids have a way of making you so angry sometimes?

I would love to know this answer as I just sat here stewing over the fact that my daughter has ruined yet another toy. She can be so destructive and it can be so annoying. I just don't know what to do about it anymore but forgive her and move on but this isn't teaching her anything :(

Honestly!

I don't know where time goes. I've been up since 8AM this morning and don't know where the day has gone. I did some work online, homeschooled my daughter and did some house work that I still have to finish. I can't believe that I'm sitting here, taking a short break, and I look at the clock to see that it's almost 4PM OMG LOL

Simplicity

I know that may be a strange title for an entry but I think it's a word that's truly came to mean a lot to me so it's fitting and here's why... I mentioned a few weeks ago that I took some time off to reflect on my business and our homeschool. I think that what I learned is that I need to keep things simple. I should only have a couple of jobs going on at a time and not push my daughter so hard in school. I'm just reflecting on this today as I finished a project, still have 2 others to complete (but they're both just about done as well) and some normal day to day work to do. It's nice to know that I can take time to watch movies with my daughter, read a book to her or just relax if I want to. I'm really glad that I brought simplicity into my life and invite you to do the same too. Stop running around trying to stay so busy because of worry that you can't stop to smell the roses along the way. I had myself so worked up and frazzled for a while that I couldn't do this and so I feel like I really missed out on a lot. Now I'm able to relax and trust that the work and money will be there. I know I may have to seek out work occasionally but in the end everything will be all right. Our children grow up so fast that they deserve all of us. I just wanted to share these thoughts with you before leaving for my parents' house today... I hope you'll enjoy your children today and have a great Sunday! See you later!

Christmas is near

I just came back from an activity at the library and feel energized by the Christmas spirit that they shared. I love our local library. They put on some absolutely wonderful activities. Now my daughter is off for the day to her grandparents. I swear I'm going to relax even if it kills me LOL So that's what I'm off to do now. I just wanted to say Merry Christmas!

Run run run

I feel like that's all we do some days LOL We started off at the library, then I needed to buy a trolley pass, we had lunch and were off to the doctor before finishing off at the store. I'm not complaining because we got a lot done and even accomplished homeschooling along the way but I still have stuff to do today and I just want to crash LOL My house is a mess, my daughter is hungry, my body aches, and well who knows what else. OH!!! It's going to snow tonight that's what else and I HATE snow LOL I guess I have done enough complaining for one day but hey everyone deserves the chance to complain every now and again LOL

Mornings UGGG

I don't know but lately mornings and me just haven't been mixing too well LOL Yesterday I couldn't get going or even get any work done. Today I got work done but it's 11AM and I'm just now getting into the shower. It seems like such a waste but I'm determined to get some stuff done around here today. We have Thanksgiving decorations to take down (yes they're still up LOL), showers to take, meals to make, mail to get (I don't know why but I keep forgetting to do that LOL - I probably just want to forget about the bills for a while LOL), library stuff to get together for tomorrow and of course schoolwork to do. I'd better get on with it. See you later!

OK I'll admit it...

I've been slacking LOL Not really. I've been busy in real life and my daughter has been playing some great math games on the computer so I've been letting her have the computer a lot. Things are going really well though and between all this nonsense we've been getting some real homeschool work done as well. Anyway, I just wanted to pop in here and let you know that I'm still alive LOL I'm going to hop on out of here and check on a few other things while I can ... Ciao!

WOW! Life sure is interesting

I just turned on my yahoo messenger and have a couple of jobs waiting for me already. I guess I should be happy but I've just been feeling so bloody lazy lately LOL And I forgot to get the mail yesterday (don't ask, this is a frequent problem for me LOL) and I got good news that I can't share here but you best believe I'm rejoicing :-) Well I just wanted to share what was up in my life tonight. I hope everyone had a great weekend and is ready to go back to life as normal tomorrow (yeah right LOL) If you're going hunting, please be careful. I'll post again soon... Take care!

Hi ho hi ho it's back to work I go

YUCK! LOL I don't really want to go back to work this week but I have to. Luckily I don't have much on my plate this week work wise. However I have a lot of appointments and errands to go on. I planned a somewhat easy school week though. I'm sure that it'll all balance out and thankfully I have another day "today" to rest and relax. I'm also glad that most of my Christmas shopping is done. I have a lot of packing left to do though. I think it'll all work out if I keep myself paced right. Well, I'm off to my parents' house for the day... Bye!

Ahhh peace and quiet at last!!!

Don't get me wrong... I love my daughter and enjoy being a single mom but sometimes the peace and quiet is needed. Well, I'm getting plenty of that today as my daughter is at her grandparents and I'm going to just vegitate.

Just another day

Well, we're back to normal today. Our holiday is over for a while. We'll take another one about a week before Christmas. This morning I took advantage of the great sale at Hands of a Child to buy about $200 work of lapbooks for us to do for only around $100. We went to the library this afternoon for story/music/craft time. They did turkeys LOL Now my daughter is reading to pretend children. I'm getting ready to start working again on Monday. I have a lot of regular clients lined up who I'm sure will be glad that I'm back. I don't know if I'll be glad though. The slow pace of this week was quite enjoyable for the most of the time. I am going to change how we do our homeschooling somewhat though. I think we're going too fast and pushing too hard so I'm going to take a small step back. This way my daughter will have some more free time to learn and explore. I'm also going to stick to really only working with my regular clients so that things aren't running so fast. Well... Those are my thoughts for today.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I just wanted to wish everyone a happy Thanksgiving! I'm just going through some email right now while watching the parade. We'll be on our way over to my parents house later for a feast. I'm going to sneak in a few educational books today but of course no work LOL Anyway, happy Thanksgiving!

Where'd the day go?

I've been so busy today that I simply don't know where the day went LOL This morning we had company and we managed to get our Thanksgiving lap book put together while watching a short educational animated movie about Thanksgiving (YAY to me for getting it done before Thanksgiving LOL). Then we had taco salad for lunch and I packed some boxes up while my daughter played some educational games on the computer. I finally got the kitchen cleaned up and an article submitted for publication about lap booking. Now I'm not sure what's next LOL I guess I'd better be off to figure that out - Cya!

Isn't it interesting...

...how much we parents learn whenever we are putting together lessons for our children? I was just looking for extras to go with the In The Hands Of A Child lapbook entitled "Continent Study Series: Asia" I know that these lapbook packs are awesome in and of themselves but I like to look for extra things for us to add to them because I think it's a lot of fun. I didn't find a lot of stuff that was appropriate for my 1st grade daughter tonight but I sure did learn a lot about China and Japan. I hope I'm not the only one receiving a great education while homeschooling my daughter - Good night!

Lazy day

We went to the library this morning for exercise time. From there we stopped at the store and came home. I had some phone calls to make so I did that and ordered lunch. After lunch I fell asleep on the couch while my daughter played. Now it's almost 4PM and we haven't done anything at all today LOL I don't know where time goes or how to stop it from going there but today was definitely another lazy day. Luckily she's been playing with her letter tracing and learning to tie toys. At least I can feel like she's doing something valuable with her time. As for me, I feel like I've wasted away an entire day. The Thanksgiving lapbook should be done on time thanks to the mere fact that my daughter wanted to do about 2 hours of school work the other day. This is great because she initiated in so I know she learned a lot from it. We should be finishing the lapbook tomorrow hopefully. I picked up a couple of Thanksgiving videos from the library that we should enjoy. I was happy to see there were so many great Christmas videos for us to enjoy soon. I'm going to go get some things done around here now ... I'm just not sure what since it's so late in the day LOL Bye!

Re-prioritizing

It's funny how sometimes our priorities get so out of whack LOL I have been working from home for close to 10 years now and you'd think that I'd have learned by now to keep my priorities straight but I'm beginning to think that this is going to be something that I'm going to struggle with for the rest of my life. I hope I'm not alone in saying this though LOL Although I do know and understand that each of us struggles with something different. Anyway, I am a freelance writer and had started to write about anything and everything just to make money. As a single mom I thought that was important but in the mean time I was running over my own desires in order to do this and plus I wasn't building in anything for me or anything that I like to do and so I finally burnt out.

I took some time off this week because I was burnt out and needed to look at my life. This is when I concluded that my priorities are majorly out of whack. I don't want to spend the rest of my life writing for someone else, especially when I don't even like the content that I'm writing: ie knitting LOL I do like to do other things like edit people's content. Anyway while this may not make any sense to you it does to me and so here's my priorities from now on LOL:

• I am going to spend some quiet time each morning preparing for the day ahead.
• I'm going to read each night before going to bed.
• I'm going to make sure that my daughter gets the best homeschool education possible.
• I'm only going to do the following types of writing: editing, ensuring my current clients are happy, posting on forums for cash, writing homeschooling articles for AC, finishing my homeschool ebook and placing it for sale, writing some various plr articles so that I can open a site and place them for sale as well, putting together a landing page for everything so that it's all tied neatly together
• I am also not going to be afraid to embark on this new business venture that I have planned.

I'm going to come back, check, update and edit these each and every time that I feel burnt out so wish me luck, but for now I'm going to bed - Nite!

Sunday = family day

Sunday is family day at our house but before I go I just wanted to tell you that I have added my Associated Content feed to this blog. While the articles that show up may not always be about homeschooling, I promise you that they are always family friendly. I invite you to check them out and look for the tons of homeschooling articles that I have written. And with that I'm off to my parents house for dinner and church. I hope everyone is having a restful weekend. I know I am! In fact, I'm starting to reprioritize. I'll talk about that some more lately - Gotta run: Bye!

Wow!

This green color is hard to write on with anything but white but I needed to point some things out so hopefully you can read the scope and sequence that I just posted. Anyhow, it's up like I promised. Now I'm going to check my email and go work on the Thanksgiving lapbook with my daughter. I will add new ideas to help you through the scope and sequence as I find them. I know that I'll be using a lot of lapbooks through HandsOfAChild.com and a lot of concept kits from our library. Otherwise I'll have to figure out what to use. I know it'll either be free or pretty darn close. For now though - Bye!

Objectives for this term (December through June)

I'm going to start this term a little early this time because of some personal things that are coming up. Anyway, everything listed here is first grade, except there are a couple of things to finish from kindergarden and we'll be in second grade with science. Here it is though...

English/Reading/Writing

1. We will work on understanding the difference between a consonant and a vowel.
2. We will begin to recognize action words (introduction to verbs).
3. We will learn what our site words are and how to spell them from memory.
4. We will work on starting to read.
5. We will spend time theme journaling. Herein we will move from scribbling to inventive spelling. We will start to put on paper what looks like what we want to say. Also, we will begin to express our ideas in writing.

Social Studies

1. We will know what each coin's value is.
2. We will look at the various community helpers: police, mailman, fireman and anything else that the library's concept kits contains. (I'll update this objective later.)
3. We will learn when our family's birthdays are (mommy and self).
4. We will learn our own home address and phone number.
5. We will know what the difference between city state and country is.
6. We will look at rural, sububran, urban, neighborhoods and regions.
7. We will look at some generational changes.
8. We will look at the countries of Canada (North America), Mexico (South America) and Japan.
9. We will define what a limited resource is then identify them so that we can learn how to conserve them.
10. We will look at the important political figures throughout US history.
11. We will begin working with maps and globes so that we can identify different land masses (North and South America), oceans, Japan, the US, our state, Hawaii and Alaska are.
12. We will start to look at how different holidays are celebrated around the world. (This may continue next year as it most likely will not be accomplished this year as I've already put together a unit study about Christmas symbols.)

Science/Health

1. We will learn how to tie our shoes. (I know this is a carry over from kindergarden but my daughter is delayed in some of her motor skills.)
2. We will learn to identify and express our emotions properly.
3. We will learn to recognize environments and habitats including: desert, rainforest, grassland, and any more that I can find to do lapbooks with at HandsOfAChild.com We will learn what kinds of plants and animals live there.
4. We will work on learning about prediction. One book that I'd like to use is Mouse Tales by Arnold Lobel.
5. We will learn about our body including: skeletal system, muscle system, and skin; circulatory system; digestive system and teeth; respiratory system and voice; nervous system and genes; healthy lifestyle, eating healthy and exercising properly
6. We will learn about insects: their essential characteristics, habitat and developmental stages.
7. We will begin to learn how to use a thermometer.
8. After we learn to tell time we will measure the length of a minute.
9. I'd like to try to find a couple of magazines once in a while including: Ranger Rick, Zillions, Zoo Book, Your Big Backyard or Kids Discover
10. We will work with measurement including length, height and width. Some books that I'd like to use here are:

• Amelia Bedilia by Peggy Parish
• Animal Alphabet by Bert Kitchen
• Mouse Tales by Arnold Lobel
• Much Bigger Than Martin by Steven Kellogg
• Mushrooms In The Rain by Mirra Ginsburg
• Two Greedy Bears by Mirra Ginsbur
• Who Sank The Boat? by Pamela Allen

Math/Problem Solving

1. We will solidify the topics of addition and subtraction.
2. We will work with graphing some more. (2 books that I'd like to borrow from the library to use here are Caps for Sale by Esphyr Slobodkina & Tikki Tikki Tembo by Arlene Mosel. I'm really going to have to search for some other ideas though. Anyone have any to share?)
3. We will continue to work on being able to tell the time (at least to the hour and half hour). (Some books that I'd like to use here are:

• The Apple Pie Year by Zoe Hall
• A Busy Year by Leo Lionni
• Chicken Soup With Rice by Maurice Sendak
• The Completed Hickory Dickory Dock by Jim Aylesworth
• The Napping House by Audrey Wood
• Nine O'Clock Lullaby by Marilyn Singer
• The Seasons of Arnold's Apple Tree by Gail Gibbons
• Telling Time With Big Mama Cat by Don Harper)

4. I also plan on introducing geometric shapes. We have worked on this before but it could use some review. I will use these books for this purpose:

• Changes Changes by Pat Hutchins
• Color Farm by Lois Ehlert
• Color Zoo by Lois Ehlert
• Freight Train by Donald Crews
• Round and Round and Round by Tana Hoban
• The Secret Birthday Message by Eric Carle

OK ...

I'm an underachiever tonight but with good reason LOL I know I said I was going to type of the scope and sequence well it's on paper. That's as far as I got because for the first time in a long time my daughter was actually playing educational games on the computer so I let it go. I'll get them typed up tomorrow since I won't let her have the computer until I'm done. 'Nite!

Scope & Sequence

There are still some things that are beyond me. After 3 years of homeschooling you'd think that I'd have it down by now but nope LOL In fact, I'm really starting to think more and more of this homeschol journey as a learning experience for both me and my daughter. I guess it's a good thing that I'm always wanting to learn new things then. Anyhow, onto today's topic...

Scope and Sequence

I forgot what I was searching for today but these are the words LOL Anyhow, I found 1 site that is really good with helping you know what things your elementary school child needs to know. Here's the site. I'm now going to go, sit down and read through all of this information to come up with some new goals for this coming year. This will definitely be helpful whenever I go to the library. It will help us keep on track, learning what we need to learn from the free books that our library provides. This will also help me to know where I'll need to spend my money to best educate my daughter. I'm going to include these here when I'm done BUT I want you to understand that some of the things that I'm including are things that I overlooked while finishing grade K as well as what she needs to learn in first grade. This can be helpful to some of you but more than anything I want this to be a type of diary for me. My goal is to sit down at the end of the month and see exactly what my daughter has learned and what we still have to work on. Well, I'm off to work while my daughter plays on the computer for a while - Ahhh the life of a parent LOL Bye!

I can't believe it's Thursday already!

Where has the week gone? I bought a Thanksgiving lapbook to do with my daughter and we have barely touched it. I really want to get it done before Thanksgiving but at this rate that may not happen. I know I still have close to a week to finish it but we never homeschool between Friday and Sunday. We may have to do some on Saturday this week then see what happens Monday through Wednesday. I hope we can get it done. I keep telling myself that I'm not going to stress over it if it doesn't get done but I'd really like to be putting it together on Wednesday to show off to the family on Thursday. I guess that's my fault for wanting to show off. Someone told me that I was crazy to already be on Thanksgiving break but this week has been really busy and now I'm exhausted. Anyhow, enough rambling. Wish me luck with either getting this thing done or not stressing over it - whichever works out LOL

Something I've been hearing a lot about lately...

It seems that I'm not the only one who feels that the Earth is spinning faster than normal lately LOL By this I mean that it seems as though time is just flying by. This seems to concern a lot of homeschooling parents because there just doesn't seem to be enough time in the day to do everything plus school work. Well, here's my theory and I think that a lot of you would agree that it will work. Brick and mortar schools go to school from the end of August through the end of June (usually). Well, as homeschoolers we're allowed to decide when our school year will begin and end as long as we have a set number of days in it. So, why not say that our school year begins on September 1 and ends on August 30 - really any combination of days like this would work. My point here is that then WE can decide when to take breaks and when to do work. That really is the joy of homeschooling: we can be as flexible as we want to be here.

I think that too many of us worry that if we don't do schoolwork, as in worksheets and such, on a daily basis that we'll ruin our children. This is NOT true! There is so much that our children can learn by just living. Whenever they go out in public they are learning to socialize, whenever they are at the grocery store they are learning about nutrition and money, etc. Another thing that you can do if you're truly concerned is fill your home with educational materials instead of junk toys. Now a few "junk" toys isn't going to hurt. However, in my home every toy teaches something. Even the "junk" barbies teach socialization skills and probably a lot more if I sat down to think about it.

So, my point here is stop sweating the small stuff. When you and your child are ready to sit down and do schoolwork together you'll do it. When life takes a priority your child isn't going to suffer. In fact, you're child is probably like mine anyway: at least 1 grade level ahead of their peers.

Relax and enjoy the freedom of homeschooling!

Welcome to my world!

I've created this blog as a creative outlet for myself. I am not doing this for anything but myself. That may sound selfish but I think that after all that we do for our children throughout the course of the day, we can all afford to be just a little selfish sometimes.

As a single mother I sometimes feel ran ragged. I'm a mother of a 5yo high needs child. She may be 5 but she acts like she's 2 and does the schoolwork that is equivalent to that of a first or second grader. I'm also a published freelance writer. You can see some of my writing here. Sometimes I wonder how I do it, especially since I'm also handicapped, and I'm sure that throughout the course of this blog you'll see why LOL

I am not going to be all formal in this blog, so if that's what you're looking for, I'm sorry but you're not going to find it here. However, if you want to be around a somewhat "normal" (whatever the word normal means anyway) homeschooling mom, I invite you to bookmark this blog and come back often. I'll probably journal here each day but if not then pretty close to it anyway LOL