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