To share a little Providence with you

In case you were wondering what challenging Providence looks like...


And the grand finale...all over saying pants.


We stopped shortly after that. We weren't getting anywhere and I had to throw the towel in her poke my eye out.

In her defense, when Wild Kratts was on the line, she hopped to and finished in record time. That's what happens when we expect kids to work after a fun night Halloweening!

And when I'm ready to poke a pencil through my eye, she gives me a ray of sunshine.

First, she cut and sorted these words all by herself. I only had to ask her once.


And clouds parted and angels started singing!

Then we went through the words. Usually she just stares blankly at me when we do this. Or she asks repeatedly when she will be done. But, this time...

Me: These words have the og sound at the end. O-G says og. The first one is..
P: Dog!
Me: Great! Yea! High five! You read the word dog. What about the next one? The first letter says?
P: fffff (This is a hard sound for her to make, so we practiced it a few times. She actually practiced. Usually, she gets grumpy.)
Me: Now put the og sound on it
P (whispering, because she doesn't like messing up): ffog.
Me: Yea!!!! High Five. How about the next one? That says hhh
P: hhog
Me:Yea!!!!!!!

And that's how it went folks. I was about to pass out from shock.

You know, when she wants to, it can be a piece of cake.

I am sure the rest of our week won't be like this. This little ray of sunshine will hopefully get me through the next month or two.

Shaving Cream Prints

We made shaving cream prints today. The kids had fun. More importantly, my outside table is now clean.

Put some food coloring and shaving cream down.

Mix

Ask for your hands to be cleaned frequently.

When you are finished, you just press a pieces of white paper down and let it dry. If you want to to make a print of your drawings in the shaving cream, start with a very thin layer and don't press very hard.

I think neon food coloring would work better. I bet gel paste is even better, but it isn't as forgiving as the liquid stuff.

So, how's it going?

I get this question on occasion. When Providence's pre-K teachers as, they understand when I shrug and say: "you know, it's Providence."

Fynn is so much more pleasant to work with. He likes to do it. He will draw and match and sort for me. He is just as much an over achiever as his brother, it's just currently presenting itself in the gross motor department.

Some days I want to bang my head repeatedly against the wall with Providence, though I love her dearly. Yesterday for example, went like this:

10am: Attempt to get started.
10:15: Still discussing how "I can't do it! It's too hard! I hate school!"
10:20: I give up.
1:00: Try again.
1:15: Providence has completed 4 phonics pages on her own.
1:25: Providence has finished her math.
1:30-2:00: We learn about dinosaurs and draw pictures.


Please, child, give me a little consistency. I completely get that your biggest challenge , is often your biggest reward. When you finally convince that underachiever to achieve, wow, how accomplished you both feel.

Here's hoping that happens sooner, rather than later. I may end up with a very bruised head.

Memory Verse

I turned off the camera right before a classic moment. A few seconds after I said "God wants what's best for us," Providence said:

"Like vegetables?"

I like the suggested verses in this book, because my kids can learn them in one sitting.

Bible Time

I am having a hard time getting Bible in. I broke down and bought a book called the Big 100. It has 100 essential bible stories for kids with activities and memory verses. The important thing is: they were more willing to do it because they had their own little book.

My biggest struggle is timing. I want Jackson to participate with us, but he is so wiped out when he gets home from school. He isn't in the best mood and the last thing he wants to do is sit with his family and be pleasant.

In comes: Wild Kratts. We have the perfect amount of time from when Jackson gets home to when it comes on. It's a good little motivator when certain children don't want to work. Jackson and Providence both even memorized their verse.






Hopefully I can be a little more consistent about getting this time in. Our church only has one kids thing and our kids don't go to. So, I think it is very important to get this time in with them. Not to mention, it is commanded of me to do it.

Theory vs. Reality

The theory was make sidewalk chalk paint in red, yellow and blue and mix while painting to see what happens.

The reality was a fun morning playing and squirting sidewalk chalk paint and not worrying about what happens when you mix red and yellow. (I saw the idea for using the squirters, which we already had, on this site)


"Mom can I paint with my feet?" (yes baby, absolutely yes)

Even Atticus had fun! He loves feeling different textures, so this was right up his alley.

We even made baby footprints.

Then Atticus decided to dive in.

All the way!

(Sidewalk chalk is equal parts water and cornstarch with a little food coloring. I wasn't too worried about Atticus getting it in his mouth.)
Look! Clouds! Not that it rained, but hey, beggars can't be choosers.

We will have fun doing this again! It's a cheap, fun activity. And probably washes off pretty quickly places where it rains.

Cutting, Math and S'Mores

I will say it again. These printables rock. I love them. We have been going through her camping set and decided we should make S'mores.

Yummy!

Look at my little boy cutting! Providence has been able to use scissors fairly well for a while, now. You know why? Because I let her use scissors alone. (Okay, so yes, her hair has been cut twice). Fynn is on his way to cutting things out alone, too. It's a terrible picture, but he cut that nice little pile all alone!



Providence has been using Horizons Math from Alpha and Omega. I bought the two workbooks from Amazon because they were a little cheaper. I skipped the teacher book, because I can teach Kindergarten math. I think it would be good to get if you had no idea how to go about introducing concepts, but I feel comfortable doing that.

I think it is great for Kindergarten and for Providence. The pages are bright and colorful and she doesn't feel overwhelmed by them. Right now, we are mostly reviewing counting and writing numbers. There are a few new concepts coming up that we will be working on. The books picks up pretty quickly and has kids adding two digit and one digit numbers together. It looks like it is based on using a number line, which is great.

This book probably resembles what kids do in school. Old concepts are reviewed frequently through out the book, which I like. New concepts are introduced at a reasonable pace that works for my child. Even if I were to switch to something else later, I think I would consider these workbooks for practice for older kids.

I like it because it just gives us direction and I don't mind worksheets. I am sure there a plenty of people out there that don't like (and I don't think I would use it for Jackson). The beauty of homeschooling is that you can get what works for you and works for each child.

Take That MDO teacher!

Otherwise known as Fynn spells his name. (the MDO is in reference to this post)

Fynn loves his folder work and frequently asks to do it. Yea, MDO teacher. Fynn can do all sorts of stuff.

We started a couple of days ago having Fynn match the letters. Fynn could already recognize his name (and the names of his siblings). So, I thought, why not? Today, I folded it in half and had him do it on his own. He did, with out a problem.

I think I am going to make one for Providence, too. Bless her heart, she has 16 letters in her first and last name. That's just a lot to remember.


On a funnier note, I have decided (again) to stop buying Fynn pull ups and just get it over with. Fynn says: "Go potty, get gum." I say: "anyone who takes Fynn potty gets gum." This means, I don't have to potty train Fynn. His brother and sister will.

Fun Interent Finds

This lady has created some awesome free printables.
http://homeschoolcreations.blogspot.com/

Busy bag swap! Love this idea! What fun would it be to get together a group of moms to do this? And you end up with multiple busy activities for kids!
http://planetoftheapels.blogspot.com/
http://codyandchelseagroves.blogspot.com/

Fun games at:
Colgate Kids
Discovery Kids

and speech delay rears it's ugly head

note: this sort of turned into a small written release of frustration for me.

Sometimes I hate this nasty speech delay thing. Okay, maybe all the time. I am frustrated for her. I am frustrated because people hear her talk and think she isn't as capable as he really is. I am frustrated because she thinks she can't when she can. I am frustrated that I have to make her work harder than everyone else her age just to listen to sounds word make. I am frustrated that I don't even want to go the "B" and "V" road anytime soon, because I think she will throw something at me.

It's not just articulation errors. It's articulation errors that result from something not going right with her phonemic awareness (her speech teacher referred to her as a phonology kid).


It reared it's ugly head the other day when we were matching sounds. She had a picture of a kangaroo and I gave her two choices on her board: K or T? One: I should have known not to do this. "Kitty-Cat" is a later word to practice because it is hard for most speech kids to master the k sound and t sound in the same word. I think she really heard does it start with a "t" or a "t."

She can train herself to hear the difference, but it's not easy. She says Atti-C-us all the time now and not Atti-T-us. This is a huge deal for us. She's been working on her k sound all year.

I need to frequently remind myself has far she has come, instead of thinking about how much further we have to go. 2 years ago, she would hardly talk, unless she really needed something. Now she talks all the time. She puts long sentences together, asks questions, answers quickly. She retells stories and follows multi-step directions (although I wonder if that was every a problem of speech or choice). I can listen to her stories when she plays now.

Now we get to join our Rainbow Sunshine Girl in her magical fairy-unicorn-dinosaur land!

PE Time

A mom I know wanted to get together a little homeschooling PE group. It was fun! I don't know how successful the organized games were, but the kids had fun running around.

Poor Atticus is constantly battling heat rash. Come on 89 on Monday! Wahoo!




Atticus getting some attention from the big kids. He loves it!

Look at those big blue eyes!

Fynn found a football buddy that was his size.


We played (or tried to) Red Rover. Boys vs. Girls.



After Red Rover, we had some good old fashion running around.

And trash collecting.

Me: Providence, put that down. Providence: But mom, it needs to be recycled.

I think the biggest hit was the bow and arrow!




Shooting a bow and arrow was sheer joy for him. It was like all his Power Ranger dreams come true.

Folder Work- an in depth look

Guest posted on Danica's homeschooling blog!

filefolderfun.com
- awesome site for pre-made activities

File folder games are great for all abilities and ages. The are customizable to whatever you are learning about and whatever skill level your child or student is at.

So far we have:
-3 addition file folders
-lowercase/uppercase matching game
-matching colors
-sorting hot/cold
-sorting even/odd
-matching sound to letter
-prepositions
-biggest to smallest

In the works:
-put your name in order for the 2 year old
-matching numeral and number work
-matching amount to number
-matching basic words to pictures

The possibilities are endless. It doesn't take much to whip up vocabulary and spelling folders. It would also be easy to label things like the body, insets, spiders, whatever you are working on. Any type of sorting activities (vowels/consonants, 5 senses, animal kingdom) would be simple to put together.

The only downside is that they are a little time consuming to make, but they last for a while.

Some tips:
-if you can afford it, have them laminated. I used contact paper. It takes a little more time.
-velcro dots. Cutting and peeling off the backing of strip velcro is annoying. If you peel a big piece and cut, you end up with stick scissors.
-make one set of numbers and letters. You can use them for multiple games.
-I store my pieces in an envelope taped to the folder

Here is my 2 year old matching his colors:

In this game, I would tell him various prepositions and he would put the dinosaur there. To make it, I glued a flap down using a piece of card stock. Then, I put contact paper over the folder and used an exacto knife to slice through the contact paper.


Here he is ordering smallest to biggest.

And finally sorting hot and cold.

Here is my 5 year old matching upper and lowercase letters.

All done!

Here she is matching letter to the beginning sound. Note the same letters from the previous game.

From 2011-08-29

Here is my 6 year old working on his addition facts. This is a lot more fun than calling out math facts. He was very excited that he didn't have to write all of his answers down.

He told me he was mediating to find the answers. Who knows? You can see his fingers out, counting. I told him we would keep practicing each folder until he could do them quickly.

Here he is sorting even and odd numbers. This was a new concept for him, so we kept out the 100 chart. He caught on quickly.


Folder games take a little work to get started, but you can't beat the variety. It's a great way to get worksheet practice in with out having an actual worksheet.