Learning styles, the library & more...

Took an online quiz yesterday on learning styles, but couldn't get the code to paste... so here are the shortened results... (go to Guilt-Free Homeschooling to take the quiz).

Me - You are a Visual Learner. You like to see things for yourself, read the directions, and study the diagrams. You learn well through reading, and seeing pictures, models, and visual demonstrations. You notice minute details and are fascinated by the intricacies of the world around you.

C.O. - You are a Kinesthetic Learner. You like to move. You feel blindfolded when you have to sit still at a table for hours. Anyone who calls you hyperactive, just doesn't understand that moving your large muscle groups helps your brain to process information. (Some people may have thought that you have a learning disability, but you probably just need extra time and space to move around and digest the facts.) You can learn best immediately after running laps around the backyard, doing chin-ups, or jumping rope, etc. because then your brain is fully activated and ready to receive data.

C.J. - You are a Tactile Learner. You want to get your hands into any project. You like math manipulatives, art supplies (paint, clay, etc.), and other touchy-feely learning aids. You learn best by building models or dioramas yourself. If you can touch something and hold it, you're more likely to remember it.

M - Also a Kinesthetic Learner.

No surprises here!

Homeschooling is calming down a bit now that I calmed down a bit. We spent yesterday afternoon at the library - C.O. got his own library card, which to him was very exciting! Between the books I had on hold, the books the kids picked out and the books M asked for, we have 2 paper grocery bags of books! I let C.O. check out all the kids' books they picked out. The librarian gave me wierd looks with my stack - stuff on homeschooling, the environment, a couple of decent fiction... and a bunch of books on serial killers/crime (for M, who is taking a class on Intro to Admin of Justice this semester). Then at home, the kids played outside for a while, had a late lunch, and then we settled down for lessons. C.J. elected to draw on her Magna-Doodle for a while, while I worked on word families with C.O. This time it was words ending in "ock" and "ost". In ten minutes he got every single one, including the challenge words: "frost", "shock" and "flock"! Then he read a few pages from Fox in Socks (Dr. Suess). After that, he took a Magnetix break while C.J. and I worked on a review of E-H. Then, while C.J. colored her math activity page, C.O. and I worked on a few pages of HWOT, and finished up with math. This time he wrote his number sentences all by himself, without asking for help once! Then he asked me to read aloud a library book - The Stinky Cheese Man & Other Fairly Stupid Tales (which gave us some good laughs) - while he colored in his Post Office/USA coloring book. Much better than last week!

Today, after school work, we're going to have a practice tea party for tomorrow, using our very best manners. Of course, I first have to go to class myself - anthropology today!

Wet weather again...

It's been a mainly uneventful week. We have worked on a review of constanent sounds, after reviewing the vowel sounds twice. I'm dropping the SuperBooks at C.O.'s request, and we'll be working through Phonics Pathways this spring instead. We've also been working diligently on math, our planetary studies and Maps, Graphs, Globes. C.J. has been working very intently on her caterpillar drawing - it gets more convoluted and intricate daily.

Today, we were very much looking forward to park day. It looked gloomy out, so I gave K a call as she lives near the park, and got a no-rain report, though she did say it was only 42 degrees out! So we started bundling up, and 10 minutes later the phone rang. It was K to say it was now raining, and at the same moment C.O. noticed it raining here as well, and started crying. Poor boy, so disappointed that we couldn't go! I then thought of the Imagination Center, so we headed there instead, which brought C.O.'s smile right back! We had a good time there too, though I wish that admission wasn't quite so much. I guess I can see the point though, as all the art stuff is free. We painted, played with moon sand, made tissue paper collages, they wore about a dozen costumes apiece, and much, much more. Unfortunately, they are cutting back their hours, the tide table is closed down ("until further notice"), and the business is for sale. If only I had the money! Could you imagine running a place like that for a living?

They are now watching a cartoon (Little Einsteins) and having a snack, then we'll sit down for some late afternoon bookwork, just math, phonics, and some U.S. studies today. Tomorrow is a house-cleaning day, and Sunday we just plan to relax and have a good day! I just got Catherine Levison's A Charlotte Mason Education, so I have my reading all cut out for me (besides all the reading I have for art history & anthropology).

Oh, BTW, I now have my car (SUV) back - yaaaayyyyy!!! It is no longer overheating just from driving around the block (mild exaggeration). Hopefully (knock on wood & cross your fingers) this is the last work it will need for quite some time. Just so you know, her name is Lulu (Lulu Chitty Belle Bang Bang) - the kids named her a few months back.

What an evening...

We started with Phonic Pathways today. Although C.O. knows the stuff early on in the book, we decided to review, so that we can follow the overall pattern of the book. It was a decent reading/sound session - we sat in the big livingroom chair together, and then he unwound with scooter time. After a late lunch, we were just sitting down at the kitchen table to do math, when the phone rang. It was my BIL, and he wanted to know if the whole family would like to go out to Chuck E. Cheese's for dinner & fun. So, C.O. rushed to finish his math, a page in Maps, Graphs, Globes (review of the four cardinal directions), and two pages in HWOT. C.O. got so excited - as he has seen commercials for this place - that he couldn't for the life of him remember what 9+9 is, finally C.J. piped up "Silly, 9+9 equals 18!". Then he and C.J. (who spent all this school time drawing a very detailed caterpillar) anxiously colored and ran to the door, looking for their uncle. Finally he arrived, and off we all went! While the food isn't fantastic (I was smart & got the salad bar), we had absolute tons of fun! The kids climbed all over everything and played about a million games. C.O. even beat me at air hockey, and I really am a pretty decent player! Then, at long last, they traded in all the tickets they won for silly little toys, and we are now quiet at home. They're worn out and I have the beginning of a headache, but really, it was worth it!

We're really enjoying our planetary studies - both kids can tell me which planets are the biggest and the smallest, and the order (going outwards from the sun) of the first 4 planets. Plus, C.O. can identify Venus in the evening sky, and C.J. made a great picture of Saturn, her personal favorite (and mine!). Homeschool is once again being fun, now that I am not irritable, grumpy and overdemanding!

Lego cars, an adorable baby, & more...

We went to 4-H today for the first session of Lego Engineering. C.O. had loads of fun - he made an airplane with a motor that made the propellers turn (which made the whole thing jump around), and then a rubber-band-car that really drove! C.J. colored pictures and had me draw a picture (and color it). We also played monster. Next time though, I need to remember to bring a snack for Miss C.J. She did eat a big lunch right before we left, but that's never enough! Of course, I can never go anywhere without some sort of melt-down... C.O. threw an absolute fit shortly before we left, because he didn't get to color pictures, while building with Legos. But, other than that we had a good time, and of course there was J's baby - he's the cutest baby ever, crawling everywhere, with his two little front bottom teeth, making those adorable little baby yells and coos. Sometimes I wish I would be having more babies, but then my two children are usually quite enough!

Other than that, we did some math today, and I hope C.O. & I can play around with my "new" copy of Phonic Pathways. I also got my copy of SOTW, which I still need to look through. Oh, and my stupid SUV is back in the shop, again. This time it's the cooling system. M & I figure we've put so much into it already that we may as well keep trying, though I admit there are days I would love to just trade it in towards something else! Crap. Well, I guess everything else has been fixed, so there's really not much left to go wrong (crossing my fingers while I knock on wood).

We've started our planetary studies - we read about Mercury yesterday, and I hope to go to my dad's tomorrow to borrow his copy of Holst's The Planets, so we can listen to the piece of music that was composed for each planet as we go. I have a copy somewhere, but since we still have stuff in boxes, I have no clue where it is. M wants to get the stuff to build a mobile in the next few weeks, which will be fun too!

Goo... plus the last few days...

It's been a busy weekend thus far (we have today off too for Martin Luther King Day). Friday: as far as school goes we did some math and worked through Hop on Pop, which C.O. enjoyed a lot more than his readers. I then read Grasshopper on the Road out loud. In the evening, my BIL came over for dinner and movies - we watched Kung Fu Hustle, which was a bizarre, but somewhat funny movie. Saturday, we went to vist & have lunch with one of my co-workers, which was pretty nice. Then, when we got home, BIL was still here, so the kids asked him to play Tinkertoys, which he did for about 2 hours. We read a couple of stories - Uncle Elephant, and Amelia Bedelia, but other than that we didn't sit down for much! C.O. spent a good bit of time outside on his scooter, while C.J. alternated between her scooter & collecting leaves.

Yesterday, we started out with story time - Outside Over There, and The Bee Man of Orn. Then we went to the park and played with D4 and H3, while their mom and I chatted and played pass-the-baby (she has a beautiful 2 month old girl). The kids ran, played kick-ball, climbed like monkeys, and C.J. and I built fairy houses out of sand, twigs, leaves and tiny pebbles. She is very much into fairies lately, which is fine because I think I have just about every fairy book under the sun... like Lady Cottington's Pressed Fairy Album, Good Fairies/Bad Fairies, the Flower Fairies, etc. When the wind got too cold and harsh, we came home, had a late lunch, and then went off to the grocery store.



At home again, we made GOO! Cornstarch + water + food coloring = hours of slimy, bizarre fun! The only drawback was because I added a little too much food coloring, so the kids' hands are now a faint and ghoulish greeny blue. I'm very, very glad I put newspaper everywhere before we started - it made cleanup really easy. Aren't their garbage bag art smocks nice? Anyhow, it gave me time to cook dinner, unload & reload the dishwasher, and make banana-blueberry muffins.

Made this soup last night...

with C.J.'s help. The kids loved it (2 big bowls each), so I thought I'd pass it on!

Curried Lentil Soup

1 small yellow onion, finely chopped
2-3 cloves garlic, minced
4 cups vegetable or chicken stock
1 cup dried lentils (I used the red variety)
2-3 carrots, thinly sliced in rounds
1 cup julienned greens (I used mustard greens this time)
1-2 Tbsp curry powder, or to taste
Salt & pepper to taste
1/2 can coconut milk

Saute onion & garlic until tender. Add broth, bring to a boil, and add lentils. Simmer until lentils begin to soften, then add carrots, salt, pepper & curry powder. Continue cooking until carrots & lentils are cooked through. Stir in greens - cook for about 5-8 minutes more, then stir in coconut milk & serve. If needed, during the cooking process, you can add a little water to reach your desired consistancy.

School went well. C.O. and I watched a documentary on "Insect Wars", and he drew & labeled a diagram of a longhorn beetle, based off a photo in one of our books on insects. Then, we worked on some phonics, and finished up with math. After that, he went over to his buddy's house to play LEGOs, and that's when C.J. and I made the soup. She and I also read a "Little Bear" book - lately C.J. is fixated on Little Bear... books, the TV show (which frankly is waaay better than many TV shows out there for kids her age). She's even named one of her teddy bears Little Bear. She and I finished up playing with the letters E-H on Starfall, then I searched Netflix for movies/documentaries for our upcoming astronomy studies. I found a couple that look okay - we'll see!

Yesterday went much more smoothly...

I took suggestions from M and from a friend, and homeschooling went better, plus I really think a lot of it has been my recent grumpiness with this cold (it keeps coming and going...). We sat down before lunch to read a story - The Sun, The Moon, & the Silver Baboon - then did math. C.O. worked on a couple of pages from Saxon math, while C.J. matched numbers to groups of objects again, and practiced writing 1-5. After that, C.O. took a snack-and-scooter break for a while. Then, we worked on phonics (C.O.) and the alphabet (C.J.), and ended sitting on the couch, reading through a book on the structure of insects. C.O. and C.J. both got very excited about the bug book, so while C.J. flipped through the pages over and over, C.O. drew his own rendition of the insides of a walking stick bug - and did a fantastic job! We plan to wrap up our insect studies this week, then we'll start on the solar & stellar systems, as we got a home Planetarium at Christmas, plus last month's National Geographic came with a great poster of the planets. C.O. then went to spend the night at my mom's, so C.J. and I spent some time playing with letter identification & sounds at Starfall. She also helped me make dinner, wearing her little apron. She & I then watched "Fairy Tale - A True Story" together before bed.

Both kids have officially decided to take a break from gymnastics. C.O. is very interested in martial arts, and our city offers very reasonable priced beginning lessons in Aikido, so he'll be starting that later this month. C.J. wants to try ballet when she turns four, so she's on a break until March. My classes start back up next week, and while I am nervous about taking more units, I am looking forward to the classes themselves, plus C.O. loves it when we do "homework" together.

Today, we have a 4-H meeting, then we'll just do math and some insect stuff. I'll read another library book or 2 to them as well.

Just an update...

Friday we went to Park Day. Last time the kids had a blast, not quite so much this time, though they do want to go again. For both C.O. and C.J., it seems that getting face paintings was the highlight. It seemed like a lot of the kids were on edge, not just mine. Maybe it was the weather - very cold. We'll go next time, in a couple of weeks, and see how that goes.

Then we came home and did our schoolwork. C.J. is working on matching numbers to groups of objects, and is doing really good work. She is also practicing letter writing. C.O. on the otherhand... he gets the concepts (as he reluctantly demonstrates), but would really rather goof off, make silly faces, drop his pencil on the floor a zillion times, and so forth. When he does settle down for a moment, he seems to get the work done easily, so it's been frustrating. M keeps suggesting I give him breaks when he acts up, but I am unsure on this for two reasons: 1) I can see the breaks getting longer and longer, with me trying to get C.O. back on task, and 2) isn't letting him play with toys kind of a reward, and if so, am I rewarding him for goofing around?

Yesterday, bookwork was about the same. C.J. is actually getting to write beautifully - she is very careful with capitol letter formation. She matched numbers to groups of objects easily. She wrote her numbers, 1-5. No trouble there. C.O. again kept dropping his pencil under the table, apparently had to go to the bathroom every other minute, but in between, he made & read all the words in the next lesson of Easy Word Families, did a math assessment and a page of addition (16 problems, doubles up to 9), and did 2 pages in Maps Graphs, Globes, where he is learning the 4 major directions of maps/compasses. Then we started on Poco a Poco music, which the kids both loved! Then, C.O. got scooter time out front with his friend from several apartments down, while C.J. was content to help me wrap the last Christmas presents. Yes, you read that right - we are still doing Christmas. My mom lost her very closest friend in the world on Christmas Day a number of years ago to breast cancer. Since then, my mom has chosen to celebrate on the 12th day of Christmas as Christmas Day is an emotionally difficult day for her. This year she had a schedule conflict, so we're doing our gift exchange, etc., on the 13th day of Christmas.

So, today, we are off to my mom's! The kids picked out really great candles for my mom (mini apple and pear shaped ones), my sister (a pink & black purse-shaped one), and an Asian-looking set for my brother, in more "manly" scents. They are very excited to be giving these gifts! I wrapped them, C.O. wrote names on them, and C.J. put the bows on. As I am typing this, all is peaceful on the homefront, as M is sleeping in (while he still can since he'll likely be working soon), and the children are watching the Berenstein Bears on PBS. Won't last long though, so I had better finish this cup of coffee while it's still hot (for once)!

The universe is weird...

M had his interview, which went quite well, btw. The interviewer was very impressed with his knowledge and qualifications, so we're hoping to hear from him in the next few days. M said his last words were "It was great to have had you in for an interview. Let me check your personal references & I'll call you." Sounds good, right? Then, we get home, and there's a message from another company wanting to know if M would like to come in for an interview. An hour later, the phone rings, and it's M's brother, letting him know that a position as warehouse manager (for the company BIL works for) may be opening up as soon as Tuesday, and would M like the job? Wow.

I just finished reading the book "Miserly Moms". I think the author has some good ideas of ways to cut down on expenses, but I'd definately have to tweak a bit of it here and there. She had some very good points about how people used to reuse things a LOT more than they do now. I do buy a lot of stuff secondhand - clothes, books, even my car - but there are other smaller things I could be doing too. Plus, the author is right about groceries... when I pay attention to sales and make menus and lists, I come out ahead compared to shopping on the fly. No, this does not mean I am going to start buying those giant packages of cheap hamburger, because no one in my house would eat it. But, I could do a better job of stocking up on ground turkey when it's on sale! Altogether, it was actually a pretty enjoyable read!

If I could buy anything for my homeschool...

It would be about 100 different titles from the DK Eyewitness series. I wish I could afford to have a whole library of these books! We do have a few, but there are so many to choose from! I would also love to have loads of Dover coloring books. Oh well, maybe someday (probably when the kids are all grown up)!

Yesterday, in between running errands and tons of LEGO play, C.O. managed a lesson and a half in math, about 8 pages in HWOT, and a few pages from HM Phonics, finishing up the early unit on letter sounds. Now we'll move on to some basic spelling concepts. His math abilities are growing by leaps and bounds! I am always amazed at how quickly he grasps new concepts. C.J. didn't feel like doing much in the way of bookwork, so I settled her down with a coloring book. Then, they both watched about an hour of a dvd called "I Love Toy Trains". If you've never seen it, this is a great series of dvds, narrated by a child, and really well put together, plus they're essentially homemade.

Today, I hope to get C.O., through the rest of the math lesson. It's going more slowly than it did at first because the concepts being introduced are a little more complex, and I want to make sure he really understands before moving on. We'll work on some reading too. I think my mom has a copy of "Hop on Pop" (Dr. Suess), so I think we'll take a break from the readers and try that. I also want to work with C.J. on expanding her version of the alphabet song... right now it goes "A B C D F I G W X Y & Z... now I know my ABC's, next time won't you sing with me?". At least she tries, and she has the tune down! Singing is one of her favorite activities - she sings some actual songs, like Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, and I'm a Little Teapot, but then (especially in the car) she'll make up songs as she goes. It's pretty cute!

On a final note, I found (online naturally) an $8 copy of Story of the World, Vol 1, revised edition, so I went ahead and bought it. I figure this way I have plenty of time to look through it and decide if it's as good as some of the reviews at amazon.com, or as poorly written as a few of the reviews claim it is.

Send good vibes this way...

M has an interview for the arborist position today. He claims he's not nervous, but he's acting like he is. I don't blame him - this will be a HUGE change in things. First, he's been the at-home parent for 2 and a half years, and this will be a fulltime+ position. Secondly, it will ease some of our money struggles. We're used to "living on the edge", so this is a change. No, it won't make us suddenly rich, but just a bit more stable. Third, I will be the primary at-home parent if M gets this job. I will have to do more of the housework, and I'll suddenly have a lot more time alone with the kids. There are both pros and cons to this... pros: I look forward to the time with the kids; I will get to (have to?) run the house MY way (that sounds bad, but am not sure how else to put it - I have my own ideas of household organization, and he has his)... cons: I won't have M around for backup all the time; I will have to do more cleaning (maybe I need to figure out a real system for this - I tried FlyLady but the email was overwhelming); the kids will miss having their Daddy around. I do like that it is a day time job, so M will be home in the evenings to have dinner with us, etc. I really hope this interview today goes well - I think M would enjoy working OUTside the home again!

In other news, I have decided at long last to join a CSA. There's a local one I can pick up from on the way home from work. I look forward to this as I want us to eat more seasonally, and eating locally is always a good thing.

Guess that's all for now!

A New Year...

Hard to believe 2007 is here already! This year, C.J. will turn FOUR, and C.O. will be SIX! Incredible how fast the years go by...

We spent New Year's Eve at W's house, as planned. We had a barbeque (thankful that the weather cooperated), and at midnight lit off fireworks. Both kids made it to 12 to help ring in the New Year. It was an uneventful but very pleasant evening!

Today C.O. worked on math - doing 2 pages of regular work, and a one page drill on addition, doubles up to 9. He also worked on a page from Easy Word Families, and 2 pages from HM Phonics. While he was doing this, C.J. practiced counting with Magnetix, wrote the number 2 several times, and worked on a review page of the letters A-D (mostly coloring). Then I read a book on ants to both of them. Right now they are watching "Alice In Wonderland" as both a reward for good schoolwork, and to rest after a hectic hour and a half of scooter time!