summer school? (part 2)

we're learning about the great outdoors...

...about how to celebrate american holidays...

...about big girl bikes...

...about choo-choo trains...

...about a couple other things...

(that earned a real big boy bike)

...about medals of bravery for surviving kindergarden shots...

...and about the performing arts.

curriculum schmurriculum! 

summer school? (part 1)

sure! why not? how about some sewing lessons from grandma, for starters?

how about strawberry picking on a real farm?

how about a tour of a real-truly-live fire station?

and how about some history thrown in there?

a civil war reenactment where they fire off real canons fits the bill.

how about some wildlife in a local zoo or aquarium?

how about not buying any curriculum?

yes and yes!

what if... ?

here's a fun game to play with your kids at the dinner table, on a roadtrip, or when you're just plain bored:

(rachel's answers included. warning: silliness abounds.)

1. what if you woke up and your hair was blue? (i'll flip over and take my hair off!)

2. what if you were locked in a candy store? (a bad robot ladybug toy will come after us!)

3. what if you woke up and there was an elephant on the lawn? (i'll flip him over and turn him into a hippopotamus!)

4. what if one of the beans we planted in our garden grew all the way up into the clouds? (some of the plant will fall onto the clouds and turn them pink.)

5. what if your friend was crying? (i sing a song to them, make them happy, and hug and kiss them.)

6. what if you found a lost puppy? (i would bring it back home to the candy store because a shopper there is sad because she lost her puppy.)

7. what if you went to the zoo and you became separated from your parents? (mommy and daddy would ride on an elephant to find me!)

8. what if someone walked into the house with muddy shoes? (i would clean it up, have tea with them, and then put them to bed.)

9. what if there were thunder and lightning and you were riding home on your bike? (i would get soaking wet and go to bed on the road.)

10. what if a space ship landed in the backyard? (i would go on the spaceship with my princess puppy.)

11. what if you won a million dollars? (you would take my picture and i'd go home with a jar on my back!)

12. what if the phone rang and your mother was outside? (you would stay outside and not pick up the telephone because maybe it's a bad guy or something.)

13. what if you saw your baby brother playing with a bottle of medicine? (i would take it away from him, put him to bed, and give him a toy medicine bottle instead.)

14. what if the lamp you were standing next to in the store fell off the table and shattered into a hundred pieces? (i would glue it back on and put it back on the table.)



what silly 'what if's' can you come up with? :)

rocking the poetry, 5-year-old style

i'm not the biggest poetry fan, big geek though i may be (see previous post). you could definitely say that i appreciate it, but i'm just not going to plop myself down with a fat volume of poetry and get lost for hours in the complex swirls and dives of the language. sorry. i wish i could, but the truth is that most of the time, i just plain don't get it.

but i do love imagery. i love when an author finds just that perfect word or phrase that puts me right there, almost on the verge of using my sense of touch or smell. that i more than appreciate. that i can get very, very much.

rachel usually has a weekly creative writing-type assignment, something that she creates and dictates to me, i record it, and she can then illustrate it and decorate it however she wants.  (that's usually when our story-writing takes place.) this week she had to write a free verse poem. our curriculum gave some examples and a simple outline of how to go about this. (because i had no earthly clue how to introduce this. i hated writing in school.) the assignment wanted us to start off by think in terms of imagery. ("the sunset is like a...," "the teddy bear is soft like a...," what does it make us think of/feel?) next, we needed to pick a subject to write about.

here is one of the many examples that were given for us to read through together:
leaves
the leaves fall
like big pennies,
and the sidewalk catches them.

here is the formula we were to strive to follow:
title of poem
a noun and a verb (what does the subject do?)
a simile to describe the noun and verb above
a final thought that further describes

here is rachel pamela's first free verse poem from the depths of her little soul:

pretty dress story

my pretty dress walks

like a girl who has legs and a face,

but not any arms.

considering i don't usually "get" poetry anyway, i was pretty darn proud. :)



going with the flow: homeschool style

i love having a curriculum. i love that it's ready-made for me. i love that i have an easy way to see what's coming up and to check off what we've done. i love that things are organized without a ton of time and planning on my part. i love that most of our "school" time is spent snuggled on the couch, snacks and juice in hand (coffee in mine), just reading.

my 5 year old and i are currently on week 26 of this, accompanied by this. and we're truly having a blast. we've learned so many fun and interesting facts (yes, i said "we." i now know the difference between stalactites and stalagmites, thank you very much.), and i've noticed an obvious increase in her vocabulary and creativity.

i also love the flexibility that homeschool allows. even though my day is planned for me in my handy dandy teacher's guide, it's so easy to switch things around or just plain skip things if we want. today turned out to be a flexible day.

in our current stage of life our main "school time" is in the afternoon when my son is taking a nap (if there are simple activities i know he would enjoy, we fit them in after lunch before he lays down). today we were having lunch and listening to some music. i picked some classical music today for their benefit and because i'm a big geek and just plain like it. (it was dvorak's 7th symphony, by the way.) now we've listened to classical music before in the background, but today it really caught rachel's attention. we started to talk about the different instruments we could hear and when i was having trouble describing to her just how tall a double bass is, i decided a google search with pictures was in order.

i stumbled upon this site, which has sound clips of all the instruments found in a symphony orchestra and even some games. we definitely listened to every single clip and rachel still wanted more. (lucas was into it, too, so his nap got pushed back a bit so we could keep exploring together.) then she wanted to see a whole orchestra in action. over to youtube we went.

i found this clip which turned out to be the perfect way to follow up our instrument search. the piece has lots of different solos and the camera work jumps around to show the different instruments (including those strange double basses rachel was so curious about).* rachel recognized a lot of instruments from little einsteins and she thought that was just the bee's knees.

even after this, my 5 year old still wasn't bored. we then branched out to watching some ballet dances from the nutcracker. (we're planning on taking rachel to see that live next christmas.)

at this point, lucas was an hour late for his nap. i had to pull the plug. and we did have other things on the agenda for today. but it was such an enjoyable time with my kids, to go with the flow and let them explore in the moment the thing that interested them today. tomorrow they may be completely uninterested, but hey, at least they had a blast pretending to play the timpani.

*this is another great example of the different sections and instruments courtesy of my dad. also, the hairstyles are unbelievable.

a just-for-fun story

this is what comes out when my daughter is in the mood to make up a story and the story can be about whatever she wants it to be (i had to ask her to slow down a couple times because i couldn't write as fast as she could create):

bill was going to australia. then he saw the sea. he brought his bathing suit and swam in it. then he went and found a home in australia. he had spiderman shoes and green, white, and striped shirts. he had everything he needed.

then he went outside and he was wearing his striped shirt, spiderman shoes, and blue pants. he stopped in the middle of the road and saw a cat and a butterfly going across the street. then he went inside and slept and slept and slept. then he had breakfast, looked out the window, and saw snow falling down. he wore his coat, gloves, long sleeves, and pants. he wore socks and a hat and boots and earmuffs. then he built a snowman and stopped for a second.

he saw a penguin going into an igloo! he tried to catch the penguin to see him. then what he saw at once was people ice skating. so he ice skated, too. then when the snow was done he got tired, went home, and went to bed.

the end

happy story-writing!

a new month and simplehomeschool

so we're getting back in the swing of things around here ...or trying to, at least. our travels are done. my hubby's classes are done. january is done. (really??)

i'm trying to get back into the routine of the food shopping, the homeschooling, the cleaning (*insert tongue in cheek*), and the life we have in the community here. it's not going super smoothly. i'm blaming the cold. it makes me feel better about myself.

today i just wanted to share a blog post i read this morning from simplehomeschool. if you're a homeschooling family and this blog isn't part of your regular blog stalking, it definitely should be. i've really been enjoying their series "a day in the life," where lots of moms are sharing what homeschooling looks like in their homes and daily lives. today's post was, by far, my favorite. this mom's day was rough, frustrating, and far from structured. but it was real and honest, and who really ever has a perfectly structured day, homeschooling or not?

When you have littles in the house, training them is the priority.

that spoke volumes to me. it's not the end of the world if you don't get through the "u" worksheet because of a whiney attitude (*ahem* like our monday). with littles, the whiney attitude just may be the best lesson you could cover that day, and it lays the groundwork for your future schooling endeavors, no matter what form of schooling your child is participating in.

so all that to say is, go check out lora lynn's homeschool day in the life (with a 2, 3, 5, and two 6-year-olds).

tell me how you liked it!

rainy day ideas #2

i thought i'd share some more fun activities we've been enjoying in our school time. i'm always adding more to my running list of what things were really fun and we could easily pull out on rainy days (or just plain bored days). for more rainy day ideas go here.

• writing in rice or cornmeal: i poured some uncooked rice onto a cookie sheet and let rachel show off the letters we'd been learning together. this was a much bigger hit than i anticipated (i mean, how often do you get to really play with your food?). if your child doesn't know letters yet, shapes work well, too. or just whatever designs they want!

• salt and sugar science experiment: rachel put drops of water onto some salt and sugar cubes to see what would happen. i have to admit, it was pretty fascinating to see the sugar cube collapse in on itself. this was one day i was actually disappointed it wasn't raining because we could've watched what the raindrops could have done to the salt and sugar.

• hard-boiled egg decorating: who says you can only do this at easter time? we made our own hard-boiled humpty dumpties! it was super easy and clean because we only used magic marker for the decorating.

rachel made a mr. and mrs. humpty dumpty

and when the decorating is done, it's snack time!

• gas-fueled paper airplanes: daddy got in on the action for this one. after learning about solids, liquids, and gases (which is beautifully demonstrated by melting ice cubes and then boiling the water until it turns to steam) we made our own gas- (CO2 from our lungs) fueled paper airplane. just tape your paper airplane to a balloon that you blow up (but don't tie) and let 'er fly.

unfortunately, our first prototype gas-fueled itself straight to the floor. this inspired a google search of how to make a good paper airplane. once our plane was ready for take off everyone (including yours truly) got to perfect their paper airplane-throwing technique. rachel got pretty good there at the end.

• storm-watching: if your rainy day happens to be a thunder stormy day, it may be nice to just sit back, watch the lightning, snuggle through the thunder, and talk about how big and strong our God is.

hope your rainy day turns out to be a special one!

storytime

(rachel looked at a picture of 2 boys in a forest looking at a tree that had been cut down but wasn't falling. this was the result.)

A Strange Day

By Rachel P. Wade

One day, Lucas and Jackson went to a forest. Lucas cut down a tree with an ax. Then he laid down on the ground because he was so tired. But the tree didn't fall. It was still standing up! They thought it was strange. Lucas said, "Why is it standing up?" Then Jackson said, "Because Jesus is holding it."

The End

next on the poetry agenda...

we're currently working on memorizing this sweet little poem. i'm looking forward to getting video of rachel saying all the little poems we'll be learning together over the course of the school year. children have the amazing ability to memorize so quickly, and memorization is one of those things that the more you do it the easier it becomes. i'm trying to get her memorization muscles toned and developed early (and it's not such a bad thing for me to work on, either)!

the little plant

by kate louise brown

in the heart of a seed

buried deep, so deep

a dear little plant

lay fast asleep.

"wake!" said the sunshine,

"and creep to the light!"

"wake!" said the voice

of the raindrops bright.

the little plant heard

and it rose to see

what a wonderful outside

world might be.

rainy day ideas #1

throughout our 2 months of this whole homeschooling adventure, we've discovered some really fun and simple activities. i've been keeping a running list of the things rachel has really enjoyed so far so i can pull them out again when playtime ideas run low (and when our winter rainy season gets underway). i thought i'd share my list here:

• coins in an egg carton: take an empty egg carton and number the slots with a marker 1-6 if you have a half dozen, 1-12 for a dozen. (my random foreign-country egg carton has 15.) have the child put that number of coins in the appropriate slots. cheap, simple, easy, and amazingly fun!

• home-made beanbag: i used one of lucas's too-small socks, some rice, and yarn to make our very own home-made beanbag. the fun that can be had with this thing is apparently infinite. rachel likes to toss it in a kitchen pot. she likes to walk across the room while balancing it on a wooden spoon. also, i've made little flashcards for the letters we're learning. sometimes i'll spread them out on the floor, say the sound of a letter, and rachel will throw the beanbag at the letter. i'm telling you. infinite possibilities.
• follow-the-string hide and seek: it's pretty self-explanatory. pick a stuffed animal or something that could be a "treasure," tie a long piece of string or yarn to it, hide it, and let your child follow the trail. then take turns and let them hide it for you to find.
• push-pin pictures: on a piece of dark construction paper, i drew a picture of a sun with a black marker. rachel put the paper on the carpet and poked holes along the lines with a push-pin. then we hung it on the window of her daddy's office for a surprise when he got home.

• playdough: we all have it. we all love it. add two simple components to it and it makes it all the more fascinating. 1. roll playdough snakes and cut them with scissors. 2. hide coins in the playdough and let your child find them and pick them out. sounds simple and kinda boring. but rachel has never played with playdough for so long... ever.
• cheerios bracelets: stringing cheerios on yarn. what could be better? or more edible?

(i misjudged rachel's yarn length, so hers ended up being a crown. live and learn.)

enjoy!

poetry?

yes, poetry. rachel and i have been working on learning this poem for about a month. i saw it in a book and thought it was adorable. she recited it for me last night completely from memory all by her little self.

halfway down

by a. a. milne (the guy that wrote winnie the pooh)

halfway down the stairs is a stair where i sit

there isn't any other stair quite like it

i'm not at the bottom

i'm not at the top

so this is the stair where i always stop

halfway up the stairs isn't up and isn't down

it isn't in the nursery

it isn't in the town

and all sorts of funny thoughts run round my head:

"it really isn't anywhere!

"it's somewhere else instead!"

the latest installment from my budding author

the assignment: write a story about the day you woke up and were only 2 inches tall.

the result is as follows:

one day, i was two inches tall. i found a teeny white balloon and then a big pink balloon. then i found the biggest orange balloon and tried to make steps out of the balloons. then there was a huge big balloon that was purple. i walked on the balloons and the white one popped. i fell down and the dragon stepped on me because i was little.

i got up and climbed the tallest bunk bed. then i climbed down with teeny pink flowers from my bunk bed, and found a purple jewel for my mommy on lucas's bed. then i ate a strawberry from the kitchen and then i was growing like lucas. then i put some beautiful clothes and shoes on.

the end.

now that's a story. this is only our second attempt at full-out writing our own story, but i already noticed such a big difference in her confidence and ideas. i had to prod her to think of what's next after every sentence during our first attempt. this time around was more about holding her back and keeping her on track. (things were getting far too princessy and not having anything to do with being two inches tall.) to reiterate, she comes up with the story and i act as the scribe.

i hereby decree another successful homeschooling day complete!

what can you create with your kids today?

a love for crafts does not a clutter-free home make

if your pre-school daughter is anything like mine, she loves crafts. and coloring. crafts and coloring. not a day goes by, school or no school, when the crayons, coloring books, scissors, and glue don't get pulled out for crafts and coloring.

i love that she gets so excited about making things. i love that she loves when she figures out how to draw something new. i love that she gets joy from drawing a picture for a friend. and i love that her 2 year old brother is now starting to enjoy creating with her. the downside to this hobby is it leaves a looooot of paper in my house. anyone else have this problem?

here are a couple things i do to try to keep the clutter under control (or attempt to do so...):

1. this is the new wall decoration in my kids' room installed by my wonderful husband. i display our most recent home-school creations for the world to see. as you can see, there's not a ton of room, so i'm taking something down at least once a week. (i can't take credit for this idea at all. i've seen it in a couple friends' homes in the past and mentally logged it away for a time such as this.) i've been able to keep our school papers pretty organized so far (but of course, we're only a month into school!), but when the papers comes off the wall i still have to figure out what to do with them...

2. ...and this is what i do with them: i have a special spot in a special cabinet that i can quickly and easily stash beloved crafts and coloring pages. once a year around thanksgiving, i gather up all the papers from throughout the year and start sorting. my most favoritey favorites are kept by me, forever. i keep this stack as small as possible. the papers that are just scribbles, sadly, end up in the trash when no one is looking (unfortunately, we don't have the option of recycling where we live). all the other papers that represent my children's time, interests, and development in the most precious of ways i staple into little books and send them off to the grandparents for christmas. it makes a great present, the grandparents can hold their long-distance grandchildren's creations until their hearts are content, and i get a de-cluttered closet! win win!

do you have any fun tricks to keep down the paper clutter in your house?

and here is an example of one of my favoritey favorite pictures that i will never part with painted by my most favoritey favorite girl...

different people speak different languages

did you know that? apparently there are between 6000 and 7000 different languages in the world today. holy canoly.

i was supposed to introduce this concept to my daughter as we enjoyed the story of the tower of babel together. the lesson encouraged us to build our own tower and talk about different languages and how difficult it would have been to try to work with people you can't understand.

personally, i found this lesson hilarious, since we happen to live in a non-english speaking country where we spend a good deal of our time not understanding people, and we know first hand the frustrations those people would have been facing (and we get why they ended up quitting and moving away from each other).

so instead of talking about how dora speaks spanish and if we can remember any of the words she teaches us, we just spoke in a different language to each other. rachel doesn't usually do this with me (i mean, there's really no need), but whenever she does it's an extremely humbling experience for me. rachel learned more of this language in 9 months of pre-school than i probably will over the course of 5 years. she even corrects me sometimes. needless to say, if there's one thing my little family understands well, it's the concept of a language barrier.

and now some pictures of us playing our newly invented game we dubbed "the wade family pyramid." it's kind of like jenga and the tower of babel had a baby that happened to be a game. enjoy!

can 4-year-olds write?

and i don't mean print their letters, i'm talking about composing a story or a short how-to article (oh heck, even a blog post!). well, i've been introduced to the fact that just since my 4 year-old can't write independently, does NOT mean she can't create and "write" stories.

last week in our language arts time, we looked at a picture. the picture was of a boy and a robot sitting on a porch step, and the boy was reading a card that said "i love you." (also, the robot had a door in his belly-region.) after talking about the details of the picture, i started asking questions. "where did that robot come from?" "where are they?" "what do the boy and the robot like to do together?" "what do you think will happen next?" and what do you think happened? a story was born.

Lucas and the Robot

by Rachel P. Wade

Once upon a time, Lucas made a robot in the kitchen out of wood, so he could have a friend. They would play hide and seek, puppets, the catching game with Swiper, and the watching game with puppy.

One day, there was a birthday party for Lucas. They played a heart card game, they danced, and had a picnic. Rachel, Andie, Chuck, Ebru öğretmenim [translation: my teacher, Ebru], Dora, Logan, and 20 beş yaş [5 year old] friends were there.

After the party the robot made a card for Lucas and hid it in his belly. They went outside and sat on the stairs and the robot gave him the special card.

Lucas grew up to be a king, and wore a special necklace. Robot's picture was in it, and when Lucas would say "why are you in there, robot?" robot would come out to play. Lucas said, "I love you, robot."

Rachel was the knight's daughter. She was wearing a green dress and dancing with Lucas. And they stayed there for a long time and played together. And when it was time to go home, she waved her magic wand and made hot air balloon shoes. She put them on, buckled them up, and went home.

The End.

all i did was ask questions, help her keep the order straight, and act as her scribe. it was a time of lots of giggling, dreaming, and imagination. can you write a story with your child today?

(and who wouldn't want a pair of hot air balloon shoes??)

a new direction

you know what i would love? i'd love to have one of those mommy blogs. you know which ones i'm talking about.

one of THOSE.

one of those where i'm the mommy expert who is changing a diaper, fixing a healthy dinner, setting a broken leg, planning the next 5 years of homeschooling all the while blogging about my top 10 potty training tips and hosting my latest giveaway. i would love that. or, i'd love to know how to do all that so i could have a chance to blog about it. that's a better way to phrase it. but unfortunately, i'm not good at any of those things... i'm not even good at blogging. i just have big ideals!

but i had an inspiration. that inspiration comes from the fact that i've started some real-live homeschooling with my almost 5 year old this year, and we're having a blast! but it seems like the more i read about homeschooling and try to plan fun and educational things, the more i realize i have no idea what i'm doing. so instead of a blog that tells you how to homeschool, mop your floor, stock your freezer, and go green, i thought this could be a space where i can ask YOU what you do. how do you get it done? how do you get organized when you realize you aren't getting it all done? what's been successful and what's been disastrous? and as i research and experiment and try not to mess up my kids, i'll share my journey with you.

in short, i openly admit i don't know what i'm doing. do you feel like that, too? let's feel like that together and get through this crazy adventure of mothering, housekeeping, and homeschooling together.

A a B b C c

for the past 5 days, rachel and i have been working out of a reading curriculum book. she's having a blast so far and she's doing really well. (and please note, she's not even 4 yet. i'm just a little proud of her.)

here is our book. she calls it her "grown-up school book."

these are 3 out of the 4 letters she knows, as of day 5. i won't even tell you what they are because i'll bet you can decipher her big sloppy letters. this is a sample of our "dictation exercise." i just made it up to see if she could do it. she can. so we do it. i say the sound and she writes the letter. she got an A+.

ok, i know this isn't a real word (i already know how to read, so there), but it's the first thing my girl sounded out for herself, ever. so i had to share.

she can't resist getting a little artsy with her new-found knowledge.

she's such a big kid!

more of the children!

i recently realized i hadn't been doing much updating about my actual babies here on "babies having babies." i figured you're most likely coming here to see pictures of beautiful children. i mean, why wouldn't you?

these kids are really growing up. i think i've been blinking too much lately. rachel is really enjoying our new home. she loves our apartment (just like her mother), she loves our balconies, she loves hot tea, and she's loving the neighbors that we've met so far, even though she has no idea what they're saying to her.

our 3 year and 10 month old is yearning to read. i got a book from a friend about teaching little ones to read in 15 minutes a day. i thought we could give it a try when her birthday rolls around. she's very excited to be 4 and start to learn to read :). she also loves to color and draw. that's how she spends the majority of her day. and what's really exciting for me is that her "pictures" are starting to look like actual pictures. i can tell the rainbow from the tree and the tree from the dog. i brought some little preschool activity books from the states and we've been working our way through those~colors, shapes, numbers, opposites... what do you know? i'm a homeschool mom.

bubbs is a boy. very very very much a boy. he's active and loud and silly and wonderful. he climbs on everything, and i don't just mean the coffee table. i mean onto the top of the couch and then actually scales his way down the side, like a mountain climber evolved from a monkey. this kid's only 17 months old. the difference between boys and girls is absolutely hilarious. lucas notices our new home much less than rachel, obviously. he's got mommy, daddy, and milk, so he's good to go. he is a huge fan of all the stray cats and dogs we come across every day. he decided to pop in 2 new teeth this week (and he's been a happier boy every since).

our kids have become hide and seek champions. it's the new family game of choice in the wade household.

they've also made a new lifestyle choice. my children are confirmed nudists. since it's 100 degrees outside and our home is only air conditioned in one room (and not the bedrooms), i've been letting it slide. if we're home, you can guarantee my children are naked. i keep trying to prepare rachel for the fateful day when it starts getting cooler and she will, indeed, have to sleep in some form of clothing.

and pictures of lucas continue to get blurrier and blurrier.

we're about to embark on the search for a preschool for our little ones for a few days out of the week where they can play with kids their own age and soak up a new language through playtime.

our babies become more and more un-babies every day before my very eyes. they sure are a hassle and a lot of work, and the messes they can cook up are unbelievable... but they sure are fun. ;)