http://www.dropshots.com/day.php?userid=7961&cdate=20070629&ctime=150748

Then she gets it quicker here with the bigger shoe

http://www.dropshots.com/day.php?userid=7961&cdate=20070629&ctime=151228

I can't get them to work with the videos so here is the links.

We did a science experiment on Friday and boy was it neato!!! It was from this site, The Science Explorer. We did the Outrageous Ooze.

Here are some pictures of us playing/working with it.

Not the best pictures because... Dh was taking them! lol

We have also done the Bubble Bomb and The Fantastic Feats of Fizz.(rasins is down at the bottom of this page) 

This is week 10 in our prek Sonlight. This week we are adding in all few more books. I am excited as more variety for us this week to spice things up.

Alyssa is... difficult sometimes. I love her to pieces but man is she a piece of work. I really do not enjoy her attitude. The faces she makes etc. Then there comes the frustratedness and the stopping working to play Ninja Turtles. I want her to concentrate but she is always taking us off subject back to what is most important to her - playing. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Ok, I  just needed that vent. As right now she is doing a cut and paste sheet from Rod & Staff Workbooks and pretending the ninja turtles are spitting up on the work.  

The main things - we do get her work done. She is doing very well. I am just thinking we need to do something different. Perhaps do school first thing in the morning. Problem is we do school when Tristan is napping. When he is older we will get into a more ideal time and schedule. Now I am like ok quick lets get on with it. Oh well.

Things are going great. This week looks jammed packed with stuff. I find it very satisfying to check off things in the homeschool tracker. Don't forget if you dont have a free homeschool tracker I have a link on my sidebar to download it. It is a GREAT tool!

Alyssa did NOT like making our bubble bomb. I got some easy science experiments off the computer.

The one we did yesterday was a bubble bomb.

This is where we learn about how acid-base reaction makes cakes and quick breads rise. From the bubbles.

It was rather convient as the WowWowWubzy we watched yesterday on demand was about putting too much baking powder/soda into the cake and the batter over took the town. So I was able to use that as an example.

Alyssa did NOT like the bomb because the pop was too loud. I think she is silly because she covered her ears and it was NOT bad at all. Just a pop of the bag. But you know Alyssa.

9 weeks down of homeschool! I am so proud of her.

It is HARD to find time to post on my boards and blog lately. Sorry if I seem neglectful. That is not my intent as I read blogs and message boards but when it comes time to post the kids have usually decided my times is up and need something. A one and a half year old does not have a long attention span to entertain himself! lol

I am finding out that my daughter is a workbook freak! She just cannot get enough of the "drawing part" of school. We do Sonlight so we have a lot of books to read. I think the big deal to Alyssa is when we do workbooks she gets to play. We play Teenage Mutent Ninja Turtles (yes my DAUGHTER is CRAZY over the old cartoons my dh downloaded and we got a dvd of 12 of them from Walmart). She picks the color crayon to use to represent which turtle she is playing. I am all the others saying "Leonardo is NEVER going to get that right" and then she shocks all the rest of the turtles by how wonderful she does.

When we read stories she can't play anything. So she is like - lets get this over so we can do the workbooks!

Anyways. That is how it goes. Here is a picture of Alyssa making Saltdough from our sonlight. Lets just say - that was a disaster. I did not have cream of tarter (or know where to even look for it in the store) for playdough. So we tried the salt dough. YUCK!

And here is my little leftie doing his work. lol

I cannot wait till he is older to homeschool also. Because I often feel like - Ok, lets put Bubby away so we can do some work. I feel bad like I am ignoring him. So my goal this week is to make some time to school Tristan. Be it seriously looking through books and naming stuff, talking about his blocks, talking more colors, or working on one two three on his fingers. I used to work so much more with Alyssa by his age. It is just so hard. Blah. No excuses.

At the end of the Rod and Staff Workbooks there are tests to see if they remember the things they learned in the book. We took two days to do one a day. I know she knew the stuff but it was very satisfying to have her sit nicely and follow my directions exactly! Normally she is making us play Littlefoot (Dinosaur) or Leonardo (Ninja Turtle) doing their school work and it is a pretend game the whole time. She did so wonderful at listening for what I said and not rushing. I think making sure everything was neat and quiet as we did it made a big difference.

Just a start but still two tests A+ . I don't think I am big on tests. But they are in

there so we are doing them too

I am noticing a HUGE improvement in her work and it has only been 6 weeks! Watching her improve on tracing and listening to directions. Her coloring and cutting is getting better. I am not sure if it comes with her age (she will be 4 TOMORROW!) or if it comes with practice. I think a little of both. But either way I am getting very pleased with how things are going.

I got my Kitchen Primer and Just My Size Tools from Marmee Dear. I won $25 to the schoolhouse store. And I picked this set for $24.95. It is so nice! The tools are really cute.

It came with a catalog and let me tell you. I am ITCHING to buy more things. I have a list already over $50 of stuff I want. A kit for making cookies with Just my size tools and ABC cookie cutters. The entire set of letters!

Another thing that will be coming to my home is the little boys handymans primer. And a few other little things. Just gotta save up some $.

Things are going great! We had some down time with funerals and mils vacation, my brother coming up from MD but we are back on track. Alyssa is doing so well. We get sooooooooooo much done with Tristan is asleep! But that is not much time. I figure I am NOT going to sweat it this year. As he gets older things will get much better and we can do more. We get it all done just not as easy as I would like it to be. I also find myself deleting things. Hooked on Phonics is taking a back seat. That is ok. I figure as long as I get in my Core Sonlight and our Math we are good to go.

She is doing wonderful on memorizing her memory verses. I was worried about those but it turns out I did not have anything to worry about. Alyssa is a whiz at memorizing. We make motions to the hard ones but honestly- the motions are more for me to learn than her.

So that is where we are with Sonlight. Almost done with week 5. Not bad since the schools around here just have had 2 days of school so far.

Did you all see I won Gena's contest!? I am so thrilled! $25 to the Schoolhouse Store! I got a Kitchen Primer and Just My Size tools from Marmies Kitchen. I have been eyeing that up for a long time. They also make a boys primer that I will get for Tristan when he is older too.

Ok, in answer to Gena's... er um Sprittibees' contest... here is our homeschool lunch. I cannot take a pic today as my daughter is SICK SICK SICK and her lunch is some Kaolectrolyte right now.

This was the other day when Tristan was on soft foods only due to the fact that he smashed his front teeth back. Update on that, Dentist says they are doing well after a week check up, he wants to check him again in October. The 25th (little reminder for myself)

Ok, just went in to check on Alyssa and here is her at lunch today. I think we can declare today a sick day. Please say a prayer for her because she is going the bathroom every 10 mins and very miserable about it.

For the record - we are preschool/homeschoolers. Alyssa is currently doing Sonlight Exploring God's World. Also Singapore Math, Handwriting Without Tears, Rod and Staff workbooks and a little Hooked On Phonics.

One more from the other day... Just for fun -

Well you did want to see a homeschoolers lunch right!?

Today Alyssa and I did school on the porch swing. Oh I cannot wait until fall. I wish I could freeze this place in fall weather. I cannot wait to swing on the porch swing with her, reading her books while Tristan naps, as the cool fall breeze is around us.

I think I have figured out what we are going to do. We are going to do a typical school year. And then use summer for my extras that I just cannot give up! I am finding I have too much GOOD stuff. I just don't know how to fit it all in. And I don't want to ditch anything.

I have the Seven C's and Answers for Kids from AIG. those are bible/science stuff. I have all of Jeannies books. And I want to do the core of Sonlight with their science too. I have too much bible stuff and too much science. I just cannot make myself ditch any of it. So I am thinking that I will do sonlight during the year and make summers my extra stuff time. That way we won't ever get out of the habit of doing school - and we can do the fun things I just cannot pass up working with then.

I already have the bible stories and stories to color from Rod and Staff scheduled for the summer. Because Sonlight has bible stories each day, I figured I would make that when it is over. I don't want to double up and make her feel overload.

So anyways. That is my game plan.

We hit some snags on Alyssa being frustrated because she could not do something. But she is going good. With just two things to finish up tomorrow we are finished with another week. We doubled up today because Grandma is coming swimming tomorrow.

Alyssa is frustrated with her math because she was not copying her numbers exactly right. She is a perfectionist. I think this is pretty good.

She got especially frustrated with her 2's and 3's. So we had to take those slower.

I am having a hard time fitting Hooked on Phonics in with my days. I wanted to do it daily but with the part we are on being on a cassette tape - it is hard. I only have one in the bedroom and it is just not convient.

One of Alyssas daily pet bugs

Anyways. The kids were on the computer today and I thought this was a cute picture. Tristan likes to watch the media player but Alyssa made me turn it off for her to play NickJr. Stinkin DH who taught her to use the computer! She is always wanting to have it from me now! lol

And her Magna doodle Buffalo! lol

I played a game with my Alphabet Go Fish cards. It was I scattered all the cards on the floor. Then she had to find the pairs to make the alphabet in order. She had so much fun!





Then we did Mat Man again



Then today I had the kids do the same thing. Alyssa and Cloe wanted something to do. So I had them play the same game.

Just like the entry title - School is going so well! 3 days down. Alyssa is doing awesome! She likes the personal time I think. And she is improving just from where I saw her a few months back.

Like her cutting. A few months ago she did not even know how to hold the scissors correctly and I thought her hands must be too small. Now her lesson yesterday was to cut on the dotted line, then around the boxes then paste the pictures under their matching pictures. Her cutting was great!

She is actually taking her time at something! Which is amazing. I also noticed how neatly she was trying to stay on the lines on her workbook page. She figured out an eraser though! When she did not follow the line correctly she made me erase it so she could try again.

Then once she started matching with a line to items when the directions did NOT tell her to do that. I told her she would not get a sticker if she did that. And she started to again and stopped herself crying - PLEASE! make it go away! (it was crayon) Please let me get a sticker! I told her if she did the rest carefully and followed my directions I would see. Or course she got one.

Guess what we did yesterday! We started school! I am so bad! I just could not wait! I figured why not?! If we need days off, starting sooner just means I can take them off.

I had the BEST day! And we got TWO days done because I knew today we were going into town ALL day.

Poor Alyssa! Tristan is almost bigger than her!

Not a flattering picture but here she is beading while we practiced our memory verse.

While we were in the kitchen working Tristan snuck on the computer!

We worked all day long in spurts. It was very nice. We finished up the day with HWT and tomorrows math lession after Tristan went to bed. Then snuggled on the couch with the next days read alouds.

Day 1 and 2 finished... 178 more to go! woohoo!

Last night when I was putting Alyssa to bed she asked if we could go see a volcano someday. I told her NO WAY! But promised to look at them on the internet today.

I am just not a google queen like a few of my online friends (JenW). But we did fine a few pictures.

Today we are playing Sportacus and Stephanie. I showed her how Stephanie could make a picture by scribbling on a page then coloring the shapes in. I used to LOVE doing that as a kid. So of course I made one too! lol They are always different and pretty colored.

I think I set my start date for August 28th... but now that Danielle said hers was August 21st... it is making me itch to move mine up. But my reasoning was because her cousins will be over and want to play the last week of summer vacation for the public school kids. So reality is I should keep my date.

Alyssa turns 4 on Sept 13th so we will officially do preschool. If she was being sent to school she would be going half a day to the local preschool here so only natural for me to start her then also.

So since Natasha asked for a run down on what I will be doing with her come fall, here it is...

I will go back to really doing Handwriting Without Tears - Get Set For School.

Then we will work at the same time starting Hooked On Phonics.

And book 1b of Singapore Early Bird Math.

Have not decided what bible I will be doing.

She is also learning to use the computer now too.

I also plan to randomly have her watch some leapfrog videos and do lots of playdough and painting.