home_school's Xanga

Friday, March 23, 2007

Fri, 23 Mar 2007 14:16:16 GMT

Alright, so we're no longer going to take the homeschooling route for official, formal schooling, but I'm going to keep this blog active for things that we do as extra-curricular additions to the boy's public schooling. Rather than blog about all the fun things we do on my regular blog, I'll save it all for this one.

Things that I'll share here will include anything crafty, educational, gardening, websites that are kid-friendly or kid-oriented, resources of the same, etc. Now, to actually remember that this blog exists and to log in and write!

Saturday, November 18, 2006

Sat, 18 Nov 2006 10:02:15 GMT

Wow! It's been two years since I blogged here. We are no longer doing full-time homeschooling. Tristan is attending a public school Kindergarten, and so far it's going ok. He's overwhelmed, the school is chaotic compared to what he's used to, and he's only been there about 2 weeks. We'll see how it all goes in the next two weeks. After he's been there for 30 school days, they'll do another evaluation to see how things are going and to see if we need to make changes to his IEP.

It's an overwhelming experience for us both, but I guess it'll just take time for us to get used to the changes compared to what we are used to. I'm still hoping to supplement him with some homeschooling, mainly of the fun kind, hehe.

I was reading through my old posts here and discovered the pictures of those flannel sets I bought two years ago. I had misplaced them after we left England so we haven't seen them in over a year! I must find them (we just moved from CO to TX a month ago) so that we can play with them. I found new sets on eBay that I may have to buy or ask for for Christmas.

I've decided to come back here to try to share links and other school-ish ideas, because keeping all of that in a central location works out best for me. I'm rediscovering some of my favorite old homeschool-related bookmarks that I've lost with new computers coming into my life. This is easier than trying to start a list of links on my main blog.

Tuesday, October 19, 2004

Tue, 19 Oct 2004 18:28:47 GMT

We are back from our trip! We had a wonderful time, and Tristan did great on the plane -- all plane rides, actually. I had enough stuff to entertain him, he only grew bored on the way to the states about 3 hours before landing. We were both pretty stir-crazy at that point! We wasted time walking around the plane and playing with cars. He slept for only one hour on that flight! On the flight home from the states he slept most of the 8 hours, and I only slept about 1. We also flew from MI to LA, which was also a great flight for both of us.

I have pictures posted on my regular blog. I'm too lazy to post them here as well. Anyway, that's http://www.xanga.com/ilovebakedgoods

Tristan has learned so much this past month, I can't even begin to tell all about it. He's still obsessed with numbers, moreso since we've been gone. He's learning how to expand from just counting and identifying numbers to creating numbers (as well as letters) out of objects. He created letters of the alphabet out of a long stack of Mega Bloks, he is now drawing the alphabet and a few numbers, he counts just about anything in his site, he wants people to hear him say the numbers, if he's showing you a number, he demands that you look and acknowledge the number he is holding, he can count and recognize up to 100, he is learning how to make shapes out of Play-doh.

His expressive language is progressing beautifully. He repeats a lot of things that people say, as if he's trying to file it away to remember later. He's taken to noticing things in the world and pointing them out to me. It's just amazing and thrilling to be experiencing this progress with him!

Well, I'm tired so that's about it from here...

Crunchy -- if you're reading this -- I hope you had a good time in England! I'm going to look at your blog and try to catch up on your adventures hehe.

Monday, September 06, 2004

Mon, 06 Sep 2004 04:25:44 GMT

Does anyone have any good/fun travel ideas for a 3.5-year-old who will be stuck on an airplane for 8 hours? We've got the mini Magna Doodle, coloring books, paper to write/draw on, crayons, a small set of Legos, story books and snacks. Any other suggestions? I'm not really sure what else we could do that's travel-sized that'll occupy our time and minds (especially Tristan's! I could read a book the entire time if I were "allowed" to). Keep in mind that he's got expressive language delays, which means a bit of a cognitive delay, so we can't do anything too advanced, like a Q&A session. He knows numbers up to at least 30 (counting and identifying), knows all your basic colors, knows his alphabet (reciting and identifying), so I could make up some kind of games using those things. Maybe asking him to count all the red shirts in his sight or something. He knows basic shapes as well. We don't have a Game Boy, so that's out. I'm too cheap to buy one and I don't really want him getting into them right now anyway. And it'll take up more space than I'm willing to give. I'm hoping for something interactive for those times when his solitary play grows tiring to him. Things to distract him with to prevent severe boredom. I can't predict whether or not he'll sleep or for what length of time, so I am trying to gather ideas for any scenario. The last time we flew anywhere, it was to Germany and that took a whopping hour lol. I think we just read him books or something, I don't even remember now, but he had a good time. Before that, he was 6 months old when we flew here and he required little entertainment. This is a new experience for me and I need to be as prepared as possible.

I never did check the library for books on airplanes. Maybe I'll do that this week. Too bad we couldn't take it with us for the plane ride. I think he's like me in that he is a visual learner -- he needs to see it to comprehend what he's being taught. Reading a book before we leave might stick in his mind, but then again it may mean nothing once we close it and go on our way. Couldn't hurt to get one just for fun, anyway.

Sunday, September 05, 2004

Sun, 05 Sep 2004 06:58:49 GMT

Fall is coming! I can't wait. We leave in a week and I'll be in Michigan for what I hope will be Autumn-like weather. I'll be there for a week and then Louisiana for 2 weeks, and then back to Michigan for a week at the begining of October. And I'll be back home here in time for pumpkin season. Our travel center on base is going to a pumpkin farm sometime in October, so I think Tristan and I are going to do that. Well, as long as Rodney's October visit doesn't coincide with it, unless he wants to go with us. Hm, I'd better get the date so I can let him know about it. We wanted to go last year and didn't make it, so maybe it's something he'd like to do this year since it's our last one here. Darn, I just looked at the schedule and the trip is on October 30. I think that's the day that Rodney leaves. I'll find out for sure before I get completely bummed out.

Anyway, I am so ready for Fall, that I decided to find websites with various things to do, recipes to make, etc. Found a plethora of information at About.com Fall Fun. They have links to crafts for kids, recipes, apple and pupmkin picking, fall foliage, you name it.

My favorite family site is Family Fun. They have fall-related recipes, crafts, and travel information, plus info on Halloween.

One of my favorite sites for crafts and other educational tools geared toward the preschool and early elementary set, Enchanted Learning, has really cute Fall crafts to make and books that you can print out.

Tuesday, August 31, 2004

Tue, 31 Aug 2004 17:29:13 GMT

Wow, check out these homeschool links! I know I have a lot of them bookmarked myself, but I'll have to go through her list someday to see if I need any of these. http://www.xanga.com/item.aspx?user=Joyful_Noise_Homeschool&tab=weblogs&uid=126184506&nextdate=last Now I also have a way to refer to her post for eternity!

I am currently making bookmarks of educational supply websites, and will post some of them soon.

We leave in 2 weeks for the states! YAHOO!

Thursday, August 26, 2004

Thu, 26 Aug 2004 18:41:49 GMT

I'm such a blog slacker! I feel terrible because we haven't done nearly as much fun stuff as I had hoped to this summer.

We received our felt goodies and love them. I haven't let Tristan play with them yet because I need to find a good storage system for them, but I know he's going to be thrilled when he gets to play with them. The felt board is really nice too. It's homemade and I'm sure I could make one myself, but it was nice to not have to worry about it.

I have discovered a wonderful source for Homeschooling Printables: http://donnayoung.org She also has a great community, which includes forums at http://homeschoolforms.com Going there to read and post is my latest addiction. Good thing I'm not going to really start homeschooling until the Spring, otherwise my poor child wouldn't know what to do with himself while Mommy plays on the forums.

We leave in less than 3 weeks for our trip to the states! Time is going to fly, so I really need to crack down on getting lists made and figuring out what we're going to take with us.

Sunday, July 25, 2004

Sun, 25 Jul 2004 06:10:54 GMT

Tristan and I are going to the states in mid-September, through mid-October, to visit my family and my in-laws. I'm currently shopping around for fun things to take with us to keep Tristan occupied on the plane (8 hours between England and Michigan and 8 hours home, then 5 hours between Michigan and Louisiana, and 5 hours back to MI from LA), as well as on our down time during visits. So far, we have a small travel Magna Doodle, plus the usual crayons and coloring books and paper. At eBay, I'm bidding on a felt board and a few felt pieces to go along with it. I thought that would be something fun for us to do with Tristan's grandparents, as they always come up with cute stories to tell.

The stuff I'm hoping to win:

The flannel board

5 cute fish

5 Frogs - with a pond and a log

5 flying kites

5 moody cloud finger puppets (hand not included lol)

Lots of pretty balloons

Cute traffic light

Pretty Fall leaves

We chose the blue Magna Doodle

Those felt pieces are going to become an addiction, I can feel it. I've just discovered hundreds more on eBay!

Friday, July 23, 2004

Fri, 23 Jul 2004 10:05:51 GMT

Activity Pages - Fun pages to print. There are coloring pages, matching games, mazes, dot-to-dots, and more.

Coloring Pages - Pages by author/artist Jan Brett. Lots of cute pictures to color, plus many activities to print out.

Friday, July 23, 2004

Fri, 23 Jul 2004 06:43:08 GMT

Wow, it's been awhile. I didn't even take advantage of my free Premium.

Haven't been in much of a Xanga mood in the past couple of weeks. We're going on our 3rd week without Rodney (hubby/Daddy). Things are going pretty good, despite the fact that we miss him. I'm so glad I live on base, it's very handy for running errands and getting exercise. Mowing the lawn is my new form of exercise, and man does it kick my butt!

We received two books in the mail and we'll start trying ideas from them soon. They are: Fun With My 5 Senses: Activities to Build Learning Readiness (Williamson Little Hands Series)
by Sarah Williamson

Rainy Day Play!: Explore, Create, Discover, Pretend (Williamson Little Hands Series)
by Nancy F. Castaldo

note:I hate when I copy and paste text that is different than the normal text in here because I can't get it to go back to normal. Grrr.

Link of the day: Alibris.com You can buy used or new books here. I found the two above for less than $5.00 each, and the shipping was pretty quick. You can also get a 5% rebate if you shop there through Ebates. Yes, that is my shameless referral link, but you don't have to use me as a referral if you don't wish to.

Am awaiting a purchase from Children's Book of the Month Club. We purchased four books to help us in our homeschool endeavors. Ok, so they're more like crafty books, but we both enjoy them, so that's all that matters. How much strict education does a 3.5-year-old need anyway? According to a bunch of moms on MDC who homeschool, this should be play time more than anything. Of course, Tristan enjoys numbers, letters, colors and shapes (which I assume are more educational than not), so we "work" on those whenever we feel like it. It's still fun, and he gets a kick out of naming the items, plus he likes it when I draw them for him.

The four books we're waiting for:

THE LITTLE HANDS BIG FUN CRAFT BOOK
by Judy Press

THE LITTLE HANDS ART BOOK
by Judy Press

LITTLE HANDS® CELEBRATE AMERICA!
by Jill Frankel Hauser

FAMILYFUN BOREDOM BUSTERS
edited by Deanna F. Cook and the Experts at FamilyFun magazine