Things are going well. Went to our first storytime this week. It was fun to get out, but it was a bad day. Maizie and Casten both woke up at 4:30 that morning. Maizie had already taken one nap before we left, but we had to leave because she was being mean to the other kids. :( It's so difficult to be the mom of the mean kid. Casten sometimes would get over excited in his playing and get rough, but not in a mean way. Maizie will push and scream because she doesn't want to share, and she HATES when other kids try to touch her. This one poor little boy was trying to give her a hug and she screamed and pushed him away. I was mortified.
It's been a struggle trying to get everyone on routine this week. Hopefully it'll get better next week if Jay goes back to work :) He went for an interview at the Target here. We'll find out soon.
We have our first parent/teacher conference tomorrow. I'm excited to hear how she's been doing. Driving me nuts not being able to know each day how it's gone.

IT'S ALMOST OCTOBER

We've been having a great time in our newly organized downstairs. The toys are organized and put away in such a way it's not overwhelming for the kids, and they have been doing a great job putting away toys before taking new ones out.
Also being down there, we've been able to focus on our routine and school work. Casten can now recognize most of his letters and knows all of their sounds. Some letters he knows the sounds but not the name :) We've been working on his writing a lot since he's showing A LOT of interest. He's now able to write all the letters in his name and is getting close to writing it on his own. His new favorite toy is our magna doodle. He loves making a few marks and then erasing it all.
Alyssa is doing okay in school. Right now they haven't learned anything she doesn't already know. She told me the other day "Mommy it's so boring when they are teaching things I ALREADY KNOW" LOL She was so funny. She's making friends so that's good.
We met up with a new homeschool group on Friday. We had a blast. It was a very nice group, and I think we'll fit in nicely with them. Alyssa made a friend right away, and they were inseperable. Hopefully they will be able to start a nice friendship.
This week we'll start our afterschool routine full swing. We will do a brief introduction to the globe/world. October we will study North America. We will *finally* start our study of Beatrix Potter. For science we'll study what is alive. We'll also start doing music....but not sure what we'll do about that, LOL. Still trying to figure out what exactly I want to do for that. I also found out when Barnes and Noble has storytime up here, so I'll be taking Casten and maybe Maizie this week.
Very excited about the start of the week. I've been looking to find a job in the evenings, so hopefully having to go back to work won't effect our school plans.

Reading and the Zoo!

We've done a little bit of table time with Casten this week. I think we are finally into a good routine and have adjusted to the early days of school! I was very excited to sit down to do his reading lessons and he remembered them! He's such a smart little bug!
Next week we'll continue our reading lessons and number recognition. He recognizes his numbers 0-9. We are working on writing the numbers and will expand to numbers 10-20 next month. He loves math, so it's easy to get him to sit down and focus! (Alyssa on the other hand....I'm glad her teacher has to deal with it now! LOL!!! She gets so frustrated with math!) It's just the opposite with reading. Casten doesn't enjoy it as much, but I don't usually have to fight with Alyssa and she often asks to do extra lessons!
Thursday night we were reading Alyssa's library book and she read about half of it on her own! I was so excited!!! She really could read more on her own, but she doesn't think she can if I'm not sitting with her! LOL!
Yesterday we used my birthday money to get a Zoo membership. I was very excited about that! Casten had a GREAT time seeing the dinosaurs! Maizie LOVED the fish. I think Grandpa needs to take her on her first trip to the aquarium soon! I'm excited to take advantage of this though! Next week we are begining our study of the continents. We'll start with North America and I thought we'd pick an animal from each continent and study that then go to the Zoo and see it and see what else they can teach about it!
I'm really excited about the enrichment activities we have planned. It's going to be a FUN fall/winter!

Kindergarten

Alyssa has now been in school for a week now...and we have to call her in tomorrow because she's sick!
She's loving her new school, and really likes being around the other kids. She's such a little social creature. I suppose the school is a good thing for her, since we don't have the money to sign her up for all of the homeschool programs!
After Labor day we'll begin our unit studies. Lyssi misses out on music, art, and science going half day. So those are the subjects we'll continue on at home, along w/ geography.
It's going to be a good year! I'm really excited to continue on the fun subjects...and her teacher can fight w/ her over math :D

Update on the school situation!

Life has had A LOT of ups and downs here lately. Jay had to quit his job because he has seriously injured his back. He has compacted his spine, and right now has no feeling in his left foot. If he continued to work the doctor said it was a definite possibility that he would become paralyzed in his left leg. Probably not a good idea...
Prior to learning the severity of his injuries, we had a big argument that resulted in Jay needing to leave the house. We have since worked a bit on our problems and he has come back home...on a temp to perm basis :) Part of our disagreements are based around homeschooling. We have different theories and opinions on how to school our children. In an effort to prove I do value his opinion I've looked into sending Alyssa to school. She may be attending a Christian kindergarten, possibly beginning next week. It's a bit difficult for me. I know she'll do well I know that she will succeed either way, she's just that kind of child! It's only half day though so I figured for this year it's a good compromise. It is VERY hard for me to accept this, and I'm pretty disappointed from a "teacher" stand point. I've been so excited for this school year and looking forward to the next 6-9 years of her being home with me learning.
So things are kind of on hold right now. We are continuing to do workbooks and reading lessons right now. I'm just not starting any unit studies until I know how much time I'll have, which kids, and what Alyssa might be covering at school.
Casten will continue to be home schooled this year. We thought about putting him in school, but academically he's advanced for his age (he'd just be going into 3 year old preschool) I think he'd just be bored and he'd act up. We'll be working on his reading and math skills this year.

For today...

I think we'll have a casual day. I think we may try to do a little bit of school work, but I'm thinking about doing a fun last day of summer thing. We've been wanting to get over to the splash park and have a picnic all summer. I think we'll try to do that today (especially since Casten just got new swim trunks from Aunt Karol!) I have some real organizing to do downstairs...plus I'm REALLY tired :) It just hit me this morning that this is kind of Lyssi's first day of kindergarten and I wanted to do something special! On one of my homeschool boards they said they made a big deal of the first day. So I'm thinking of putting something together tonight and really officially start tomorrow (which was the plan when I was planning on going down state this past weekend!)
My plans for tomorrow include, a special breakfast (pancakes and bacon are always a HUGE hit!) a card from mommy and daddy talking about how excited we are for this year and how proud we are of them, new school supplies on the table for each kid, and taking a picture of them out on the front steps! Then we'll be able to jump into our day!
Now I'm off to clean the kitchen....and if I'm really ambitious I'll clean the downstairs before the kids really wake up!

First day of school (kind of!)

Alyssa was still in Southern Illinois this morning so it was just Casten and Maizie. Doing "table time" with them is usually only 30-45 minutes...tops! It went really well today and they sat for a good 40 minutes doing work.

After making blueberry muffins (or woofins as Casten calls them) from scratch. Casten reviewed his numbers 1-10 and practiced writing them. He recognizes them, but his fine motor skills are a little behind. I'm hoping to do math together with Lyssi and Casten. Casten can count as high as Lys but needs some work on recognizing numbers higher than 10.

Maizie is working on shapes for the next two weeks. Today we learned about circles. We pointed them out on her placemat, drew some, and then she played with circle stickers. She had a GREAT time! She kept putting them on herself. She had one on her bottom, and when I took it off and said "This was on your bottom" She INSISTED On placing it back on her bottom!

On a fun note, Lyssi lost her first tooth tonight! I told her that she couldn't lose it while I was gone! When she got home she said "Mommy I didn't lose my tooth!" Aunt Beverly told us that it was REALLY loose and asked if she could wiggle it. It came out really quickly! At first Lys was really nervous but she was ECSTATIC after it came out! She is anxiously awaiting the tooth fairy tonight!

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Next week (starting the 17th) we are going to do a short study on Beatrix Potter. I'm very excited for this! This website has some great ideas and I think the kids are going to LOVE it :)

School starts MONDAY!!!!!

We are begining our homeschool year on Monday! I'm very excited about this year. Last year we did a lot of experimenting on what works (and doesn't work!) for our family. This year I'm much more prepared! It's also our first OFFICIAL year of homeschooling, as we are making the decision to keep our oldest out of kindergarten!
For this year we will be doing a 1st grade curriculum for our oldest daughter since we did kindergarten last year, and our son will be doing kindergarten, even though he'll only be 4 in November, he's beyond preschool work! We'll be doing letter of the week for 1 year olds until January when we'll start the Letter of the week prep curriculum! www.letteroftheweek.com I know that she's very young, but she INSISTS on sitting at the table with us during "table time" so I figured I should make the most of it!
We'll be learning a new state each week. I'm pretty excited about this one! I'm thinking we'll make a scrapbook page each week so when we are done we can look at it and see all the things we've learned!
I've been working like mad this week to get the house ready. I'm just about caught up on the laundry (can you really ever be caught up???) I've scrubbed most of the floors of the house and I'm in the process of cleaning the play area. I have it all organized it's just putting the stuff where it goes now! The bedrooms were cleaned and organized yesterday. It feels so good to have things functioning! Tomorrow I'll have to pull out all my school materials and supplies and buy some new stuff, and I'll be done!
It is looking like a really fun year and hopefully the kids will learn a lot! That is the point of all of this afterall!