Decisions

We have a lot of upcoming decisions to make for the 2009/2010 school year. Madeleine is going to be tested at our elementary school on Monday morning. They will be doing the JET screening as well as giving her the end-of-the year skills assessments for each grade. Then, we will meet with the principal, 2 assistant superintendents and the counselor to try to devise a plan for school next year. We may try to send her part-time as we did with Haley this year.

I have signed both girls up for Spanish II and Native American History at the Homeschool Learning Center. The classes meet on Tuesdays from 10-12. I may sign Haley up for Algebra II there as well. Of course, I had to get special permission from the teacher to allow her in the class. (That took some convincing :) The class meets from 8:30-10, so it wouldn't be inconvenient to take her. Haley will still go to JET one day a week next year (hopefully it doesn't fall on Tuesdays!). We are optimistic that Maddie will also get in, but time will tell. If she passes the screening on Monday, she will have the WASI administered on her this summer.

Haley made it into MEGSSS (an intensive 3-year math program for gifted middle schoolers). She's the youngest ever to test into the program. She is VERY excited to begin. We are going to try out the summer program and see how she does. We can either continue in the fall or wait a year. They are really flexible. She was just smiling from ear to ear when we got the acceptance letter in the mail. She especially liked the statement, "be prepared to be challenged!" It will be such a neat experience for her!

Hunter will be attending preschool two days a week next year. I think he will be ready to start some "formal schooling" at home as well. That means we probably need to think about getting another desk for the basement! He is very interested in math as well!! He loves to do his addition and subtraction problems. (although he's only adding and subtracting 0, 1, or 2)!

Haley also wants to do homeschool choir. The director also allows students to accompany specific songs, so she might get some great practice on the piano as well. I plan on being very busy running the kids back and forth!

More on the Rainforest. .

Yesterday was a pretty good day for the kids. Hunter went to preschool as usual (no problems this time). The girls worked hard on their math and piano right away. When they were finished, we worked more on our rainforest unit. The girls decorated toilet paper tubes to create rain sticks. They also decorated invitations for our end of the unit party! They are deciding on some snacks to serve (they have to be made with products from the rainforest of course). They read together chapter 2 of "One Day in the Tropical Rainforest." They are completing two charts as they read. On one, they list the plants/animals/relationships that are mentioned in the chapter. On the other, they list the things Tepui does for each time slot listed. I think I will have to blow up Maddie's charts. Her handwriting is so big and sloppy that she can't fit it in the little boxes.

After lunch, the kids were surprised to find out that Zoe and Aiden were coming over to play! It was a beautiful day and the kids enjoyed it outdoors. Our yard is now littered with confetti (and the house, too) after my kids introduced Zoe and Aiden to cascarones.

Rachel brought over my curriculum for next year, so I spent last night looking it over and getting excited about next year! As Rachel was showing the kids what they get to do next year, Maddie said she didn't want to go to school. . . .she wanted to do all this "stuff" with us :) We'll see. . . .we haven't made any decisions regarding her yet.

Stubborn as a Mule!

It took me an hour and a half to get Hunter to go to preschool of his own free will, LITERALLY!! We have learned in the past (the hard way!) that if he says he is not going to do something, not to push it. He decided this morning that he was not going to go to preschool. At first I pretended like I did not hear it. I figured if I could get him excited about it before I acknowledged that he didn't want to go, I wouldn't have any problems. No such luck! He stood at preschool for 30 minutes outside the classroom with a frown and arms folded across his chest. Every time Ms. Rachel would tell him something fun that they'd be doing, he would grunt and pout even more.

So. . .finally, I brought him home. He immediately went to his cars and race track. I told him that he didn't get to play with it because he didn't go to preschool. We were going to work on writing letters and reading books ALL DAY! He said to me, "I will go to preschool, then come home and play with my cars!!" End of story. We drove back to the school and in he went!

Hunter definitely has a mind of his own! The girls are and always have been very compliant and obedient. I guess he makes our lives interesting :)

Haley has JET today. They are doing a unit on time. She had some homework over the weekend where she was to illustrate an idiom that dealt with time. She drew her daddy with a little stubble for "5:00 Shadow." She made clocks for his eyes that depicted five o'clock. I thought it was pretty cute!

Maddie is home alone with me today. She has finished her math and we are getting ready to practice the piano. I am a little bummed because the sun was out this morning, but it has become overcast and is drizzling!

Busy Weekend

We woke up to see dark clouds forming. Maddie and Hunter had soccer pictures at 8:00 and, sure enough, it started raining at about 7:50. Pictures still went on as scheduled, however, and it stopped just about when our 8:30 game was supposed to begin. The only problem was that the opposing team did not show up!! So. . . since we had 6 players, we decided to burn off their energy with a scrimmage. (boys against girls) I think boys won by a couple goals, but who's keeping score!?

Haley and Maddie had their pictures at 9:30 and the second soccer game at 10:00. Haley had to leave a little early to get to orchestra at 10:45.

This afternoon was a little calmer. The girls were very anxious to work on their rainforest unit. Since Haley is now home four days a week (she goes to JET on Mondays), I decided to try out the new curriculum I found. I ordered a set on Relationships since the first topic studied is the Rainforest. We started yesterday and both girls are doing very well! There is usually an activity I and II (easy and hard option), so both girls can do the same thing at their own level. They LOVE the work and beg me to go on to the next lesson! Yesterday the girls colored and labeled a map of the world, showing where the rainforests are located. We read The Green House and discussed the metaphors throughout the literature. They are now watching a video and taking notes on the animals and plants found in the rainforest. It's amazing how much they LOVE to learn when the teaching is centered around a topic.

Research

This is an exciting day for the girls! They get to do research on a rainforest animal. We are headed to the library this morning to see what resources are available. Haley has chosen the manatee and Maddie has chosen the sloth. I wish I could get them this excited about math.

Our basement is starting to look a tad bit like a classroom. I have a timeline hung that I created when I was teaching. Every time we study something in history, I plan to write it on the timeline. I was really surprised by how little Haley seemed to know about history. She knows a lot of facts (things that happened), but for instance, she didn't know that the first settlement was BEFORE the Revolutionary War. She knows all about the Boston Tea Party, but couldn't tell me in which century it occurred. I think the timeline will help!

Relaxation Needed Here

It's been a long day! Haley decided her carpet would look "more interesting" with thousands of beads and sequins thrown all over. Then, a few hours later, I opened Hunter's door to discover he had used an entire roll of scotch tape to adhere papers everywhere. What will Maddie get into now?

On a positive note, the girls got a lot of work done today. Maddie is playing Spanish Guitars with the CD on the piano. She is learning to divide numbers with decimals.

Haley had a little trouble with her math today. She is working on squares and cubes. She gets a little mixed up when parentheses are involved. After a few tries, I think it sank in.

Hunter read his books to me this afternoon. He is starting to be able to sound out words and has a huge sight word vocabulary. He can read the Biscuit books pretty easily. For a long time, it was like pulling teeth to get him to read. However, I think he's starting to gain some confidence and actually enjoy reading.

Getting Organized

After the girls finished their math and vocabulary this morning, we went on a couple errands. We are trying to create a school area for the kids in the basement. Up to this point, school "stuff" has been scattered around our house and in the Pilot. There are loose papers/books/assignments all over the house. I finally told them enough was enough! We are getting a desk for the basement that one of the girls can use to do schoolwork. I also bought a rolling cart to use for loose assignments and paper. We are also going to transform one of our bookcases into a textbook area. I think it will help ALL of us stay organized :)

Easter

The girls and I had a great time with my college friend, Krista and her family. She has girls nearly the same ages as Maddie and Haley. We enjoyed watching an hour-long Easter Egg hunt! Cailin even found the "camouflaged" eggs in the trees :) The girls all get along amazingly well. All four girls enjoyed their first ever sleepover complete with pancakes covered in whipped cream and strawberries.

I got a phone call on our way back to Iowa. It was the director of MEGSSS with some great news for Haley. She has been accepted into the program and will start this summer. The director was quite shocked when I told her Haley was only 7 years old!! Haley is very excited to do some "challenging math."

Somehow Hunter has managed to keep his pullup dry the entire weekend. It's a record! Last Thursday, I had had enough of the very frequent accidents and wet clothing, so I told him he had to now wear a pullup all the time. He says that he's four now and a big boy. It would be so nice to get through the potty issues.

We had another Easter Egg Hunt at Grandma's house on Saturday. The kids enjoyed a visit from four of their cousins. I really appreciated Aunt Sherri for putting money in the eggs instead of more candy :)

Keeping Haley Safe

We have decided to withdraw Haley from public school and start the full-time homeschool plan earlier than we had planned. There was a student in her class who threated to bring a gun to school to shoot her teacher. She was very upset as were we! The child basically got a "slap on the wrist" even though there has been a history of defiance, disrespect, bullying and fighting during the school year. The child will be back in the classroom after the Easter break, so Haley will NOT be there.

I had a student in my 5th-grade classroom once that did act on a threat, so it's nothing I take lightly. Fortunately, my student did not have access to weapons, but he broke another teacher's nose.

We have decided to begin a Rain Forest unit. We went to the library this afternoon and checked out bunches of books and videos about our topic. Haley and Maddie are very excited and Haley has already read a couple of the books.

After hearing a couple success stories, I decided to jump on the bandwagon with 5 math problems. I will be giving Haley the five hardest problems from her problem set each day. If she gets them all correct, she is done with math for the day. So far, it is working very well. Even if she misses one or two, she is working much more carefully and neatly.

Soccer

It was our first game of the season yesterday for all the kids! Maddie is definitely the most athletic of the bunch. It was her first time ever to play with a goalie and she scored in the first few minutes of the game. Haley also did very well. She's been playing much longer, so the game strategy is starting to "click." It was Hunter's first game ever and, well, he got out there and kicked the ball a couple times :) LOL There were a couple kids on the team that refused to even get out on the field, so I guess we should be proud that he stuck with it!! Brian is coaching the peewee team and boy, did he exercise a lot of patience! I knew it was going to be a long season when we were trying to pick out team names (color: green). The best ideas from the kids were green rocks, grass, shoes, and Pokemons.

Haley's Decision

Haley has been going to school part-time this year. The schedule has been working really well. We do reading/math/piano in the morning, then she goes to school for 4 hours in the afternoon. She attends for lunch/recess/specials/science/social studies. However, since she was sooo far ahead of her grade-level curriculum (I guess I taught her too much. LOL) they insisted that we skip her ahead two grade levels. She was placed in a 3rd grade classroom. Socially, she's been doing much better than I had anticipated. She made a couple very special friends this year and had her first sleepover at our house. Unfortunately, she feels like she is not challenged in school. She said that the "naughty kids" were always getting yelled at and taking away from her learning. She also felt like things were being repeated a lot. She says she'd rather be home to do "hard work." She picks up material VERY quickly, so I'm sure the repetition would be very boring for her. So. . . we have just decided to keep her home full-time again next year.

April Fools

I got the kids good this morning! heehee! I put a few drops of different colored food coloring in each of the kids' cereal bowls, then filled up with cereal. Maddie was the first victim. She came crying into my bedroom at 7:20 and woke me up. Then, we decided to set up a video camera to get Haley! She came down and poured her milk and started eating, all the while, glancing at me to see why I had a video camera on her. I explained that I had a few minutes left of tape and was using it up. She continued to eat a few more bites, then suddenly got a very shocked (maybe scared?) expression on her face. Worriedly, she told me that there was some "RED" in her bowl. I wonder if she thought it was blood? It was fun! The video will be awesome blackmail in about 15 years!