Wednesday, November 25, 2009
INDEPENDENT LEARNING!!
I am trying out a new curriculum (thanks Rachel!) called Aleks. We were able to sign up for a free 1-month trial period for all kids. It's an online program, but the unique aspect of it is that there is not needless repitition. Once you master a concept, you go on. For my kids, this seems perfect. I signed Maddie up for 5th-grade math and Haley for Algebra II. The best part I see so far, though, is that the girls can completely work independently. I haven't needed to step in for more than a couple minutes. They are motivated and LOVE the program! Both girls started at 4:00 on Monday and worked for 4 hours, until bedtime. Then, the same on Tuesday. They are now reaching hour 11 on the program. The only time they stop is when they want to show me something "cool" they learned. I am loving it so far!! The only drawback I see is that I'm not sure if it EVER comes back to topics they have covered. I'm afraid that they may not completely have a skill mastered 2 months from now. We'll see! For now, I am LOVING the break from teaching :)
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Math Break
After a conversation with Maddie's JET teacher, I have decided to take a short break from math with Haley next year. Oh, don't get me wrong: we WILL be doing math, just not structured "curriculum" math. She had an awesome idea to do a budget-based math course. Haley and Maddie will have to research several different popular professions and find out the average salary. They will then have to put a budget together for each person/family. They will have to research places to live/dine/shop/etc. Since both girls are already WAY ahead of schedule as far as math courses, I think it will be fun to take a break from the textbooks. Now, I have an entire semester to plan!!! I'm planning on incorporating simple/compound interest, balancing a checkbook, and other life skills. Haley will probably also review Algebra II next year (on a much slower pace).
Monday, October 26, 2009
The Kids Start to Blog!
I saw a great idea in Family Fun Magazine last week! We have decided to implement the idea into our homeschooling. The kids have started their own blog. They started by typing up a biography of themselves. I told them that they are free to blog whenever they wish about something that we're doing in school or for fun! Check it out! I have decided not to edit anything so that we can see the improvement in their writing over the years. . .
www.heatherskidsblog.blogspot.com
www.heatherskidsblog.blogspot.com
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Electricity
We have been studying Ben Franklin and electricity/magnetism in our unit study at home. Ironically, Haley is also studying electricity and magnetism at school. So. . .she had twice the fun making a circuit board, parallel circuit, and many more experiments! She is in the middle of Ben and Me. The one problem I am finding with our unit studies is fitting the book studies in. It seems like we get finished with a unit, but are no where close to being finished with the literature. There are just too many activities they give to go along with each novel. I guess I'll just have to start picking out just a few activities for the books so that we can complete them on time.
This weekend, all four of our scheduled soccer games were canceled due to wet conditions. The girls spent a lot of time reading. Haley got started on Little House in the Big Woods and Little House on the Prairie. We have a mother/daughter book chat in November on the sixth book in the series and she thinks she has to read them in order! Madeleine's been reading Magic Treehouse books.
Brian's working on finishing out the garage and Hunter's been stuck to his side like glue! He is soooo happy just watching his daddy work :)
I have been putting the finishing touches on the plans for Bubblegum day! The kids are so excited! Of course, I have to "test" the gum out beforehand to make sure it will work for our experiments. :) LOL
This weekend, all four of our scheduled soccer games were canceled due to wet conditions. The girls spent a lot of time reading. Haley got started on Little House in the Big Woods and Little House on the Prairie. We have a mother/daughter book chat in November on the sixth book in the series and she thinks she has to read them in order! Madeleine's been reading Magic Treehouse books.
Brian's working on finishing out the garage and Hunter's been stuck to his side like glue! He is soooo happy just watching his daddy work :)
I have been putting the finishing touches on the plans for Bubblegum day! The kids are so excited! Of course, I have to "test" the gum out beforehand to make sure it will work for our experiments. :) LOL
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Getting Ready for Christmas
Well, it's beginning to sound a lot like Christmas around the Nuehring household. I always start handing out Christmas pieces to my students during the first week of October. Of course, my kids are anxious to start on their holiday repertoire as well. Hunter wanted to work on a Halloween song as well, so he is also practicing "Witches' Rock." He wanted to play Up on the Housetop, We Wish You a Merry Christmas and Joy to the World as well. He's a little ambitious and I love it :) Maddie is working on a harder version of Up on the Housetop and Haley is going through a book of Christmas songs. I know the neighbors must think we're absolutely nuts. LOL
Duet Night
I had my 4th Annual Duet Night last Friday night. Aside from 6 students backing out at the last minute, the recital went very smoothly. I can never predict accurately how long the recital will last. I had predicted 30 minutes, but it was closer to 50! It was an awesome program of duets and trios. My students worked so hard on their pieces of music and I was very proud.
I started having Duet Nights in the fall because I wanted the students to benefit from playing with others. It is so good for their listening skills as well as their counting!
Haley ended up playing five duets because she took a couple parts for students who couldn't make it at the last minute. She handled it beautifully.
Maddie played a duet called "Dreaming" with one of my students. It's the first duet she's played that is more lyrical than technical. Maddie and Hannah both worked hard on playing together with all the dynamics, ritardandos, etc. They pulled it off and it was beautiful!
Hunter played for the first time at duet night! He and another 4-year-old boy played Setting Sun. They stumbled a little bit in a couple spots, but overall stayed together pretty darn well for their age :)
The kids were rewarded for their performace by being allowed to skip piano practice on Saturday. We also celebrated with caramel apples Friday night!
I started having Duet Nights in the fall because I wanted the students to benefit from playing with others. It is so good for their listening skills as well as their counting!
Haley ended up playing five duets because she took a couple parts for students who couldn't make it at the last minute. She handled it beautifully.
Maddie played a duet called "Dreaming" with one of my students. It's the first duet she's played that is more lyrical than technical. Maddie and Hannah both worked hard on playing together with all the dynamics, ritardandos, etc. They pulled it off and it was beautiful!
Hunter played for the first time at duet night! He and another 4-year-old boy played Setting Sun. They stumbled a little bit in a couple spots, but overall stayed together pretty darn well for their age :)
The kids were rewarded for their performace by being allowed to skip piano practice on Saturday. We also celebrated with caramel apples Friday night!
Thursday, October 1, 2009
What happened to September?
Maddie finally just started to spell September correctly on her papers at school, just in time for October :) Where did the month go?
It's been a whilrlwind in the Nuehring household this month! We are trying to get in a groove with our schedule, but it's taking longer than expected.
Maddie's schedule at school is absolutely perfect. Her 2nd-grade teacher is wonderful. She had taught Maddie so many strategies for reading comprehension and we have seen so much growth already this year. She is also working hard to get Maddie to express her comprehension in a written form. She uses the PQPA technique with the students when they answer questions on paper. (part question, part answer). Maddie also takes the spelling tests with her 2nd-grade class as well and is improving each week. Last week was the first week that she was allowed to study the "challenge" words. She was so proud of herself, especially when she got 4 out of 5 of them correct on the test. Maddie spends a couple hours in the afternoon with her 1st-grade classroom. Her first-grade teacher is so loving and has a very warm personality. Maddie loves being in her class as well. They have been studying different cultures in 1st-grade, which ties in perfectly with the Native American Class that Haley and Maddie take on Tuesdays. I pick Maddie up a little early from school most days to do her math at home. She is taking her course online through the MOVIP program. The program is awesome!! We received two huge boxes filled with materials that she may need for the course including manipulatives, headphones, workbooks, text, etc. Whenever we have a question, she can email her teacher. She had an assignment she was required to do last week for an assessment. She had to solve a problem using a picture and an equation. Trying to get her to draw a frog that looked similar to a frog was the biggest challenge :) LOL She finally got one that looked okay, so we made copies of it and shrank it down. She was pretty proud of the final project when she was completed.
Haley is loving school as well. She has a fabulous 4th-grade teacher this year. They have studied magnetism and electricity in science. Right now, they are working on making a circuit board at school. I pick her up right after lunch W-F and we do math at home. She has quite a bit more homework for Algebra II than I had anticipated. However, it's getting a little easier to complete each week. She was getting really upset the first couple of weeks when she'd get problems wrong. So, I have learned that I need to sit with her and make sure she's on the right track for every single problem. Her teacher encourages them to check their work and fix it before turning in their assignments, so Haley is getting an "A" in Algebra II!! She was so proud to find that out this week :) We aren't doing a lot of reading right now because she has so much on her plate. In addition to Native American History and Algebra II, she is also taking Intermediate Spanish. She LOVES her classes at the Learning Center!
One of the challenges we are dealing with in Haley is her perfectionism. She thinks her answers have to be correct the first time. We are trying to teach her that making mistakes is part of the learning process, but it doesn't seem to be sinking in yet. On Mondays each week, she tries to solve a problem of the week. She usually attempts the elementary problem as well as the middle school problem. If she answers correctly the first time, her name is posted on the website. This past Monday, she missed the elementary problem. She burst into tears. She was mostly upset because she knew how to solve the problem, but had made a careless error. She did solve the middle school problem correctly, so I explained to her that she has super math skills. Nothing I said seemed to matter :(
Hunter is now working with me a little each day. He reads his sight words, reads a few books, practices piano, and does some math. Math is by far his favorite. Usually he completes 3 or 4 assignments of math each day!! We have the option to do 1/2 or full-day kindergarten next year. I think he needs to go to school until he matures a little (for my sake)!! I think the 1/2 day option sounds perfect though, so I can work with him at home still.
We are in the planning stages for a problem solving day with the Carpenters at the end of the month. The kids don't have school on the 30th, so we thought it would be the perfect opportunity! I think they'll have a lot of fun solving problems together. Now, Rachel and I need a MNO to plan :) We are also going to do our "Bubblegum" day in November! Brian is also taking the 29th off so we can visit the Cahokia mounds near St. Louis. Haley and Maddie's history teacher recommended the field trip, so we thought we would take advantage of one of their days off. The girls are super excited.
It's been a crazy start to the school year, but all three kids are LOVING the learning that they are doing. I'd say that's a mission accomplished!
It's been a whilrlwind in the Nuehring household this month! We are trying to get in a groove with our schedule, but it's taking longer than expected.
Maddie's schedule at school is absolutely perfect. Her 2nd-grade teacher is wonderful. She had taught Maddie so many strategies for reading comprehension and we have seen so much growth already this year. She is also working hard to get Maddie to express her comprehension in a written form. She uses the PQPA technique with the students when they answer questions on paper. (part question, part answer). Maddie also takes the spelling tests with her 2nd-grade class as well and is improving each week. Last week was the first week that she was allowed to study the "challenge" words. She was so proud of herself, especially when she got 4 out of 5 of them correct on the test. Maddie spends a couple hours in the afternoon with her 1st-grade classroom. Her first-grade teacher is so loving and has a very warm personality. Maddie loves being in her class as well. They have been studying different cultures in 1st-grade, which ties in perfectly with the Native American Class that Haley and Maddie take on Tuesdays. I pick Maddie up a little early from school most days to do her math at home. She is taking her course online through the MOVIP program. The program is awesome!! We received two huge boxes filled with materials that she may need for the course including manipulatives, headphones, workbooks, text, etc. Whenever we have a question, she can email her teacher. She had an assignment she was required to do last week for an assessment. She had to solve a problem using a picture and an equation. Trying to get her to draw a frog that looked similar to a frog was the biggest challenge :) LOL She finally got one that looked okay, so we made copies of it and shrank it down. She was pretty proud of the final project when she was completed.
Haley is loving school as well. She has a fabulous 4th-grade teacher this year. They have studied magnetism and electricity in science. Right now, they are working on making a circuit board at school. I pick her up right after lunch W-F and we do math at home. She has quite a bit more homework for Algebra II than I had anticipated. However, it's getting a little easier to complete each week. She was getting really upset the first couple of weeks when she'd get problems wrong. So, I have learned that I need to sit with her and make sure she's on the right track for every single problem. Her teacher encourages them to check their work and fix it before turning in their assignments, so Haley is getting an "A" in Algebra II!! She was so proud to find that out this week :) We aren't doing a lot of reading right now because she has so much on her plate. In addition to Native American History and Algebra II, she is also taking Intermediate Spanish. She LOVES her classes at the Learning Center!
One of the challenges we are dealing with in Haley is her perfectionism. She thinks her answers have to be correct the first time. We are trying to teach her that making mistakes is part of the learning process, but it doesn't seem to be sinking in yet. On Mondays each week, she tries to solve a problem of the week. She usually attempts the elementary problem as well as the middle school problem. If she answers correctly the first time, her name is posted on the website. This past Monday, she missed the elementary problem. She burst into tears. She was mostly upset because she knew how to solve the problem, but had made a careless error. She did solve the middle school problem correctly, so I explained to her that she has super math skills. Nothing I said seemed to matter :(
Hunter is now working with me a little each day. He reads his sight words, reads a few books, practices piano, and does some math. Math is by far his favorite. Usually he completes 3 or 4 assignments of math each day!! We have the option to do 1/2 or full-day kindergarten next year. I think he needs to go to school until he matures a little (for my sake)!! I think the 1/2 day option sounds perfect though, so I can work with him at home still.
We are in the planning stages for a problem solving day with the Carpenters at the end of the month. The kids don't have school on the 30th, so we thought it would be the perfect opportunity! I think they'll have a lot of fun solving problems together. Now, Rachel and I need a MNO to plan :) We are also going to do our "Bubblegum" day in November! Brian is also taking the 29th off so we can visit the Cahokia mounds near St. Louis. Haley and Maddie's history teacher recommended the field trip, so we thought we would take advantage of one of their days off. The girls are super excited.
It's been a crazy start to the school year, but all three kids are LOVING the learning that they are doing. I'd say that's a mission accomplished!
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Planning for Bubble Gum Day!
I told the kids today that we would have a bubble gum day IF they could convince me that it would be educational and a learning experience. Rachel and I have a ton of fun ideas and are planning a great day for the kids!
I was blown away at all the ideas Maddie and Haley were coming up with!!! These are a few of their ideas: (many of which I hadn't even thought of!!!)
1. math: write equations with the number of bubble gum pieces in different packages
2. math: write different problems about bubble gum
3. spelling: learn to spell the different flavors of gum (ie: grape, peppermint)
4. spelling: see how many words you can come up with from the letters of "bubblegum" (and spell correctly)
5. history: learn about famous people who loved gum
6. geography: Find out where bubblegum is made
7. history: find out when people discovered gum
8. science: see if gum sinks or floats
9. science: see if gum is attracted to a magnet (Haley added that she knew the answer already, but that we could test to make sure :)
I think that they will have a BLAST. It will be especially fun for my kids, since they've never before been allowed to chew gum. LOL I'm sure they'll have sore jaws at the end of the day.
I was blown away at all the ideas Maddie and Haley were coming up with!!! These are a few of their ideas: (many of which I hadn't even thought of!!!)
1. math: write equations with the number of bubble gum pieces in different packages
2. math: write different problems about bubble gum
3. spelling: learn to spell the different flavors of gum (ie: grape, peppermint)
4. spelling: see how many words you can come up with from the letters of "bubblegum" (and spell correctly)
5. history: learn about famous people who loved gum
6. geography: Find out where bubblegum is made
7. history: find out when people discovered gum
8. science: see if gum sinks or floats
9. science: see if gum is attracted to a magnet (Haley added that she knew the answer already, but that we could test to make sure :)
I think that they will have a BLAST. It will be especially fun for my kids, since they've never before been allowed to chew gum. LOL I'm sure they'll have sore jaws at the end of the day.
Friday, August 28, 2009
Junior Novelist
Haley is starting to develop a passion for writing. I am so thrilled for her! For the past 6 months or so, she has had on her checklist "20 minutes free writing." I have let her explore her thesaurus and writing during this time. I do not correct any grammar or spelling during her free writing. I am amazed at how far she has come. Of course, she has not FINISHED one single piece that she's writing, but she's coming up with some great ideas.
Yesterday, she told Maddie that she was going to write another Weird School Book for her to read. Maddie has read every single one of the series that has been released. Haley worked on her first chapter of Mr. Sum is Dumb. Maddie always laughs at the beginning of each book when it announces that AJ HATES school. So. . . Haley decided to go forward in time a couple years to 4th-grade, when AJ has learned to LOVE school.
I think the idea of not taking a red pen to her work is the key to getting her to love writing. Too many teachers in the public school correct EVERYTHING that a child has written and consequently, the child is turned off.
We're starting to get used to our schedule. However, the girls were tardy to school today. Maddie was busy practicing piano and Haley was taking an Algebra quiz on the computer. Before we knew it, it was time to leave. Hunter was downstairs, still in his pajamas :( We were only a few minutes late, but still not good!
Yesterday, she told Maddie that she was going to write another Weird School Book for her to read. Maddie has read every single one of the series that has been released. Haley worked on her first chapter of Mr. Sum is Dumb. Maddie always laughs at the beginning of each book when it announces that AJ HATES school. So. . . Haley decided to go forward in time a couple years to 4th-grade, when AJ has learned to LOVE school.
I think the idea of not taking a red pen to her work is the key to getting her to love writing. Too many teachers in the public school correct EVERYTHING that a child has written and consequently, the child is turned off.
We're starting to get used to our schedule. However, the girls were tardy to school today. Maddie was busy practicing piano and Haley was taking an Algebra quiz on the computer. Before we knew it, it was time to leave. Hunter was downstairs, still in his pajamas :( We were only a few minutes late, but still not good!
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Off and Running (Literally)
I've discovered it's going to take several weeks to get into our routine. I think we have a schedule for the girls that will really challenge them in all areas, though, so I'm willing to do the running around.
Haley has started her Movip Algebra and is finished with 3 weeks worth of material in just a couple days. Of course, they always start the year off pretty easy. I'm sure it will get more challenging. .. .
Maddie's Movip class STILL isn't working!! She hasn't even received her textbook or workbook in the mail yet. Oh, well. She's working hard in other areas for the meantime. They have calendar time in her first-grade classroom each day. I'm sure the teacher is quite shocked when she comes up with so many ideas to make the date. Yesterday, she told me that she gave Mrs. Leslie 4 ways to make 25: (5 squared), (5+5+5+5+5), (32-7), and (5x5). The other kids probably think she's speaking some foreign language.
Maddie woke me up at 7:30 this morning, practicing the piano. I really can't complain, right??
Hunter LOVES preschool. Yesterday, he started crying when I told him it wasn't a preschool day. Quite a change from last year, when I had to practically drag him in!!
All in all, it's been crazy, but the kids are really learning and LOVING it! Next week gets even crazier as they add their Tuesday classes to the schedule.
Haley has started her Movip Algebra and is finished with 3 weeks worth of material in just a couple days. Of course, they always start the year off pretty easy. I'm sure it will get more challenging. .. .
Maddie's Movip class STILL isn't working!! She hasn't even received her textbook or workbook in the mail yet. Oh, well. She's working hard in other areas for the meantime. They have calendar time in her first-grade classroom each day. I'm sure the teacher is quite shocked when she comes up with so many ideas to make the date. Yesterday, she told me that she gave Mrs. Leslie 4 ways to make 25: (5 squared), (5+5+5+5+5), (32-7), and (5x5). The other kids probably think she's speaking some foreign language.
Maddie woke me up at 7:30 this morning, practicing the piano. I really can't complain, right??
Hunter LOVES preschool. Yesterday, he started crying when I told him it wasn't a preschool day. Quite a change from last year, when I had to practically drag him in!!
All in all, it's been crazy, but the kids are really learning and LOVING it! Next week gets even crazier as they add their Tuesday classes to the schedule.
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