Week 1 complete!

Can you believe that today completes the first week of the year?!  It feels like just yesterday we were celebrating Christmas.  Of course, we did just take down the tree and decorations today.  The living room feels so spacious without the tree.  We haven't had the furniture in this configuration with the construction completed and no tree yet, so it's strange to have it gone.  At the moment a stack of bins is in the tree's place until the temperature gets a level which carrying them out and unlocking the shed won't require thawing out afterwards.  Even the fireplace seems barren without the garland, stockings, and nativity.  But it's very nice to feel the extra space and I will no longer have to worry about James knocking over the tree riding his tricycle or Carolyn doing a cartwheel into the tree.

School was canceled today due to the cold.  This is just crazy to me, I think we might have had 1 snow day in all my elementary/high school days combined.  We'll be home again tomorrow as well.  I anticipated having tomorrow off, so we spent the morning at the library and picked up craft sticks at Joann's this morning.  Tomorrow morning we'll work on Carolyn's log cabin and James' farm as we complete their KWL sheets.  They are enjoying learning about a topic chosen themselves and getting to make a project from it.

At the library I realized why Carolyn will always be ahead of grade level in math.  Her brain works like mine and she wants to know things.  The library has various puzzles set out to complete, mostly for toddlers.  She sat down in front of a 6 piece police car puzzle just before we left and took 3 pieces out, then declared it was half a car.  I asked her why she thought that.  This led to a 5-10 minute discussion of fractions, wherein she moved puzzle pieces around and thought about how 2 pieces in is 2/6 or 1/3, 3 pieces in is 1/2 and 4 pieces in is 4/6 or 2/3.  She did the division of 6/2 easily, really without realizing that is somewhat of an advanced concept.  This may not be a normal discussion for a parent to have with a child, but she craves these sorts of interactions and initiates them herself.  She would be an ideal candidate for unschooling.  The pile of books we brought home from the library is awesome - she wants to know about pioneers, presidents, and some random archduke because she was interested in the name.  Then she chose a pile of chapter books and picture books.  During quiet time today she read 2 of the chapter books and a few others throughout other parts of the day.  I'm looking forward to working with her tomorrow.

I have made 2 more new recipes this week.  Monday was our typical standby of homemade pizza which we've enjoyed as leftovers for lunch the last 2 days.  Tuesday we tried lemon chicken which does not seem to be a family favorite.  James stated it was too sour and didn't eat much.  So it likely won't be repeated for some time.  Today I made beef and pumpkin stew which was really good, but Jon did not appreciate the pumpkin taste.  I thought it was great, so I might try to tweak this by swapping the pumpkin with something else.  I'm not typically a fan of stews, but this kind of hit the spot.  Tomorrow we're doing an old favorite sweet potato hash.  My body seems to definitely by adjusting to no sugar.  I find that I have more energy and am sleeping a bit better.  I can't wait to see this weekend if it's also leading to some weight loss.  The pile of cookies on the counter does keep calling my name, but at this point I seem to be able to avoid them.  This weekend I think it's all going to be thrown out since it's old anyway.  Great to be getting good food in and starting to feel better!

Still struggling

So with the 2 extra days of break, I got a taste of homeschooling last week.  And honestly, I totally loved it.  The kids were fully engaged and excited to be working on whatever I asked them to do.  We did an art project, played alphabet games, and end the morning with air hockey on day 1.  In the afternoon we read some books and then the kids gladly played together while dinner was made.  On day 2 we went to the library, where my kids picked book after book off the shelf and wanted to bring it home.  Since that day I have read no less than 5 books/day to James, often 10+.  Carolyn has averaged at least 1 chapter book per day and as usual soaked up the female biographies I got for her.  After a morning at the library, we spent time in the afternoon reading and then the kids again played together nicely until dinner.  It was like a miracle had happened in our home.

This Wednesday and Thursday, I worked with James to complete the preschool lessons I put together.  He loves reading the books, reciting the poem, and doing the art project.  He is struggling a bit with writing the letters, but we get through it.  I think I might decrease the number he needs to do so it doesn't feel tedious to him.  But he is loving doing his preschool at home.  We also have played several board games - his favorites are Mouse Trap and Candy Land.  With those his colors and numbers and being reinforced.

Carolyn continues to report that she's not doing much in school.  I ask her what she likes and her only answer is the teacher.  That has me terrified about what next year might bring.  They are spending the next week or so doing more assessment.  It's January, and they appear to be on their third round of assessing.  Isn't there an easier way than taking a week's time when there are only 20 kids in the classroom?  I know Carolyn is going to be bored and so part of my weekend will be spent putting together some academic activities for her at home to focus her mind.  But it really shouldn't be like this.

If I bring her home, I know not every day will be like the 2 above.  But I also wonder if there is no school, if the kids will finally let themselves relax.  We really battle with sleep in our house.  If there was no school, maybe we'd stop fighting that battle.  I think about letting the kids decide when to sleep and when to be awake for a week.  I wonder if they would get to know themselves a bit better and realize what we're doing is trying to help them.  The rule, of course, would be that they could not rely on us to entertain them in an effort to stay awake.  But I suspect that James is still too young for a similar experiment and he doesn't recognize when he's tired.  But I digress, I just can't get over this heart tug to keep the kids home.  I thought if I focused on other things that I would move on.  But even focusing on properly preparing food (I started making a sourdough starter and am soaking beans today), keeping the house a bit cleaner, and increasing my workload to try to save for the roof haven't stopped my mind from resting here.  I need to pray about this more, but I feel really stuck here and can't figure out what God is trying to say.  I feel like to make this decision peacefully I at least need Jon's full blessing.  Surely God wouldn't want me to make a decision not inline with my husband.  So where does that leave me?  For now, struggling in my heart about a decision that could make a huge impact for my children.

As a TEDx video I watched said... I want my children to be happy.  What they want to do when they get older is up to them.  I need to help them be happy and healthy.  I just wish I knew what the best path to that result is.

New year, new start

We are 4 days into the new year and I am focusing on truly a fresh start.  Sticking with my goal, I have avoided all sugar.  Along with that, I have completed 2 workouts.  Wow am I weak from taking time off!  I could even feel it in my lungs a bit as I lifted today, very bad.  I think that these 2 changes are easy enough to start off with this month.  On top of the personal changes, I have spent time thoroughly cleaning the kitchen and living room.  After everyone was in our house with shoes and the snow over the holidays, the floors were gross.  Jon was great and took the kids to gymnastics yesterday and out in the snow today so I could get things cleaned without the kids underfoot.  It feels so nice to have such a clean house.  We also put out the tree today and packed up the Christmas decorations, so the house is much less cluttered.

I have also spent some time making some preschool activities for James.  As we head into the second half of the year and he continues to show the desire to read, we'll continue to focus on letter recognition and their sounds, as well as writing the letters.  I'm following the handwriting order of introduction rather than alphabetic, since he already knows the song.  We'll do some alphabetic order stuff too, since I know that's something he'll need for kindergarten.  I've put together some packs with a nursery rhyme, art project, and letter writing.  We'll get letter books from the library and work as he wants.  I figure we'll go a little slower with this, at most 1 letter a day.  I also made my own crocodile snap game.

You take turns pulling letters/numbers out of the box and saying them.  If you pull a snap card, you have to put all your cards back.  Whatever cards you get right you have to keep.  I figure it can be fun on days he's looking to work on "preschool" but doesn't have the attention for writing.  As he gets older I can even make new note cards with sight words to put into the box.  I might make a second set of cards with math problems for Carolyn so she can play, but we'll see her interest level.

I've enjoyed this time off and extra time with family, but I'm looking forward to getting back to our routine.  Yesterday the village was working on a water issue in our neighborhood so our water was off 10-4.  We went over to Jon's parents for the day.  The kids had fun, but James fell asleep on the way home at only 6.  Yep, we definitely still need naps!  Today they both slept until 2:45.

Time to put them to bed!

A New Direction

I've been contemplating a bit more the wisdom from my high school AP physics teacher.  He sent me quite a long email and spoke about a few different things.  Jon and I discussed some of them.  I think part of my push with the kids is to feel like I'm doing the right thing.  Although I also feel like, as their first educator, that I need to be sure they have everything they need to be successful.  But when I step back and look at the atmosphere that was beginning to be created, it was one of some tension.  So we are going to head in a new direction in our home.  I'm still going to meet with the principal on Tuesday to see how the school can push Carolyn's critical thinking skills.  But at home we're going to keep reading, expanding our books to different cultures within whatever the kids' interests are.

The big step we took today is to cancel our subscription to Reading Eggs.  The kids don't need to push their skills in reading or math.  They enjoyed using the program, but I could also see the frustration at times.  So we are going to dial back the electronics (although we never used them all that much) and turn to interactive things.  Christmas lists this year will consist of plenty of blocks to build large towers.  Some of my best childhood memories are of building towns with Lincoln logs.  The kids seem a bit young for these yet, but we might look into expanding our set for birthdays or next year's Christmas.  I'm debating about some of the math manipulatives I currently have on the lists.  I think that the kids might enjoy having them to make up their own games with.  The shapes I think they'll enjoy creating pictures from, so we'll keep those.  Neither kid wants much of anything.  But we want to continue to encourage imagination, and get away from single function toys.  If I look at what they play with the most, I could get rid of a lot of things in the toy room.  And after Christmas, we may go through and have them decide what we really want to keep, and what we should set aside for a garage sale this summer.  They have some great things that we could probably sell and put the money in their college accounts.  But the main thing is, we're going to stop doing anything "educational" at home.

I gave this a try today and the results were interesting.  The kids played while we were still in bed this morning.  Pretending to babysit their bears.  After breakfast we brought out the playdoh and they rolled and made "cookies" with small cookie cutters we have.  When they grew tired of that everyone but me got a haircut.  And then the kids had a bath to brush off the hair.  We settled onto the couch and read 2 chapters of Mr. Popper's Penguins before lunch.  During lunch Carolyn noticed the labels on the tomato jar we were putting the orange peels into.  So we walked about what 1/2 means, and expanded to 1/4 and she went through taking parts of a pizza.  Then they took a nap.  We snuggled in bed some and both kids asked to play on their iPad/Tablet.  They brought them into bed and Carolyn chose sticker Sudoku to start.  She'd never played it before but was quite quick to catch on.  When she started guessing we suggested she move on, and she chose the Tangrams app.  I showed her she could choose the have it show her what pieces to use and she enjoyed piecing them together onto the picture.  After about 30 minutes we turned everything off, had a snack, and headed to the mall to walk around and have dinner.  On the way to the mall, Carolyn counted from 2 to 80 by 2's.  No prompting by us, she just wanted to see how far she could get.  Interesting what will happen when you don't have a video screen in the car!  We had a nice evening and dinner, let the kids run around in the play area for a while and then came home.  Without any effort on our part, Carolyn did some math "learning" and game strategizing today.  I'm sure there were a couple other conversations to explain things throughout the day that I'm not remembering as well.

So from here we focus on more exposure to lots of topics.  I'm looking forward to our library trip on Wednesday both for the craft and because Carolyn will get to pick some of her own books for the first time since this summer.  First tomorrow we have another day of rest at home and then Monday and Tuesday both kids have trial ice skating lessons for the first time.  This will be a new journey, but hopefully one that keeps us close as a family and decreases the stress on everyone.

Disappointing conversation

So at 9:30 last night the principal emailed me to postpone our meeting.  Something came up, so she offered 2 times next week.  Considering I slept horrible last night thinking about what to say and how to say it, I was pretty frustrated.  But I sent my request for babysitting on to Jon's dad and luckily he's able to oblige.  So we rescheduled for next Tuesday.  We did agree to talk on the phone as well.  So after a great morning with James, I spoke with the principal for about 20 minutes.  I shared with her my background and my concerns of what is happening.  I let her know that the goal for meeting next week is to come up with specific plans of how we're going to help Carolyn.  I'm disappointed with some of the things said during the conversation.  She emphasized the social importance of the classroom and learning to work with other people who don't understand.  I get that it's important, I do, but not all the time.  Every student should have some time (10-15min?) every day where they feel their needs are being met.  Right now, that is absolutely not happening for Carolyn.  I am worried that school for her is going to become a place where she has to go and follow directions, I am worried she is going to lose her love for learning as I see it fizzling some already.  The principal's only suggestion for now is to have her meet with the social worker to see how she's feeling about school.  I agreed, but don't think it will help in any way.  There are no social-emotional issues at school, her teacher reports great behavior and didn't have anything to criticize at her conference a month ago.  But if we can get something going, I'll jump through whatever hoops.  I hope that the message I got from today's conversation - that Carolyn just needs to learn to help her classmates learn - is not the only choice.  Because if that's going to happen, my only real option is going to be to bring her home.  She likes the social aspect of school so at this point I don't want to do that to her.

I noticed today that there is a night and day difference in Carolyn when she has time to do something that is mentally stimulating.  Today they had their usual explorations, which are stations around the room.  Once of the choices is independent reading and so Carolyn chose a book to take to school and read that.  But that is something she could be doing at home.  And today I know she was not well rested because she was up twice last night. 

James and I had a wonderful morning today.  After dropping Carolyn off at school, we came home and he helped me put the soup together for dinner.  Then he brought his football and crab catch items into the living room and we listened to music and played catch, with an intermission to dance.  When he got sick of that we played Cooties for a bit, then he cut out the pieces to work with Bob book 1.  He knows all the sounds in the book (although there are only 6) and can sound out all the words.  It's going to be interesting to watch him progress with his reading since he's so different from Carolyn with learning.  He got to talk on the phone to Kathi for a while, which he loved.  We also, of course, read a bunch of books.  Just a nice, low key morning at home with lots of hugs and laughs.

Looking forward to 5 days with my family next week with no interruptions!  And can't wait until winter break so we have even more time together.

Frustration Mounts

Carolyn forgot her iPad this morning.  So on our way to soccer, I dropped it off at the school so they could deliver it to her.  She got off the bus without it in her backpack.  I come to find out that they won't deliver them during instructional time, so Carolyn didn't get hers today.  And because there's no lunch break for kindergarten or anything, she is without it tonight.  We were never informed of this policy and it makes me angry.  I wasted 15 minutes of my day so that my child would still be without her iPad and then be without it tonight.  There was no mention of the policy when I dropped it off.

Carolyn has now gone 3 days without anything to challenge her at school.  Her behavior is quickly deteriorating at home because she has to try so hard to behave appropriately when she's bored.  She has such excellent company manners but it should not be this hard for her.  There has to be some solution.  Maybe I'm being naïve, but I see SO many opportunities for differentiation that are being ignored.  Comparing numbers?  Use numbers bigger than 10 for the kids that can.  Identifying pictures?  Let them see the words to read them!  Working on writing? Encourage kids to reread and edit their own work - it takes seconds to tell a kid to reread what's there and be sure it has the right sounds.  We will work on some more math this afternoon, whether it be worksheets or games.  But at the moment my heart is breaking because I can see how hard she is working to hold everything together.

Hopefully my meeting with the principal will turn something useful up.  She doesn't want to leave school because she does like the social aspect.  But I can't keep fighting these behavioral issues when all that she needs is some mental stimulation.

Easy Math Game

Carolyn loves to work on math, but I'm trying to pull back a little on teaching her new math facts.  She is really good at "counting on" or subtracting by counting backwards.  I came across this game, http://www.k-5mathteachingresources.com/support-files/Race-to-50.pdf, and have adapted it for our needs.  We are using some of Carolyn's necklace beads as markers and I pulled out a couple hundreds charts.  Each person gets a marker for the game board and one for their chart.  We move around the board according to the original directions.  The hundreds chart has turned the game into a race to 100, but also an easy way to work on addition.  We have a chance to talk about how adding 10 means you just go down to the next row.  And when you land on top of someone else, you add that number twice.  This shows you can have multiple addends within a problem.  And as we play, I restate the addition problem to emphasize that is what we are doing.  Carolyn really liked playing and has already asked to play again after lunch.  As a twist in the future, we might count down to work on subtracting.  My hope is that this type of game will help her work on her adding/subtracting and satisfy her need for numbers without obviously working on math.

I heard back from the principal and am waiting to see if I can arrange for someone to watch the kids for a meeting at 11:30 on Thursday.  I must admit that the more I read about homeschooling though, the more I think it's for us.  I'm going to try and go in with an open mind and see if we can find things that will satisfy all of us.

Fall fun

I continue to struggle with what to do for Carolyn and school.  The last couple days we've been doing some learning activities at home and the kids have been loving them.  We've been creating a list of questions that we'll get books to find answers.  I spent the morning looking for things that I can confidently do at home.  I found some great reading and writing lessons on www.readwritethink.org and some good math ideas on http://www.k-5mathteachingresources.com/kindergarten-math-activities.html. It will be easy to pick and choose from these activities things that are at Carolyn's level and that she finds interesting.  I think I'm going to start with looking at "The Snowman" and writing a story to go with it.  Then I'll have Carolyn make some of her own drawings and write a story to go with it.  We'll give it a try tomorrow afternoon.  I'm going to switch between reading/writing, math, and science working on one project at a time as time allows.  I'm also going to speak with Carolyn's teacher about what is happening in the classroom.

I also reached out the high school principal, since I've kept in touch with him for a while.  And I emailed my other former HS physics teacher.  I asked both of them their thoughts on homeschooling and how it might effect HS.  I found out my 4th grade teacher and 4-5 principal are still at the school and contacted them as well.  I just said hi to them since it's been a while and I'm not sure they remember me.  But once we reconnect I'm going to ask what they think.  I'm guessing they'll remember me since my mom was pretty memorable.

Today we played in the leaves, made leaf rubbings with chalk on the driveway, cleaned up the backyard for winter, and then brought some leaves inside.  Making leaf rubbings on paper turned into cutting the steams off and forming straight letters with them.  Carolyn made her own and I made some for James to identify.  We took a break for dinner and now we're going to make thankful turkeys out of tracing hands.  It's been a nice day, even if I didn't get the PJs made I was hoping to work on.  The best laid plans... I know it'll get done!

Schooling Dilemma

I should really be working right now, but I have to get this out before I can focus.  I am really unsure what to do for Carolyn right now, and James in the future even.  Carolyn has been coming home lately riled up from the day, and it's clear she isn't being challenged at all while at school.  I wrote to her teacher and the response was that they've been doing some benchmark testing lately.  Yet I feel like they were just doing that a few weeks ago.  So how much time is being spent evaluating these kids?!  And how often does Carolyn have to sit around while they check on the abilities of all the kids?  Yes, she can count to 100, knows all 42 sounds, can write all the letters in lowercase, can identify a square, circle, triangle, and their vertices.  For that matter she can count by 2 (to 20), 5, and 10.  And yes, it's only November.  She hates guided writing where she just has to fill in a couple words that match a picture and doesn't get to use any of her own ideas.  She can complete a level L story and questions on RAZ kids by only listening to the story once.  She often wants to practice learning her math facts.  I can't help but feel like her time is being wasted each morning when she goes to school.  I've written her teacher again to see if we can meet or talk on the phone about what the rest of the year is going to look like and how to proceed from here.

And all of this makes me miss my mom so much because she was good dealing with all of the school stuff.  I'm fighting back tears right now because I just wish I could talk to her right now.  I want what's best for my kids, but I don't know what that is.  If I had all the money in the world we could send them to Montessori or an academy some where.  But we can barely pay our bills and fix the things that break.  But right now it seems my heart is breaking for the frustration that Carolyn faces each day.  People do need to learn to be patient with others and that not everyone learns at the same pace, but I guess I don't feel like learning at 5.5 that you are supposed to wait around while others catch up is appropriate.  And it's the exact problem with the education in this country and why we're falling behind in math and science.  I see Carolyn's love for learning slowly fizzling and I hate that, but I don't know what to do to give her the best results in the long run.  And it makes me crave a phone call with my mom like nothing else.

I love you Mom, and I miss you more than words can say!

Anniversaries - Happy and Sad

I meant to write on Thursday, but life was just too busy.  Thursday was both the 10 year anniversary of our engagement and the 8 year anniversary of losing my mom to her cancer battle.  Our engagement of course is a fully happy memory and I can flash back to walking down to the river by Augie and spending some time chatting on the rocks.  We carved our initials into the small dock and then hiked back up to the car and went out to dinner.  We finished that night by going to the boys' soccer game so I could show all the girls the ring.  But not having my mom is hard.  And this time of year it's really hard.  I wish she could go to the pumpkin farm, see the kids in their costumes, join us for turkey at Thanksgiving, and of course be around for the holiday baking and Christmas.  This time of year I think about the time spent looking through wedding magazines for floral arrangements, and considering a rushed wedding so she could attend.  In the end I had to settle for the few memories and knowing that she helped me choose my dress, the bridesmaid dresses, the flowers, and the reception hall.  I still wish she could be here to help me navigate these tricky years with the kids, and remind me of what I was like as I entered school.  I tried to keep myself busy this past Thursday to push the painful part away just a little.  I wore my necklace that was hers and I think of her every time I touch it.

I started the day with Carolyn's first school conference.  Her teacher focused on behavior - whether the student was functioning well in the classroom since this is Kindergarten and at this point that's what she's worried about.  Everything was marked on a scale of 1-3, and Carolyn received 3's on everything they are currently working on.  Carolyn even set a goal for herself to work on something that her teacher isn't concerned about yet.  We talked about how we can continue to challenge Carolyn, and her teacher said she would get out some poetry books for her to read during reading workshop.  It sounds like things will get more personalized as the year goes on now so Carolyn should be even more challenged.  Looking over curriculums, it looks like Carolyn currently has everything through first grade except for telling time on an analog clock.  The iPad is allowing for more personalization as they started spelling (Montessori spelling) and math (Find sums) this weekend.  We may start seeing the iPad come home each day, which would allow her to play for 15-30 minutes, the small practice that's great at this age.

James and I then went to the store to do the week's grocery shopping, picking up ingredients for some special treats.  After a usual lunch with the kids, I had a job interview on the phone.  As happened last time I interviewed for an online teaching position, I was offered a job while still on the phone.  It sounds like a much better fit and I am optimistic it will end up working well.  But only time will tell.  It may be a position I can grow into, perfect for this time in our lives and the kids are becoming more independent.  I miss teaching and developing relationships with students and I'm hoping this new job will give me that opportunity again.  I don't need more to do, especially since Jon is considering a coaching opportunity this Spring.  So we'll see how things go.

After naps the kids helped me to bake a cheesecake.  We weren't patient enough and had some for dessert after dinner.  The inside ended up quite runny, but it still tasted delicious!  I'm thinking that cheesecake is the dessert that I just can't resist.  I'm hoping to find a recipe that uses less/no sugar - but nothing artificial.  So I might play around with honey or maple syrup.  I think if I make it flavored - strawberry or chocolate or something, that those sweeteners would do just fine.  After the kids were in bed Thursday night I had a bunch of work to get done, so it was a late night.  But I did find several moments throughout the day to pray and talk to my mom.  Jon brought me flowers which are beautiful and sitting on the kitchen table.  It was great to see how much he tries to understand how much I miss my mom.

Everything else continues to go well and the kids continue to grow.  James is identifying a bunch more letters now, which is often.  At his current rate he may be identifying them all by Christmas, which would be amazing and awesome.  I'm going to activate the 5 week Reading Eggs trial in a week so it's active over Thanksgiving.  I keep debating about purchasing a subscription because I think it would be awesome for James.  But Carolyn is kind of beyond it and I don't think James is quite ready for it.  So we'll do this 5 week trial and then the craziness of the holidays will be here.  If I get a good discounted offer in January, I might sign him up then because it's likely that would take him through beginning to read.  He's less of a spurt kid and more steady growth, but I'm guessing he'll start reading around 4.5 like Carolyn.  Only time will where things are headed!

I'm looking forward to a more relaxed week and helping in Carolyn's classroom on Thursday.  Then next weekend Halloween activities start!

2 months in to Kindergarten

It's hard to believe it's mid-October already and Carolyn has been in kindergarten for nearly 2 months!  It seems like we've been crazy busy lately, although to most families we're don't do very much.  I'm realizing that as a family we really value time to relax and just be together.  Carolyn and James don't handle constant activity well and require a day to just be, weekly preferably.  It gets hard to manage that as kids get older though.  With soccer on Saturdays and Sunday school, we have been stuck with weeks with seemingly no rest.  Tomorrow, though, we will get a day of rest.  A day to read books, go for a walk to collect sticks, leaves, and acorns, go to the park, ride bikes, just enjoy having no plans.  And I spent tonight putting together 4 different craft projects the kids can do.  I looked through the Oriental Trading catalogue and then sat down with some construction paper.  It'll be a little trickier since we'll need to use glue to put things together, but it'll be fun to put together these projects and then hang them around the house.

Carolyn has an amazing teacher at school.  She is being exposed to some new topics, and I am able to support and enhance that learning by bringing home extra books from the library.  They do continue to plod through the alphabet and phonics sounds, which she mastered a while ago.  But they also are working through Handwriting without tears and she is learning to properly form lower case letters.  They also have the opportunity to do some writing in class.  Conferences are this week and I am looking forward to a conversation of how we can continue to challenge Carolyn and what can be done at home to support her.  We are looking forward to expanded use of the Ipads as well as the year goes on.  We received Carolyn's STAR early literacy score today, 771.  775 is the cut-off between a "transitional" and "probable" reader.  A chart I found online puts her grade level at 1.8.  However, it appears that as the score approaches 900 (the top score), the test is less reliable because the child can read.  This is a pre-reading test and Carolyn is definitely reading.  I wonder if the district switches any of the kindergartners to the STAR reading test after this first round and it's proven the student can read.  We have been exploring poetry lately, to change things up a bit.  Carolyn is enjoying Shel Silverstein and Jack Perlutsky.  I am looking forward to some suggestions from her teacher as well, as it is difficult to find books that challenge her thinking/vocabulary yet have appropriate subject matters.  I was amazed when she read a poem recently that used the word "brigade" and I asked her if she knew what it meant and she said "army".  We can not figure out how she determined this because no one taught it to her.  Amazing that she is able to decode language this early! 

James continues to do an awesome job at home with me doing his preschool lessons.  We start each morning reading books in bed after putting Carolyn on the bus.  I love this snuggle time and I know James is getting some great things from it.  He had a rough start to the school year and some severe separation anxiety issues.  But we seem to have moved beyond this now and he is okay staying home with Jon's dad when I take Carolyn to gymnastics or volunteer in her classroom.  I am very glad that we canceled his soccer and very happy we did not enroll him in any preschool classes.  He is developing at his own pace and it's great to see his development.  He asks to do preschool several days a week, where we read Bible stories, books, trace/color letters and numbers, work on sequencing, counting, coloring, cutting, as well as do gross and fine motor activities.  We are using the ABC Jesus Loves Me 3 year old curriculum, supplemented with some other things, and it is going great.  We are currently on week 18.  Carolyn is also teaching James some of her Jolly phonics from school and he is learning some letter sounds.  He is able to trace very well when he focuses and can form nearly every letter by doing so.  He can identify J, O, C, B, Q, and probably some other letters as well.  Being 3, his biggest struggle is staying focused on the task at hand, but his concentration is pretty good considering his age. 

I sometimes sit back and think about how well my children are doing learning the basics and I wonder what sets them apart.  I never felt like I was doing anything special, just what a mom should do.  I usually put their needs before mine, and I will admit that I am sacrificing money/a career to help them get the best start possible.  We read countless books and my kids can often retell the stories because we read them so many times in one week before new books come home from the library.  I admittedly turn every day activities into learning - counting objects, describing why something happens, or asking my children to observe things around them.  Jon often reminds me that I choose the hard road.  And the main choice that I've made that makes things hard?  My children rarely watch TV or interact with technology.  They can effortlessly work an Ipad or Tablet, they love to play on Starfall or Reading Eggs.  But we put an emphasis on free play and getting outside.  Even on rainy days, they do not get more than 30 minutes of screen time.  Their imaginations are great and as they get bigger they are coming up with their own ideas of things to do.  My favorite recently is using blankets and furniture to create a hideout in Carolyn's bedroom under her desk.  I'm looking forward to what else they'll come up with this winter when I'm no longer forcing outdoor time in the afternoons because it'll be too cold.

Your kids will learn technology... if you make 2 choices to give them the best start they can have... play outside and read books.  The rest will write itself.

Kindergarten begins

I'm not sure who was most anxious this morning for Carolyn to start school.  I had a horrible time sleeping last night and James was up at 6:15.  Carolyn got up just before 7.  I made her a special breakfast of strawberry soufflé, which Carolyn put cheese on top of and had a glass of milk.  She took a banana as a snack.  Jon stayed home to put her on the bus, which was tougher than we anticipated.  We took many pictures and had to fight back tears.  She was just fine though and climbed onto the bus and sat right down.

While Carolyn was at school, I had time with James.  One of Carolyn's classmates came and played with him for a little while, allowing me time to put together a few more folders for preschool.  Once she left he asked to work on preschool right away, so we got down to work.  He can identify nearly every letter of his name and order them correctly.  We put together a 10 commandments train and then worked on some of his sequencing pages.  Once he reaches capacity for that, we gathered up all the pillows in the house and he crawled over them.  Then he made new patterns and crawled, jumped, and flopped around the room.  We were silly, pretending to hide from a monster, and just enjoyed our time together.  We went outside so he could pick berries to leave out for the birds.  And we read a book before heading to the bus stop.

James gave Carolyn a huge hug once she was off the bus and told her he missed her.  It was really cool to see.  We hurried inside since it was raining and went straight to make lunch.  As I was making lunch, Carolyn suddenly got upset.  Then she told me something "horrible" happened at school.  She had trouble finding the correct line to get into to go inside.  We talked about this for a few minutes and discussed how tomorrow if she has trouble she can look for some of her classmates.  It sounds like they didn't do much today, but she did get to meet the class guinea pigs named Cookie and Brownie.  So day 1 is over and she'll meet everyone in her class tomorrow. 

My little girl is getting big!

Summer 2013 is ending

It's been a long time since I've written, and quite a busy summer!  We started the summer with painting the kids' bedrooms.  After finishing those, we headed to Blue Harbor for 3 nights with Jon's parents for vacation.  It was pretty nice and fairly relaxing.  The kids had a blast at the waterpark.  When we got home we continued to paint the rest of the house - master bedroom, living room, kitchen, and playroom/hallway.  It feels really nice to have the house feel more like ours.  There's still a long list of changes we'd like to make, but finances will determine that as we go forward.  We're growing some tomato plants out front, which are huge.  We went to some sporting events, played at parks, and just enjoyed being together as a family.

The last 2 weeks Carolyn attended Safety City through the park district.  It's a program my mom was part of starting and teaching when I was little.  Carolyn had a lot of fun and enjoyed telling us all the new things she learned each day about how to be safe.  I let the staff know today who my mom was, and almost cried as the director remembered her.  I miss my mom a lot, but having the kids get to experience some of the things she helped create makes it a little easier.  Carolyn did an awesome job at camp and her teacher was amazed that this was her first drop-off experience.  Bodes very well for starting kindergarten.  They even took a field trip on a school bus, so that won't be a foreign idea for her.

Jon started his new job this week with new staff training.  He seems to really be enjoying himself and those around him are very nice.  He has a great big office and we're discovering some nice perks along the way.  We got free microsoft office for our new desktop computer.  And the insurance, although we're selecting the HMO, is about $200/month cheaper than his old school.  Looking forward to seeing his new paycheck at the end of the month.

I have been given a raise, which means I don't have to work as many hours this school year.  I'm looking forward to being able to spend more time with the kids and not tied to my computer.  They're also starting a 401k matching program.  It's the typical 50% of your contributions up to 6%.  So I'm putting in 7% to end up with 10% in there.  If Jon switches his stuff away from fidelity, I might do the same and move all my stuff to CharlesSchwabb.  But we'll what happens.  The guy he was using wasn't very helpful and rarely, if ever, actually responds to our inquiries.  It took him over a month when I wanted to increase contributions... you'd think he'd be right on that.

Carolyn starts school in 10 days.  I still have mixed feelings about whether public school is the best option for her.  Everyone that sees/hears her read is amazed.  Whenever we use any of the online tests she ends up at a 4th grade level.  We continue to work on her math and that I would put about half way through 1st grade.  We've spent less time on it, so she isn't as far as I think she could be.  I'm going to give this a whole hearted attempt though, and we'll see how it goes.  I'm hoping that the Ipads will provide her with the opportunity to excel beyond her grade level.  I looked over the curriculum last night and she has every item listed mastered.  There are 3-4 things not yet mastered for 1st grade only.  And those are things we haven't spent much time with - clock reading, money counting, numbers beyond 100, and parts of a sentence.  So we'll definitely work on those in the next couple months and then start tackling the 2nd grade curriculum which does have more for her to work on.

James is really enjoying the preschool work we've been doing.  We're through the first 7 weeks and will start on week 8 soon.  He likes how varied it is and I think he enjoys that he gets to sit in my lap for a lot of it.  He can sing his alphabet, count to 10, identify all the standard colors, and knows his shapes (square, triangle, rectangle, circle).  We're working on identifying the letters and numbers, of which he does know a few.  So he's trucking right along.  I'm interested to see where he is just before entering kindergarten himself.  I'm looking forward to spending time with just him when we don't have to go anywhere as well.  He starts soccer in September and then story hour isn't until October.  I figure we'll still go to the library once a week though.

I'm looking forward to enjoying this next week with just the 2 of them.  We don't have a ton planned and that is going to be nice.  Tomorrow we have no plans and will just enjoy time as a family, since from here Saturdays will likely involve grocery shopping.

Time to Enjoy

This past month has been incredibly stressful.  Jon will be starting a new job in the fall, which is awesome.  But the interview process was stressful.  I will not be working FT, and the interview process was beyond stressful.  But I suppose all is well that ends well.  God has a different plan for me, and I think I know just what that is.  With Jon's $14k raise and possibly lower insurance costs, my income will be completely extra.  So I will be cutting back on work, down to 8-10hrs/week and instead focus on our family.  With a lower overall stress load, life should get easier and more enjoyable.  I'm looking forward to having some time to relax while James is at his activities and Carolyn is at school.  I'll get to read a lot of books I suppose!  I'm also looking forward to getting a chance to work on academics with the kids more, as well as not worry about work things being scheduled so we're stuck at home.  James is still a long ways from giving up his nap, so that should give me some time each day to work with Carolyn.

Carolyn is now reading at a 3-4th grade level.  She regularly picks up a chapter book and will read through it.  Of course, she continues to love being read to and we do a ton of that.  She officially has over 600 sight words.  I've been pushing spelling a little more lately because I am running out of notecards, haha!  She also is enjoying the math computer program that we have, came with the workbook I bought her for Christmas.  It's just called Math 1-2, for first to second grade.  I can tell that she's memorized most of the addition facts for 1-5, and she can add or subtract pretty much any number if she has the right manipulatives - counting items, her fingers, or a number line.  It's amazing to see her brain developing so rapidly.  I received a letter from the school that she will indeed be receiving an IPad next year.  I'm excited to see how they will use it to keep her challenged.  Her K teacher is definitely in for a challenge I think.  I'm interested to see what the screening she has at the end of the month will be like.  I really should try and get her to the dentist before then and maybe even the eye doctor.  Will have to see what our insurance covers.  Sign up for summer gymnastics is also next week, so we found out yesterday what level to sign up for.  Carolyn was very happy to hear that she gets to stay in the advanced class.  We'll only do part of the summer, but that means 2x/week starting in the fall.  She seems to be enjoying soccer as well.  So in the fall she'll do gymnastics and soccer, then we'll replace soccer with something else during the winter.  I might let her try ice skating if it fits into our day.

James is doing great and showing interest in learning his letters.  I think he sees how much Carolyn enjoys reading.  He wants to play his "games" often, which is looking at the letter and song stuff on Starfall.com.  In the fall I will start more of a formal program with him like I did with Carolyn, starting with getting books for a letter each week.  Maybe I'll try to pick an animal for each letter to get books about as well, he loves to read the books with facts about animals.  He's doing well with numbers and can easily count to 10.  So we'll continue to work on getting to 20 and see how he's doing from there.  I think he'll really enjoy the one-on-one time with me, even if he'll miss Carolyn.  He's already telling people "Carolyn go to kindergarten, I'll be sad".  He continues to enjoy his gymnastics, which we'll continue into the fall.  I'm planning to drive him out to Lake Zurich for soccer as well, since no where else seems to have an outdoor program during the day.  We'll likely just do the fall though and switch to swimming after that.  If finances end up being better than I'm currently anticipating, I might consider letting him do gymnastics, swimming, and soccer.  With story hour that would still leave us 1 morning with nothing.  But for now I'm figuring 2 is probably good.  He'll enjoy the museum and other fun places where we get to spend time together when we're not at home or a park.  It will be interesting to see his personality really take shape once the focus is entirely on him and Carolyn isn't around to boss him around.

Enjoyment continues tomorrow with another trip to Brookfield.  3 adults and 2 children, I think we'll have it all covered!  Supposed to be a gorgeous day.

Life's been busy...

It's been a few weeks since I've written.  But I've really been trying to focus on the kids and truly enjoying my time with them.  Often we all get caught up in what's coming next or telling others about what we're doing.  I've been trying to watch my children, play with them, and snuggle with them.  We found out this week that Carolyn will be in morning kindergarten.  She was disappointed to find out that the other gymnastics days are full, so she will continue with one day a week.  But then we started talking and decided it will be just fine.  I've spent some time gathering ideas for places to go and science projects to do.  We'll keep working on her reading, writing, and math, as well as reading science books as well as about all of the presidents.  This is likely her last chance for a while to do what she wants without school getting in the way.  So I'm looking forward to enjoying this Spring with her.

Thursday would have been my mom's 65th birthday, so it was a tough day.  But I made my first cheesecake with the kids and they made me smile all day.  James sang happy birthday to "grandma angel" and we offered her a bite when we enjoyed some together.  I miss my mom every day, but I know she's watching us closely and keeping us safe.

James has been struggling with sleep lately and I'm not sure why.  Twice this last week he's climbed in bed with us at night and today I had to take him into our bed to get him to nap.  When I ask him why he says "because I miss you", so what do you say in response to that?  I tried to talk with him a little at nap time, wondering if the kindergarten talk has him worried.  I jokingly said something about daycare this week, so maybe that has him worried.  Just not sure, so I'll keep snuggling him and after an hour of him in our bed at night we'll shuffle him back to bed.  He won't be this little forever, but I also do horribly on interrupted sleep.

Carolyn has been doing great lately.  We're almost completely through the Dolch sight words, with I think 3 left on the final list.  She has around 100 spelling words mastered, and we keep working on addition/subtraction as well as telling time.  She'll likely be at a 2nd-3rd grade level in everything by the time she starts kindergarten.  But it's simply because she loves to learn.  She's playing very nicely with James and is becoming a much more polite little girl.  It's really cool to watch her choose her words very carefully and say things like "Excuse me Mom, but when you have a minute could you..."  I look at her when that happens and marvel that she's only 4!

I've been trying to pay more attention to not yelling lately, and I'm going to commit to this a little more going forward.  I recently read a blog post about someone commiting to not yelling for a year.  I'm not ready to do that.  But, I think I can commit to a week, and from there I can extend it further.  I know the kids are better when I'm calmer, so I need to keep focusing on this so they can the best possible.  Anyone else want to join me in this?

Where I Struggle

Ah, a quiet house on a Thursday night with my work email inbox empty.  Who would have thought I could accomplish on a day when Jen isn't home and I took a 30 minute nap this afternoon?  But the peace is really nice.  I even had a pretty great day with the kids, aside from almost burning down the house.  Oven mitts should not be left in the oven while baking cookies.  Note to self: don't work on a math lesson while baking.  In any case, crisis averted and the smoke has now dissipated - cookies even turned out fine!

But I learned something about myself today.  I struggle with unstructured time with the kids.  I sit and plan what they should work on learning each day, generally to not end up doing it and wondering if they're then falling behind.  Then I remind myself that my nearly 5yo can read, write, and walks around saying things like "2+2=4, 1+1=3, 5+5=10" along with "Mom, I can't read that sign, it says Do not block" and that my 2.5yo can trace letters, has memorized nursery rhymes, has great gross motor control, and amazing compassion.  So what could they possibly be falling behind on?  Yeah, that's my mind in its usual overdrive, planning what will happen next.  I'm trying to focus on the here and now, since Carolyn goes to kindergarten in <6 months and I only have 2 more years with James.  But I think that's what gets me thinking about homeschooling as well.  Then I would get to keep enjoying time with them, but that sounds awfully selfish!

I struggle though to think that school will give Carolyn (I'm not sure about James' learning style yet) what she needs to grow and thrive.  Some of what I'm noticing may simply be differences in age and ability, but I see patterns repeating.  When Carolyn was at Cary gymnastics, she was okay but not great.  Her class size was big and she didn't seem to make much progress.  We switched to Lake Zurich and she took off, quickly amassing many new skills.  Her progress seems to have slowed at Buffalo Grove with a bigger class.  Yes, I have considered switching her back to Lake Zurich, but I do think that Buffalo Grove will be better for her in the long term.  Swimming has proven to me that Carolyn makes amazing strides when she has individual attention.  There is only 1 other girl in her class, but she wasn't there today.  With the inidividual attention, Carolyn put her whole face in the water and was "swimming" (noodle under her) putting her face in the water.  This may have been a natural progression, but I think that this close attention helps her focus and work harder.  She even skipped the play portion of the class to keep working!

So I wonder how she's going to do in a school classrom with 20+ other kids her age.  I chuckle a little inside when people tell me they send their kid to preschool for the socialization.  Yes, kids need friends there age or at least similar in age.  But what is my 4 year old likely to learn from other 4 year olds, other than bad manners?  Maybe I'm missing something here, but I honestly think a room full of same-aged children for 6-7 hours a day is a bad idea for all involved. 

As I cooked dinner tonight and after we ate, I read 3 books to the kids about the nervous system.  These weren't super technical, but they also weren't simple versions.  They use the proper terminology - cerebrum, cerebellum, hypothalamus, brain stem, axons, dendrites - and be using various inflections Carolyn thought the books were exciting.  I know she's storing all the information away as well, that's just how she works.  I do think I might change up how we're working through school topics though.  I'm going to keep picking a topic each week, but I'm going to be sure and check out 7 books.  Then each morning before breakfast we'll read one.  This will spread the information (that is somewhat repetitive with slight variations between books) out over the week.  Both kids are loving reading about the human body since they can relate to it so well.  I'll likely be checking out plant books as we get later in March as well and start to think about planting our garden.  I know that's a kindergarten topic, but I love to have the kids learn real things about what we're doing.  It'll be interesting to see what they remember from last year too.

I'm enjoying working with both kids on learning related activities.  I'm not sure what will happen once they start school, although I'm sure I won't stop helping them investigate whatever they're interested in.  In my secret dreams Jon will get a job that allows me to stop working and we'll discover that the kids really do need the individual attention only an education at home can give them.  Then we'll proceed to provide them with the K-8 education only 2 highly educated parents could provide, to send them off to a high school that can provide the finishing touches before college.  But I don't know what the future will hold, so we wait and see.  For the next 6 months we'll continue the exploring through books and activities.

Life is just beginning... 30!

I read a post on facebook this week that talked about someone who wrote a famous book at 40, I can't remember who that famous person was.  Yesterday I turned 30 and I honestly feel like I'm just getting to the best part of life.  My kids are now old enough to truly interact and going places is getting to be more fun.  We still have to work around nap schedules, but I cherish this part of the day as a time to refresh.  I am gaining a bit more independence and over the next couple years I will have more time to focus on me and getting to where I want to be physically, mentally, and emotionally.  Sometimes I actually think that my 40s will be the prime of my life since James will be 12 and Carolyn 14 so very much so independent and when I turn 45 he'll be graduating from high school!  But life seems to truly be falling into place at this point and we're getting rewarded for our willingness to try and follow God's plan.  I'm ready to take on the challenges of being 30 and can't wait to see what God has in store for this year!

Carolyn had a powerhouse of a learning week.  We did reading and writing earlier the week and math towards the end.  She is really enjoying the math workbook that we gave as a Christmas present and starting to memorize some of the math facts.  She seems to have down the idea of adding 0 means you keep the original number and has some random facts such as 5+5 down pat.  It's so cool to see her love working and understanding.  I pulled out the easel this week and the kids spent some time painting with watercolors as well, for their artistic side.  I left it out with the dry erase markers and chalk for them to draw on as well.  Carolyn has started to write sentences on the board at random.  Last night she wrote "The cat has a hat" without any help.  So awesome to see the connections firing away in her brain.

This explosion of learning keeps me a bit worried about kindergarten.  If she's reading, writing, and doing math well above kindergarten level before she starts school, I wonder how it will go.  I'm not crazy concerned about kindergarten since it's only half day and we can of course continue to work at home, but what happens as she gets older?  If she's continuously ahead of her grade how bored will she be until she hits high school?  Will she never really learn to learn difficult concepts and push herself?  This is something I have forever struggled with myself and so it really concerns me.  There are definitely some things I think Carolyn will learn from being in kindergarten, but it's a pretty short list.  The 6-8 months are going to be a bit nerve-wrecking for me as we await the beginning of school.  I'm interested to see if the registration packet will ask about the abilities of the child at all, but I'll be picking that up on Tuesday morning so not too long to wait to find out.

James is finally back to eating a bit more as he had a banana, 2 eggs, blueberries, spinach, and a strawberry for breakfast.  He really struggles to sit down and eat and Carolyn seems to truly try to distract him from eating.  He got on the scale today and I think he may have actually lost weight.  I'm going to be keeping a close eye on how much he eats and how much milk he drinks.  I'm wondering if the milk is what is bothering his stomach and causing a mild case of eczema (sp?)  While I think getting rid of all dairy would be hard, we might be able to replace milk with another form of milk like goat or almond (definitely not soy!)  I'll be keeping close tabs on this and see how things progress over the next few weeks.

Reading day

Today was really a fantastic day.  You know, aside from the thunder storms and torrential rain.  Seriously people, is it really the end of January?  Don't worry, we're supposed to get snow tomorrow despite it being 60 today and the kids playing outside with umbrellas.

I let the kids watch movies this morning because James was still recovering.  Then we went to the library for story for Carolyn.  I'm not sure that she likes this one as much as in Wauconda.  She was miffed at the end, because they each get to take a book off the cart and other kids were taking 2 so she didn't have much left to choose from.  I reminded her she already had a whole bag of books to check out, but that didn't seem to help.  She's very into everything being fair these days.  We came for lunch and naps.

After nap time is when things really took off.  Carolyn read a book to me while I finished up some work, and then started on a second one.  Then James woke up.  We snuggled for a while and then headed into the kitchen for snack.  While the kids ate they worked on some mazes.  When Carolyn was finished with her mazes, we brought out the umbrellas and I swept the floor while the kids played on the driveway.  Fantastic that I can see the entire front yard from in the kitchen.  And awesome that I have 2 kids that are well-behaved so they stay within their known boundaries.  They played outside until they heard thunder, so came in as I had asked.  While I finished sweeping the floor, both kids got out their journals.  Carolyn started to draw a picture and tell a story about my sister.  Her imagination is awesome.  I helped her with spelling some words, but she really was just verifying how to spell words.

Then Carolyn asked to work on reading.  She did some phonics pages while I cut out pieces for Bob book Set 1 #3.  She matched beginning sounds with pictures.  Then we worked through the activities for the book Dot.  She read the book with no help.  She spelled some words and interchanged letters.  We grouped some words and then rewrote the book with paper words.  And finally she did the word climb.  Check out "In Lieu of Preschool" on Teachers Pay Teachers for free downloads with the Bob books.  Carolyn is really liking it.  After finishing that she wanted to keep going, so we did some more phonics work sheets dealing with beginning and ending sounds like "ck", "sh" and "ch".  It's amazing to see how when she's ready to learn, she understands it all and moves effortlessly through the lessons.  She continued back to work after dinner until Jon came home and I had to go tutor.  While Carolyn was working on reading, James had his first experience with scissors.  He did pretty well, too.  Definitely needs some practice and seeing how he's not even 3 that's prefectly okay.  He enjoyed being able to do something similar to his sister since she was cutting for part of the reading activities.  So much for my plan to work on math today... haha.  That's what's great about preschool at home though, follow the kids' lead!

Watching Carolyn today makes me more nervous for sending her to school.  She's the type of kid that resists learning until she's ready.  But when she's ready she picks it up in minutes.  No repitition needed, she locks everything into the vault immediately.  We're in a great school district and she'll likely love being around more kids, but I'm truly afraid she is going to be absolutely bored to death.  I will try to talk school up and not let her know my feelings.  And we'll see how things go.  But with over 6 months before day 1 and her already reading pretty well, I'm not sure what she's going to learn.  Many will say socialization, but honestly, she's already fine with that.  I don't really want her learning bad habits from the other kids.  Time will tell I suppose!

Changed plans

I had planned to go to the museum with the kids on Thursday.  But with the warmer than usual weather, we opted for the Grove.  As expected, the kids had a great time.  We couldn't get into the log cabin or teepee, but I suspect we may have just missed those being unlocked.  We arrived before 10AM and I think that might be when the outer buildings become open.  I will have to look into this for next time.  We enjoyed walking around though and got to watch several young deer running through the forest.  James wanted to chase them, but luckily they were far enough away.  We did find a replica of a covered wagon that they climbed onto.  Carolyn was pretty excited about it as we connected it with the wagon from the Little House books.  It is so cool to me how both kids will use things/ideas from their books in life/play.  We were able to get into the workshop building that houses all sorts of tools from the pioneer days.  We again saw some items that had been discussed in the Little House books, and both kids enjoyed looking at all the different things.  We then ended up back by the animals.  Both kids seemed to get a sense of peace watching the turtles and fish in the main display area when you first walk in.  I swear they could have sat there for hours just watching the turtles climb on and off the rocks.  But alas I dragged them home for lunch.

We spent Thursday afternoon baking cookies for Jon to take to work and I headed off tutor once he arrived home.  It was definitely a long evening as I met with 3 students for 3.5hrs of tutoring plus plenty of driving, arriving home at 9pm.  I am looking forward to finals being over so I don't have to drive around so much.  And truly, I'm looking forward to next year and hopefully a new job for Jon so that I can cut back on work.  I really miss the time with the kids and just time as a family.

Today we had a day at home.  Carolyn was in a dress shortly after waking up, it's cute how she has those girly days.  We read some, had breakfast, and then played some board games.  Carolyn chose Chutes and Ladders and James hung with us just long enough to win.  Carolyn was sad not to win, but I don't believe in fudging things for self-esteem with board games.  She stated that she was sad and I acknowledged it and stayed with her until she did get to the finish.  We then threw the laundry in (the kids love to help with this) before choosing Sorry as the next game.  This seems to still be a bit beyond Carolyn's grasp.  We played for only 5-10 minutes before she just wanted to play with the pawns.  Both kids then dumped them in and out of James' dump truck for a while before moving on.  I brought out their coloring for the day, with the number 11.  James wasn't interested so we read for a while instead.  It was a nice relaxing morning, but apparently not active enough because both kids had trouble napping.  So next time we'll be sure to fit in gross motor activities.  I'm thinking an obstacle course is a good plan.  This afternoon we did some more reading and Carolyn worked on a phonics sheet.  She's becoming a little resistant to school "work" these days as it becomes slightly challenging for her.  But I think the next few sheets are easier so that will be good next week.

I'm now looking forward to a relaxing day tomorrow and a much calmer week next week.  I don't have as many tutoring sessions lined up and work online should be more manageable.  I hope to take advantage of the extra time as a family in our last week before Jon begins coaching.  Tomorrow is supposed to be warm so we might be heading to the park.  And on Sunday we might get snow!

Science - Skeletons

Both kids were up unusually early this morning.  They weren't very interested in snuggling in bed either.  So we came out to the couch and started reading.  After a couple books I suggested they grab the stack of "science books" we got at the library yesterday.  So we read a few books about the human body and the skeleton.  I had them feel each other's spines, which apparently stuck with them as they told Jon about it tonight.  Then we took a break for breakfast.  Afterwards we read one final skeleton book and then set to work on the "experiment".  I taped some paper onto the front window and had them each stand up against it so we could trace them.  I then drew in some of the bones.  We talked about the names of some of them.  Carolyn enjoyed drawing a brain into each head.  She gave James 2 brains - do you think that means she believes he's super smart?  It was a fun project and both kids were excited to show Jon when he got home.  We'll see how long it lasts on the window.

 

I had intended to do an art project of snowflakes this afternoon.  But with temperatures near 50, we had a snack and went outside instead.  The kids played while I took down most of the Christmas decorations.  I packed them all away and organized the garage as well.  We now truly have room to work out in there and I discovered we should have as much room as I want to bring things from AZ.  So I just have to figure out what makes sense to ship.  Felt good to get that accomplished today since Jon starts track 2 weeks from tomorrow.

Tomorrow I had planned to head to the museum.  But I'm going to see whether the forecasted rain develops.  If the weather holds we may go to the Grove instead.  I figure not too many schools are likely scheduled there this time of year.  So we might be able to see some of the cooler things.  Carolyn would love to see some of the things we've read about in her Little House books.