My head feels like it is gonna explode! I am feeling very frustrated with my children and myself. My kids don't seem to be able to complete anything without me reading over their shoulder. I had such high hopes for today when I woke up and my boys were already working on their school. Their father and I had a big talk with them last night, and I thought maybe something was finally sinking in. Well after math and writing, that all fell apart. It was time for science, they had an experiment to do, which means fun kitchen mess and that they have to do a lab report. Well they put the experiment together, anticipated a mess, so they took it out to the back yard. After the experiment was completed (the balloon on the bottle one, nice fun easy) they were to come in and record their observations and clean up, finish their science reading and maybe to the last quick experiment of the chapter. Then it was lunch and chore time.
Well they played outside with their siblings for a bit, I allowed this and after a while I went to go get them. They came in and instead of getting down to it, they disappeared into the family room to watch tv. Forbidden! There is to be no tv on school days. NONE. They are not even to go down there during school time. Over and over I had to go and drag there butts back upstairs. More often I was yelling from upstairs. I hate yelling for them. especially considering how good they are at ignoring me.
Ugh. I was so frustrated while writing this I actually had to stop writing and go take a time out.
I took them to Taekwondo later and went to sit and have a coffee with the preschoolers. They had hot chocolate, or as Girly likes to say, "Foccee, kid foccee!" Daddy joined us when he got back to the city from his job-site, it was really nice. Then he sent me to get my nails done while he went to pick up the big boys. Then he put them to bed and took me out for dinner and drinks! It was awesome. Sometimes he does a really good job of taking care of me when I am at the edge of my sanity:) I was then ready to cope with Friday! Love you honey, thanks!
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
I love preschool!
I made the mistake of telling my 3 year old that we could work on his new preschool stuff as soon as his sister went down for her nap. Well he asked this before breakfast and she doesn't take her nap til 2 pm. It has been a very long day for Juju. He has asked me 30 times if it was time for Girly to take her nap. I told him that Girly doesn't take a nap til after lunch, and then made omelette's for breakfast. He thought that must be lunch and than it must be Girly's naptime!
Girly must feel kinda bad that Juju wants her in bed rather than playing with her. Right now they are chasing each other around the couch, guess they are both okay.
I had a big morning of teaching planned, but we got a bit sidetracked. After grammar, B curled up with Juju to read him a story. It ended up with all four of them curled up in a blanket nest with the Dr. Seuss treasury I bought at Costco yesterday. I think that is pretty much a perfect morning of school. The boys are working on math now, Ryley of course is avoiding and giving me a hard time, and the babies are gonna eat lunch. Hopefully the boys will get their science experiment done this afternoon and some writing. Juju and I should have some fun with preschool stuff.
Okay, we pulled out the Hooked on Phonics kindergarten and started on the learn to read. We did the first activity which are letter name flashcards and a cd. He got bored before the activity was over, very repetitive, but I think we can do a couple reps and then put it away for next time. He wanted to try the video game, so we put in the cd-rom. It has an I-spy game for letter recognition, it was fine and he enjoyed it. He then tried the letter sound game, he doesn't know many of the sounds yet and the first thing he noticed was that the dog named Pop, turns his head away if you answer incorrectly. "Why does he turn his head backwards when I get it wrong Mom?" It bothered him, and when I thought about it, it bothered me too. It felt like rejection to my sensitive boy. When you get it right, Pop turns his head into the page, towards the child. The next thing he said is, "Dogs don't talk Mom." That made me giggle, he didn't say anything about the dog wearing clothes though.
Other than that he enjoyed the activities. I will have to keep an eye on it, and see if I think it is more positive or negative overall. He so wants to learn, he is so hungry to gain the skills to read and write and basically do whatever his brothers can do. I don't want to do anything that will dampen that thirst for knowledge.
Girly must feel kinda bad that Juju wants her in bed rather than playing with her. Right now they are chasing each other around the couch, guess they are both okay.
I had a big morning of teaching planned, but we got a bit sidetracked. After grammar, B curled up with Juju to read him a story. It ended up with all four of them curled up in a blanket nest with the Dr. Seuss treasury I bought at Costco yesterday. I think that is pretty much a perfect morning of school. The boys are working on math now, Ryley of course is avoiding and giving me a hard time, and the babies are gonna eat lunch. Hopefully the boys will get their science experiment done this afternoon and some writing. Juju and I should have some fun with preschool stuff.
Okay, we pulled out the Hooked on Phonics kindergarten and started on the learn to read. We did the first activity which are letter name flashcards and a cd. He got bored before the activity was over, very repetitive, but I think we can do a couple reps and then put it away for next time. He wanted to try the video game, so we put in the cd-rom. It has an I-spy game for letter recognition, it was fine and he enjoyed it. He then tried the letter sound game, he doesn't know many of the sounds yet and the first thing he noticed was that the dog named Pop, turns his head away if you answer incorrectly. "Why does he turn his head backwards when I get it wrong Mom?" It bothered him, and when I thought about it, it bothered me too. It felt like rejection to my sensitive boy. When you get it right, Pop turns his head into the page, towards the child. The next thing he said is, "Dogs don't talk Mom." That made me giggle, he didn't say anything about the dog wearing clothes though.
Other than that he enjoyed the activities. I will have to keep an eye on it, and see if I think it is more positive or negative overall. He so wants to learn, he is so hungry to gain the skills to read and write and basically do whatever his brothers can do. I don't want to do anything that will dampen that thirst for knowledge.
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Tuesday Sunshine
I think I will go easy on the book work today, the sun is shining and there is snow in the forecast for later in the week. I am gonna take the kids to the river valley and go for a nice long walk-maybe even to the zoo, the preschoolers should really enjoy that.
Yesterday was really fun. I pulled out my box of Discovery toys preschool stuff. J spent hours doing activities. Matching and sorting games, lots of pre-math stuff, colours, shapes and last night we played an alphabet fishing game with Papa. I let him stay up for a bit after A went to bed so we could play without little destructo hands being involved. It is really fun that he is so into learning and wanting to try stuff.
The boys got their math, handwriting, grammar, journal, geography and science done yesterday and today I need to pick up some red cabbage for our science experiment tonight. I may have to rethink the blogger journaling, because they are spending more time putting in links to games and uploading photos than actually writing.
ooh, Daddy is gonna do a real life geometry lesson today, he need to build some stuff in the garage. fun!
Off to do school.
Yesterday was really fun. I pulled out my box of Discovery toys preschool stuff. J spent hours doing activities. Matching and sorting games, lots of pre-math stuff, colours, shapes and last night we played an alphabet fishing game with Papa. I let him stay up for a bit after A went to bed so we could play without little destructo hands being involved. It is really fun that he is so into learning and wanting to try stuff.
The boys got their math, handwriting, grammar, journal, geography and science done yesterday and today I need to pick up some red cabbage for our science experiment tonight. I may have to rethink the blogger journaling, because they are spending more time putting in links to games and uploading photos than actually writing.
ooh, Daddy is gonna do a real life geometry lesson today, he need to build some stuff in the garage. fun!
Off to do school.
Thursday, September 06, 2007
Rainbows
Well Thursday is here and we are still going strong, a little weak on the chore end of things, but school went fairly well. Happy with the boys participation and they had a lot of fun doing their science experiment today. Another one in the kitchen, we are learning about the history of science and have been talking about atoms. Today they discovered for themselves that heat speeds up the movement of atoms! Exciting stuff.
We went to buy school supplies after taekwondo today! Yay! Who doesn't love new school supplies. Math set, pencil crayons, calculators and on the boring side, loose leaf.
Oh! It rained this afternoon, and hailed, and there were rainbows in the sky. All four were very excited about the rainbows. I feel like God has blessed me with a rainbow the past few days, a bit of hope that perhaps I can help my children to learn and grow.
We went to buy school supplies after taekwondo today! Yay! Who doesn't love new school supplies. Math set, pencil crayons, calculators and on the boring side, loose leaf.
Oh! It rained this afternoon, and hailed, and there were rainbows in the sky. All four were very excited about the rainbows. I feel like God has blessed me with a rainbow the past few days, a bit of hope that perhaps I can help my children to learn and grow.
Wednesday, September 05, 2007
Hump Day
Woo hoo!!!
We put in a full day of edumicatin' today! Math, geography, journal/blogging, writing, handwriting, French, and even a science experiment/lab!! Woopidee doda! So very excited!
Both kids did all their school, and their chores and are now being rewarded with computer time-Star Wars Battlefront is their poison of choice today.
I will admit to being quite frustrated by 10 am and doing a bit of voice-raising, but it did get better.
I had all the kids up before 8, done breakfast and clean-up and dressed by 8:35. It was a great day, I am feeling encouraged finally. Especially because I am planning and putting this all together. Not using a pre-planned out curriculum. I am pulling from different resources I have collected and facilitating their learning! I had planned, and probably still will, buy a computer based curriculum, especially for math and language arts-plus a bunch of awesome books for the kids on Canadian history, both fiction and non-fiction. But it feels really great to be doing it on my own, and succeeding at it. So proud that they are actually getting down to accomplishing their tasks, and even seeming to enjoy it.
yay!!
We put in a full day of edumicatin' today! Math, geography, journal/blogging, writing, handwriting, French, and even a science experiment/lab!! Woopidee doda! So very excited!
Both kids did all their school, and their chores and are now being rewarded with computer time-Star Wars Battlefront is their poison of choice today.
I will admit to being quite frustrated by 10 am and doing a bit of voice-raising, but it did get better.
I had all the kids up before 8, done breakfast and clean-up and dressed by 8:35. It was a great day, I am feeling encouraged finally. Especially because I am planning and putting this all together. Not using a pre-planned out curriculum. I am pulling from different resources I have collected and facilitating their learning! I had planned, and probably still will, buy a computer based curriculum, especially for math and language arts-plus a bunch of awesome books for the kids on Canadian history, both fiction and non-fiction. But it feels really great to be doing it on my own, and succeeding at it. So proud that they are actually getting down to accomplishing their tasks, and even seeming to enjoy it.
yay!!
Tuesday, September 04, 2007
First day
Yay! I am so happy with the way our morning went. I started the boys off with a Canadian geography worksheet which they completed quickly while I did some photocopying. We then did a report writing lesson and started our note taking for a little report on chewing gum.
We also started our Science and then did a math lesson. I found Ryley a Batman math workbook at Costco, it actually looks pretty good and he was really excited to start it. I thought it would be good review for him and maybe I will only do more in-depth study of the areas he is struggling with. He has a really good math brain and finds the repetition of our Saxon math excruciating.
This afternoon I am gonna take them to the playground and then we have taekwondo. We missed the 'not back to school' picnic, but I think we had a pretty nice day regardless.
We also started our Science and then did a math lesson. I found Ryley a Batman math workbook at Costco, it actually looks pretty good and he was really excited to start it. I thought it would be good review for him and maybe I will only do more in-depth study of the areas he is struggling with. He has a really good math brain and finds the repetition of our Saxon math excruciating.
This afternoon I am gonna take them to the playground and then we have taekwondo. We missed the 'not back to school' picnic, but I think we had a pretty nice day regardless.
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