So we continue to chug along. We went down to my parents' house for Hannah's birthday. All was great (for the most part). Hannah had a blast. You know we really do not notice the hearing loss unless we are in a situation where it is obvious everyone is hearing things she can't. Example, a plane flies over head. Noah got all excited. Hannah on the other hand had a look on her face like "huh?" She was confused and thought he was teasing about the plane. Yeah, she has hearing loss alright.

There are moments I get discouraged or just lack of motivation regarding homeschooling. We really like our Classical Conversations classes. Check them out at www.classicalconversations.com It's awesome. My husband expects her to know so much, but at this stage we are just absorbing information. We have officially gone through all 50 States and capitals. It's cool to watch them learn. We are starting Upward Bound Basketball. EEEkkk. I think Hannah will give up. She is not a sports person, but dad signed her up. I'll report how that goes. It should be interesting.


Try Burt's Bees. I did as a bzzagent. I'm loving their products. This is just another way I'm earning some freebies for my family!

A New Chapter

Ok ok folks I know we've been absent for a while. Life continues you know. The biggest thing going on right now has to do with Hannah's hearing. Well you see when she was born she did not pass the hearing test. We chalked it up to fluid in her ears and since the hospital did not make a big deal of it then we didn't. About a year later, it started nagging me a little so I went in for a follow up. She squirmed so much that a reading was not done. They, again, showed no concern. We moved South, and when Hannah was about 2 her new doctor was concerned about her speech. So we had tubes put in and did about 6 months of speech therapy. It helped a lot! At 5, she needed her tubes replace along with tonsil and adenoid removal. She was such a trouper! All this time, we thought the tubes were going to be what we needed to get over the hump. Wrong, we had a 6 month check up back in early fall. Both tubes were out, ears looked good, but her hearing was not reading at normal levels. This past week we went for a second opinion. They confirmed the first doctor's opinion. She has mild hearing loss in both ears. His best guess is Otosclerosis, but we won't know much more until December when we see the ear specialist.

You know what? We'll take it all in stride. And we are so blessed to be homeschooling.

Spring Fever

I am feeling anxious about the end of the year. We have already finished math and reading for the year. I have been trying my best to supplement without going into next year's information. One of the things I am doing is going through the library finding books that will push Hannah. We are reading the Junie B. Jones books right now. They are challenging enough to keep her on her toes. The past few months, I have checked out books on her level, but she finishes them in the car before we get home! At least, these little chapter books have enough bulk to eliminate that problem.

I've been using online supplemental material as well. We have been doing online math work and following the eaglets that have hatched in Iowa. Wow! They are amazing to watch. I found some online evaluation tools as well.
One is The Factor Tree. I received a trial membership through bzzagent, and it was well worth it. You should check it out sometime. www.bzzagent.com

Hannah did well on the evaluations, but they cover material I have not. It gave me the idea to start her on what they cover. Basically we are now going over rounding numbers, and learning greater than and lesser than. They have great tools for helping kids, and Hannah seems to like it a lot.

As of right now, we plan on continuing homeschooling. I have looked into using Classical Conversations next year. There is a group about 40 minutes away. It would be a once a week class. We are going to check it out in a few weeks. I hope that Hannah likes it. I will be starting Noah in on preschool next year. I hope he sits down long enough to do some of the work. He does very well with numbers. He has picked up so much this year. I hear him counting to 10 quite often, and I am so proud!!

Now that it is Spring, we will be doing a lot of outdoor activities. Until I write again, I hope everyone gets out and enjoys the sunshine!

Birdies and Bubbles

We've been spending a lot of time indoors lately. The snow did not stop us from playing, but the bitter cold has put me in hibernation mode. A few Saturdays ago, we did make it out to the local state park. They had an eagle watching event. I did not get any pictures, but a bald eagle did fly about 100 feet in front of us. It's amazing to watch! Did you know that their wingspan is over 6 feet? Wow.
I'm a part of some online yahoo homeschool groups, and they have posted recently about wanting to do a science fair. The kids have to present their own material. It got me to thinking of what we could do, and I came up with a unit on bubbles.
One of the experiments is testing different shapes of blowers. Could we make a square bubble? Well the pictures speak for themselves.



There are a few more experiments to do before we are finished, and we are having fun making a mess.

Speaking of messes, Hannah wanted to complete a birdhouse. I found an empty carton, and she went right to work. I'm not sure what kind of bird we will attract, but this will be the gaudiest birdhouse ever!


I guess overall we are surviving the winter, and having fun being together. Today it is supposed to be over 50, so we are going outside this afternoon to play. (more snow is on the way this weekend)



Amy

A new semester

Well we are officially finished with our first semester. It feels like time is flying by. I think that is why I have not been here much. I have a busy schedule, despite what others may think. Keeping up with two little ones is a lot of work. I congratulate those of you out there with multiple children. I know I have two well behaved children, but I only have so many hands! I feel that we are doing very well, and it seems that all of my expectations of homeschooling are being reaffirmed in the temperment of my children. They are well behaved, considerate, outgoing, and affectionate. I have a feeling that if we were in regular school a part of them would be missing. I feel that I would have to piece together their little lives when they came home from school.

Someone told me that their 6 year old was being bullied in kindergarten because they were not 5. Can you believe that? Hannah is a caring person, and she takes things to heart. I am glad she does not deal with things like bullying. Instead, she is learning to communicate, share with others, and cooperate in groups of kids that vary in age. It is so much fun to watch her involved in her Reading class at the library. All of the kids get a long so well. I wish I had pictures of their unit on "The Three Little Pigs". It was a riot! It was also interesting to watch as the girls grouped together to form a story while the boys...well the boys acted their story out in the spur of the moment.

I appologize for the delay in posting folks. I am not sure where the time went, but education has been in full force! I cannot believe that we will soon be into fractions. I highly recommend Saxon Math. I will continue to sing its praises simple because of the logic involved. I keep saying to myself "I wish they had taught math like this when I was in school!" I know by the end of the year we will be ready for Second grade work. I will have to do much investigation into what a Second grade student needs to know. For now, we are learning and having fun!




Amy

We've passed day 50 already??

Since the last time I wrote, we have hit a few milestones. First, I cannot believe we have passed the 50th day mark! I only realized this when we turned the page in her math book. Second, my baby turned 6! She is growing up so much. We had a great time, and time is starting to really go by fast as the holidays approach. I've enjoyed this time and found that we can be flexible. I've tried to stick to a schedule, but there are days when this just does not work. Hannah often asks when we are having class if we get off schedule. I must be doing something right! Oh, by the way, here is the video of Hannah counting that I mentioned in my previous post.

I especially like her little brother thinking he is posing for the camera! My little kinesthetic learner needs to jump and play! I fear that if she were in regular school they would label her ADHD!

I am amazed at how much she is learning right now. We've started on subtraction. Just yesterday, she was doing a worksheet on her own. She was able to do a few subtraction problems correctly! I had not even taught her that part of the book yet. She just used her little noggin and figured it out! Her new game is to complete her worksheet on her own, then have me close my eyes to surprise me with how well she did.

I feel at times we hit speed bumps. Usually this starts with frustration when Hannah is not getting a simple concept. I usually have to press her and try to explain it in different ways. The thing is, once she gets it, she has no problem figuring it out the next time. The frustration is worth it in the end.

A Day In The Life

Ok so here we go. Uncut and unpolished. Here is a day in the life of our family. We start with breakfast. Today was a good day because Noah let momma sleep in until 8. OH LUXURY! Here is Noah after enjoying his milk. I will spare you his bare butt. I see enough of it since we are trying to potty train. We've had some hits, but mostly misses so far. He turned 2 in June, so it might be a while.


Around 9 am, I was in the kitchen cleaning up and emptying the dishwasher. I returned to the dinningroom to this:

Looks like they are ready to go!
9:15 am We go into our school room. Our class starts with Saxon Math. I have to say I enjoy this curriculum. The activities and manipulatives are great! Here is Hannah doing her addition while Noah hams it up for the camera.

I will try to upload a video of Hannah singing her numbers. My little kinesthetic learner needs to be moving around. It's actually a brilliant thing she is doing because by singing her numbers she is reaching multiple levels of the brain which will help in retention. Noah is coloring in this picture. The great thing about 2-3 year olds is that they spend a lot of time in parallel play. He is doing a good job of imitating his big sister, and it's keeping him busy...for a while..

10:00 am..Ok so Noah lasted almost an hour. He did a lot of drawing and humming "Twinkle Twinkle". It was cute while it lasted. After this, he proceeded to pull out his Baby Einstein flash cards and dump them on the floor. I have to admit that about half of my day is spent in picking up messes that are main left by him. Here's Hannah being a good big sister and picking up.


Next, we did our Bible lesson. Today's lesson was about Jesus calming the storm. This was a great lesson for Hannah because she is scared of storms. We talked about how Jesus spoke "peace be still" and the waters calmed. As a side, later in the day my husband asked if Jesus could calm a 2 year old. Wouldn't it be great if he said "peace, be still" and it happened?? Really Noah was pretty good all day. He was pretty mellow. Hannah on the other hand could not sit still.
So, we complete Bible around 10:30 and take a break. The kids enjoy a snack and watch some tv.

11 a.m. Noah goes down for a nap. I try to stay consistent with this. He still needs the nap times, but with Hannah all hyper he's not getting much sleep. I had promised she could see the bunny today, so she came out to get exercise. Hannah just could not stay quiet. Noah wakes up pretty cranky, so we have lunch to put him in a better mood.

12:30 The dogs have been stinky lately, so I take each out individually and hose them down. The kids enjoy splashing in the puddles. While we are out, the school bus drives by. I'm thankful to be home with my kids.

1:30 We get back to business. Hannah completes her new spelling words while Noah hams it up for the camera again.


Next is Geography, we talked about what plains are. Hannah colors the activity sheet. I pick up our things to start in on Spanish. Hannah has a mini meltdown because apparently she was not finished coloring. I calm her down.

2:00
Today we tried something new with Spanish. I found a program at the library. There are cds involved. We head to Hannah's room to listen, but the cds are scratched. Off to find the cleaner. I rummage around, but cannot find it. I round up the kids again and wing it. This happens often in our house when things do not go as planned. We make it through greetings and listen to a counting song several times. Noah enjoys this part and is saying some words in Spanish, even if he does not know what he is saying.
We head back to the classroom and complete our lesson for reading and take out the McGuffy reader for a while. I have Hannah read me about 5 pages.
We wrap up the school day with science. I found a book on mountain animals. Hannah and I look at the pictures and I read about the different types of mountains and climates there are. We are finished around 3 p.m.

On a side note, maybe I should not blog while watching the 2 year old. He spilled ick medicine everywhere. The dog is covered in it, a picture is covered in it, Noah is covered in it. I guess I do not have to worry about him having ick.