Technology in Homeschooling . . .

This week's Blog Cruise topic is using technology in homeschooling.  I have to admit, I can't imagine how much harder it would have been to homeschool before we had all this technology at our fingertips.

 I mentioned last week that one way we save money in homeschooling is to download all the free resources available at various sites. We also "google" things often when the girls ask questions, or if they request a unit study on something that I don't have any free resources for (yet), I'll go hunting online for free lesson plans and unit studies, or the resources to make my own.

This spring I went to a seminar at our state homeschool convention about learning styles, and discovered that A2 is an auditory learner. That means that she learns best by hearing things, rather than reading them for herself (I'm the exact opposite, I would MUCH rather read things for myself & have a horrible time paying attention when I have to listen to lectures, etc), it also means that all the "background noise" of our house is very distracting for her when she's trying to work on copywork or other "independent work". One of the suggestions made for dealing with that "background noise" was to let them listen to an mp3 player of  soothing instrumental music to drown out the other noises. So, after attending that seminar,  we got inexpensive mp3 players for both big girls (while A1 isn't as predominantly auditory as A2, she's still more auditory than I am, and if nothing else, I figured perhaps listening to the music would curb her tendency to TALK when she's supposed to be working.  So we use the mp3 players. In addition to using it with classical music while they do their independent work, I also put short story and "nature nugget" mp3 files on their mp3 players, and if we are working on memorizing a long section of scripture and I can find it in song form, I'll put that song on their mp3 players, as well as playing it during school time & such.

I also use my own mp3 player to download longer stories (purchased or free) & also homeschool seminars that also apply to students, and we listen to those in the car.

If we're reading an e-book "chapter book", I'll often save it to my smartphone as well. When we're home, I'll read it on my computer, but that way if we're out and have some "down time" I have the "book" with us, and can read to them on my phone. Similarly, when we aren't reading a specific e-book (we typically read "real" books for bedtime stories and other read aloud time), I try to have one on my phone that we could start if we have some time to fill.

I also have a sudoku game on my phone, I play it when I get a chance, but I will also hand it to one of the girls if they are bored.  I'm actually toying with the idea of having hubby hunt down older, inexpensive I Touches for the 2 big girls. I think that would be a way to for them to have mp3 player, e-book reader, and games like suduko available when they are "bored" when we are out.

We do have netbooks for each of the girls also, but they honestly don't use them that often. As they get older, I think they'll be able to use them more for "school stuff", as they're able to read enough to do their own research. In the next year or two I want them to learn typing, so they'll learn that on their laptops as well. They also play educational games on their computers sometimes.

And those are a few of the ways that we use technology in our homeschool.

Little Bit-ese

Most of Little Bit's chatter is still Greek to me, but she's starting to say a few distinguishable words, so thought I'd share some here so I don't forget . . .

"mama" means several things, including Mommy (me), Mama (my mom), and nursing. But, perhaps the least intuitive meaning is "book".  One of her favorite books is a cute little board book called Mama Mama and I assume that's why she now says "mama" when she wants us to read any book to her.

"ba ba ba ba" means ball

"mmmmm" means kiss me (another book she likes is a Kindermusik one called Rhythm of My Day and when it talks about "Mommy kisses me goodnight" she holds her face up to me and says "mmmmm" and wants a kiss. Also when we go upstairs to tell the big girls goodnight, she holds her face up to them and says "mmmmm" to get/give goodnight kisses to them. SOOO cute!!

She says "appa" and does the sign for apple

Much to Daddy's delight she says Dadda.

I'm sure there are others I'm forgetting, but at least I got a few written down before she outgrows them and I forget.

Weekly Wrap-Up August 29

We started our week busy, and ended it quieter (much as I love visiting friends, I like quieter).  As you may remember (if you have nothing else to do but keep track of our schedule, hee hee), we were at my parents' house last weekend. And it was the weekend-o-seeing all our old friends. So, we continued with that theme and spent Sunday afternoon visiting my friend Vicki and her girls.  Little Bit had great fun on K & E's bouncy horse, it was fun to see her using it, that horse originally belonged to my friend Jenni, whose girls are a little older than my big girls. When Jenni lived in Northern VA, my girls LOVED that horse anytime we visited. Then Jenni moved to Kansas City, and since her girls had outgrown the horse, she was looking for a new home for it. Even though my girls were really too big for it by then too, I was still hoping we'd have another baby SOMEDAY, so I took the horse. And then, since Vicki's E was the right age to enjoy it, I loaned it to them. When I was pregnant with Little Bit, (and Vicki was pregnant with K) Vicki asked if I wanted the horse back, but honestly, we just do not have room for it in this house, and E loves all things horses, so I said they might as well keep it at their house. So it was fun to see Little Bit enjoying "our" horse, hee hee.

Little Bit also enjoyed the corn on the cob from Grandpa's garden. The big girls thought it was terribly unfair that Little Bit could eat corn on the cob and they couldn't (too many loose & missing teeth this summer, hee hee).  Mama cut their corn off for them, but they still found it terribly unfair, hee hee. Little Bit thoroughly enjoyed it though. And it brought back fun memories of the big girls at that age, chowing down on cold leftover corn on the cob at the airport as we were waiting to fly to the west coast with them.

Monday was another busy day. The girls spend a good part of the morning in Grandpa's garden picking raspberries, blackberries and tomatoes. Then we ate a quick, late breakfast and headed to another friend's house.  Laura was their Kindermusik teacher when we lived in Maryland. And her girls are 8 & 5 and also homeschool, so the 4 girls have great fun together. Laura also has an 11 mo old boy, so in another year or so Little Bit will have a playmate at Laura's house too. And for now, Little Bit had great fun exploring baby boy's toys, hee hee.  They have CHICKENS, so  the girls all had fun collecting eggs and generally torturing (err loving) the chickens (shudder).  And having a tea party (beautifully hosted by A, Laura's 8 yr old). Later we went for a walk and the girls played in the woods and stream. A1 got thoroughly soaked and muddy (thankfully, even though I'd warned them that they might have to ride home in wet clothes if they got wet) I DID have one dry outfit in the car, so she could change.

I had to share one more corn picture, because I think it's SOO funny. Little Bit is definitely the drama queen of the family, even surpassing her sister, A1.

Tuesday we headed home. And spent the rest of the week getting back into the routine of HOME!! School, chores, fun stuff like that. I'm hoping to get all of us (well, the big girls and me) back in the habit of daily chores, etc. So that, when we go to Williamsburg in a few weeks we can continue with a modified chore schedule while we're there (we're staying in a friend's time- share so there will be a kitchen and such and we'll hopefully fix most meals there rather than eating out so much).

I decided in light of how long we've all been out of the habit of daily chores (beyond the bare minimum), the girls could use some extra incentive to get back in the habit of doing chores w/o a million and one reminders (which has been pretty frustrating to me the last month or so, they do their chores, but only if I remind them every step of the way and that defeats some of the purpose of it all. If I have to call them in and remind them 3 times to feed the cats, I really could do it myself faster and easier. But of course, one of the main reasons for chores is teaching them the skills AND responsibility.

We all like Schleich animals, so I thought that would be a good incentive to use (and healthier than the ice cream treats I used last time we did this). So, we started on Wed. If they did all their chores on Wed without reminders (beyond necessary ones, I don't expect them to know when I'm going to go start lunch, or even notice that I've gone to the kitchen to start lunch, so I tell them when I'm going to fix lunch, BUT if I have to say it repeatedly then it becomes a reminder), they could either choose a small animal or wait and combine days to get a bigger animal or set. They both chose to wait. And both earned their first day on Wed.  Then they needed to go 2 more days (Thurs & Fri) without reminders to earn their second "prize". Which they also did. We were at Target this week, so they checked out the Scleich animals there and both decided they wanted a set of horses that I told them would take 4 "credits", so they're half way there. Today begins a 3 days "earning period", and then we'll do a 4 day "earning period" which will take us till next Sunday, when they'll get their horses (if they haven't missed any days). Next we'll go for a 5 day period which will take us to the next Fri, and then we'll probably stay at once a week for awhile, and see how it goes . . .

Yesterday was a GORGEOUS Sabbath! Not too hot, not too cold, sunny, couldn't ask for better weather. And all summer, our pastor & his wife have been "hosting" unofficial picnic potlucks at a local park. Anyone who wants to is welcome to come. The girls LOVE it, and I figured w/ such perfect weather, we really should go, so we did. Little Bit fell asleep on the way there, and Rodney decided to stay in the car with her so she'd get a decent nap, and the big girls were busy talking various people into telling them stories, so I got to just sit and have adult conversation for awhile, it was nice :o)

And so, today, we begin a new week, with nothing planned but school and chores and such. Ahhhh . . . gotta love weeks like that :o)

Little Bit, EC, Potty Learning, Sign Language and the Like . . .

How's that for a jumbled title? I thought we'd take a break from all things "school" and talk abit about the little dynamo who lives at our house.  Hubby often comments that "I'm afraid of her" because she is SO BUSY!! She's great fun though!!!

Anyway, a few months back, I pretty much gave up on the whole EC thing. I must admit, reading on the EC message board and seeing all the people saying their children were "graduating" at 36 months and similar made me wonder, what's the point . . . the big girls were potty trained, at their own initiative, at 29 months so, ummm . . . I don't find 36 months very "early" (yes, I realized there are many children who don't potty train till closer to age 4, or even later, honestly, I blame disposables, and a great marketing from the diaper companies, convincing society that these late ages are the "norm" but we won't go there). Anyway, at some point she completely refused to have me hold her over the potty or toilet. She also, RARELY would go in the potty when I sat her on it. I still generally sat her on it for at least a few seconds during at-home diaper changes, but it was all pretty discouraging/pointless.

The pull-on, extra absorbent training pants, I'd come up with as a great alternative to normal cloth diapers when she was consistently pooping in the potty become much less "great" now that she was pooping in them again. . . and I must admit, in general, non-breastfed poop in cloth is challenging me this time, mainly because we spend most of our time on the main floor which doesn't have a bathroom, so swishing the poopy diaper in the toilet before tossing it in the wet bag isn't as convenient as it was when the powder room was right down the hall. So, we've been using disposables quite abit.

Somewhere around 11 mo. she figured out to remove disposable diapers (just undo the "velcro" tabs). So, we switched to pull-ups.

Then during our July trip she figured out how to remove a pull-up (or pull-on cloth diaper), sigh . . . Thankfully she hasn't mastered it when she's wearing other clothes (pulling a dress up and then her diaper down is beyond her), so we don't have to worry about it in public. At that point, she generally was only wearing just a diaper at bedtime (she's such a hot blooded little thing, she gets too hot if she sleeps in anything more than a diaper). So not a huge deal.

THEN she figured out how to remove her clothes if they just pull over her head (shirts or knit dresses w/o buttons or snaps), which alot of hers are. She then decided that if we are at home (or stay too long at someone else's house LOL), she doesn't need clothes. Ok, no big deal.

Last weekend at my parents, since there's a bathroom right off the living room, I used the Potette Plus on the adult toilet. She was so funny, we'd go in the bathroom and I'd take her diaper off, she'd put the Potette on the toilet, I'd sit her on it, and she'd immediately reach for the toilet paper (after the first few times of trying to keep her from unrolling the whole roll, I took it off the holder & set it out of her reach on the counter, but she'd still reach for it). When I gave her a little piece she'd promptly "wipe herself" (even though she hadn't done anything) and then drop it in the toilet. So  . . . she has it all figured out EXCEPT the most important step LOL.

THEN, this week she has decided diaper was also optional in these situations (well, at home anyway, I generally discourage/distract to avoid that if we're at someone else's house). So, the greater part of our days (when we're home) she now spends naked.  It drives Daddy crazy (and for that reason, I try to keep at least a diaper on her when he's around), and we've had a few accidents, but we've had quite afew pottyings in the potty too, woohoo!!! Granted, I offer the potty/sit her on the potty OFTEN. And will have her sit on the potty while we read stories & such, but she has also, a couple times, walked to the potty & sat down & peed all on her own (Mommy gets VERY excited when she does this). We've also had a couple times when I've seen her start to pee and said "wait, lets go in the potty!" and she stops and lets me carry her (very quickly) to the potty to finish. So, considering she's 17 mo old, I'd say we're doing pretty well . . . I wouldn't be in such a hurry if she didn't insist on removing diapers.

In other news, she's really starting to pick up on sign language. We're working on animals right now and she has several that she uses when we see them in books. And a few that are her own . . . my favorite, when she sees horses she pretends she's riding a horse, bounces up & down, it's SOO cute!

So, that's what's going on in Little Bit's world these days.

Not Back to School Blog Hop - Day in the Life Week!

It's the last week of the NOT Back-to-School Blog Hop and this week is "Day-in-the-Life Week".  I'm not sure any 2 days are ever the same for us, and today was our first day home after being gone for a long weekend, but here's what our day was like today:

Sometimes the big girls get up before Little Bit and me (she nurses so much in the mornings, it's pointless for me to try to get up before she does), but this morning we all got up about the same time. After individual Bible reading and prayer times, A1 & A2 got busy unloading the dishwasher and feeding the cats while I pulled together what we'd need for school today, and started today's load of laundry. Since we just got home, I was feeling lazy, so we just had cereal for breakfast instead of cooking anything. While we were all busy with these things, Little Bit watched Signing Times with whichever of us had time to be in there with her.

After breakfast, one of the big girls ran down to do the next step of the laundry (we were washing diapers, so when I put laundry in, I set it to a rinse cycle to "soak" (my washer doesn't have a soak cycle, boo-hoo, that was SO convenient at our old house) the diapers, so then I sent one of the girls down to turn the actual wash cycle on.

Next was school time.  We had Bible time (learning about church history. I forgot to take a picture today, but here's a picture from a couple weeks ago.  I read today's story while the big girls moved the felts around as required.  Little Bit can be a challenge during this, but she did better about not touching today, fingers crossed that the trend will continue LOL.

We also practiced the girls' memory verses, and spanish vocab, while we were in the family room. While we were doing all of this, Little Bit was busy playing with her "school time toys", a set of foam puzzles that she's still abit young for, but likes to take apart and carry the pieces around and such.

Next we moved to the dining room table so the big girls could do their handwriting and copywork. Little Bit thinks she needs to be in the middle of the dining room table during this time, so we just go with it. And yes, she's naked. She's decided that anytime we're home, she needs to be naked.  She fusses until I help her take her clothes off (if she's wearing something she can't take off herself, if it just pulls over her head, she can take it off herself) and then takes her own diaper off, so we're just going with it. She HAS been going in the potty at least some of the time, so fingers crossed that this will all pull together to equal early potty training.  While she's on the dining room table she likes to write on whatever papers she can get her hands on with whatever pen or pencil she can find, generally dry erase markers, they wipe off easily when she misses the paper and hits the table (I desperately need to get a "oilcloth" table cloth back on the table, but keep forgetting).  She also uses the markers to draw all over her tummy and legs, hee hee.
When she gets bored with that (or I get tired of her doing that and want to distract her) we pull out the "jar of toys". When we were gone last month, our wonderful neighbor came over every day to watch the cats. Long story short, one day one cat got in the house (if both had been inside it would have been fine, but they go INSANE if they're separated) and destroyed the house. Our wonderful neighbor went WAY beyond the call of duty (considering how cluttered the house was when we left) and cleaned everything up. But there were alot of little toys and stuff that she wasn't sure where they went, so she found an empty half gallon mason jar in the kitchen and threw them all in it, I LOVED how it looks, so hadn't bothered to go through it and put things away, then one day when Little Bit was on the table, she pointed at it, so I got it down off the shelf and dumped it on the table. She had a BLAST putting everything back in the jar, so now that's one of our ways of keeping her occupied during school.

During all of this, the big girls are busily doing their handwriting and Bible copywork. And I'm generally busy putting things away, doing dishes, whatever needs doing and is close enough for me to keep an eye on Little Bit on the table. Today, when A2 finished her copywork, and Little Bit was still happily playing on the table, I asked A2 to watch her while I ran up and grabbed a 30 second shower.

Then we were done with school. Because I knew we'd be gone this afternoon running errands, I asked them to do their "afternoon chores" right after school. Today's chores were cleaning the toilet and dusting for A2, and cleaning the dishwasher door and watering the plants for A1.

After they finished those chores, the big girls went and got the laundry from the washer so I could hang it on the line.

While I was hanging the clothes, all three kids get outdoor time. The big girls keep an eye on Little Bit (yes, she's still sans clothes). Sometimes they play on the swing, sometimes they let Little Bit ride her "bike" on the patio, or push her push toys around. Other times they just go for a walk around the house. Earlier this summer when there were wild raspberries on the edge of the woods, they'd take her over there for a yummy snack.

Once we got the laundry hung (with a fun break to visit with some friends from church who stopped by because they were in the area, they were highly amused at Little Bit's attire, or lack thereof, hee hee). It was time to get ready to run errands. Little Bit DID have to get dressed for that. And then we were on our way. I realized as we were leaving that it was almost lunch time and I hadn't brought anything to eat, so we made a quick drive-thru stop for lunch (healthy, I know, but oh well . . .) after our quick library stop to pick up the Felicity books on CD (since we're going to Williamsburg in a few weeks, I thought it would be fun to re-read (er, hear) the Felicity books that are set in Williamsburg) and a book that A2 picked out to read.
Then we headed to get milk. We drive about 1/2 hour, once a week, to get raw milk. Little Bit took her nap while we drove (and since we get our milk from a lovely farm family and it takes me about 30 seconds to run in and get it, she kept sleeping while I did that.  Since we get milk in an area with lots of Amish and Mennonites, I was hoping to get a picture of either a horse and buggy or a farmer using horses out in the field to harvest crops, but no such luck. We DID follow a horse & buggy for a little while on our way there, but there were several cars between us and the buggy so I couldn't get a picture. I DID snap a picture of the big girls enjoying ice cream sandwiches while we drove. We ran other errands once Little Bit woke up and finally made it home mid-afternoon.

When we got home the big girls played outside for awhile,then came inside to help straighten up the house and help with supper.  After supper they headed back outside to play until bedtime (weather is SO nice, gotta enjoy that outdoor time as much as they can).
And that was our day, at least today, tomorrow will be different, of course, but the basic format of chores, breakfast, school, lunch, chores, play, supper, bed is pretty standard for us. Hope you enjoyed a peak into our days.

Menu Plan Monday

Believe it or not, I'm actually getting our menu posted for Menu Plan Monday for once!!! We're visiting my parents right now, so the menu really starts Tues night when we get home. I went ahead & included meals for all meals, but reserve the right to skip one if we have enough leftovers at any point to make a meal of leftovers LOL. In most cases, if I use a recipe, there's a link to it if you click through to the detail of the calendar entry.

Weekly Wrap-Up

We've had another busy week!

On Monday, we visited Grandmom (my mother-in-law). The big girls had fun helping her fix lunch and talking her ear off. Little Bit enjoyed climbing on the coffee table and THROUGH the coffee table and seeing how many things she could find to touch that she wasn't supposed to touch LOL.

Tuesday the girls and I visited our neighbor/adopted grandma for lunch. When she set a bowl of chocolate pudding and a spoon in front of Little Bit I cringed (to say the least) but Little Bit did surprisingly well with it. Pudding is apparently a good consistency for learning spoon skills, because it sticks to the spoon pretty well, LOL.

Wednesday we went to Sesame Place and took Daddy with us (first time in a couple years, at least, that he's come with us). Since it's unlikely that we'll make it to Sesame Place again this summer, they especially wanted to go one last time to 2 of the activities that are for ages 7 and under (since they'll be too old next year). One's a climbing mountain thing, which they did when we first got there, but the line to the other one (Ernie's Bed bounce, basically a big moon-bounce) was long, so we said we'd come back later. However, when we DID come back, the girls were at the very front of the line, ready to go in the next time, when it started raining and they had to close the attraction because it gets slippery. The girls were sad, especially since "we can go next time" didn't apply in this case, but held it together, they're growing up!  I also got a kick out of Little Bit at the parade. Friendly as she is with strangers, she wasn't so sure about the dressed up characters. So she'd wave to them as they walked by BUT if they came toward her, she'd quickly stop waving and pull back against Daddy, it was SOO cute, wish I could have gotten a picture, but as usual, people who didn't get to the parade route early seemed to think they had the right to push in front of those of us who DID, so I didn't have a clear shot of Little Bit and/or was being jostled by people who had literally pushed between our stroller and me (another lady tried to push between A2 and me, but I guess thought better of that).

Thursday (I TOLD you it was a busy week), the girls and I packed up and headed to my parents' for a long weekend. On our way down, we stopped at my friend, Kim's house to pick up some things she had for me, and spent a great afternoon visiting (well, Kim and I visited, all the kids played). When we lived in MD, Kim and I both got raw milk from the same farm so we took turns going to the farm to get it, and then got together weekly to deliver milk, so we've all missed being able to get together regularly since we moved. It was fun to see Little Bit and Kim's youngest (who's 2) interact since they don't see each other often. They did pretty well, both "shared" when needed.

Friday morning, we went to my grandparents' house (they live on the same property as my parents) and the girls had fun in the garden. Little Bit was napping part of the time, but I guess the big girls were good help picking and husking corn, as well as picking (and eating LOL) raspberries and blackberries and cherry tomatoes. When Little Bit woke up, I took her out there too, and she was happy to eat all the blackberries I was willing to pick for her. I tried letting her pick her own cherry tomatoes, but she tended to squeeze just abit too hard and squirt them everywhere.

Friday afternoon we visited some friends from Frederick (where we used to live). The kids hadn't seen each other since we moved (over 2 years ago). It took them a little while to warm up, but soon they were off running and playing just like old times.

Sabbath morning A1 wasn't feeling good, so she & I stayed home while A2 and Little Bit went to Sabbath School with Mama & Papa. We'd planned to go to Antietam Battlefield in the afternoon (during some of our endless driving recently, we listened to the Your Story Hour CDs about Robert E. Lee which includes an account of the battle of Antietam, so the girls wanted to see the "Bloody Lane" for themselves while we were nearby), but combination of it being HOT out and A1 still not feeling quite 100% (though I think she was FINE, she was just enjoying the extra attention of being "sick" and A2 was having fun being her (very bossy) "nurse"). So we just stayed home and let them play.

And that was our week!! Our busyness continues, with visits to other MD/WV friends on Sun. and Mon. (and possibly Tues. morning) before heading home Tues.

Despite all the busyness, we managed to "do school" on Sun. and Tues, as well as listen to Pathway of the Pioneers (Bible class) CDs, during some of our driving. We also listened to Your Story Hour, which gave us some history and such (as mentioned above), and Bible in Living Sound CDs (and Bible stories are ALWAYS a good thing!).  We've also been having fun with a math game we were sent to review.