A worthless week.. but ...

This week was terrible for us. As I said in the past post, we were all sick. Out of a family of 5, 4 of us got the flu and we're just now starting to feel like normal.. Most of the week was spent sleeping in or just vegging out trying not to be too active. When we did feel well enough to do something semi-productive, Ashleigh spent it drawing, Garrett spent it playing Little Big Planet and Mom spent it scouring pinterest (which mind you, I'm addicted to) for curriculum ideas for the upcoming holidays as well as reading. Prior to getting sick, I was 2 books behind on my reading goal for the year on Goodreads, I am now 4 books ahead. Yup, thats right, I have read 6 books in the past week.. LOL

Yup.. that was basically us.. Only we didn't look this good!!!

However, this week really gave me some true insight to the closeness our family really has.

Anyone who has had a kid wonders if they are raising them right. We worry that we are either too authoritative or too lax when it comes to our parenting style... Will our kids view us as a friend but still understand that we are the parent?  I think all parents have these types of fears, especially if we grew up with broken homes ourselves. We always want better for our kids than what we had when we were growing up..  I personally came from a very abusive childhood and swore I would break the cycle...but I still worry if my actions are the right actions.. Do I raise my voice too much or in a frightening manner? Should I spank or not?? Do my kids know that I love them or are they growing up being scared of me? I know other moms who have similar worries, so I know it's not just me.

This week, with all of us sick, it was amazing to see how the kids actually fit into the family structure without any questions asked.. They say kids lead by the example set before them and I guess that means we must set a pretty good example. When Ashleigh was feeling her worst, Garrett would say "My poor Ashleigh. she's so sick".. When Garrett was feeling his worst, Ashleigh was there to hug him and cuddle him (when momma wasn't). When mom was sick, they helped clean after dinner, picking up plates and cups and taking them to the sink even though they felt rotten as well, then told me they did it because they loved me.  When Dad was sick in bed, they made sure they were very quiet to not disturb him but occasionally cracked the bedroom door to check on him.  No matter how rotten we all felt, we were all together as a family taking care of each other.  We hugged, we cuddled, we kissed the top of each others heads.. We retrieved the thermometer for one another and  brought medications to one another. (Ashleigh even read to me at one point)..

It makes me feel good to know that our family can function as one cohesive unit, even when everyone's feeling like poop..  Some families don't function all that well, even at their best.. but even at our worst, the love was strong between all of us..

Maybe we didn't get to do our math and our vocabulary this week (although I did make them read.. lol) but lessons learned were just as valuable, I think..  even if we're gonna be playing catch up next week.. LOL

This week is shot..

Not a whole lot of learning going on this week... Well, I take that back, we're still learning, just not anything that's in our text books.

The entire household is sick this week. Even Dad, who is usually the last person to get sick, its currently in bed sleeping as he's been sent home from work and had to go to the doctor and has been put on quarters. Both little kids are sick as well and they are currently sleeping after a dosage of medicine to try to help them feel better.  The only one in our house not sick is Alyssa and I have a feeling its only a matter of time, being that 4 out of 5 people are pretty dang sick.  

But the kids have been in good spirits about it at least.  Garrett has been building worlds on his video game and Ashleigh stays curled up with mom as much as possible.

So we've been using this week to work on reading and spelling. The kids have been picking and choosing words and are spelling them out as a fun game between the two of them and have been doing really well with it. We got some new readers from Scholastic a few days ago so they are having fun reading independently during quiet times.  

At least we don't feel completely useless in the school front.

Here's hoping everyone starts feeling better soon..

Review of "Wanna Be - When I Grow Up I Want to be a Firefighter"

Attention grabbing front cover

This week we had the pleasure of trying out and reviewing the “WannaBe™-When I Grow Up I Want to be a Firefighter” unit put out by The Old Schoolhouse Magazine.  I received this product free for the purpose of reviewing it for Schoolhouse Review Crew, however the opinions expressed are my personal, honest opinions. The Old Schoolhouse's "Wanna Be - When I Grow up I want to be a Firefighter" can be purchased for $8.95 at this link.

This is the first product I have used by The Old Schoolhouse and was very happy with it. In the past I have read articles out of the magazine but I was not aware of the fact they actually had unit studies for purchase and can be purchased at The Old Schoolhouse Store.

We received the unit to review and use on a Tuesday and I took the rest of the week to actually sit and study the materials. The first thing I noticed is there's a plethora of information put together nice and neatly in the 82 page ebook with a table of contents that highlights topics for study. The addition of the table of contents was very nice as most unit studies that we have used in the past do not have one and I tend to have to search for the page/topic we left off on. The table of contents neatly corresponds with the page number of the start of each section which makes it perfect for a not so organized mom like myself to go straight the page I need and pick up where we left off.

Another thing to note right away, before digging into the actual content was the bright colorful picture on the front of the unit with six smiling firefighters. I know they say “Don't judge a book by it's cover” but when you're dealing with two first graders, sometimes the cover art is very important. In this case, the picture was enough to grab my kid's attention and provide a great conversation starter to bring us into the lessons. I especially like the fact that there were firefighters of both sexes shown so both Garrett and Ashleigh could have someone to relate to. We were also able to incorporate the cover photo into part of our discussion, as I will explain in a few.

As said, before sitting down and starting this unit with my kids (both being 1^st grade) I took a few days to review the materials includes. There is a lot included for the price ($8.95) and you definitely get the bang for your buck. There are many activities included to tie into the lessons such as a word find, a crossword puzzle, mathematics problems, copy work and fill in the blank vocabulary pages. Many of these pages I could tell would be too advanced for my kids but the introduction page does state this unit is mostly geared for students ages 4-10 so I do think that some of the activities would be better for students in higher grades (maybe grades 4 or 5). Some of the main themes of discussion are the history of firefighting, firefighting equipment, the requirements to become a firefighter and how much they make, as well as information in regards to building safety codes and technological advancements in fire fighting such as the use of robots. Some of the more advanced topics (such as about robots) also include ideas for science experiments or projects to incorporate with the discussion.

I decided to present the material of this unit to my kids over the course of three days and I found this to be a reasonable time frame to cover almost all of what is included in the material on the level appropriate for my kids. Much of the information presented also gives a great platform for more independent exploration (and a bit of fun). For example: during the topic of the history of the fire departments, we talked about the “Bucket

Bucket Brigade of the Colonial Era

Brigade”. We were able to find a great youtube video in regards to “Firefighting in the Colonial Era” which showed the bucket brigade and we were able to easily extend the discussion beyond what was covered and discussed how the men were on once side of the line, the women and children on the other and why that would have been (the full water buckets being heavier and easier for men to handle). This also made for a great “fun” activity as we compared an empty bucket to a bucket full of water and the kids then pretended they were tossing the buckets of water onto a fire. When talking about fire equipment, the kids got to pretend they were firefighters in the front yard and battled a “fire” with our garden hose. When discussing how the firefighters live in the firehouse for 24 hours at a time and cook, clean and sleep there, we also returned to our previous discussion on nutrition and the food groups and talked about how the firefighters had to eat healthy foods such as lots of fruits, vegetables and proteins in order to stay strong to meet the physical needs of their job. Mom also threw in some good ole pushups into the mix when talking about the physical fitness standards and the daily training they needed. And remember that cover photo? Well, after watching a video that talked about the firefighter's gear, the kids learned to recognize the Fire Chief and the Fire Captains by their helmet color so they of course wanted to go back and see what color helmets the firefighters on the cover were wearing and pointed out the Chief (the one holding the white helmet).

Heavy Bucket of Water

While some of the topics we did skim over as I felt it was a bit advanced for my kids, such as the information about general salaries throughout the country, these types of topics were very few and far between and I felt the kids were able to grasp most of the material (at least on a basic level) and they were able to

Putting out the Fire

answer most of the questions presented in the quiz section of the unit. Overall, I feel this unit indeed provided enough material to be considered enriching even at their younger age. I also feel it is a great resource to visit later down the road as they get older and could understand the more advanced ideas such as wages and about the history of fire insurance and will try to return to it again when they are probably around grade 5.

I do highly suggest that outside material be used when using this unit with younger students. It is a great platform on its own but using other resources such as youtube videos or photos off the internet will really help to get the ideas across, especially for younger students or those who learn more visually then by being read to. Together we watched videos of “A Day in the Life of a Firefighter”, videos of firefighters actually battling fires, listened to fire truck sirens and looked at photographs of the old horse drawn fire trucks which made what we were talking about really click. There's also a great video of Wilshire the fire dog (who's history is a point of discussion in the unit) online as well.

Horse Drawn Fire Truck

Overall, I was very happy with the unit and would definitely look into purchasing the other units of this series in the future. (Other available units include A Doctor, A Chef, A Missionary, and A Pilot among others). The material was clear, concise and accurate and presented nicely in a format that is easy to follow. With a bit of imagination, this unit could easily be extended to cover a week or two by also incorporating activities from other subjects, like we did with the discussion about the food groups or physical fitness. I think when I revisit it, I might plan a small obstacle course for the kids to run and pick up a firehouse cookbook and let them prepare and eat like a firefighter.

Oooops... I kinda forgot about that part..

Today being Friday, we decided to have an easy day and watch a movie.. I gave alot of thought as to what movie would grab the attention of both kids and give me some discussion material afterwards and kept drawing a blank, so I went over to the Teach with Movies website, put in the kids ages and looked through the list of what was suggested. Milo and Otis quickly caught my attention and I looked through the discussion questions provided and figured it was perfect.. I remember my oldest daughter watching that movie over and over again when she was little and how much she enjoyed it so I thought it would be great..

I guess you kinda block certain things out of your memory because I really did not remember the particular scene where the cat and the dog both give birth.

I don't have a problem with this.. its a fact of life and eventually I would have to explain where babies come from to the kids..Actually, I'm pretty sure its coming up quickly in our Science book so the topic would have been breached eventually.. As all of our animals are fixed, the kids haven't had the fun adventure of actually watching an animal give birth..

Imagine my surprise when I hear my youngest say "Mommy, the cat just pooped".. I'm thinking What?? I look up and there's a cat giving birth.. Then it shows that its a kitten, to which the kids are like "Awwww, its a baby kitty".. Okay, cool..

Then it quickly cuts to the scene of the dog giving birth.. To which the kids thought the dog just laid an egg.. LOL 

Not really sure why the movie had to focus in on the genitalia of animals giving birth. LOL

Guess we had to have that discussion a tad bit sooner that I was expecting.. The discussion questions went out the window as I had to then answer questions about why baby animals come out of their momma's butts..

Yup, we had a fun day today.

Sometimes It Just Clicks

Trying to teach two kids with very different learning styles can be a pain.. I try to figure out ways to engage both of the on the subject we're working on but sometimes once will dig their heels in and fight against everything I'm doing, no matter what. Today was one of those situations.

Last year, Garrett was the one who baulked at everything I tried to teach him, to the point I just threw my hands up and said the heck with it, I would hold him back a year and start him over as a first grader this year. I've known a few homeschool parents who pass their kids no matter what and say "they will get it eventually" and I think this does a huge disservice to our kids. I know of 5th graders who can barely read a simple sentence and their parents are okay with this.. I don't want to that to be my kids..

That was why I decided to hold Garrett back from 2nd grade and start over. He just wasn't ready for 2nd grade. He couldn't read and he couldn't write.. To say he was a 2nd grader on any level was a lie and I wasn't going to do that.  Now Garrett is performing where he should be at at this point in 1st grade but its Ashleigh who's being difficult..

Today I printed out a dot to dot for the kids to work on as part of the morning drill. It wasn't anything too complicated, just a simple page with a Skip by 2, Skip by 5 and Skip by 10 drawing all on the same page. We've been working on skip counting alot with our morning drills, although we hadn't really covered it in our math book just yet, so maybe I was expecting too much from them or maybe my math curriculum isn't up to par with what I think it should be (It doesn't begin to touch skip counting til Unit 5 and we're currently on Unit 3). Garrett got through the dot to dots rather quickly as he's been picking up the concept but Ashleigh wasn't having it.. AT ALL!! Typically, she just copies what Garrett says during drills... Sometimes I make her answer and she will get it correct but usually with coaching.. Today I wanted to see if she could actually do it on her own..

There were a lot of tears and frustration and a serious meltdown, more than I have had so far this year. For the first time this school year, I had to send Ashleigh out of the room until she calmed down. Upon her return she informed me that she did not like the dot to dot, she did not like skip counting: it was too hard. I tried to show her the repetitive patterns, she wouldn't listen. She didn't care, she had made up her mind that she did not like it and did not want to do it..

I thought maybe I could print out another set of worksheets, something that showed a number line to help her see how the skipping worked..  I ran to my printer, printed out two sheets with nice eyepopping graphics to

"I Love Skip Counting".. YEAH RIGHT!  Epic FAIL

try to get her attention.... Surely the pretty hearts that she loves so much would entice her to fill out the worksheet properly. She scribbled all over it then flailed her arms and legs when I tried to get her to write actual numbers rather than blobs of whatever..She shut down completely and would have nothing to do with anything I was saying.

Today it was mom who learned the lesson...

We've all been there I'm sure.. That point where you wonder what the hell was I thinking to take on this task of educating my children when I have no background in childhood education myself. One would think with a college degree (granted, it's in medical sciences) that the basic fundamentals of elementary education should be easy.  It is easy FOR US!!  But sometimes we forget that we've been knowing this stuff for a long time (in my case, I was in 1st grade 35 years ago!!) Of course it's easy for me and then I sit and wonder why my kids can't understand something so basic and I get frustrated and they get frustrated and before you know it, we're both getting absolutely no where fast.

I have this green stick I use while I'm teaching that I use as a pointer (No! I don't hit the kids with it like the ole 17th century school marm, I swear.. lol). It's nothing special, just an unused stake that i had lying around for my tomato plants that's probably 2 1/2 foot long.. I use it alot to point to where we are on the paper, to bring their attention to a particular word or the problem we are working on, as they like to work on the floor of the living room instead of the table and I'm NOT getting on the floor with them..

  In my frustration of repeating the patterns of skip counting, I put the stick across my head, hands on both sides and started swinging my head back and forth with each number.. Suddenly, the tears stopped and I heard a giggle.. The next number, I swung my head the opposite direction.. more giggles.. Next number.. next swing.. more giggles..  I'm starting to sense a pattern here...

On the next number, I made them figure it out.. A few guesses and the correct answer popped out of their mouth.. and I swung my head the opposite direction..and laughter ensued.. A few more guesses, a correct answer, the head swings.. more giggles.. Then the answers were no longer guesses and my head was swinging back and forth at a regular pace and the giggles were almost non stop.. Suddenly, they were skipping by 2's like pros.. Could this continue??

We skipped by 5s.. like before, a few mistakes to start with and then my head was swinging back and forth with the stick like crazy. For nearly 45 minutes I had tried to teach this while amidst  the meltdowns and tears and here a bit of goofiness out of my own frustration had accomplished it in less than 5...

We moved on to Skipping 10's... they were ready.. I didn't have to teach it at all, to be honest.. They figured it out on their own and started shouting answers out in order while their sides were hurting from all the laughing.. They skipped all the way to 220, well past the 100 that the handout required.

The kids learned skip counting but mom learned an even bigger lesson today.

That sometimes, the best lessons aren't in any books but instead come from the least expected source. Not only that, but sometimes we get so caught up in the simplicity of a particular assignment that we get frustrated when they do not get it as quick as we believe they should. I'm sure my frustration with Ash's refusal to cooperate contributed to the problem.  But when I had had enough, was at my breaking point, a simple act of silliness brought it all into focus for all three of us and what I believed to have been a ruined day turned into something magic..

Behold the power of a simple stick

Yeah.. My sanity is still Intact ;)

We had a WONDERFUL day today, especially after the nightmare of a day we had yesterday.. All parents know that feeling, where you want to pull your hair out and could probably scream til your red in the face and it doesn't make a difference? Of course, none of those techniques are going to provide the results you want so whats the point, right?? That's how yesterday was for me.. a very trying and stressful situation for everyone.

Today we had a blast.. Today we felt we accomplished alot..

We started today with doing a bit of fun stuff over on Brainpop Jr.. Since yesterday we started working with the food groups, I found a few videos on Brainpop discussing the 5 food groups, eating healthy and about why sugary foods weren't good nutritionally. Brainpop Jr is awesome. This was our first time logging into it (our school district is nice enough to share their login information with homeschool families in the local community) and enjoyed it alot. The videos are very well done and perfect for young elementary children. They are informative with nice characters, have some humor in them to keep kids entertained and they are short enough for even Garrett, who gets quickly bored with videos, to stay interested. It also helped that the video ties in the MyPlate diagram for healthy eating, which was what we were studying yesterday. The kids quickly pointed out each section of the plate and identified each food group by name. (The kids determined that since my morning coffee is made from beans, its obviously a protein.. LOL)

Annie and Moby teach about Healthy Food on Brainpop Jr

Since the kids absolutely loved the first three videos we watched, we decided to check out some of the other stuff available. I definitely think we will be making use of the availability of this resource. We watched a video regarding dental health and about losing teeth (where was this when my son lost his first few teeth and freaked out and hid them because he was scared he would be in trouble?). The videos are really cute and we looked at a few of the activities they also have available, which I do believe we will be incorporating into upcoming lessons. We even took a quick look at the mathematics section and the kids sat and watched a few videos in regards to basic subtraction, which is what we're currently working on.  Whomever designed the Brainpop Jr website did a wonderful job, it is truly one of the best educational websites for children I have come across.

After playing around with Brainpop Jr, we decided it was time for lunch and the kids demanded food from the different food groups.  Here's hoping learning how each food group serves to help keep them healthy might actually encourage them to eat more veggies (a mom can hope, right?). Ashleigh informed me that her favorite food group was junk food.. Okay, so wishful thinking..  While the kids were enjoying lunch, we worked on spelling drills. I would give them a word from our last few spelling lessons and they would spell them out.  This worked out great as a review and the kids did wonderful.. My favorite was the word hook to which Ashleigh spelled it "H - double o - k".

Finally it was back to actually tackle our paperwork.. The kids actually decided to do their math work first, probably because they watched the video about subtraction. They decided to make a contest to see who could finish their assignment first and Ashleigh completed it without any mistakes. (Garrett missed 4 in his rush to finish before her but he went back and corrected them)..

We ended our lessons today with our typical spelling work, todays works being "Cold, Wet, Will, Car, Can, and Rug".. Each lesson has a sentence building exercise where the kids must use at least one of their list words in order to write a sentence from the prompt included. Today's prompt had a map of the US that showed snow, thunderstorms and sun in various areas of the US. The kids were absolutely tickled to see a

Its legible and has proper punctuation. It works!

map of the US (they love geography) and decided their sentence was going to be "It is cold and wet".  Ash still writes much better than Garrett but I'm not going to complain as this was the kid that last year wouldn't pick up the pencil to save his life.

We received our Spectrum Language Arts 1 book today (Amazon is amazing when you life in the middle of no where). I'm debating if I'll start it tomorrow with them or wait til Monday. Most likely, I will wait as while its a great workbook from what I can tell, it doesn't include any lesson plans so I will be having to make my own.

Dumpy Tree Frog

On a fun note, this weekend my husband went out and bought yet another frog (note to self, do not send husband into the pet store without supervision).  We already had one White's Dumpy Tree Frog that we have since March that we were pretty sure was a female. Hubby saw that they had another one
on sale and couldn't pass it up, especially when he was pretty sure it was a male. Earlier this morning while I was sitting listening to the news, I heard the new frog croaking and told him about it.  He then uploaded a video on his phone of frogs croaking and put it close to the tank and sure enough, the frog started croaking in response. The kids thought was so funny as that was the first time they had heard the frogs croak (the female doesn't croak very often, if at all).. I have a feeling they will be asking alot for us to get the frog to croak in the future.. LOL 

Back to the Daily Grind

Last week we decided to take the week off. The kids were just too excited about Halloween coming and they just wouldn't concentrate. We were all starting to get a big cranky and weren't getting much accomplished so we said the heck with it and took a weeks vacay to wind down.. Part of me thinks this was a good idea, the other part of me, not so much.  Instead of lessons, the kids helped me decorate for

The kids dressed up for Halloween.

Halloween and get things ready for trick or treaters (mom passed out candy while Alyssa brought the kids out door to door this year).

Today we got back to work. The week off seemed to help Garrett as far as being able to reign back in and concentrate and he had a great day. Ashleigh, however, was just as obstinate as she was before we took the days off.  The child seems to have an adversity to mathematics and I have now learned that we can not begin with mathematics or the rest of the day's lessons will be completely shot.

We started something new today which the kids seemed really excited about.  Friday I was outside decorating for Halloween when a FedEx truck pulled up in front of my house. I wasn't expecting anything and was surprised when the delivery man walked up with two heavy boxes and then informed me there were 2 more boxes in the truck. This of course peaked my interest quickly and so I had to rip into them to find out what it was. A while back I had requested material from the USDA in regards to the MyPlate campaign. They were offering curriculum to help teach children about proper nutrition and since it was also

Playing around with the MyPlate lessons

available to homeschoolers, I went ahead and ordered the curriculum they had available for Kindergarten, 1st-2nd and 3rd grade (in case these programs weren't still available next year). They sent alot of stuff and much of it I will be donating to the library on base in hopes they can use all the extras as everything was set up for a classroom of 25 students and I only have 2..

I decided we would start with the Kindergarten curriculum as it has some emergent readers that would be fun for the kids. So today we started with Lesson 1 which is basically becoming familiar with the 5 food groups. In the kid was a stack of food cards so we looked at each card, identified the food shown and stacked it in accordance the the corresponding food group.  We also decided we needed a 6th group for Junk Food.. LOL  The kids enjoyed this alot, especially when the learned that popcorn was part of the grains food group and so we decided to have popcorn and a glass of milk for a snack while we finished up.

We followed this by doing our math.. groan!!!  I don't know why just the idea of math is such a issue with Ashleigh.. Today we started doing basic subtraction, which is something we're actually worked on alot already but haven't formally introduced in our math book. Today's assignment was actual drawings showing

This should not have taken 30 minutes

how many to begin with, how many were taken away and how many were left. Should have been simple, especially since these kids are already following basic algebraic rules such as switching the sign from plus or minus when crossing the equal sign (yes, they are actually doing that type of stuff on a regular basis with no problems).. Maybe she's bored with the simple stuff.. or maybe just the sight of numbers shuts her off completely, but getting her to do 5 simple problems (one which was the example and all she had to do was trace the answers) took close to 30 minutes (Garrett was done in less than a minute).  I'm starting to wonder if our math lessons will have to be done separately as Garrett gets restless while waiting on her and he also gets stressed when I have to raise my voice to get her attention back on the paper. 

We finally got through the math lesson and moved on to our spelling assignment. This did not go well either, as Ash had already zoned out from doing math and was completely useless after. Somehow we managed to get through it but it was a struggle.. From now on, I will stick to doing other subjects before I do our math lesson in the hopes that Ash will continue to participate in those lessons before zoning out.

We're getting to the point now where we are ready to start introducing grammar to our lessons, so today I ordered Spectrum's 1st Grade Grammar. It should be here by the end of the week and I will probably start incorporating it next week.  I think Grammar is the only thing we really haven't focused on at all this school year so once we start doing it, we should be up to par. We will also probably be starting up a unit study of one state a week from here on out for our history/geography. The kids already know locations of all the states on our map so now we will start actually working on some trivial facts about each one.

Here's hoping today wasn't a sign of what the rest of the week will entail.