Our Mail Binder

I have found so many great ideas online for how to set up a desk area for children to have a mail center.  Playful Learning has some great ideas, but they all take up quite a bit of space.  This mama does not have that much room in her house to devote to a writing center.  So alas, I came up with my own mini-version.

A 3-ring binder.  

We send a lot of mail to daddy.  When he was at basic, we sent mail every day.  This binder has everything we need to send a letter to him.  I have several different pocket/sleeve protectors, so we use baseball sized ones for addresses, and larger pockets for some blank cards, and I also have a pouch for her stamp and a few markers/pens.  She also has full access to other pens/markers/crayons if she so desires. 

The front of the binder has various stickers (I separate the letters from just generic stickers).  The back is where all the paper is.  I try to keep a variety of lined (college rule, and learning to write lined/dotted paper, as well as fancy paper/stationary and colored paper).

The binder is kept on a low shelf easily accessible to O, so she can use it anytime she pleases, but it can also be tucked away when it is time to work on something else.

Pixars Brave

On our trip to visit F, and take him to his next base we took O to see her first movie in the movie theater.  Honestly, I was pretty concerned that Brave might be to violent for her, but she did really well.  She loved the movie, and I am not sure if it was just because she was with daddy in a big theater or if it was actually the movie.  Either way, she has become a little obsessed with Merida (the main character).  

When we got home, I decided to put that excitement to good use, and made school activities for her to do.  We picked up a few level 1 and 2 readers based on the book, as well as action figures.

We made our own story of Brave.  O decorated the pages, and told me the basic plot with quite a few details.  I had to give her very few prompts and she was able to tell me the entire story.

Here is a bow and arrow she drew by herself.  I am not sure if you can tell in the photograph but she has the arrow facing the wrong way** See below

This is Merida, red hair and blue dress with yellow trim.

These are the action figures that are so tiny and those triplets have been lost and found so many times I am not sure how we still have them.  We have done several things with these.  Some of which are:

put the characters in order from largest to smallest

describe the relation of each other characters (who is the mom? etc)

counting

sorting who changes into bears

re-enacting the story

making our own story (this one has been hard for her, she keeps reverting back to the movie plot)

hiding the characters in the room and finding them (bad idea--we lost a triplet, but then found him)

we matched the characters to the first letters of their names (M is for Merida)

I also had grand intentions of making a sensory box for her to play with these, but I couldn't find tiny arrows, or very many things that I thought would make it worth my effort.

There is a family tapestry in the movie, and we created our own using those handy plastic grid like things.  This was a great opportunity for me to teach O how to make shapes while sewing.  I normally hand her fabric in a kid friendly hoop and a needle/thread and let her make whatever.  This time we decided on a design and practiced making X's and boxes.  It was a nice change of pace for us.

And finally, we made bow and arrows out of popsicle sticks and Q-tips (thank you Pinterest!)  I should have known from the moment she drew the arrow facing the wrong way in her story that I needed to better explain how the bow and arrow was used.**  

She held the bow backwards and the arrow backwards and which basically aimed a non-cotton ball side of the Q-tip right into her eye ball.  Oh My!  She never hurt herself, and it was rather humorous.  

We even watched a few people in the archery portion of the Olympics to help her see how to use it properly.  

Although I do feel like I overdid the theme, O really enjoyed it.  We may have to do more theme things in our schoolwork when I plan our next 10 weeks.

A little bit of School

We have been so busy since I last posted.  My laptop's hard drive died and it has taken me this long to get back into the swing of things.  Is it horrible that I didn't really even miss my computer/internet?  I rather enjoyed the tech vacation...

Now, onto school.  I am reluctant to say, "I am going to do a post about...." because it seems like every time I do, something happens and I am unable to post for quite some time.  So instead I will just not tell you what I have in my drafts and just let it be a surprise :-)

We are half way through our second week of kindergarten/very structured days, and I am very pleased with what we have accomplished.  We did school work Monday through Friday last week, and Monday and Wednesday this week.  I had a Migraine on Tuesday and since we have been cruising along, we skipped yesterday so mama could rest, and O did some work sheets and puzzles.

I wasn't exactly sure how long it would take us to get through each activity, but so far we have finished everything in the morning time frame.  We only do school work from 6:45-8:45/9:15.  As far as I am concerned that is plenty of time for O.  Here are a few photos of the first days of school.

To begin the morning, O has a 3 ring binder with sheet protectors covering worksheets that I have bought and/or made.  She works on these for about 15 minutes right after she is finished with breakfast.  This gives mama a few minutes to finish getting around.

O and I made these robots last fall.  She loved them for about a week, then I tucked them away and have brought them out a few times since.  They were perfect for the first week of school.  Each robot has a number written on it, and an equal number of bedazzles on it.  It was a good reminder for 1-5 (she already knew those) and great practice for 6-10.

This cutting activity is a modified version of something I found on Pinterest.  I liked the variety on the big one, but in all reality we are tight on space and attention spans around here, and this smaller one works quite well.  Plus the container to hold the paper was only $1 at Target.

 Here Miss O is doing Metal Insets.  It's a Montessori activity I picked up last year.  She has improved a lot since we first started doing this.  The purpose of the insets is to help with handwriting.

Nomenclature cards.  These 3 part cards were fruit themed.  She is improving in finding the word to go with the photograph.

Hundreds board.  After having all the number tiles in one large Ziploc, and having to fish through for just the numbers we are using (we have yet to go past 20) I finally smartened up and put each set of ten in their own baggie.  Much quicker to pull the numbers out.

I found this particular science work interesting.  I arranged 3-4 objects on the counter for O to describe to me.  We just talked about them the first day (the order they were in, the size of the objects, the shapes, the colors, the textures, etc).  The next day we traced the objects on paper.  Finally the last day we arranged the objects on the counter again and O drew them (Her drawing is shows the crayon in the wrong place because for whatever reason she decided she would like it to be moved).  This work is obviously a precursor to bigger scientific experiments, but I wanted to really work on the "observation" portion of science before we dig into the whole baking soda and vinegar etc. etc.
We also worked on describing things.  I had her close her eyes and picture a dog, then describe it, and finally draw it.  When she has to stop and think about the object rather than me just saying, 'draw this' she adds so much more detail.  It's crazy what prompts can do for a child!

Geography was easy peasy this week.  We learned about compasses, maps, and made our own primitive map using sand.  We traced simple shapes that represented water and the moon and then traced them in the sand.  So far, geography has been a big hit.  I was planning on doing it twice a week, but O kept asking when we could get the compass out again, so we may increase it to 3 times a week.

And finally, I have a "first day of school" pose with O holding a sign of what she would like to be when she grows up.  It changed about a dozen times before we got to princess.  

Battle of Wills

If anyone believes I/we have it all together and go about our days happy as clams all the time, this post will clear that up.  Beware this is a very long post.  :-)

I mentioned before that I am trying to get onto a strict schedule before school starts to avoid changing too much at once for Miss O.  She (like most children her age) believes she should be able to do what she wants, when she wants, how she wants.  She also thinks she is the only one that is right, and there are days where she thinks she is in charge (and in fact tells me she believes that I am 3, and she is the far older and wiser 4 year old, so I should 'trust her').  

For example, as we were driving to tumbling class this week she asked, "Is Jesus the father?"  I began to tell her that there are 3 entities of God and she interrupted me saying, "yes mom I know that but is Jesus the Daddy?"  Again, I started to answer her question, and was interrupted with, "mommy, you have your right answer and I have my right answer.   I know I am right, so you don't have to answer me."  Wow.  I was speechless because not so long ago I had been reading about how people believe what they want to believe, and feel like the best solution to differences in theology is to say 'you have your way, and I'l have mine.'  

Anyway, back to our schedule....The goal this week is to have O get up by 6:00 am, so she has time to eat, get dressed, and brush her teeth before we start school at 6:45.

Monday--Day 1:  Diaster does not begin to describe the day.   I started waking her up at 6:30 (I did this for 2 reasons:  1)  I wanted to work our way up to 6:00 am wake ups because I was tired from last week, and 2)  What 4 year old needs 45 minutes to eat, get dressed, and brush her teeth?)

Well, after I dragged my crying daughter out of her bed and explained for the 17th time that yes it was morning, and no she could not sleep in (mind you my daughter expelled more energy trying to jump back into bed, and fight her way out of my hands than if she would have just got up and ate breakfast) we struggled down the stairs.  Next, I gave her the clothes I expected her to put on, and she sat there and stared at them.  I gave her a warning saying, "if you choose not to put your clothes on yourself, then I will do it for you."  After fighting to get her pajamas off, and fighting to get her clothes on with a screaming, kicking, clawing child, she was dressed.

Only 2 more things to do before we could start our school work.

I poured cereal into a measuring cup, milk into a cup, gave her a tiny pinch bowl with xylitol in it, and set the timer as my very defiant child claimed that I could not make her eat.  She was correct, sort of.  Apart from shoving the cereal down her throat, I could do nothing but give threats to get her to eat...or so she thought.  I set the timer on the microwave and said, "O you have 15 minutes until the timer goes off.  I will leave the food out until then.  When the timer goes off, your opportunity to eat breakfast is over.  You may choose to eat, or wait until 10 when we have snack."  Then I walked away.  That was the quietest 15 minutes of the day.  After 5 minutes of fuming, she began to eat her cereal.  She finished with seconds to spare.  

Brushing teeth should be easy right?  

O became suddenly disgusted by the taste of the toothpaste that we have been using for months.  After listening to her whine, I finally said, "I don't care.  Don't brush your teeth."  So what does she do?  She brushed her teeth.  I wanted to pull my hair out.  

So, by 8:30 we were FINALLY ready to begin our school work.  We had to leave by 8:45 to get to the Y at 9 which is the goal for the school year.  Schoolwork from 6:45-8:40ish then go to the Y for me to exercise and O to get a mid-morning break.  Home by 11, lunch by 12, nap by 1, finish extra school work, then play.

The rest of the day consisted of,

O: "I don't want to take a nap"

Me:  "You don't have to take a nap.  You do however have to remain in your bed, and be quiet until I say you can get up."

O:  "No, I am NOT gonna stay in my bed.  I want my daddy."

Me:  "I know you miss daddy, but even if daddy were here you would still need to lay down and rest for a while."

O:  "NO" as she jumps out of bed

Me:  put her back in the bed

Repeat 45 times during the allotted nap time.

With a few dozen tantrums, about all kinds of crazy things.  All of which resulted in her either sitting in a time out or having to clean up the mess she made.  She also had extra chores to do for her bad attitude about our new routine.  

Tuesday--Day 2:  I absolutely don't even want to try anymore, but I persevered.  I got her up at 6:15, she fought me quite a bit, and this day she tried to reason with me, "but momma I need sleep so I am not grouchy."  To which I replied, "There is always nap time today."  She got up much faster, and asked to choose her outfit.  I agreed, and we walked somewhat calmly down the stairs to have breakfast.  There was still arguing.  There was still bad attitudes, and still the same consequences, but we did start school at 8.  

She refused to nap again, but today she stayed in her bed, and I actually had 30 minutes of quiet time.

Fast Forwarded to tumbling class at the Y.  I thought for sure after running around for 45 minutes that she would be wore out and ready for bed, possibly even fall asleep on the drive home.  Well, all of that went out the window when we were leaving the Y.  You see, at the Y there are these decorative small bolders/large rocks and O (possibly from being so excited about her class) galloped down the sidewalk, climbed up onto the rock, and as I am telling her to get down, she shouts, "I'm the queen of the....." and falls down scraping her leg.  Minor injury + tired girl = WAILING.  ALL. THE. WAY. HOME.  She informed me that she could not walk because she injured her leg.  I told her she would be fine.  She proceeded to Limp. Across. The. Room.  Can we say over dramatic?   After I put 3 bandages on her, she was miraculously healed, and finally made it to bed around 7.  

I was so exhausted I couldn't sleep, and then I was up what felt like every hour because it was so hot upstairs.  We have air-conditioning but it didn't seem to be doing anything.  O woke up in the middle of the night with a bad dream, and neither of us slept really well.

Wednesday--Day 3:  Wake up at 6:10, drag myself out of bed, and then carry O downstairs.  Fight to get her clothes on.  Fight to get her to eat.  I am losing all the ground I felt like I was making yesterday.  It has finally sunk in that daddy is still gone, and O misses him.  She refuses to do school.  She sets at the counter and screams and cries for daddy.

I go upstairs, and get the cow daddy told her to hug when she missed him, and bring it down.  Voila!  Smiling child.  What just happened?  She went from screaming and inconsolable for like 15 minutes to  this smiling child.  

We did school work with no trouble.  Went to the Y with no trouble. We had a pretty good afternoon playing.

When we came home we got the mail, and surprise!  We received the DVDs that F had ordered when he began basic training, so as a special treat we go to watch the DVD of what F did at boot camp.  O had to have her nap time first, which she didn't sleep, but she did stay in her bed the entire time.

  F was in the video several times, so O was thrilled to search for him the whole time.  I found it interesting to get a better understanding of what he was doing while he was gone.

This is how O sat the entire show.  She was captivated.

She was completely exhausted by 6 and had an early bedtime.  

Thursday--Day 4:  Is it morning already?  I go in to get O up at 6, she turns, looks at me, and says, "Hi mommy."  She goes downstairs chattering about what we are doing and what she wants for breakfast.  She dresses.  She eats.  She brushes her teeth.  We started school at 6:55.  I am shocked.  I tell her she can go play until it is time to leave.  She goes and plays, I get some things done.  I look at the clock and it's 9:22.  I clean up my mess, and say, "get your shoes it is time to go."  O walks downstairs with big black winter boots.  It's like 100 degrees and humid.  "No, O choose summer shoes."  She comes back with hunter green socks pulled up to her knees with her blue/gray dress and pink and black tennis shoes.  "No, O.  Sandals.  Get sandals."  "NO"  I calmly walked to her room, grabbed the sandals, came down, scooped her up, took her to the car and buckled her in at 9:48.  As I drove, O screamed about how she wanted tennis shoes to run fast.  After trying to stay calm and explain that they didn't match, I had reached a breaking point.  I was officially late for our moms' group.  I was tired of being patient.  I was tired of explaining things over and over.  I started grabbing behind me at whatever I could catch.  O began kicking her feet like crazy.  My finger caught on a sock, and I yanked it off as I shouted, "Take Off The Other Sock!"  Not my proudest moment.  I had to apologize in the parking lot before we could go in.  

I am grateful for the break in the mornings at the Y, because the time I am working out or at Moms' Morning Out is the only time I am without O nearby.  I am with her all the time.  So, back to the day...we headed home, ate lunch, and it was time for nap.  I thought there was no chance she would actually sleep because she hadn't thus far and she hasn't consistently taken naps for me since she turned 3.  I went to check on her after 10 minutes and guess who was asleep.  Praise Jesus!  When it was time to get her up she didn't want to get up. She kept telling me she was tired, so I allowed her to come down stairs and watch the first show since we had been home from our trip to South Carolina.  One Dinosaur Train later, she was awake and ready to do chores, and play.

The evening went smoothly with dinner, bath, playing with the dogs.  By 6:40, her teeth were brushed and she was in her bed listening to bedtime stories.  Asleep by 7:15.  

Friday--Day 5:  Success!  O woke up at 6:00 am easy peasy.  She ate breakfast, dressed, and brushed her teeth in 30 minutes, and school work began at 6:35.  Amazing.  We went to the Y, the playground, and returned home in time for lunch and nap.  No tantrums.  No whining.  

1 week.  We survived, and we have a routine that works well for us.  At the beginning of the week I wasn't sure it would ever happen.  I am so glad I kept at it.

Back Home

Back home...
Back to our normal routines...
We left early Sunday morning and returned exactly one week and 12 hours later.
I have been making O get up earlier in the morning to help her get back into her routine for when we start Kindergarten on July 30.  I definitely do not want to have to drag her out of bed on her first day, so we are doing some light school work now (even though technically we took the month of July off from school).  I want her used to the routine before we start getting into new material.

Routines are important for all young children.  It gives them stability and helps them know what to expect in the day.  It is even more important for O because her daddy is gone, and everything seems so uncertain to her.  She is also a very strong willed child who has way more energy that most children.  She runs laps around her friends.  Literally.  I have to find ways to channel that energy into productive outlets, so she helps me with lots of chores during the day, she has a gymnastics class once a week, and her daily school routines help her control herself a little more.

Our 'school' some days has included making sandwiches.  And yes, I do put the peanut butter and jelly in tiny pinch bowls (thank you Pampered Chef!) for two reasons.  1)  Portion control

2)  Because sometimes I catch O tasting the jelly or whatever she is scooping out of the jar and it grosses me out that she puts the spoon back in the jar.  I realize most mom's probably wouldn't care, but it grosses me out.

Gearing Up For Kindergarten

I am diving in to our homeschool curriculum, but before I started let me tell you what I did.

1) I cleaned my house.  Why would I do that when I am just going to be surrounded my crayons, flashcards, and lesson plans anyway?  Well, this girl knows she has a short attention span.  If I get knee deep in letters of the week cut-outs and look over and see a pile of unfolded towels, I will go fold the towels.  So first things first.  Clean up.

2) I did one more last minute search for ideas on homeschooling online.  I limited myself to 2 hours (it seems long typing that, but it went really fast).  Then I closed all my browsers.  I love that I can search online for great ideas to do with O and every other facet of my life, and I hate that I can search online for ideas because I don't use my own brain to come up with things for us to do.  

3) Pray.  Prayer for clarity.  Prayer for the ability to focus.  Praise that I live in place where I can teach my daughter at home, with very few rules.  Praise that I can stay home with my daughter and my husband can support us.  Lots of prayer.

And then, I finally begin...

But First A Disclaimer:   I must admit, I am a bit of an organize junkie.  I often have to ask myself, "is this organizing for organizing sake or to actually improve efficiency and make life easier?"  

I also LOVE making lesson plans and getting classrooms ready.  My daughter had her first classroom before she was 2.  In our house.  It was not a play room, but a full fledged Montessori inspired classroom.  I can not express enough how much I love setting up class environments and preparing lessons.  That being said, the way I have decided to do homeschool with my daughter is what works for us.  In no way do I think everyone should make their own lesson plans (unless they want to) or be as crazy organized as me.  I realize that a lot of homeschoolers are fly-by-the-seat-of-their-pants kind of people, and I am so happy that they have a method that works for them.  This quote I came across on Pinterest is much more up my alley, "I adore spontaneity, as long as it is carefully planned."

With those few disclaimers I think I am going to have several posts on how I organized my supplies, what we are doing, and my Homemade School Supplies  (ie way cheaper) vs Official Montessori products. 

Last year I made a few mistakes in setting up my lessons.  To begin, I had a budget of $500.  My goal was to spend this amount over the whole year.  My problem is that I thought I had to have the exact same things that would be in a real Montessori classroom.  In Montessori classes, everything is beautifully crafted, and made of natural materials.  The numbers did  not add up, so with the advice from my husband to hold off on purchasing anything I waited on the materials and dove into the curriculum.

I planned an entire years worth of lessons.  Full out.  Lessons that included items I had not purchased yet.  I planned lessons based on skills she had not acquired.  Are you catching the problem here?

I basically had put myself between a rock and a hard place.  I couldn't do the lessons because I didn't have the 'perfect' material.  We couldn't do the next day's lesson because that day built upon the material I didn't have, and on and on.  

The problem with planning an entire year is that I have no way to tell when we will be sick or take a trip or have unavoidable commitments, and then we fall behind my schedule and then I freak out a little.  

I finally had a bit of a reality check.  I realized that O would learn with what I gave her.  Would it be ideal?  Probably not, but it would work.  I started using what I had around the house, and being very creative with my budget and supplies.  

So with my preschool year behind me I am ready to tackle Kindergarten. 

We will be homeschooling all year.  No long summer breaks for us.   We are starting July 30, and have 9 weeks of classes which brings us to the last week in September.  As long as F doesn't have to restart OCS he will be finishing up the first/second week of October.  He will be coming home then.  We will be moving at this time as well.  After an undetermined amount of weeks (I really am not sure how long it will take us to move and get back to our normal life with F) I will plan the next 7-10 weeks of school. 

My schedule is a little more forgiving this year.  I have empty spaces in spots.  Some days are rather light (like when I know the fair is coming to town), some days are very full.  I have a lot more variety than I did last year, so I will try it these next 9 weeks, and if it doesn't work I will try something new in October.  

I am using 2 curriculums that I purchased.  The rest I created on my own (with the help of the internet).  I am using 100 easy lessons to Teach Your Child to Read.  We have already been using it.  Much to my dismay all of my fun reading/learning letter games are not working for O, but this book is.  I find it boring, but she loves it.  I will also be using some Montessori things to supplement the reading.  Pink Box, Metal insets (for handwriting), The Farm Game, Nomenclature Cards, and Sound Bingo.  I have all of these materials already, so I shouldn't have the same problem I ran into last year.  

The other curriculum I didn't make is for geography, and that is because I am horrible at navigation and maps.  My husband is a genius when it comes to this so we go well together :-)  Or rather I frustrate him with my inability to tell North from East and because when I use a map I turn it when the car turns to keep from getting confused.  He gets to be my Prince Charming on a weekly basis and come rescue me from my confusion.  Maybe after a year of going through the basics with O, I will have a better sense of direction.  Maybe.  I DID make the continent bags that we will be using and that was enjoyable and very informative.  

The other curriculum that I made may be making an appearance here in the next week if I can stay productive and get all of my to-do list done.  So, off I go to make more plans :-)

Where is he?

I can not begin to tell you how silly I feel when I say that I could not find my husband, nor did O recognize her daddy, when she was directly in front of him.  We had to go onto the field to find our soldiers for the start a family day and this is what we saw....

They all look the same.  I thought for sure I would be able to find my husband, because, well he is my husband.  Not so much.  I did manage to take a photograph of him and not even realize it, until later.  Honestly, I panicked when he wasn't where I thought he would be. Then I looked around at everyone else who had found their loved ones, and began to get upset because I couldn't find him.  Eventually, I did find him and we were so excited to spend the day together.  O did not leave F's side for one second.  She held his hand the entire time.