My Guinea Pig

I have been watching a friend's almost five-year old daughter a few days a month for the last two month. She is a VERY active and bright young lady with an incredible imagination. She is very independent, but I find that our days are much smoother if we have some structured activities and "school-work" at some point.

I started out just printing off coloring pages for her, but quickly got caught up in Pinterest and have found some wonderful teaching and homeschool sites! Right now my two favorites are: 1+1+1=1 and Confessions of a Homeschooler. There is so much out there though. I will do my very best to link up to my resources so that you can access them too. Plus, giving credit where credit is due is just the right thing to do!

We are working through a Valentine's Day unit right now that I will be sharing very soon.  Stay tuned!

Getting it Together

It seems as if Abby's interests and intellectual needs have been changing so quickly that I'm barely able to get things together to head in one direction and she's already going in another. I realized that I needed to get things more organized and make our home more functional for her learning. I am noticing that the things I have done to our space are part Montessori and part OCD. Either way, I'd say things are improving!

I have been looking for a small and attractive coat rack to hang at Abby's level so that she can be responsible for getting her own coat before an outing and hanging it up when we return. I haven't been able to find one that I liked enough to pay the asking price for and haven't had the time to add it to the Honey-Do list. I was shopping for craft supplies when I ran across this wire coat hanger at the Dollar Tree. It's not as attractive as I would have liked for it to be, but it allows for Abby to be more independent and I'd call that a dollar well spent.

Simple & Cheap. Pretty much sums me up!

Abby has recently started pulling all of her toys out and dumping all of her bins out until there is no room to play, let alone even walk through the living room, so in the interest of preserving my sanity I created labels for her bins and shelves. I chose to use a font that is simple, clear, and similar to fonts used in beginning printing lessons and because Abby can't read yet I also wanted to include pictures of the toys. If you would like a pdf of the file I would be glad to email it to you, just leave a comment with your email address in it.

The ideas behind the labels is that she will be better able to take her toys out, play with them, and then return them to their "home" when she is done. It's very important to us that our children learn to treat people and their things with respect, taking care of your belongings is part of that. Today was day one with the laminated labels and here's what I learned...

1. Adhesive velcro tabs are pretty much useless after they've been toted around and stored in extreme hot and cold temperatures for five years. I will probably be hole-punching the tags for the bins and attaching them to the handles like luggage tags.
2. Scotch tape is no match for a 21-month old. I was afraid to use stronger tape because I wanted to keep the labels mobile while salvaging the finish on the cheap shelving we have. Still working on a solution for this one.
3. Abby LOVED knowing what to put where and was so much more excited to help with clean up! Score! Insert Happy Mama Dance Here!

Labels velcroed to bins. Those that are labelled with a STOP sign are materials that require assistance from a parent, such as DVDs, CDs, and special books.

The drawer unit next to her kitchen is new and already well used. It has freed up several fabric bins for other materials and has contained her kitchen mess to a smaller area.

We have been slowly collecting arts and craft supplies for Abby, but haven't really had anywhere in the house to store them which means that every art project, even something as simple as coloring, requires a minimum of two trips out to the garage. That means cold feet and a rush of cold air into the house, which doesn't exactly thrill me. I had been thinking of inexpensive ways to store art supplies in a more accessible way when I ran across the idea of using an over the door shoe organizer. Less than ten dollars? Heck yes!

Please don't look at my pantry. It's embarrassing. Getting that organized is nowhere near the top of my to-do list though, so I guess I ought to accept it the way it is!

I am very pleased with the results and I think Abby is too! In fact, we have been doing so much more painting and coloring lately that we decided to create an area in our dining room to display her artwork. I chose to frame a famous quote by Pablo Picasso and hang a clothes line where art can dry and be displayed in a way that is easy to change out.

Greg says he sees a lot of happy trees.

"Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up." Pablo Picasso

I really struggled with how to arrange, frame, and display the quote. Greg insisted that it needed to be artistic and unconventional, so it is. I guess. It serves its purpose and will probably change before I get used to it, so it'll do for now.

Getting into Homeschooling

I find myself spending more and more time researching educational activities to do with Abby now that our outdoor playtime is rather limited. I get sucked into reading about curriculum and content standards, looking at pictures of various classroom set-ups, and assessment options. It's really enough to make my head hurt. It's hard to believe that I have until September 2015 before I really need to be worried about this.

I have been working on writing out exactly why it is that I want to homeschool because I think it's very important to have clear reasons and goals for everything you do. My primary reason for wanting to homeschool is that I am a control freak. There. I said it. Now, can we move on?

Our state does not regulate or monitor homeschools, which is both a blessing and a curse I suppose. This just leaves me with more options. Options are good, unless you have a hard time making decisions. Funny, I can order a coffee like no one's business, but choose a homeschool curriculum? No way. This could determine whether or not my daughter likes to read, or paint, or play piano, or none of the above. It could determine whether or not she gets into Yale, or even wants to go to college at all. This is HUGE. To me, this decision is bigger than buying a house in the right school district, or choosing the right outfit on picture day, or the right dress for senior prom. This is one of the millions of decisions I have the opportunity, or blessing, of making that will undoubtedly affect my child(ren) for their entire adult lives.

No pressure, right? Eeek. What happened to cloth or disposable, homebirth or hospital, vaccines or no?

If I were rich I could purchase the best pre-packaged curriculum on the market and it would provide a day by day plan of what we're to do. I could buy all of the expensive equipment and materials she would need to be an A+ student. I'd mail in samples of Abby's work and that would be that.

Since I am far from rich, that's not really an option. So, I could fly by the seat of my pants and teach what I feel like teaching when I feel like teaching and when she feels like learning it. I can spend countless hours online searching for free printable activity guides and even more time collecting materials for projects that might "someday" take shape. I guess I would just cross my fingers and hope that I cover everything before she's 18. This method seriously appealed to me at first. Teach what she wants to learn? What an interesting concept. I could dive into this more and go on and on about how and why I think it would work best, but I'd really just be trying to convince myself, so I won't.

The option that, at the moment, seems to be the most attractive to me is enrolling in a virtual academy or a distance learning program. Most of them are free public schools. They pick a curriculum for you, they deliver them to you, they coach you through it, they assess the learning, and they hold you accountable. It sounds so simple and sublime. Is this a homeschool cop out? Will it provide enough flexibility in lesson planning? Will it nurture her interests or teach to a test in a different setting?

I just don't know at this point. Thankfully I still have some time to figure it out.

Montessori Made Simple

In the past Abby has done quite well using silverware at mealtimes, but lately she seems to prefer her hands. I decided to try a few Montessori life skills activities to see if I could pique her interest in silverware while also working on mind-hand coordination.

Our first activity was moving beans from one bowl to another and back again using a tablespoon. She did very well and responded better than I had expected to the "tray" concept that MM was so fond of.

Look at that concentration!

I got a little ahead of myself for the second activity and gave her a small pitcher with water and several small glasses. She did well, but was clearly not ready for the water. I regrouped and brought out two small glasses one of which was filled about two-thirds of the way with dried beans. I demonstrated how to pour from one jar to the next and then back again. She eagerly took the reigns. At first she was using her right hand to pour from right to left and her left hand to pour from left to right, but then she stopped pouring with her left hand altogether. Instead, she would use her right hand pour the beans from the glass on the right to the glass on the left then she would put the empty glass down, pick up the full glass with her left hand, transfer it to her right hand and continue.

She went on and on playing this "game" for quite a long while longer than I expected it would have held her interest. When I told her we were all done she protested quite vocally! Later in the evening when I brought the game out again she used her first two-sign ASL phrase, "fun game." Score two for Abby!