Summer Learning

I can't tell you how many people have asked me, "So are you done with school this year?" (curriculum wise.)
0_o
hehe I never know what to say...
We unschool.
My children never stop learning.  Miss Dainty honestly doesn't realize that there is a time for no "school."  She is constantly asking for it.

We've done so much this summer already.  I'll try to do some posts soon, but today was fun... (well, after a rough, emotional start for me, but.. ah, well... at least it ended good!) And we didn't even go anywhere, really.

After the rough start, I took some quiet time devoted to prayer, and came back downstairs to restart our day.  We ended up painting our nails, watching a few cartoons, painting during Baby D's nap, bike riding, and playing with playdough! 

With the playdough, I sneaked in some learning, introducing Baby D to AB patterns and Miss Dainty to alliteration:  Playdough Penguins Parading Past Paisley Print.  This launched "The Alliteration Game."  We gave each other consonants, and we had to make sentences using that letter.  Quite challenging for a 6 year old's vocabulary, but she did great, and we had a ton of fun. 

I love days like today!  Thankfully, God is helping me hold it together for my girls.  =)

Stamping Cards

Last night, I stamped a few cards to send in Mr. Hubs' next care package for him to write in and send back to the girls.  This was the first time I've brought out any stamps at all in... I don't know how long.  When I was going to bed (late!) I decided I'd leave the stamps out for the girls to play around with in the morning.  Of course, they were so excited when they saw everything out when they came downstairs.  Baby D kept trying to stamp on the paper without ink and was getting so frustrated that she wasn't leaving a mark!  It was so hard not to laugh when I was trying to tell her to be patient.  They could barely wait until after breakfast.  After I managed to get them to eat, I let them have at it.  Miss Dainty chose to make several cards for her penpals and already wrote notes in them. (I was quite impressed with her enthusiasm about writing!)  They both really enjoyed stamping.  I should bring all this stuff out more often.  =)

Visit to the Pond

This morning we took a much needed trip to the library.  It's one of our favorite places to go.  I love that the kids love it as much as I do.  After story hour and stocking up on books, we headed home for lunch.

Later, the sun beckoned us outside.  There was still a slight cool breeze outside, but the sun was warm, so we took a walk down to the pond.  We fed the duck.  (We were hoping there would be more, but alas only one was around, and he turned out to not be too hungry.)  We saw our first redwinged blackbird!  What's so neat is that Miss Dainty recognized the call before we even sighted the bird.  She couldn't recall which bird it was, but knew the call from her bird book.  How cool is that?  We walked along the bank and watched some turtles sunbathing before accidentally startling them into the water.  Then we tried to feed them, too, but they also weren't hungry.  So we sat and pretended to be turtles soaking up the warm sun.  The girls loved it.  Eventually, we headed over to the playground. 

Such a great way to start the day.  Notice their shawls?  =)  We received a box in the mail yesterday from Mr Hubs.  The shawls were made in Turkey.  They've been wearing them nonstop.  They were so excited to get something from him. 

A Good Start to February

Our first stop today was the grocery store to pick up a few last minute additions to Mr. Hubs and his friend's care packages, and then we were off to the post office:

Then during Baby D's nap, we did a bit of schoolwork.  Later, because it was a beautiful afternoon, we headed back outside for a nature study and some play:

Don't mind the dead grass...  I'm really not looking forward to all the work it's going to need in a few months!

This was Miss Dainty's first official entry into her nature journal.  I've been meaning to start doing this with her for forever, it seems, and just hadn't gotten around to it.  Well, remember that undone to-do list I mentioned in my last post?  Well, the  motivation is returning.  I suppose I just needed a few weeks to feel all "blah" about the deployment and to just sulk around the house.  But now that's done, and we can get back to doing what we need to do.

We studied our backyard's pine tree today.  Miss Dainty drew her own picture of it, although the perspective was really hard since we were basically under it.  But it was so neat to watch her draw how she saw the tree and her pine cone.  I joined her in this activity and drew on my own paper.  I'm not good at drawing at all, but I think it will be fun to do this alongside her.

These are Miss Dainty's two drawings:

I find her pine tree so amusing, it makes me smile.  From where she was sitting, that probably is exactly what she saw the most: the main trunk and the lowest branches.  The objects to the bottom right are the bird house and bird bath.  Apparently, she thought they needed more color than what they actually have.

Back to the photo:  the flock of birds was hilarious to Miss Dainty.  They were noisily squawking the entire time we were outside and they made her laugh.  The rabbit was an unexpected guest.  Miss Dainty startled it while she was running around, and he shot across the yard.  He was pretty big!  and gorgeous.  We put out some lettuce for him, and Miss Dainty sat by the backdoor eating her snack after we came inside, patiently waiting for him to come back.  (He hasn't yet.)

It was a great afternoon.  I love days like today, they are very uplifting.  And I'm so glad to be done with the "blahs."

Activity Box #1: Color Sort

This is something I've been meaning to do for a while:  getting activities together for Baby D to use while I homeschool Miss Dainty.  When Miss Dainty was around 2 and 3 I did a lot of Montessori type activities with her, and I need to do it again for the little one.  I entered a blog give away for one of the activity sets from Time for Tots, but I didn't win.  Those activity sets seem very well planned out and very well stocked. 

My home made ones will be more on the simple side (I'm super cheap...) but I don't think Baby D will mind.  I am thinking about getting the alphabet set though because $20 is really worth it to not have to hunt down 26 mini-somethings to match with letters.  It's a great activity.  I did something similar with Miss Dainty around 3 1/2.

This has been on my to do list, because lately, it's been a challenge to homeschool Miss Dainty.  We used to do her schoolwork during Baby D's nap, but lately her naps are getting shorter and it seemed like we were cramming too much into a short hour (or hour and a half if we were lucky!)  And because we were doing all the book type stuff during nap time, there was no opportunity to do Miss Dainty's favorite arts & crafts type activities because if the baby was up, she basically just wouldn't let us.

So, arts & crafts will be during Baby D's nap, and I need to figure  out a way to do schoolwork while the baby is up.  I'm putting together activity boxes that she will only be able to play with during school time, so that hopefully they will seem special enough to keep her interest.

I put a color sort activity set together yesterday:

What did I spend?
Paint samples: free.
Container: free. (Repurposed take out container)
Items: free. They were just stuff we had around the house and buried at the bottom of the toy box.  The marker lids came off of dried out markers (we definitely have enough of them.)
Rice: pennies?  I only used 1.5 cups.  And really, you don't even have to put it in there, but I did because Baby D is all about texture.

Enjoy!

Miss Dainty's Meteor Shower

The other day, Mr Hubs was downstairs with the girls and somehow he got on the topic of constellations and planets and such, and so began an impromptu science lesson for Miss Dainty.  When I came downstairs, I could hear Baby D yelling about something or other, and Mr Hubs looked at me and said, "I have no idea how you teach Miss Dainty anything..."  I smiled knowingly.  Yeah... it's a challenge.  One that I need to figure out in the next few weeks, but that's another blog post.

I took the baby and entertained her while Mr Hubs continued showing Miss Dainty videos and pictures online which fascinated her.  They ran across a chapter in her book of constellations about a yearly meteor shower, and both were so excited to read that it would be happening this week.  Miss Dainty jumped up and down about her daddy's promise of waking her in the middle of the night and the possibility of seeing a meteor shower.

After researching a bit, we knew it might be tough to see this particular meteor shower.  The peak was supposed to take place between 3 PM Monday and sometime this morning (now I've forgotten.)  Regardless, it was a pretty big time frame, with basically no guarantee we would catch it.

So, last night, we went out around 8 pm to check and see if we could see anything.  Turns out, the area was not viewable from our house.  Miss Dainty was disappointed, but we promised her we'd check in the morning and wake her if we saw something.

This morning, around 5:30 am, Mr Hubs' alarm went off and he asked me if I was going to go outside.  "Yeah, if you see anything," I answered.  He laughed and went out.

In about two minutes he ran back inside,  "I saw two already, come on!"  He went and grabbed Miss Dainty while I got out of bed.  I hope we see something, I thought, because this is crazy.  It's freezing outside and it's 5:30 AM!!! 

We stood out in our side yard probably looking a bit ridiculous with our robes and blankets and scarves, staring up at the sky.  "We're that family," Mr Hubs said.

"Yep," was my answer, but I laughed because that thought made me happy.  We stared and stared and tried to hush Miss Dainty who was talking too loud.  We looked and looked and waited and waited.  And then we saw it.  A star suddenly appeared and dashed for a distance leaving it's long trail, only to disappear.  In that short time frame, I pointed and we all said something about it simultaneously, all of us so excited to see one.  Miss Dainty was excited the most.  It was, after all, her very first "shooting star." 

We waited some more, hoping to see another one or two, but clouds were moving in and the cold was getting to us.  "A few more minutes," Mr Hubs told Miss Dainty.  Then the clouds completely covered where we were supposed to be looking and so we went back inside.  I put Miss Dainty back to bed, and she was so happy even to see just one meteor.

In the end, the best part was that Mr Hubs was able to experience a homeschooling journey that was all his and Miss Dainty's alone: from Miss Dainty's spark of interest about stars to them reading books and watching videos online together, to discovering the meteor shower, and putting the effort into viewing it, and finally seeing a meteor. 

It was so neat and rewarding.  I think we will gladly be that family as often as necessary to have more experiences like that one.

Celebrating Christmas

We have pretty much been celebrating Christmas since December 1st.  As soon as I erased November from the eraser board calendar, Miss Dainty knew.  Every prayer is now ended with Miss Dainty's "Happy Birthday, Jesus!" followed by the question, "So how old is Jesus now?"  She makes me smile.

Today, we attended our homeschool group's Christmas party.  Miss Dainty had a ton of fun.  She played games, decorated cookies, made some ornaments, and listened to the guitar students play some Christmas carols.  It was great, and she loved spending time with friends.

After dinner, the girls wanted to finish decorating the Christmas tree.  I was trying to wait until Mr. Hubs gets back, but Miss Dainty has been waiting patiently all week, and he had said we could go ahead and finish it without him.  So, we did.  They clumped the ornaments together at the bottom in some places, and some of the ornaments weren't even hung.  Baby D just sort of shoved them in there and they kept falling off, and it took me a while to figure out why!  And of course, half of the candy canes did not make it up to the tree.  But the girls' expressions were priceless and their joy was contagious. 

I have no idea why they decided to keep their jackets on.  My kids are such goobers.  =)  We have also been reading our favorite Christmas book a lot lately:  The First Christmas by Carol Heyer.  The illustrations are gorgeous, and the writing is wonderful.  Such a great book.

I hope everyone is having a wonderful Christmas so far!  We are keeping ours very simple this year, and I am truly enjoying it.

How I Taught My Oldest Child to Read

My friend, Emily over at Creative Disaster, asked a question on my last post about books.  She said, "I wanted to ask how you taught Miss Dainty to read, did you use a program or what?"  So, I figured I'd write a post about it, because I did several different things with Miss Dainty, and even though I know Emily's son is older, I'm going to start all the way at the beginning in case any other friends or readers were wondering this too.

The biggest thing I can vouch for is reading nonstop to your kids (and start early!)  Don't just do it at bedtime, do it all the time!  Read a story at breakfast, read at quiet time, snack time, any time!  Have books available to your kids, even the babies.  Miss Dainty had cloth and board books from when she was teeny tiny.  She got her first paperback books when she was about 6 or 7 months old.  (Very young, I know, and quite a few of them got torn up, but she loved the bigger pictures.)  Don't keep books away from your small children because they might write in them, or don't know how to handle them.  If you don't expose them to books they won't be able to learn how to treat and appreciate them.

I do understand that babies can be destructive towards books.  Baby D just recently got past her writing in books phase (so thankful for that!)  So, try to keep library books in a special put up place, and only pull them out when you're ready to read them.  That goes for special books that you want to keep forever, too.  But other books, board books, yard sale finds, etc, let your child explore them on her own time and free will.  It really gives them the chance to become interested all on their own.

So, that is how I raised my first child in books from the get go.  The second thing we naturally started doing with her was teaching letter sounds.  We didn't worry too much about whether she knew her alphabet, but instead focused on the sounds.  (Along these same lines, I always talked "grown up" to her, enunciated clearly, used big words, etc.  I never lowered my speaking level even when she was very, very young.  I honestly think this helped tremendously.)

Anyway, on her second birthday, someone gave her the Leap Frog Fridge Phonics educational toy.  At first, it was nothing more than a game to her to take all the letter magnets off the fridge, and I would say the sounds of each letter as I helped her pick them up.  Eventually she started playing with it in the intentional way.  The toy sings a song about each letter's sound when you put one of the magnets into it.  "A says aaaa (short a) and A says AAAA (long A,) every letter makes a sound, A says a and A!  (and on and on for each letter.)  This was Miss Dainty's first introduction to phonics:  through play.  She learned the song and started learning her letters from it.

After seeing how much she loved that particular toy and its song, I bought her the Leap Frog Letter Factory DVD when she was about 3.  It follows the same idea:  teaches each letter's sound.  The plot is very fun for kids, the characters are lovable, and the tunes and actions that each letter goes through are very memorable.  Basically, in the movie, Tad's dad works in a letter factory where the letters make their sounds, and he's giving a dictionary publisher a tour of the factory.  At first, Tad doesn't know his ABCs, and his brother and sister can't see how Tad can help.  Tad ends up looking around the factory and meets a professor who takes him through each letter's room, where the letters are learning how to make their correct sounds, and in the meantime, Tad also learns each letter and its sound.  In the end, after Tad learns his ABCs, he is able to help with the final production to try to convince the publisher to use letters from the factory in his new dictionary.  Miss Dainty loved watching this DVD, and it was one that I didn't mind her watching.  It really furthered her understanding of letter sounds.

At about the same time (around 3 or 3 1/2, I can't quite remember,) she wanted to start doing "school."  Some of her friends had started going to day care ("school") and she wanted to go, too.  But of course, I didn't put her in.  However, I did start teaching her more intentionally, following her lead.  We began to focus on a letter per week.  Some things we used around the same time, were:

Letter of the Week Preschool Curriculum:  We used a cork board instead of making a new poster board each week.  Miss Dainty loved this program.

My First Steps to Reading book set by Jane Belk Moncure:  This is out of print now, but if you can find something comparable, it's really neat.  I found my set at a yard sale for $15, so I really lucked out.  Each book focuses on one letter and tells a story with as many words that start with that letter as possible, while still maintaining an easy to follow plot.  For example, in My "b" Book, page 8-9 reads:  "Little b found a bird and a birdbath.  She put them into her box."

Alphabet Art - With A-Z Animal Art & Fingerplays by Judy Press and Sue Dennen.  We just did the activities for the letter we were working on each week.


We also played quite a few games around this time.  The two I remember most were:  a Montessori type game, and our Letter Box Game.  In the Montessori game, I made a small card for each letter and wrote it in glitter glue.  This way each letter was raised off the card, and she could trace it with her finger.  I would put a few small items in a group, and she would match each item with it's beginning sound (once again stressing letter sounds, not names.)  One time we had small figurines/toys of: Apple, Bottle, Cat, Dinosaur, Egg.

The Letter Box Game had a similar idea, but I put in a bunch of small objects, and I had her pick out the objects that started with whatever sound we happened to be working on.  For example, in the box perhaps there was:  a button, a pencil, a domino, a bell, a penny, a ball, a toy bee, a plastic egg, etc.  Then I would tell her we were looking for things that started with the sound "b," and one item at a time, she would tell me what it was and whether or not it started with "b."  This was a very simple game, and yet she absolutely loved it.  We also drew letters in sand saying the letter's sound (not the name,) as we did so.  Playdough is also a good hands on activity for letters, too.  I would have Miss Dainty roll out playdough snakes, and then she would lay it on top of a letter card following the letter's shape, and saying the sound as she did so.


Over all, I think the main thing that helped in the beginning was that I focused on the letter sounds, because once she knew what each letter said on its own, it was so much easier for her to start blending.  And we did that through a game, also.  I found this Picture Word Puzzles game at a teaching shop when I first returned to the States.  Miss Dainty had just turned 4, and I really hadn't planned on using it yet.  I was planning on saving it for when we got settled in and started homeschooling "for real."  But of course, Miss Dainty doesn't like following Mommy's plans...  She wanted to play right away.  The deck of cards has 56 two-sided cards.  Each 3 make a different word and picture on one side, and a sentence on the other.  It took her a while of playing the game, with her matching the picture up, and me helping her read the word one letter sound at a time, but eventually she read her first 3 letter word: cat.  She was so excited when it clicked.  


So, at 4 1/2, Miss Dainty knew all of her letter's sounds and was blending three letter words, thanks to the word puzzle game.  At this point, when I would read books to her, I'd follow the words with my finger as I read, and let her read the words I knew she could.  For example, in The Cat in the Hat, I would read all the words except the "at" words, at which I would pause and let Miss Dainty read.  She loved doing that... for a while, but eventually she got hungry for more.  She kept asking me to teach her to read "real" words.  So, how could I refuse?


I ended up buying Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons.  I've heard that this method does not work for all kids, but it did for Miss Dainty.  It really built upon her knowledge of phonics in a very progressive way.  Through this book, she learned the harder letter blends, and by the end of the book was able to read fluently.  I do think that it helped that she already knew the basic phonics, but it's definitely not required.  The book starts at basic phonics. 


Alongside that book, we used the Bob book sets since Miss Dainty wanted to read an actual book, not just the short stories in Teach Your Child to Read.  These mini books were great.  They are fun, simple to follow stories that are just challenging enough for beginning readers.  The illustrations are very basic and do not distract from the written words too much.  Miss Dainty enjoyed these.  

From there, she took off on her own, pretty much.  I would take her to the library and show her the level 1, 2, and 3 books as she progressed in her reading, and she devoured them.  Now, she is constantly reading on her own.  She absolutely loves it.

Of course, everything is always different for each child, so I definitely suggest following your child's lead.  I also would emphasize to make it fun, don't pressure, and try not to make it drudgery.  And (again) emphasize letter sounds, not names.  It makes it so much easier.  We read in sounds: CAT not SEE AAYY TEE.  See what I mean?  And once they learn those individual sounds, and further, how they work together, a whole new world will unlock for them.  =)  

I hope something in this post can help, Emily!  And I know you and your boys love books, and I know they will have so much fun with reading!  Good luck!

Miss Dainty's Answered Prayer

Back in July, Miss Dainty found a caterpillar in our basil box.  She desperately wanted to keep it so we could watch it turn into a butterfly.  The next day, after searching high and low for a jar of some sort, I went outside to get it and couldn't find it anywhere.  A few days later, I was adding a cilantro plant to the planter, and what did I happen to dig up?  A maroon pupae.  So, Miss Dainty was very excited.

We put a little bit of dirt into the jar, and buried it in there, just like it was in the basil box.  A few weeks went by, and eventually a moth made it's appearance into the world.  It was after bedtime when it happened, so I took the jar upstairs to show Miss Dainty.  I let her watch it flit around the jar for a few minutes, and then told her I was going to have to let it go, because we didn't have any food for it.  She was a little upset because she didn't get to see it hatch, and also because she just wanted to keep it.  But I convinced her it wasn't fair to the moth. 

"Do you think we'll find another caterpillar?" she asked me.

"Well, I don't know, maybe," I answered.

"Can I pray for one?" she asked sweetly.

I smiled, "Sure, you can pray for one."  And so she did, very sweetly asking God for another caterpillar.

The summer continued to pass by, and Mr. Hubs and I did find a few caterpillars while doing yard work once, but I wasn't sure which plant they were eating from, so I left them alone.  We eventually went to Botanical Gardens with a homeschool group, and Miss Dainty had her fill of caterpillar and butterfly watching at the butterfly house. After that, we didn't see anymore, and it seemed she forgot about them, especially with Fall approaching to distract her.

Fast forward to two weeks ago.  I went outside to cut some basil to cook with.  I really haphazardly chopped four stalks down with scissors, not paying attention to which ones I was choosing, not being careful at all.  In fact, I shook them off before taking them inside.  Once inside, I grabbed one stalk at a time to pull the leaves off and rinsed them off.  I used 3 of the stalks in dinner that night.  While cleaning up, I grabbed the last stalk and as I was about to throw it away, I figured I might as well put it in a jar of water and use it later.  Didn't think twice about it.

Another week went by, and I started noticing some of the leaves were being chewed away.  I figured my cat must have been getting up there to gnaw on them.  Although, I did think it strange, since she's never gone after my basil before.  She's never liked it.  But I dismissed it, and didn't think about it again.

Then last week, I looked over again and realized the leaves were almost gone!  I assumed, again, that my cat must have suddenly acquired the taste for basil, but as I looked I noticed something I hadn't before: black dots on the counter.  What is that? I thought.

I got closer to take a better look and thought, is that poop?  I looked the plant over more thoroughly, and sure enough, I found a little green caterpillar munching away on one of the last few leaves.  I couldn't believe that it was there, and had been there the whole time! 

Some might say it was coincidence, but I personally don't believe in coincidences.  I cannot believe that 1) he was one of the stalks I just happened to grab, 2) stayed on after the basil was shaken, 3) was on the only stalk I didn't use that night to cook, 4) for some reason I didn't throw that stalk away (even though I had a ton more outside!) and 5) that it didn't fall into the jar of water.

I called Miss Dainty over and after she saw it, she got so incredibly excited.  We placed it in a safer environment, using a smaller jar for water and placing paper towels in it just in case he fell.  I asked Miss Dainty if she remembered what she asked for last time we had a caterpillar.  She thought about it for a second, and her eyes lit up.  "I prayed for another caterpillar!" she exclaimed, "God answered my prayer!"  It was such an awesome moment for her, a wonderful faith building block.  I'm so glad Mr. Hubs and I didn't bring the caterpillars that we had found inside.  I'm so glad I did not interfere, or try to arrange something myself.  This was so not my doing, and it encouraged me as well. 

So this past week, he has been very content in his personal basil buffet.  He's been constantly eating, and the girls have been happily watching him do so.