Sharing ...

It's time for me to really buckle down and figure out what we are going to do the first couple of months.

There are a couple things I want to share - as much for me - for record - and for my readers ......

Readers?


(knock:::knock)  Is anyone out there?

First, does your kids love Legos?  I know my boys do.  Even my little ones who really aren't into Legos, they just like them because their brother's think it's cool! 

Lego Magazine is giving away 2-Year Subscriptions for free....  I signed all my boys up (minus the teen) ...  There is a JR version of the magazine for those under 7 and I know all my boys would like to get mail, and upon getting their own magazine, it'll reduce fighting over them. 

(Click the pictures to take you to the link, same link for both)

Also - I saw this fun little thing on Facebook .... 

For a mom with a child, who has (had) a cleft palate .... It thought this was great!!!  It can control the little bit of air they can get through ....

Sometimes preschoolers have a hard time blowing bubbles with traditional bubble wands. The wands can get slippery and difficult for little hands to hold and blow.

Cut a small hole at the bottom edge of the water bottle (single serving size), this will become a mouthpiece for blowing bubbles. Make sure there are no sharp edges! 

Dip the bottle mouth into the bubble solution and then blow through the hole you created.

 We haven't tried it out yet.  Will definitely share - when we do :)


And this has been meandering around Facebook .... 

For camping or late nights at the beach? Leave 1/4 of Mountain dew in bottle (just dont drink it all), add a tiny bit of baking soda and 3 caps of peroxide. Put the lid on and shake - walla! Homemade glow stick (bottle) solution. kids

 I want to save you a little bit of trouble ....   this doesn't work.  I have had friends try it and no luck.  Dennis had looked it up and found out it doesn't work.  One of my friends left this comment on my facebook when I shared it... 

ok, thought this looked cool, tried it with the kids just now and it's such a dud!!! Didn't work, even tried doubling the baking soda and peroxide after it didn't work the first time. Still no glow...so I believe this has been BUSTED!! (Myth Busters comment)

So I want to save everyone the trouble of trying (unless you want to try it for a science experiment that fails!) ...    

 

Daily 5

Have you all heard of this?   I hadn't.....   I'm perusing Pinterest .............

PINTEREST SHOUT OUT .............. 

Anyway - and I see this "Daily 5" stuff..........

I'm thinking ............ what the heck is Daily 5??????  

So I try looking it up and I find an explanation on a school website.........  here it is... incase anyone else is wondering....  

Daily Five

This year, students will be participating in a program called Daily Five during the reading block. In addition to using our regular basal curriculum we will also be incorporating Daily Five.  This framework title refers to the five parts of literacy centers. The Daily Five consists of:

Read to Self

Read to Someone

Listen to Reading

Work on Writing

Word on Word Work

Daily Five Components:

Read to Self-               Students must read daily on their “just right” level to become better readers.

Read to Someone-    Reading to someone helps students practice strategies.  Students become more fluent and check for understanding.

Listen to Reading-   Listening to reading allows you to hear fluent reading and learn new words, building vocabulary knowledge.

Work on Writing-    Students build writing and reading skills by practicing writing on daily topics that interest them.

Work on Word Work- Students work on word building activities to improve spelling, writing, and reading skills.

We have gotten off to a wonderful start with Daily Five. The students are enjoying the variety of activities and becoming better readers and writers.  Thanks for your support as we learn together!

Excitement ...

Noah is getting excited about homeschooling.  Tonight, we had a little discussion about what he had been doing in public school and what he wanted to learn about while homeschooling.   Because this is going to be our first hard-core year...  I think it's an important question to ask. 

First I asked him if he was learning multiplication .......  remembering the several times where we played "what is ? x ? equal?"

His response......    HUH?

::: Sigh :::

Then we talked about other stuff ....  I asked him what he was working on in school when it ended and he said ...  "I always did my own work" .... this really makes me sad.   He goes on to explain to me that he would always just work on the folder of stuff he had while he was in the classroom.  When he did participate - although he was interested - he always had to ask his classmates for help.  And then he says "I would go into Mrs. G's room and we'd work on stuff and then we'd go in another room and work on stuff, but when I was in my classroom I would just work on my stuff."  Mrs. G - btw - was his reading and math teacher (special education) ... so ... yeah, I feel bad.

I asked him if he was excited to homeschool .....

YES!!

Then he says .... "Daddy is going to be my computer teacher and my cooking teacher..." and I confirmed it.  Told him Daddy would probably handle science stuff, too.   I'm going to be doing reading and math, art ...  we're going to both be doing history and other stuff.  We're both going to be involved with ALL of it - but ....  that's how the break-down is for the most part.

So when I asked him what he wanted to learn about ....  first thing he said was ...

"Making stuff and seeing how it works."

That's pretty good answer!

In addition to that,  he is really interested in dinosaurs, animals, archeology....  when I asked him if he wanted to learn about the stars and space he said .... "but I'm not going to be an astronaut." ... to which I answered, "that doesn't mean you can't learn about space!" ....  So I'm glad that he's excited!  Sounds like he's really looking forward to the science part of it :) 

Homeschooling Hedgehog: 1

I found these graphics on Pinterest ....  I had to share!  There are a lot of them so I'll share them in a few posts .....
'

Crossroads

I am standing smack in the middle of a crossroad ...  Friday pushed that crossroads out a little and made us more determined.   Been talking about it, questioning it, trying to figure out what's best for our children and we had pretty much decided to let Calahan learn at home, Noah was up in the air.

Noah gets speech therapy and he's very social.  Those two facts alone had us questioning if homeschooling him would be right.  We fully planned on working through the summer with him to see how he did and make that determination later ....  but....  now.... after he handed me his report card, I'm so irritated and pissed ..... I am certain that my kids are falling through the cracks.

I have discussed in previous posts how Calahan is feeling uncomfortable at school.  There is a little bit of bullying that has been going on the last 6 months or so.  He is uncomfortable with the drinking and drugs and smoking going around.  He has some major anxiety issues.  But he's made some good friends.. and he was thrilled when he got his yearbook.  He thought it was super cool.

Now, I have to say that I'm really proud to know that I instilled in him ... I  never did any sort of drugs, unless it was prescription ... lol... highly against smoking and have many pet peeves of others smoking habits infringing on my direct air quality.  I have lung issues and my kids have lung issues, so it's a little more than just me not liking it.  I don't like the taste of alcohol.  So I would take sips now and then of my friends stuff, but I never liked anything.  Then I dated a bartender when I was 29 and he created a drink where I didn't taste the alcohol ... Drinking has never been important and I keep telling those I'm around that if you don't start it - you won't miss it.  That's one reason Calahan is uncomfortable around it - he has very strong convictions about it already.

Based on a lot of reasons, I think homeschooling is a better choice for him.

Then there is Noah....  we were back and forth over what's best with him... but when he handed me his report card for the year - it pushed me over the edge.

37 out of the 56 spaces for grades is marked *  .... meaning "ungraded"

He got no grades in Reading, Writing & Math... and Participates In Service (whatever that means)

In Science:
Effort - he got a "Satisfactory" when he got "Excels" the prior two grading periods.  
Content - He got a "2" meaning "Approaching Standards" which is what he got both the prior two grading periods also.

In Social Studies:
Effort - he got a "Satisfactory" when he got "Excels" the prior two grading periods.  
Content - He got a "3"meaning "Proficient" which is what he got the prior grading period, and a "2" the grading period before that.

In Health and Fitness:
Effort/Cooperation - he got a "Satisfactory" when he got "Excels" the prior grading period and "Satisfactory" the period before
Demonstrates Knowledge - he got "Excels" all three grading periods

In Music:
Effort/Cooperation - he got "Satisfactory" all three grading periods
Skills and Concepts - he got a "Approaching Standards" and was completely ungraded the two grading periods prior. 

In Behavior:
Cooperative Learner - he got "Excels" in all areas, all three grading periods, for:

• Cooperates and interacts positively with others
• Respects rights, feelings and ideas of others
• Resolves problems with peers appropriately

Quality Worker - he got "Excels" in the following areas: Shows willingness to try and Keeps workspace and materials organized (for willingness he got Excels in all three grading periods, in organized, he got Excels, Satisfactory, Excels) ......  "Satisfactory" for Shows persistence (as he did in all three grading periods) ... and "Below Expectations" for Writes legibly (which is funny since he got a not graded the first period, and then Satisfactory for the second, then went down to Below Expectations?) and "Ungraded" for Produces Quality Work (as he did all three grading periods).


Self-Directed Learner - he got "Ungraded" for all grading periods for Works Independently, Completes assignments in a timely manner, Returns home assignments on time, and Makes productive use of class time...... and for Follows Directions he was "Ungraded" for all grading periods except the current one for which he got "Excels".... he also got "Excels" for Is prepared with materials, and Follows school/classroom expectations. 

He got two notes for June....  the first under Reading is:
"(Noah) is very sociable and interacts well with peers.  Displays a positive attitude towards learning."

The second note that was on this report card for June is the one that set me off (other than all his ungraded spots) ....
"Noah was administered the DIBELs Next Progress Monitoring in June. The DIBELS NPM consists of 3 sub tests: Oral Reading Fluency (Words per minute); Retell of the passage read; DAZE Passage (fillin the missing word comprehension passage).  A Composite score of 400+ is considered grade level performance in June and an oral reading fluency (ORF) words per minute (wpm) of 118+.  Noah scored a composite score of 10 and an ORF of 24 wpm." 

 Yeah ...  I'm kinda pissed.

  This is the graph I found for the wpm part....  I don't know if it's reflective on the previous grades, however - if it is - he's Kindy level....

And I can't find anything for the other part since it varies from grade to grade and isn't reflective on the previous grade.  BUT a TEN???  My heart sank for him!!!   So did my husbands!

Now that the decision is made, I'm feeling a lot of things - excitement to help encourage or refresh my children's love of learning....  creating fun interactive lessons for them on things they love or have interest in .... but I'm scared I'm not going to do the right thing or enough....that I'm going to fall short, and all sorts of things. 

I feel like yelling - WHAT ARE THEY DOING FOR MY CHILD!?!?!  Other than giving him self-esteem issues?   

There is a big ol' YAY and WOW in my head.... and the the hesitant Oh BOY!!

Do you have any advice?  Things you wish you had known starting out? 

Birdy Pictures

Here are some more pictures that I took of the birdies that come to visit us....  They sit on the inside of the holes, or on the inside at all....... and there have been 2 birds in it at once, or several birds FIGHTING over getting in there.....  oh and they are messy messy birds, I get bird seed all over my patio... ha ha....

This one is really neat - if you click on the picture, you can see it larger - and you'll see the bird seed in the bird's beak. 

 This picture you can see the bird seed in the beak again...

We're going to be looking again to see if we can identify some of the birds we get.

Last Day of PUBLIC School

So today is the kids last day of PUBLIC school...   I thought about letting them just stay home, but I also have this need to make sure that they do what they are suppose to. 

Calahan is finishing up his Sophomore year, which he completely and utterly failed. 

Why did he fail?

1. He didn't turn in work.
2. He has a lot of trouble asking for help.
3. He has major anxiety.
4. The School was not following his I.E.P. 
5. He stopped caring.
6. He was uncomfortable at school
7. There was some bullying. 
8. He had a lot of absences

So yeah, there are a lot of reasons - some in his control, some not.  Regardless - my biggest concern is that they aren't following his IEP.  I brought it up - and the first thing out of the counselors mouth was "are you reminding your teachers?"

I realize that a lot is piled on top of teachers these days... they are over worked, over stressed, and have to use a lot of their own money to make sure their classes are fun and interesting.... 

But since when is it the CHILD'S responsibility to make sure their I.E.P. is followed??? 

So we are certain we're going to allow Calahan to Homeschool/On-line School this coming fall.

Noah did really well this year... 

He "finished" 4th Grade, and by finished, I mean he made it through the school year.  He is at a 1st or 2nd grade level academically and they just keep pushing him forward even though I don't feel it's doing any good.  I have asked repeatedly that they hold him back a year.  I was told "no, we feel it's more important to keep him with his peers then giving him the stigma of being held back" .... Thanks No Child Left Behind Act ..... but let me ask you this....  How do you think it makes him feel to be pulled out of the class and exposed to the fact that he isn't at the same academic level as the other students in his class? 

When we moved here and decided to give the school district a try here ... I asked them to hold him back a year then, to make things a little easier on him.  They wouldn't.   So this past year, he was pulled out of class a lot, he couldn't work with his classmates because he wasn't at their level...  he was allowed to not do work because he couldn't... because it wasn't at his level.  When things were too hard in class, he had a folder of work (at his level) he could do ...  so he would pull that out and work on that while the class worked on something else.  Which is great, he showed initiative on pulling out work he could do... but ...  I don't think it's fair to him.  What exactly is he learning by this?

And then, he expressed to me one day - he doesn't feel smart because he can't do the same work as the other kids.

This broke my heart....

............ broke it....

So DB and I discussed it - and we're going to give it a chance through the summer and see if he'll listen to me and do his work, if he does - we're going to homeschool him, if he doesn't ... then I have no choice but to put him back in public school next year.  

Noah is a whiner - he whines at me all the time not to do stuff.  I still make him do it but it's a chore and hard  ... he doesn't act like this at school.  He listens, he's good, he's behaved....  I wish I had that Noah more often. 

In addition to that - we found out that Noah has Dyslexia - which I suspected and Calahan has something called Dysgraphia.   I actually wrote a blog about the Dysgraphia recently ...  check it out. 

I'm giving both kids a week off - one because it's my birthday on Monday - ha ha - and I don't want to start then.  But I think we're going to start the following week, on July 2nd.   That'll give me some time to get a plan in place. 

As for the babies ..... we'll see.  Nathan *hates* going to school - he cries everyday.   Kaedyn LOVES going to school ...    Nathan gets services through school like Speech Therapy and Occupational Therapy ...  which are important.  And he needs to be exposed to a structured social environment right now, due to his Autism.  So we feel it is important to at least *try* to get him to like school.  He's starting a new school next year, and Kaedyn will be returning to the same pre-school.  We have no idea how this is going to go over since they were in school together this past year, and next year, they aren't even at the same school.  

So we're going to start off with the older two, and see how it goes with the younger ones..I'm excited!!