Forever A Student

I can't believe we are almost done with our first quarter!  The school year has been going pretty well so far.  I've had very few complaints (but I have had them).  And, there has been plenty of learning (by students and teacher alike). 

For example, we hit spelling full throttle at the beginning of the school year.  Everything was going well.  The kids were loving it and looking forward to it.  And then, next thing I knew, kids were crying, eyes were rolling, etc.  I couldn't figure it out.  It was all going so smoothly.  But, soon I found myself dreading school and especially spelling.  Two things that we tried helped us out greatly.  First, I moved spelling up to the very first thing (after Bible) that we did during the school day.  Second, I slowed us way down.  Instead of making it a spelling marathon, I spent a couple days on each new step, making sure that they could fully understand the rule, or new sound, before going on.  Once again, spelling is a big hit!  They are so much more confident and making fewer mistakes.

I've also implemented the kid's Wednesday Night Wild memory verses into our curriculum.  They have to memorize it for that, so why not practice them daily during school. [It's the memory verse of the week on my blog]  I have them repeat it 4x a day.  Twice at the beginning of the school day and twice at the end.  It's much easier on them (and me) to memorize just one verse a week instead of our scheduled verse & their Wild verse. The former way would give me a lot of interesting meshed verses by the end of the week.

One other thing I've learned through trial and error, is giving my kids a snack break in the middle of their studies.  They pay much better attention after their snack.  I had taken out the snack break after Kindergarten for all three of them.  My thinking was, I didn't get a snack break in school after Kindergarten, why should they?  They can just trudge through it like I did.  Hmmm...realizing how much better they do after that break, makes me wonder how much better I would have done if I would've had the same snack break time in 1st grade on.

But probably the biggest lesson for me is that flexibility is key!  I'm one of those, 'I planned it this way.  I have to do it this way.  And if anyone throws a monkey wrench into my schedule, I'm doomed!'  Well, God is forever growing me, because I've had a ton of monkey wrenches thrown at me since our school year has started; I'm surprised I don't have goose eggs all over my head!  It seems that almost daily, something comes up, out of my control, that changes our school day.  I'm learning to become flexible. -- Notice I said learning and not learned. 

Take yesterday for example.  Wednesday is my hands-down craziest day of the week.  I had to get school in, do laundry (because I heard the cries earlier in the morning how children had nothing to wear),  make all the meals throughout the day, get everybody fed and ready for Wednesday Night Wild, go and teach Cubbies, get back and clean up the horrible tornado-mess of a kitchen I had left because I had no time to clean it up earlier, get the kids to do their bedtime routine and get them to bed, then try to spend a few minutes of quiet time before my husband got home from work (the quiet part never happened btw).  And somewhere in all that, I needed to take a shower and get some brief exercise in.  I knew this was my day.  I planned it out in my head the night before.  What I didn't plan for, was my husband talking to me at breakfast.  That in itself wasn't a big deal, but to me, the content was.  He asked me if a former co-worker could spend the night.  That meant cleaning my oldest son's room and stripping his bed, washing it, getting it back together, blah, blah, blah.  Then he followed that with asking me to help him clean the garage.  It really did need cleaned.  But I thought, Today?  Now?  Out of all the days of the week?  I realized though, that the disarray of the garage was truly stressing him out, and he really needed my help.  I knew it was the right thing to do, even though it threw my schedule way off my self-imposed timeline.  God did bless me.  I helped clean out the garage, got all of our school day in, cleaned my son's room and changed the bedding, plus everything else I had already planned, with time to spare.  Time to spare?  That never happens on a Wednesday.  But I had finished everything I had to do a half hour before making supper and getting the kids out the door for Wild & Cubbies.  It wasn't a quiet half hour, but it was a half hour none-the-less.  Thirty sweet minutes to sit down and do whatever I wanted, with a whirlwind of kids running around me.

So in fact I have learned something this year, besides all those history or science facts that I never knew (or didn't remember).  I am forever a student.  Always learning.  And, life is a huge lesson.  Always teaching.  So I need to do what I always tell my kids to do:  Be a good student.  Learn your lessons well.  Apply them to life.  And don't forget what you've learned.

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And for those of you that know me, yes, I've been counting down.  Thirty-three days down and only 147 to go!! =)

Books on CD & Reading (for lack of a better title)

My oldest son is not a huge fan of reading.  The material has to 100% captivate him, or he ends up yawning around every other word.  That makes for a very LONG reading session.  I have been trying to find topics that he is interested in and picking out books at his level of reading that coincide with that.  I haven't been too successful.  I think I picked one book that he liked (because he asked to read it daily to find out what the score was going to be, not necessarily because of the content -- it was about baseball), but yet there was a lot of yawning involved.  I was becoming very discouraged.  I knew he needed the practice, but the only books he was interested in reading was Star Wars books.  Have you ever read one of those??  I have.  All the strange names and cities alone would give a struggling reader the desire to quit reading for the rest of his life!  I was constantly correcting him as he was trying to pronounce "Coruscant" or "Separatist Alliance".  Even the Easy Readers had difficult names in them.  It was discouraging for him and for me.

About a week ago, I had to drive over to the Atlanta area.  The day before we left, I went to the library and found some books on CD.  My daughter has been an avid reader since she was four.  She loves to read!  My oldest son, not so much.  So I thought, maybe he'll listen to a book being read to him.  He listens to me read (most the time).  I picked a book on CD from a series that my daughter loves to read and wasn't too girlie.  We listened to a couple of the CD's on the way to ATL and I don't think my children even spoke the entire drive.  (even my four year old was silent)  Every once in a while I would hear them laugh at a funny part, but that was it.  I was amazed when we got to our destination.  I was kind of wondering if they were still alive back there. 

So after that trip, I got a couple more of the books in the same series, and we listened to them on our way to church, the store, where ever.  Again, the same result.  Complete driving silence with a couple interruptions of laughter.  What miracle had I discovered?  Was it just a fluke?  So again, I got another book on CD in the series.  Again, silence and laughter.  I had hit the driving jackpot!

Then it hit me.  If he loves to listen to it so much, maybe he'd enjoy reading it just as much.  And I was right!  He does!  In fact, as I was just typing this sentence, he asked me if he could read the next chapter of the book.  Luckily for me, there are about 20 books in each of the series that this author has written.  That at least gives me 40 books to go through, unless of course he gets bored.

My only downside, which isn't really a downside because it's a good lesson, is that in the book some of the characters call other characters "dumbhead" or they say "I hate [so-and-so]".  But I look at this as a good teaching opportunity.  Actually, my son read one of the sentences about someone being a dumbhead, and he said, "Mommy, that wasn't really nice.  We're not supposed to call people names.  That's just mean and he's disobeying, right mom?"  And when the other sentence came up about hating people, he told me that we are never to say that to anyone and that Jesus loves everybody and we are supposed to too!  So while these books have those two no-no's for us written every once in a while throughout them, my kids know better and explain to me why it is wrong.

Now for the upside, my child enjoys reading and asks to read to me everyday, because quote, "I want to be a good reader like my sister.  I have been waiting all my life to read books like this!"  Just the fact that he is wanting to read, brings great joy to my heart.  It's something he has been struggling with his entire school career.

Reading 'Miss Suki is Kooky' by Dan Gutman

So, I think I'm on to something.  1. Listening to books on CD to see if there is an interest, and  2. Borrowing the book for him to read if there is.

My Personal Book Review:

The books are from author Dan Gutman.  The series are: My Weird School, My Weird School Daze, and My Weirder School.  They are about a 2nd Grade boy (or 3rd grade depending on which series your reading), AJ, whose teachers are a little more than weird, and their methods of teaching are wacky.  Even though they think all their teachers have lost it, and the students feel the need to teach them, he and his classmates always end up learning in the end.  The Characters: AJ has two buddies, Michael and Ryan who sometimes get him into trouble.  And he has two classmates who drive him crazy; Andrea the know-it-all and Emily the crier.  The titles are catchy (ie Miss Daisy is Crazy, Ms. Hannah is Bananas, Coach Hyatt is a Riot, etc).  

These books, in my opinion, are meant for readers 8+ (although my daughter started reading them at 6).  I think as long as your reader knows right from wrong and is grounded in it, and if he/she is able to read chapter books, this series will be a good, fun fit. 

Side Note:

[I say for your reader to know right from wrong, because as I said above, there is some name calling (ie dumbhead) and the main character AJ says that he hates Andrea every once in a while throughout the books.  Both name calling and saying that you hate someone are big no-no's in our family.  But even my 4 & 6 year old have listened to the books and know that it is wrong.  They haven't started using those phrases toward each other, but I don't want them exposed to it too often either, so they don't get those phrases stuck in their heads and then later use them in their vocabulary.]

Science

I have a love/hate relationship with science.  I love seeing how things are made or how they work.  I love it when a science project actually works and it's really cool.  I love learning new things about animals, space, weather, you name it.  But what I can't stand is gathering materials for the experiment.  I don't like having to find a horseshoe magnet when I already have a bar magnet.  I don't like trying to find what are called 'common household products', but yet I have never heard of them before and would have no clue where to find them.  Know what I mean?  Does anyone else have this problem?

A couple things have really helped me out with this annoying problem.  First, I have been using Sonlight's Science which comes with science supplies, both re-usable and consumable.  They also have a great little book each year called, "Science Activities".  Sonlight's science supplies coincide with this book.  So most of the time you have everything you need.

 

One of Sonlight's Science Experiment Supplies kits

Another thing that has helped out in the whole science experiment world, is a product called "Real Science".  My mother-in-law got these for me at Ollies.  Oh how I love and miss Ollies.  I have asked if they were going to get an Ollies in B'ham and I was told by an employee that, quote, "The General is way too busy to be building new stores anywhere else."  *tear*  OK, I know I need to get over it, but I love that store!!  End of tangent. =)  These science kits come with absolutely everything that you need for the science experiments included.  Including a workbook and log book.  They truly are a lot of fun.

 Inside the Electricity kit

Because they were a gift, I don't know how much they cost.

But even with most of the supplies at my fingertips, I still don't like to get the projects together...What gives??  So I have decided to man up! (or is that woman up?) and take the time to gather supplies and read through how to do it, because the joy on my children's faces as they see an experiment come to life is totally worth it!  A couple days ago we did the compass experiment from pp 34-35 of Science Activities (pictured above) and my kids absolutely loved it!  They thought it was so cool that the magnet kept on swinging the same direction.  And we also figured out which direction was true north and which direction our house faced, etc.

 My son was absolutely amazed that the magnet insisted on pointing the same direction no matter what direction they put it in the water

The huge smile makes it worth it to gather up all those pesky supplies. =)

So I hope this help encourage you to do the science experiments with your kids.  It can be a pain in the backside sometimes, but it is totally worth it to see them learn and experience things for themselves.  But best of all, is their smiles and excitement as you do the project together.

Teaching Textbooks (TT3)

My mom has told me that I sound like a salesperson when it comes to curricula that I love...Well, get ready for a sales pitch. =)

*I'll be referring to the student in the masculine tense.

We have been using Teaching Textbooks 3.  It is a math program that is on CD-ROM.  It comes with a workbook, an answer key & has a built in grade book.  It has a lecture that is given by a former Harvard professor.  Your child has full control of the lecture, meaning if he doesn't understand something, with one click of a button, he can repeat that part of the lesson.  There are practice problems to see if he is understanding as the lecture is taking place.  He has to get it right the first time.  If he doesn't, the program shows him how to do it the correct way and he has to answer another problem dealing with the same concept.

Then there are the workbook problems.  I have my kids work the problem out in their workbooks and then answer on the computer.  This way, they have worked it out and if they get it wrong, they can see on paper where their mistake came from and correct it.  If they answer the question wrong, they have one chance to try it again, if they miss it again, they have to see how it is done properly before they can move on.  If they answer it right the second time, they have the option of seeing how it is done, or they can move on to the next question.

There are quizzes about every ten lessons.  I have my children treat it like a lesson, without a lecture, so they don't get nervous and freeze up.

And then there are the bonus rounds.  Bonus rounds are after a lesson every so often.  In TT3, they give you a timed "flashcard" session.  It is set up like a game show.  Crazy robot, Dudley Dunbar hosts it along with his many cheering robot buddies.  Your child tries to answer as many of the math problems as possible in the allotted time.  Depending on how many answers he gets right, depends on how many bonus points he gets.  Those bonus points reflect on the day's lesson.  For example, let's just say your child gets 20/22 problems right on the lesson, a 91%.  Then he does his bonus round and gets +3 points for getting 26/40 flashcard problems right.  His Lesson score then goes up to 105%.  It builds great self esteem while keeping math facts fresh in his mind.

TT3 is intended for Grade 3, but may I say, that if you did a Math program prior that was intense, I don't see why you couldn't start it in 2nd grade.  My kids did Horizons Math up to the first part of 3rd grade (where it got so hard and we had to quit) before I started making up my own Math worksheets (a pain in the back for sure), and then we discovered TT3.  I thought to myself, they learned all this stuff in 2nd grade with Horizons, plus some.  So here are my thoughts.  If your child was in an advanced Math, you could start TT3 in 2nd grade.  Let's say it's too easy for your child, then have him do more than one lesson a day.  I don't suggest skipping any lessons, because each lesson has a new concept introduced and there is no index to let you know when and where they are introduced.  I had my kids doing two lessons a day at first, but as things started to get harder, I made them stick to just one.  They are still doing stuff that they learned in Horizons 2, but I think reinforcement is great!  Plus the major bonus for me, is that they are still being challenged, yet they aren't crying about it.

Not only do my kids love this program, but it frees up some time for me to teach my younger child.  My child goes off into another room with my laptop and quietly does his math, while I devote some much needed teacher to student time with my 1st grader who is working on reading.  Very rarely do my students who are doing TT3 ask for help, because they can go back to that particular part of their lesson to find the answer.

Bonus for parents!  The grade book is printable, reviewable, and changeable if needed.  Changeable, you ask??  Let's just say, my daughter has accidentally pressed the wrong key when entering an answer.  After her lesson is over, she comes to me and tells me.  I look at the question and ask a very similar one to see if she understands the concept.  If she does, I get into the grade book (using my parental pass code) and change it in her grade book.  If she still gets it wrong, I help her figure out what she is doing wrong and leave the grade as is.  Make sense?  -- My kids also love to check out their grade books (they cannot change it) and check out their scores.  It's a great encouragement to them.

Sample of one of my kid's grade book

So, have I sold you on it? ;)