I know it's late for this post, but at least I am getting it posted right. I have been keeping track of most of the stuff we do so it makes it easy to blog about. I should start taking more pictures and adding them, I'm sure you guys would enjoy it more.
So on Tuesday P slept in and D got some time to herself to do activities without him telling her what to do. He does like to boss her around, I'm pretty sure I know where he gets that and I am trying to fix it. D played Skylanders for a little while until she decided she was ready for breakfast. While she ate breakfast she watched Pokemon, she really gets into things that her brother really likes, she loves singing and dancing to the theme song. Then she proceeded to make Creepy Crawlers. Of course she make a bunch of pink (really red) bugs, which will probably just sit around and collect dust and hair. Sometime in the morning P woke up and stayed snugged in his bed playing his iPad. We had a little bit of an early lunch because we had to be somewhere at 1 PM. During lunch we watched Pokemon. Afterwards we were off to a field trip at the library. At the library we met up with a group of other homeschoolers. A librarian read a book to the kids called Library Lion. It was a cute book. She then showed the kids how to use the computer to look up what you want. After this the librarian gave a tour of the children's library to show where the kids could find what type of book or media they were looking for. The kids then colored bookmarks to take home. After making bookmarks there was a puppet show. The puppet show was of elephant and piggy from a book series. After the puppet show we looked around for the books and movies that the kids and I wanted. After we checked out our things the kids sat and looked at a book each that I had found for them each. For D I found a Disney Princess encyclopedia and for P I found a Pokemon Handbook. After a little while they started playing with the other kids from the homeschool group while the moms talked. We ended up being at the library for 3 hours, but it was good fun. When we got home P and I played some Skylanders together on the PS3 while D watched and changed my Skylanders for me. When I was finished playing after one or two levels D took my place. At about dinner time we put on Pokemon and watched that until about bedtime. While watching the show P looked through his Pokemon handbook we found at the library and learned about the Pokemon that were in each episode we watched. Then bed time came! On this night the kids were crazy. When I say that it's time to get ready for bed the kids all of a sudden get bursts of energy and run around crazy and don't listen. When they were finally in bed they still couldn't sit still and watch a show on their iPads. After awhile I had to take the iPads out of the room. It didn't take D too long to get to sleep but P was up there staring at the wall for a little while. I think on the days we do stuff that should wear the kids out is when P has a harder time going to sleep.
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So yea, I have been lazy lately with my blogging and a little with schooling. I have started writing down a To Do list on a white board for the kids daily. They each have their own list of schooling activities. That list has come with moans and groans but they need something to jump start their learning. I have been trying to keep to the no gaming or battling shows until 3 PM but it gets in the way of my lazy mornings. D is the only one in this house that is really a morning person. Today I am starting to try a new approach, do what you want until noon and then no gaming or battling shows until at least 5 PM. We shall see how this goes.
Our morning pretty much consisted of Skylanders. The kids have all three games for the PS3 along with apps on their iPads. We found an app that keeps track of all the Skylanders you have along with the ones you want. The kids and I worked yesterday to figure out which ones we have shared between my kids and their cousin. Um yea, it comes out to a total of about 93 and more on the way. Pretty crazy, but the kids love the games and play on a regular basis. So for the other apps I had to put the Skylander codes in to each of our iPads to unlock the characters in the games. This took quite a while, I worked on it a little yesterday, today until lunch and then again after school stuff was done. During lunch we watched Animal Atlas: Who's a Monkey? The kids enjoy these movies and learn a lot from them. After lunch I read a chapter from Mr. Popper's Penguins. Through out the chapter we looked on the map at cities that were mentioned and discussed other topics that were going on in the chapter. I started having P do daily english and math lessons. Each lesson is not lengthy at all, probably 10 minutes each at the most. We have been using Easy Peasy: All In One Homeschool for these subjects for probably almost a year now. They have easy to follow short lessons. The site also makes it easy to put your kids at different levels for each subject. Best of all, it is FREE. Today Parker did Math 2 Day 9 working on his counting by 5's. For english he did English 1 Day 32 English working on the different "th" sounds. We don't do the reading section of this because it is a lot of reading for P and it's not stuff he is interested in. D did the math section of Getting Ready 1 Day 181 working on counting. She knows how to count and knows her numbers but playing the games and watching the videos is what interests her so I started at this level for her. Since the kids were already on their computers, when they were done with their school work they played games on the computers. D played on Nick Jr and P played on Friv. The rest of the evening consisted of iPad and Skylander playing with exception of on errand we made that only took like 15 minutes and watching Pokemon: Black & White during dinner. I guess I haven't kept up with the no gaming until 5, maybe tomorrow it will work better. I can't wait until it stays warm and then I won't have to worry about them being inside in front of a screen all the time. The kids had a great time at Grandma and Papa's house. They did miss mommy and daddy so much they wanted to come home a little early, but then they were able to spend some time with the other grandma.
Yesterday we had a pretty good day. There was some complaining because I started sort of a new schedule and stuck to the limit on video games and TV. For the new "schedule" I planned a few learning activities to do in the morning. If it doesn't all get done in the morning then oh well, as long as our learning activities get finished before 3 PM all is well. On this day we all woke up at a decent time so all of our activities were finished before lunch. Since the kids were gone at the beginning of the month the first thing we did was change the calendar to March and put up the special events for the month. I have been looking for some character development along with some sort of Bible study for the 3 of us to learn. On this day we working on A is for Attitude from The ABC's For Godly Children. I don't think the kids were following along very well. I thnk I need to work on this a little. The kids and I then took a little break and played Lego Chima Speedorz game. After our break P and I read a couple chapters from Mr Popper's Penguins while D read by herself. After about 20 minutes the kids switched for an additional 20 minutes. D and I read some Super Hero Squad stories while P read by himself. I believe that a lot of learning can happen just from reading a variety of books. When I read stories with the kids I always talk about what we read or different things that were going on in the story that can relate to real life experiences. Sometimes I can find fun activities that the kids enjoy doing together. Right now D isn't interested in reading the same story as P so I let her choose different stories to learn from. Since she is still young and learning to read we are just mainly reading for fun and so she can begin to understand how to read. I am going to put reading lessons on the back burner and see if just reading together is the best way to teach D to read. She does know her letters and letter sounds so she just needs to learn words and how they are put together, we'll see how it goes. I want to have a relaxed homeschool and not really force my kids into learning too quick or what they aren't interested in unless I find it super important. The kids were having a hard time going to sleep last night after their allowed shows in bed so I told them to read. After remembering a book about gross animals, Gross Out! Animals That Do Disgusting Things, P ended up being quiet the rest of the night and reading the whole book. In the morning he brought me the book and read to me the most interesting animals he read about. I was so proud of him, stuff like this hardly happens. As for today we were a little off schedule. We are supposed to get another wicked snow storm tomorrow so I decided to go to the library and do some running around today. So pretty much today was our Wednesday. D started her day with a couple crafts. She painted a set of sun catchers and then we made a bracelet out of pipe cleaners and pom-poms. After everyone got moving we went to IKEA for kids eat free and so I could buy a shelf for our living room. Of course we spent more time than needed but we weren't in a hurry today. The kids played at different places and grabbed an ice cream before we actually did the 5 minutes of shopping needed. But while we were there I found some great ideas for D's birthday that is coming up in 2 1/2 months. Afterward we went to the library for awhile. I found some Bible materials that I believe will help engage the children while we learn together. We will see how it goes. I do try to go to church but the kids do not feel comfortable leaving me and going into a classroom with a bunch of kids and strangers and would sit and whine about being bored if they just joined me. I believe I will take them seperate some time and join their class for a while so they can become more comfortable. Sorry, I do get side tracked on what I am talking about, did I mention I'm not the best writer. The rest of the evening we were sort of lazy. The kids took turns watching Pokemon and The Fresh Beat Band while randomly playing with stuff that was lying around. |
About UsTake a step into the life of Auer (pronounced like our) homeschool. We are a family that likes to learn through life experiences. We would like to share our experiences so maybe we can make a difference in the lives of others. Don't forget to follow us on Facebook to get the smaller activities that go on that don't always make it to the blog. Archives
May 2019
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