International Mud Day

International Mud Day.  Yes, it really is a thing!  I couldn't sleep last night, and checked out some events that are coming up for my homeschool coop.  I realized (at 2:30 am) that today was international mud day.  One of the metroparks here was having a celebration for it.  I thought.....Isaac would probably love that.  Lets see if I get up and going early enough.  (It was 30 minutes away and started at 10)  Well, I did.  And lets just say that it was MUCH BIGGER than I expected!!!!

 They had a mud slide set up.  What you can't see is that down at the bottom of the slide there were about 5 kids with buckets who were throwing mud onto the slide to ensure the fastest ride, and the messiest.

 Here is what the slide experience turned out to be.  My son that hates getting dirty is covered from head to toe.  (Needless to say he didn't go down the slide again)  Up until this point he didn't want to stick his toes in the mud.  Once he was muddy he enjoyed himself.

 He found some nice boys that brought a bunch of dinosaurs.  He had so much fun with them!  I feel bad for the mom (who I spoke to a lot) of the owner of the dinosaurs because they were feeding them mud.  Their mouths opened and everything!

 Isaac found a vacant bucket and decided to play with the mud and water.

 And here we have the final results.  It looks like he is going to war!

I admit that seeing how big this event was caused some anxiety.  Along with the idea of having to clean him off.  BUT he had a lot of fun, and I know that he won't forget it.  Plus, it was good to see my little boy that hates getting dirty....getting dirty.  Sometimes kids just need to play in the dirt and see what they can find.

First Week was a success!

I think I can call this first week of homeschooling a success!  Like I mentioned before we were planning on focusing on bugs.  It's not my favorite topic, so it is my way of showing my love for my son.

One book that we used were Caterpillars and Butterflies.  It's packed full of unique facts, and I even learned something!.

The next book we  used was 1001 Bugs to Spot.  This is a great search and find book.  It helps him identify different bugs, but also helps with his counting skills.  I love this book because it is an activity that he can do without me.

The next book is the one that gives me the heebie jeebies!  Big Book of Big Bugs is a great book even though it's on something I hate.  It features lots of big bugs to scale.  The pages fold out to be huge bugs.  My son loves it!  Me...not so much.  But, I love my son so I put up with reading it.  

We also used Usborne's Wipe Clean books.  They are fantastic!!!!  We used Wipe Clean 1,2,3 and
Wipe Clean ABC.  This is another activity my son can do himself.  He can do it over and over.  It works on his fine motor skills because there are tons of things to trace to work on his pen control.

This week Isaac's rec center classes started too.  He is doing Gym on Thursday, Art on Fridays, Soccer on Tuesday for practice and Saturday for games.  On the way to the rec center we counted as many butterflies and dragon flies that we could find.

My son is really enjoying himself.  He is a sponge.  Yesterday we had a conversation about how we life in North America (he started it).

I am hoping to start a kids exercise club and a kids book club with other homeschool families in the area.  We will see what I can put together.

Never Stop Learning

I was encouraged to read this book by my upline for jamberry.  It is geared towards the direct sales/multilevel marketing industry, but a lot of it can be applicable to every day life.  (Full review here:  http://melodysreview.blogspot.com/2015/09/book-review-go-pro-by-eric-worre.html)  The theme that I really liked was that we should never stop learning.

"There are no bad experiences and no good experiences, only learning experiences."  This is something that I want to make sure that my children understand.

Eric Worre talked about this one school that had a plan-do, review philosophy.
"In the plan-do review process children make plans, carry them out, and reflect on what they have done.  In doing so, children learn to take initiative, solve problems, work with others, and accomplish their goals-their play becomes purposeful and focused.  By making plan-do review a successful and integral part of your classroom's daily routine, you'll learn how you can promote learning and build on children's interests and intrinsic motivation."

I really wonder why the public school arena doesn't incorporate this philosophy more.  I guess it is because they wouldn't be able to create lesson plans, and totally have to revamp the system which costs money.  This is why I am grateful for the chance to homeschool!  I can use this philosophy in my children's education!

First Day of Preschool at Home

Today is the first day of Isaac's official preschool at home.  The books that I am waiting for still haven't arrived to start our bug unit, but that's ok.

We started with the traditional first day of school pictures that parents take of their students going off to school.

 We played, and had fun making funny faces.

 Isaac is ADDICTED to Shine A Light books!  We have read this book at least 2 times a day since we got it.  If you haven't heard of the shine a light books you need to click on that link.  They are awesome!

We had music time.  Sang songs and danced.  He did some ABC Mouse time too.

All in all it was pretty fun and laid back.  Just what this frazzled momma needs!

School Starts Up.

Well, after a very long hiatus I am once again going to attempt my homeschooling effort on my son.  I don't have high expectations at all because I am still suffering with postpartum psychosis.  I plan to start his preschool tomorrow.  We went to a butterfly conservatory last week, and wanted books on bugs and butterflies.  So I ordered a bunch of books from Usborne Books on bugs and butterflies.  So our first month is going to be focusing on all things bugs.  (don't ask me how I feel about that).  Plus working on pen control and letters.

Phases of Learning-TJed

Through the different research I have done, it seems like the TJed (Thomas Jefferson Education) will be the best fit for my family.  My husband and I have always been passionate about how much you can learn from reading the classics.  Since TJed is centered around this idea, it just seems like it will work for us.  The problem is that I don't have any idea how to implement it!

In one of my previous posts, I gave a little review on the Thomas Jefferson Education.  It gave a good overview, but nothing concrete.  I was a bit discouraged that it didn't have more information in it.  I joined the TJed group on Facebook to learn more, and discovered that there was a book that went further in depth.  I finally decided to buy The Phases of Learning knowing that I would probably want to reread it quite a few times.  I settled on the Kindle edition so that I could read it on my tablet in bed.

Right now I am about 20 percent through with the book, and I feel even more clueless than when I started!  I am trying to locate families in Ohio that use this approach, so that I can see firsthand how they do it in their families.  I am more of a visual learner, so this would help me.

Anyway, there are a lot of things discussed that I wasn't expecting.  I didn't expect to be told to do a purge every 6 months.  It makes sense, but it seems odd to be in this book.  I started it today.  I can't do much because of the contractions happening, but I had my son help me go through his toys.  I do feel better about the majority of his toys going elsewhere.  It will help me so much!  I can see how this can be an important step.

I also wasn't expecting to be told to "just say no".  They encourage mothers to make a list every six months of everything they do.  Then cross half of it off.  This helps them not be so frustrated.  Right now I am not doing much, so it doesn't apply to me.  I can see how it can apply to many mothers out there.

In fact, I started reading a second book today called The Burnout Cure.  It was a book that I bought a few months ago, but never started to read.  It is geared towards LDS women, but can be applied to any religion.  It is supposed to help women understand how to avoid the burnout we all experience, and therefore help us with depression/anxiety issues.  Since I suffer with depression, I wanted to read the book.  As it turns out, it will fit in perfectly with what I read with the Phases of Learning.  She basically said that same thing in the introduction.  We need to start saying no.

I hope that the two books will fit well together.  If they don't, that is ok too.  I often have multiple books going at a time.  In any case, I hope the further I read into the Phases of Learning will bring more clarity to me.  I want TJed to work, but I don't want to be frustrated.  If I think it will be frustrating, I will just move to a different approach.

If you apply TJed philosophy in your homeschool, feel free to contact me!  I would love any insight!

New Beginning

The past few months have been quite difficult for us.  Preschool just didn't stand a chance against hyperemesis.  TV has become a constant in our house, and that has been all my son has done for months.  I have felt incredibly guilty not being able to do the things I wish I could with him to begin his education.  I have watched his behavior drastically change from the amounts of TV, and I was tired of all the tantrums that have resulted from it.  Everything started to be a struggle, so I wanted a change.

This past week the hyperemesis has started to lighten up (in exchange for constant contractions), so I decided to start reading to him.  I ordered a copy of Charlotte's Web off of Amazon to read to him.  I didn't have any idea how it would go over with him, but I needed to try.  It turned out much better than expected!
The first day we read Charlotte's Web, we ended up reading 55 pages, and then he brought armfuls of other books for me to read to him!

I was quite surprised at his selection of books that he wanted read to him.  Many of them had pigs in them.  One even went into detail about what a runt is.  It wasn't a fluke because I watched him scan his pile to pick out the precise books he wanted read.  It's nice to know that a 3 year old can still follow along with a chapter book.

 My son sure did surprise me.  He loves reading "Charlotte's Spider Web Book".  Every few paragraphs he would steal the book from me to read the letters at the top of the page, and then tell me the page number we were on.

Today is the second day I have limited TV.  Yesterday he didn't watch anything.  Today I am letting him watch Happy Feet.  His behavior has greatly improved, but it does need to be tested.  The real test will come when we take him to a store.

Even though he is allowed to watch a movie, reading has been his priority.  We read a few pages in Charlotte's Web, and then he took a laundry basket to his room.  He then pushed this huge basket of books down the hall for today's reading.  He fully expects Mommy to read them all to him today.

Today has been a good day.  It started by going through his toys to pick out what we can give to other kids.  I expected a lot of push back from him.  Instead he enjoyed helping!  I want to get him down to things like legos, trains, blocks, and a few cars.  Everything else I want gone.  It just takes too much space, and requires too much cleaning.

Hopefully I can continue this to a certain extent.