Another week of summer

And I think a picnic at the beach is in order!

Well, we are a full month into homeschooling now! For the first month I had decided to be pretty basic so that we could get a good routine down and it has worked well! Now we will be adding in more fun activities and projects! Today we kicked off our health/science unit on the body. I traced Emily as she lay on a roll of paper, then we will start with the skeletal system, just in time for Halloween, ha ha! We are also going to study chlorophyll and how the decrease of it in leaves makes them change color. On Friday, our buddies that homeschool will come over with their Mom and we will do a group lesson and hands-on learning projects. I can't wait!

Our new math books arrived last Friday! Emily will continue in her Kumon books, because they are oh so good, but the Singapore Math program is her main curriculum. We started today and completed lesson 1, Emily really enjoyed it. Getting new books is like opening a Christmas gift here, it is so exciting, she just can't wait to dig in and learn!

After speaking with a fellow homeschooling mama tonight on what she is doing with her kiddos right now and hearing that they are studying Colonial Times until Thanksgiving, I decided that would be perfect for our social studies unit. Emily has always had a huge interest in that period just like myself.

So, what's up with my title? The temps are up! We were down in the mid 50's/low 60's for over a week, and now we are going to have mid to high 70's for the next week! How fabulous! The kids had fun collecting leaves this afternoon and watching clusters fall from a nearby tree.

In other news, Emily had Good News Club today and was asked to be a helper! They were asking the older kids that have been attending a few years and are responsible to help with some things. Emily will go 15 minutes early to pour the drinks and set-up snack. She is very proud of herself!

So, here is a funny....yesterday my kids and I were walking downtown. There was a man that appeared to be sleeping on a bench. We stopped a few blocks over at the police department to ask them to do a welfare check (already were), but my sweet Emily was concerned about the man so I asked if she wanted to go back, so we did. On the way we talked about the reasons the man could be a bit slumped over (health, tired, etc) and she says to me 'I hope he's not the type of asleep where you never open your eyes', I said 'Do you mean dead?', and Emily replied 'Yes, but I don't like to say that word.' Too cute and funny! I had to call her Grandma and tell her, it was just too funny how she said it! Anyway, still chuckling about it today : ) Emily tells me that the more you laugh, the longer you live anyway : )

Well, that about wraps it up for tonight. Elliot has therapy in the morning, and Emily has dance in the evening followed by a special visitor that is bringing my new toy! Wedneday is library day and church night. Thursday is the Farmer's Market. Friday we have our friends coming in the morning and then our friend Becky will be coming in the afternoon to do a Mary Kay session with Emily! She is just growing up so fast and it is now time to treat her to some special facial cleansers : ) Can't wait!

Crisp Autumn Air Is Upon Us!

Wow, autumn sure is arriving these days! We are trying to savor the last days of skipping outside with just a tee or long sleeved shirt on! The temp range lately has been 55-70 for the highs.

On walks we have been collecting leaves and getting supplies for autumn projects. I love to hear the leaves crunching underfoot! We are hoping to make a huge leaf pile this fall!

Emily has been a great student! We are awaiting a new shipment of books, they should arrive tomorrow. It is Singapore Math. She has been using Kumon math books in the interim and they will serve as an awesome supplemental system when the Singapore Math arrives.

Now that we have a good routine in place we will add in a group session on Fridays with some awesome friends of ours. Emily has also started Good News Club, an after school Bible club that is held in a public school. Tonight she started her dance classes for real! She absolutely loves Tap and Jazz! Who says homeschooled kids aren't socialized? That is the go to question usually when people are asked about their decision to homeschool. When will the child be able to socialize with others their age? Hmm, I never sent my daughter to school for 'socialization', I sent her for education. So, we are now getting into our new routine with so many activities starting up. Want the run down? Here it is!

Monday~      Good News Club   3-4:30
Tuesday~      Tap Dance             5-5:30
                      Jazz Dance            5:30-6
Wednesday~ Awana                   6:30-8

At some point we will add piano lessons in also.

Book Bunch and Dance

Today, on our 3rd trip to the library this week, we picked up Emily's book for Book Bunch! Love That Dog by Sharon Creech is the book for October. Emily will read the book and then go meet up with the other 4th-6th graders once a month at the library. The will discuss the book and do a fun activity relating to it!

Today was another backwards day since we were out of the house this morning. Emily did her bookwork this afternoon and then helped to finish the Reverse Trick or Treating for church, to invite our community to the Harvest Party on Saturday! We did most of it last night, but there were still houses left when it got dark out. After Emily and our friend Sara finished that she went with Sara to her former school and got to play with a friend, that was fun for her!

Tonight we tried to go to Emily's dance class, it didn't work out that well though as it was the wrong night. Also, after talking with the owner, she will be in a different jazz class. Emily will be taking Tap lessons at 5 and Jazz lessons at 5:30 every Tuesday. Emily is so excited to be taking two classes! Elliot and I will plan to have dinner there on Tuesday nights  : )

Library Day!

Today was the first day of Story Time for little Elliot! Emily loves to go to the library, we were there yesterday also and saw some friends that also homeschool! It was nice to chat with a fellow homeschooling mama! So, we had a backwards day today, Emily did her bookwork in the afternoon instead of the morning. We weren't too organized today, but Emily will be using the time to look up books on the library's system and finding the books we need that week for her studies. Emily will also be able to use the library's childens computer that has educational games on it. She especially likes the game that teaches about the body systems and organs! I was happy yesterday to see that they have put out a pamphelet for homeschooling families. It has information in it regarding educational websites, informative websites, books, etc. There are a lot of families in my community that choose to school their children at home, so this was a welcome addition!

Here is Elliot after Story Time wearing his crown and enjoying the train table

Emily is loving the aquarium. It has some little fish, frogs and turtles in it. Emily read the display detailing the little water lovers.

Here we are leaving! Mommy with Elliot and Baby H! Thanks Emily for snapping a picture!

Autumn is almost here!

It is hard to believe that Autumn is just about here, and as a reminder of its nearing presence, the cooler temps have hit this week. We have dropped from the high 80's last week (remember the beach pictures?) to the mid 60's this week! Tonight the low will be 34 degrees. I know in just a few short months I will be happy for 34 degrees as a high temp as it would be above freezing! Such is Wisconsin weather. We just may hit summer digits again a few times before Autumn is truly here.

This week has been all about preparing for fall and doing crafts, it has been great! It is also important to enjoy the warm sunny days while we can so we have also been spending a lot of time outside.

Are you ready to see the pictures from a few projects today? Here you go!

My childrens precious handprints! Emily very much enjoyed this project!

Our evening project is using our handprints to create an autumn tree on the picture window. Here you can see Emily enjoying herself.

Here are the children with their tree! We will be adding some other elements to the window at a later time, but this was a fun and great start!

Well, besides our autumn projects, Emily spent some time on the computer today, after she hurt her ankle again. Emily learned about Pinterest. It is an online site that you 'pin' pictures of things that you like and have friends 'follow' you. So, I already had a few folders set-up to categorize the pictures into and Emily quickly learned how the site works and set-up a few folders by herself. We have a folder for Homeschooling, so anything she thought would be great she would put into that folder. We also have Toddler-Daycare, Winter Wonders, Autumn Awesome, Home Organization, and Fridge Fabulous. She did great categorizing the pictures and we have some great craft and project ideas to use when the weather turns bitter cold. 

Thanks for reading!

Sunday September 11th, 2011

Yes, it is Sunday and we are schooling! We are going to have a day full of history as we commemorate the 10 year anniversary of the attack on America and all of the lives lost. We started off with watching some special programming on tv of the ceremonies taking place at the site of the World Trade Center Towers 1 & 2, the Pentagon and Shanksville, PA. In the afternoon we went to a memorial service hosted by St. John’s Church at Pauquette Park.  I also showed Emily some relevant videos and pictures of the events of that day. Emily, like most of us has a hard time understanding why people would take innocent lives like this. The service at the park was especially beneficial to her. The Portage Fire Department raised a 30x40 foot flag up on the ladder truck and suspended it over the crowd. The color guard folded the flag which was at half-mast. Later the color guard replaced the flag. They raised it all the way up, and then lowered it to half-mast again. There were many top figures in the community that gave speeches and pastors that read the Word of God. Sojourn graced us with their beautiful music as well as several others. The high school band and choir brought their musical talents. A 21 gun salute followed by the Taps which was played by a member of the PHS band. A very lovely afternoon of remembrance and pride.  Emily and I talked on the way home about the days events and any questions she had. She knows that day, September 11, 2001 is very special to me as it was the first time that I laid eyes on her, via ultrasound.

A day at the beach, again!

Today is Friday September 9, 2011

We needed to be out of the house by 11:00 this morning for some work to be done and will be spending the afternoon at the beach. Emily spent over an hour total trying to catch fish! Again, we were the only people at the beach except for a few sunbathers that came and went. We spent 5 hours there and then ordered in pizza when we made it home. I sure didn't feel like cooking! What a glorious and beautiful day! We also touched on the history of September 11^th 2001, when the USA came under attack.

Emily is working on catching some fish

Here are the fish

The kids enjoyed watching this Monarch Butterfly

My little fishies!

Bull's Eye breakfast

Today is Wednesday September 7, 2011

We started off the day with a Bull’s Eye breakfast! I removed the centers of bread slices, buttered a pan and cracked eggs into the centers and cooked it all up! Yummy! I just wished that I had some bacon on hand. Elliot, of course, only ate the bread. He doesn’t like eggs so far.

Here is the Bull's Eye breakfast!

 

Emily started her day off with packing her books and going for a walk around the block to come to school! I made a questionnaire for her to fill out so she is working on that now. We will do this also at the end of the school year to see how the answers have changed! We are also going to get going on a hand-art project! We will trace around our hands on some pretty paper and cut it out, then frame it! Another activity we can do at the beginning of each year! This is so fun!

Emily read aloud the questionnaire and decided on what she would like to read out of the Bible. She chose to read about The Last Supper.

Our 1st day of school

Today is Tuesday September 6, 2011

Our first day of schooling has gone quite well!  My posts won't always be this elaborate, but I wanted to give my readers an idea of what we are using for curriculum. After she completed her bookwork we all had lunch and now we are headed to the beach with the babes! Here is an excerpt from the homeschooling journal I am keeping.

Today is the first day of school for Emily! We are easing into it a bit as not all of her curriculum is here. To start with we have 3 books from Queen Homeschool Curriculum. To reinforce spelling we have ‘Learning to Spell through Copywork Book B’. To reinforce cursive writing we have ‘Pictures in Cursive Book A’. To reinforce math facts we have “Math Facts for Copywork’. Emily will work in all 3 books today. Emily will complete one lesson in each of these books and then we will move onto her Kumon books that we use as a curriculum supplement.

For Kumon books, she has:

Reading                                    Grade 4

Word Problems                      Grade 4

Multiplication                         Grade 3

Division                                   Grade 4

Decimals & Fractions            Grade 4

Today Emily will work on Reading, Word Problems and Multiplication.

Work Completed Today

Pictures in Cursive~ Week 1, lesson 1 & 2

We worked on reading comprehension while reading the parents note at the beginning of ‘Learning to Spell through Copywork’. Emily and I alternated reading paragraphs and then I asked her questions about what she has just read. See! A lesson even before she started her lessons in this book! I explained to her that what I was doing with her is reading comprehension and explained what that was. She said ‘Ohhh!’

Learning to Spell through Copywork~ Week 1, lesson 1 & 2

Math Facts for Copywork~ Lessons 1-10

Here are some pictures from our beach outing, it was so fabulous!

Last Day of Summer Vacation

Hi! My name is Emily! I'm a 9 year old blogger. I am really excited to start homeschooling again! Tomorrow I am going to the beach to celebrate the first day of homeschooling. I'm going to make stepping stones, origami, bird feeders, and many more crafts. Stay tuned for pictures of my fun! We'll also be going on lots of field trips.

Your friend,
Emily

Welcome to our school year!

 Welcome to A Rainbow In My Heart Homeschool! We are happy to have you following our blog regarding our homeschooling experience and activities!

Time for introductions! I am Tara (31yrs) and will be homeschooling my daughter Emily (9yrs) and I also work with my son Elliot (2yrs) on some activities. Emily will also be working on her typing skills by contributing to this blog with Mommy's help!

Now for some background...
I started out homeschooling Emily for preschool and kindergarten. At that point I was planning on homeschooling her for years to come but I would reevaluate each year as to what was best for her. August of 2008, it was apparent that it was not going to be the best decision to continue to homeschool for a variety of reasons. I prayed on the decision for two weeks until I had the answer. One week before school was to start I enrolled her in a private Christian school. In my heart I had always know that Emily would attend that school at some point. We love the school! Emily attended the school for first, second, and third grade. She made wonderful friends and really enjoyed her experience.

During this time, we welcomed a new family member! Elliot was born in July of 2009 after a very complicated pregnancy and premature delivery. He is now 25 months and is doing so well after we worked the kinks out! This experience was difficult at best for Emily as I was often admitted to the hospital, we had to move as I couldn't work anymore and we had many hurdles to overcome. With God by our side and our wonderful friends that blessed us through this time, we made it through.

So, now here we are, the fall of 2011 and the start of a new school year! We are doing it on our terms this time though! For a few reasons, I decided to not reenroll Emily in the private school. At first it was the financial aspect that pulled me away, but as I prayed and thought about what was best for Emily and our family, the answer became apparent. We did have an extremely generous offer from some very special and humble relatives to cover her tuition all the way through 8th grade. I am extremely appreciative of the offer, but by that time I had been praying on what to do and replaying the different struggles we had during the school year. It really came down to how disconnected I felt from Emily as she was gone 7.5 hours a day and then we'd have a night of homework, dinner, bath and bed. That is not the type of mom I am. I do not look forward to sending her back to school in the fall, it just doesn't sit right with me. I like to be involved with my children and engaged in their activities. I was not able to keep up with what Emily was studying in school and her progress as well as I would like to. As I said before I felt very disconnected from her and our evenings were busy. We'd have Good News Club and dance on Monday nights, so she'd only have about 2 hours at home during which she'd need to complete her homework and have dinner. Wednesdays were church nights with Awana for her and bible study for me. It was just too chaotic for us. I felt short tempered at times with being stressed about getting everything accomplished. At this time I will mention that I also run a regulated home daycare. With having an infant that was struggling in various ways unknown at the time and wanting to do more for my daughter, it was too stressful. I won't ever forget the one night when she had a project due the next day that had been forgotten about and I 'helped' too much with it, just to get it done.

So, now we are just one day away from Emily's 4th grade school year! We are so excited to start too! Emily definitely had mixed feelings when we discussed this over the summer but readily accepted my decision, although she will continue to miss her school mates and teacher. At a later time I will post her reasons why she liked 'going' to school and her reasons why she would like homeschooling again. It is very cute.

We are fortunate to know several families that homeschool also and Emily will have more time to have piano lessons again and other activities that would be difficult to do is she were away for the better part of the day. As it is, some good friends of ours and us will meet weekly on Fridays to learn together. Their Mom and I will plan weekly learning activites for our group of three. Emily will enroll in piano or guitar lessons and will also be a part of the youth worship team that just started up at our church. She will continue to go to Good News Club on Mondays, it is an after school club organized by CEF and run by some very wonderful woman! They meet in the public school cafeteria on Mondays from 3-4:30 to learn about the glory of God. Emily used to have to run the 5 blocks after her school let out at 3:05 to get to GNC as quick as possible. Now she will be able to be on time and more focused and without a heavy backpack to lug! She is also enrolled in Book Bunch at at our library. It is a group of 4th-6th graders that meet once a month to have a book discussion on the book that was assigned for that month.

With homeschooling, since the class is a very small size, in our case just one student, the work can be completed in just a few hours leaving the rest of the day for other activities and interest. We will get the bookwork done in the morning and will have the rest of the day for cooking lessons (one of her new interests!), to take lessons, have free play, write to her penpal in Indiana, and go on field trips. Emily loves hands on learning so being homeschooled will allow her many more chances to do projects and work on experiments. Something we'd like to get going soon is an indoor herb garden as she had her interest piqued at the Farmer's Market this past week when we picked up fresh basil. She asked questions about it and I told her that we could make our own herb garden at home! This is a learning experience for the both of us! More importantly, we will be able to learn and grow together during these last years of childhood. Soon enough she will be driving and working! These years will be cherished and remembered by us but will still go too fast. Emily will have more freedom throughout the year to visit her Grandparents across the country which they will all enjoy! Homeschooling has so many benefits!

Thank you for taking the time to read up on us and expect some great posts in the future!

In God I trust,
Tara