What's been keeping us busy the last week or so...everything!!

I don't know who ever came up with the idea that summer was relaxing, but whoever it was they've never been to our home in the summer!!! We've been busy busy busy! 

We finished up our summer reading program at the town library. What an awesome librarian we have! Not only did she have weekly activities for all the kids but she brought in a magician, a mad scientist, Mr. Yo-yo and topped it all off with a pool party complete with prizes! 

We've also been finishing up some 4H projects that we took in to the fairgrounds on Sunday which includes this guy right here that Yip made at the last minute. A horrifying story, for me anyway, goes along with this guy. After Yip finished him which included putting him together with hot glue, I put him in the car Saturday afternoon so nothing would happen to him. It was hot that day...105 degrees hot and I didn't even think about it. But DR went out to the car that night for something and found that all the glue had melted and Ironman was in pieces!!! I felt soooo bad! Poor Yip had to glue the whole thing together again Sunday morning, but he did a great job and the 4H judges were pretty impressed. 

Yap talked the judge's ear off while sharing his Lego model. They think he has a future as a politician. Oh boy! 

Yip and Yap also talked to the electric judge about their shaker flashlights. He was most impressed that they could actually explain HOW the flashlight works! Yay! 

After we got home from dropping off projects Sunday,Yahoo decided she needed to make some projects too. So she sat down and made her own sculptures for the open class that we were able to take in the next day. 

Here's an Alien, but I didn't have to tell you that. 

And here's a bird nest with eggs and blankets, of course! 

Speaking of eggs we found the coolest experiment with an egg!! 

 I even have a video, but I can't get it to load up :(

  It's awesome though, you should try it! 

Not only have we been busy with 4H but our VBS started this week and I've spent most of the summer on the decorations. It's been awesome! And I heard a rumor about a pie in someone's face on Friday?? Hmmm... Pics to come! 

I am painting a School Mural!

In my boy's elementary school there was a large painting that measured 57"x 75". It hung right inside the entrance so it was on e of the first things you noticed when you walked in. I Hated IT!!! Everytime I looked at this painting I would just shudder. The objects were too small, so was the lettering and there was too much empty space with nothing big enough or bright enough to be a strong focal point. No offense to the artist who first painted it. Painting on an extra large space is intimidating and takes a different point of view. 

So imagine my excitement when one of my teacher friends asked if I'd be interested in re-painting it. I literally jumped up and down (in front of a class of 4th graders). Talk about making my day! I just love painting BIG!! 

(I had started to prime it before I thought to take a picture. The only thing you really don't see are some word's at the top.) 

I don't think there are too many more inviting things than a large blank surface just calling to me. 

It was decided that I'd choose a few different quotes or inspirational sayings and the teachers would narrow them down to a couple of their favorites. They chose; "You are Braver than you believe, Stronger than you seem, and Smarter than you think." and "Reading is Dreaming with your eyes wide open."

Then I came up with a quick sketch for each quote. I think these were about 2' x 3'. 

It was decided that I'd bring both drawings into the school and show them to the students and answer any questions they might have. Then the sketches were hung up in the hallway for a week for the studetns to look over. As a school they voted on teh one they would like for me to paint as the final mural. 

Can you guess which one they chose? 

I was anticipating that they would choose the girl reading the book.

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But they didn't. They chose the cliff diver by an overwhelming majority! 

I was able to get started just a little before Christmas vacation. The school is nice enough to let me paint in an older unused school building. Thank goodness because I don't know where I'd put a painting this big to work on in my house. 

I'm so excited and I'm having a ball with it! So far I'm fairly pleased too. 

I think the students are excited too. One fourth grader asked just last week if I was finished yet..such optimism! The fourth grade teacher is also going to drop in on the room occasionally, with her class, so they can see the progress of the painting.  

I'll keep you updated on how it's going. My goal is to have it finished by spring break. Cross your fingers! 

How the Squashes Arrived!

Just the other day we walked down the street and bought some pumpkins and squash. As we walked back Yip started telling an elaborate squash/pumpkin story. Once we got home I took pictures while he posed the pumpkins, then we printed them off into a little book and he wrote his story down. I've NEVER seen him sit so long to write before! So I thought I'd share his story with you today; How the Squashes Arrived! 

Once upon a time there was a pumpkin. But he was not always a pumpkin!

Then there was a big pumpkin. He came along. He was walking and then he tripped and fell on the little pumpkin! 

The little pumpkin was squash! The gig guy was asleep. The little pumpkin could not move! He was sad, very sad. 

The little pumpkin grew warts. He still could not move! And the big pumpkin was still asleep. He was small now. 

Then the big pumpkin woke up and walked away. The little pumpkin was now a squash. That how squashes arrived! 

The Never Ending Book Battle

If you were to walk into my house on any given morning, before breakfast mind you, this is what you'd see.

My kids with their noses stuck in a book. Don't get me wrong, I love to see my kids reading. I just wish they weren't reading all the time. My kids are such bookworms we actually have to have a "no books at breakfast" rule. I think they'd rather read than eat some days. 

Most days my living room floor and couch are littered with books. I shouldn't complain though, I'm glad they're reading. I'm just tired of tripping over books all the time. 

There are days it would be nice to put our bookshelves behind locked doors. 

Just for a little while. 

Something Wonderful to See.

I saw something wonderful yesterday. 

Here it is. 

Big brother reading to little sister. 

What's even better he sought her out and asked if he could read a book to her. 

I've been waiting for this moment since the day she was born. 

Amazing how much him reading to her helps me out. 

Boys Behold! The Power of Underwear!!!

Yes, that's right today I'm presenting to you the wonders of underwear! But not just any underwear but the power of all that is preshrunk and cottony....Captain Underpants!!

Captain Underpants is my boys' favorite series of books right now. Santa dropped off the series of eight books...and we've already read them all....and we are reading them again.

The Adventures of Captain Underpants is the story of George and Harold, two 4th graders who hypnotize their mean and nasty old school principal, Mr. Krupp, into believing he's Captain Underpants, the superhero in the comics the boys create. However, things get out of control and Captain Underpants has thrilling adventures with George and Harold in tow involving space aliens, Booger Boy, Super Bionic Hamsters, horrible cafeteria ladies and squishies.

If my boys EVER get caught doing a squishie I'll never let them read another book again. Don't know what a squishie is? A squishie, aptly demonstrated by George and Harold in their 6th epic novel, consists of sliding ketchup packets under the toilet seat so when the unsuspecting potty patron sits down ketchup gets squirted in their underwear. Nice...

Warning: IF you are an English teacher (the two of you I know read this blog) you may want to avert your eyes to the unpleasantness in the next photograph.

Captain Underpants books aren't always up on the rules of spelling or grammar.

And they can get violent. In fact every book has an incredibly graphic chapter in Flip O Rama. The art teacher in me loves Flip O Rama, teaching the basic principles of animation!

And there is PLENTY of gross little boy humor; Wedgie Woman, Booger Boy, accidentally turning their grandparents into superheros too, and hanging police officers from signs.

 (hee hee, I always think of my sister when I get to this page)

Captain Underpants books can get gross and immature and rolling on the floor funny.

But the best thing...the very best thing I've found in the Captain Underpants books is this.

Yip has been making his own comic books...tons of em'! He's constantly drawing and writing and always asking me how to spell something.

"How do you spell Frankenfart?"

"How do you spell evil?"
"How do you spell Poopypants?"

Okay, those aren't exactly the words I would choose to teach him to spell first but hey...my boy is excited about reading and writing! If wedgies and farts and squishies keep him reading then move over Superman because Captain Underpants will always be my hero! And that my friends is the power of underwear!

Homeschooling: Reading with Yip and Yap - Whatever Wednesday

Even though I have only been actively homeschooling  Yip and Yap since last fall, we had started reading much earlier. When the boys were only four, about the winter of 2008 I found this book at the library, which I later bought off Amazon.
The title itself was intriguing...100 Easy Lessons? Not only that but the book claims that it can be done in only twenty minutes a day. Well, I was working with four year olds and although it worked very well for us, 100 days, 20 minutes a day wasn't nearly close to what we experienced.

Following are examples of three different lessons from the book.

Lesson 3 - starts easy enough learning sounds, not the names of letters. The names of the letters aren't introduced until all the sounds have been learned.
Lesson 50 - Halfway through the book. You'll notice the funny print? It's designed to help children learn the sounds and blends of letters. Lesson 100 - The last lesson of the book. Quite a long passage and actually there are two additional pages to this lesson.
The concept of this book on the whole is very sound and works well. Not only do they introduce sounds before letter names but they also teach sounding out words along side sight words. However, the book was moving along too fast for us. Most lessons towards the end of the book took two days for us to finish if we only worked twenty minutes a day. We stopped at lesson 80 and began using beginning reading books from the library. Luckily our library has a wonderful selection to choose from. They even have Dick and Jane books!

Now that we had gotten to the point of reading library books without the repetition of the lessons from the reading book, I noticed after a while the boys had gotten into the bad habit of only looking at the beginning sounds of a word and then guessing at what it was. For example, if the book had the word THERE, the boys would see the TH and say THE or THAT or THIS without looking at the end sounds.

To help combat this I created a flip sound book for each of them. I bought two small notebooks and cut the pages into three sections. On each page of the first section I wrote consanants; B, C, D, F, G, and so on. In the middle section I wrote vowels; A, E, I, O, U and Y. Then in the last section I wrote the consanants again. So when the book was flipped they had a simple word with three separate sounds like CUP below.


After working with the simple sounds for a couple weeks, I added consanant blends to the first and last sections and vowel combinations in the middle. An example is below.

Now I know, well at least I think I know, that "sparth" isn't a real word. The great thing about these flip books is the funny sound combinations the boys come up with which makes them seem more like games than reading.

One of the reasons I have pushed my boys to read before kindergarten is because I remember my own brothers in elementary school. (They graduated high school in 09, 08, 06) None of them enjoyed school and I don't think any of them enjoyed reading at all. I felt that if the boys could get ahead and have some confidence before starting school it may make school a whole lot easier. The writing post will be coming to you next week!

P.S.- I just started reading Why Boys Fail: Saving Our Sons from an Educational System That's Leaving Them Behind and it has confirmed to me that I'm on the right track and that my brothers were terribly unprepared by the public schools. Hopefully I can post more about this once I'm done reading the book.

I homeschool my kids...sorta

I homeschool my kids....sort of. Let me explain.

As a former public school teacher I have seen first hand the downside of public schooling. Teachers can't give individual attention to the students who need it. There are too few resources in schools. The social aspect, especially as kids get older, is distracting to learning. I had thought about homeschooling Yip and Yap and had discussed it with my husband. But he was against it. Of course, I may not have argued very convincingly.

In my heart I am a teacher and I would love to return to the classroom someday. As well as seeing the downsides of public schools I also recognize that there are many positive aspects of public schools. Teachers have experience and resources most parents don't have access to. Sometimes students will listen to their teachers before their parents. (Yes, really!) There are lots of great teachers out there and there is so much students can learn from different teaching styles and personalities.

The boys' birthday is at the end of August and the cutoff date for kindergarten here in Illinois is September 1st. Technically, we could have sent them to kindergarten. (Our school system only offers full day kindergarten by the way.) Wisely, our preschool teacher advised against sending them. They would be the very youngest in the class and they just weren't ready. They were still immature and would rather play than sit and work. Go figure? Sending them to all day kindergarten wasn't going to work...yet. We decided to hold off a year and send them back to preschool.

Over the summer I worked with them a bit here and there on their numbers and letters, things like that. But I kept having the nagging feeling that I should be doing more. They may not be ready for full day kindergarten but why should that stop them from learning the basics? So in the fall I decided I would start teaching them at home; reading, writing, math. I didn't invest in any big curriculum or drop a lot of money on educational books and supplies. The resources I've used have been mostly free from the library and the internet. So far, it has been working fairly well.

Every morning after breakfast, we have a short math lesson and then a writing lesson that lasts about 30 minutes, sometimes longer. Later in the day, usually when the baby is sleeping, the boys have one on one time with me when we work on reading. Usually we only do this for about 15 minutes each. I don't push it more than that unless we are reading something the boys are really into. Sometimes I'll tie in these lessons with books the boys have been reading or a holiday. We've made quite a lot of progress, but I'll get into that later.

The rest of the day we'll work on craft projects, do science experiments,read, play games or just play. We bombard our local library once a week and pick up anything the boys may be interested in. Pirates, trains, space, snakes, spiders, human body, where babies come from, presidents, holidays, cowboys and Indians...we've checked out lots of different books!

During the next couple weeks I'm going to have a separate post for math, reading and writing and talk a bit about what the boys and I do here at home. The first post, math, will be coming up on Monday. These posts, of course, won't cover everything that we've done over the course of the year but it will hit the highlights and some of the more successful methods we've used.

So there you go. I homeschool my kids...sort of. We plan on sending them to public school next year and I am confident that they'll do great! I don't know what the future may bring. I might return to teaching; I might not. We might move and end up in a terrible school corporation and we might think again about homeschooling. Who knows? But for now, this is what we are doing and this is what works for us.