The News Report - CE #9

Yesterday was my first day of gymnastics. I had fun doing donkey kicks. I had fun jumping in those blocks. I did jump in the blocks. I had fun jumping on the trampoline. I had fun doing cartwheels. I did all of it at gymnastics.

(The assignment was to pretend to be a news reporter telling us about a family event that had recently occured. I tried to get him to say a sentence without saying "I had fun" but didn't have much luck as you can see. The whole thing sounds kind of like a Dr. Seuss story.)

Family Album - CE #8

Written January 1, 2009
My favorite part of going to Meme's house was playing with Meme. I like to see Brer. I like to see Meme and Pawpaw and HoHo and Granny. I played Brer's games. Played with Pawpaw with some of my men. I played with RJ. And watched TV at Meme's house. I had some pancakes. I watched TV with RJ. I drank some sweet tea. I drank some sweet tea with Meme and Pawpaw and RJ. The End.

(He loved this one. He was supposed to tell about a vacation or family trip that we took, and he wanted to tell about going to Meme's house. Can you tell we don't get sweet tea up here??)

Fable Narration - CE #7

Written December 26, 2008

"The Crow and The Pitcher"
Because he couldn't reach the water. The crow got some pebbles. The water raised up when he dropped the pebbles in there. The End.

(He wasn't as happy with this one because he didn't get to make up his own story. He just had to pick one of the fables that we had read this week and re-tell the story to me. He liked this story because we took one of our pitchers and made the water rise in it.)

The Day I Was Two Inches Tall - CE #6

Written December 21, 2008
I would get my feet on the bottom ladder part and slide my top body down until my feet touch the floor. I would try my best to go to the bathroom. Carnage gets discounted and that turns him good. Then he sprays off his web and reaches my house. Spiderman gave Carnage a spraying machine that can help people grow bigger. Carnage sprayed me on my leg and made me better. I got a little bigger, but I was still 4 inches tall. The End.

(This was our first one, and he was very proud that he was able to work Spiderman and Carnage into the story. I have no idea what he meant by "discounted" and I asked him many times if that was the word he was trying to say. I still can't figure out what he meant, but I think he likes to use big words just like his daddy!)

We're doing really well with schooling right now, and I especially like one section that we do every week. It's called Creative Expression. It's just giving the children ideas and letting them create something, or remember something and tell about it. We only do one of these a week, and I'm going to start posting them on here to everyone can read what Price has written.

Schedule

Here's our schedule for the 1st Nine Weeks. I thought it would be easier for me to use the Sonlight Curriculum and instead of doing a little from each book every day, I'm going to do all the reading for each book on a single day, i.e. We'll read all three chapters of the bible on Monday instead of one chapter every day. We will do Spanish everyday to keep in fresh, and we'll have to space out some of the story readings because the stories are pretty long and none of mine can sit still for three or four stories in a row! I'll try to check back in as often as I can!

Homeschool... the ups and downs

So... yeah... we started Pre-K, and the first week was fantastic. On Monday of the second week we were in the middle of doing school and got a call to go pick up a foster child. We finished our school while we waited on our call-back to say for sure we should go get him. We picked him up and it turned out that he is 2 instead of 1 :) That was at the end of June. He is 3 now, and still with us. So that week of school was a little more difficult, but we got it done. Day 1, Week 3, we are doing school and get a phone call about more foster children. 3 month old twins (one boy, one girl). I was so excited about babies I couldn't stand it! :) I said yes, and we went to get them. I'm not even sure if we finished that week of school or not, but needless to say I was OVERWHELMED with 5 children under 4 with 4 of them in diapers. The twins were both on oxygen and were considered "medically fragile" so to say that I had my hands full was an understatement. SO... I gave up on school... I just completely caved. I didn't even try to come up with solutions, I just quit. I hate to admit that about myself because I don't think I'm a quitter, but I did with this. I just quit!
Fast forward a little over 4 months, the twins are gone, and I'm wondering why I didn't think we were strong enough to do this. We had a great Halloween and now we're looking forward to Thanksgiving and going home for Christmas. We're also doing school again... I realize now that I should have allowed myself to just take a break instead of quitting all-together. I still have the Sonlight Curriculum, and I LOVE it! :) So that's what we're doing. We're going back and starting over and now that we still have our 3 year old foster child, we've included him in the lessons. They are both LOVING it, and we're having a lot of fun.
Lesson Learned: Think before you act!! AND Give myself a "rest" period when we get new foster children!!