First day, first grade

I wasn't sure what to expect today and I'm still not sure what to expect for the rest of this week but I wanted to at least blog about our first day. Today was the first day of first grade for Claire. This is also the first year using a curriculum so it's all new for me as well. We actually officially started last night when I read "The Magic Spindle" from our Fairy Tales book. Kellyn didn't care to listen to the story which was a bit unusual but Claire really enjoyed it. This morning during breakfast I asked her how she liked the story last night and we talked about it for a couple minutes. She retold me the story during this conversation and that was the first part of language arts done for the day. I was pretty sure she didn't know what a spindle was so I pulled up some youtube videos to watch together. We enjoyed this one and this one and Claire said we need to get a spinning wheel soon so we can do this.

After breakfast dishes were cleaned up the girls played with their Lego sets for a little while. I grabbed some of our main lesson books and block crayons and sat down in the living room with them. I started to draw the upper case and lower case "Aa". The girls immediately came over, picked which color booklet they wanted to use and drew their very own "Aa". Claire asked me if I could read the story over again and sure enough Kellyn wasn't thrilled but she listened anyway. Claire drew a picture of a spinning wheel and of a girl with dirty hair, which was from the story we read last night.

Kellyn asked for some computer time so she went upstairs to play her search and find game. Claire stayed downstairs with me to build while I read about the moon and moon phases to her. We worked on a calendar for August and she painted it with water colors, social studies and art complete. I have this great DVD collection I bought recently at Costco with 100 Storybook Classics. I was looking through them and came across Moon Man. I thought it was fitting since science is about the moon, moon phases and charting them on the calendar. They liked it, Kellyn really enjoyed the Pete's a Pizza story which was about a Mom and Dad who pretend their son, Pete, is pizza dough so they roll him around on the counter, pretend to put pizza sauce and pepperoni on him. It has nothing to do with "school" but they enjoyed it so that's all the matters.

Kellyn was done with computer time so Claire switched with her and Kellyn wanted to paint with watercolors. She had a good time and her painting is lovely. Kellyn's is on the left and Claire's calendar is on the right. This wrapped up the lessons planned for the day. The girls took goofy pictures by the chalkboard and were ready for lunch. They helped me prepare it which was nice. Claire helped with peeling a cucumber and then she cut it up. They both helped me prepare macaroni and cheese too. We cleaned up the dishes and I noticed all of our brown bananas on the counter. We made a double batch of banana bread together which is math. Kellyn helped squeeze dishwashing liquid into the dishwasher and started it for me.

 We finished watching some of the movies from the storybook dvd. One of my favorite stories is The Five Chinese Brothers which brought back memories of when my brother read it to me, it was nice sharing that memory with them.

We are looking forward to seeing the moon tonight so Claire can draw it on her calendar. She's hoping it won't be cloudy. That will wrap up science for the day.

Now we are smelling delicious banana bread that is almost done baking in the oven. The girls are busy playing and it's been a wonderful day so far. Now I know this is not going to be the norm every day. We will have really great days and days we struggle but that's life in general. Some may think today was too easy of a day and that's alright. It was the first day and the first trimester of the curriculum is a lot of review in the language arts section while adding in new things as well. If you're reading this out of curiosity about homeschooling you can easily see how it was all incorporated into our daily routine without it really being school time. The curriculum is a guide (this is more of a reminder for myself on my days of panic), this doesn't mean that learning is only happening when I'm teaching from the syllabus. There was nothing in the language arts section that suggested learning more about spindles or spinning wheels but we did because Claire was curious. Nothing was planned today for a math lesson but we did math while we baked banana bread and "lessons" like this happen daily for all of us. I'm looking forward to this first grade year, I'm excited to see where her curiosity leads us! Today is a great day!

This little girl is doing so well writing letters on her own. She's a little lefty and writes them all completely backward. It'll be interesting to see how her handwriting changes as she gets older. Writing as a lefty will be completely new to me so we will learn together I suppose. She also can almost spell Eevee (yes the pokemon) on her own, who cares about her own name? Ha!

Reflecting a little on our year!

Claire isn't feeling well and both girls are down for a nap. I don't even remember the last time they both napped like this. The clouds are over the house for another afternoon rain storm so I figured I'd take some time to look through the girls' papers I've saved over our first year of homeschooling. I wanted to share some of my favorites.

Claire's art work:

 

It's no surprise she named her gingerbread man, Farty. It's not just boys who are sent into giggles over bodily functions.

Foxes, black leopards and dogs have been a huge love of Claire's all year. She is a huge animal lover and talks about them constantly. Most of the things she talks about doing when she's older are animal related and I'm so happy that we learn so much about different animals together.

We received multiple post cards which was always exciting for the girls. I don't even have them all pictured. Grandpa Dan sent quite a few from different countries around the world, Mimi sent some fun ones from Idaho, Claire got one from Michigan from another homeschooling family, a Disneyland one from Nina and another one from a friend who was visiting family in South Africa.

She really likes drawing many pictures of our family. I love finding them around the house.

 

Claire absolutely loved learning about the northern lights in her Explorer's class. She has watched many videos of them and asks sometimes if we will be able to see them where we live. It's one of those things that I know will stick with her for a long time or maybe forever. I'd love to have a family vacation one year to take the girls north to see them some day!

 

Daddy took Claire to Monster Jam and we got to meet a monster truck driver at Chick-fil-a when they were in town. They had a blast and Kellyn says she wants to go next year too.

 

Kellyn also received postcards from Grandpa, Mimi, Nina and friends!

 

Kellyn's art work:

 I remember the day Kellyn made this leaf. It was back in the fall and she kept putting on so much food coloring that I thought the leaf would rip apart. It turned out so beautiful and with lots of gold glitter on it also. I had it hung up for the longest time and I'm so happy it didn't rip.

Kellyn draws on so many pieces of paper. SO MANY! She has hundreds of papers around the house that she is always drawing funny people, houses and now letters.

I forgot I had bought a Kiwi Crate kit on clearance at Target one day. I happened to see them and though we could try it. I've always thought the actual subscription is a bit expensive but it's honestly so worth it. The quality of the supplies and all of the extras inside the kits are really great. We had a full week of fun with the space theme. There are stories, recipes and other activities inside of the booklets. The girls made planet mobiles that hang from the ceiling in their room.

She's our artsy girl!

Kellyn has picked up on writing letters completely on her own. I can't remember when she started writing them but she covers pages with letters. She writes them mostly backward and I just love watching her write. She just figured out how to write the letter W yesterday, she was so proud and even knew what letter it was. Some she knows and others she doesn't recognize yet. She's also been asking a lot about letter sounds and is understanding them so quickly. I feel she will be a quick learner when it comes to reading.

If I posted every single piece of paper and art work it would never end! It's so fun to be able to look through their papers and remember when we did certain things together and it brings back a lot of fun memories. I really feel so incredibly grateful for the opportunity to follow their interests and dreams right along with them every single day.

Last day of Kindergarten!

Yesterday was Claire's last day of her Explorers Class. We attend Natural Learning Alternative (NLA, it's a nature based preschool co-op) on Wednesdays from 10-1. From 10-12 the big kids (ages 5-8) are right next door doing fun things together for 2 of those hours and for the last hour they come over to NLA and we are all together outside. It's a homeschool enrichment class.

Next Tuesday is the last day for Claire's Lego Jrs Club class and that wraps up her enrichment classes she chose to do. She is really looking forward to Explorers Summer Day Camp in June for a few days. We will continue to meet up with friends every week. Lots of days at the lake to have some relief from the heat and humidity. Lots of exploring, reading, questions, playing and life. She is loving anything math related, dragon related, bike riding related, and just being outside. She literally tried to refuse dinner the other night because she didn't want to come inside. She was asking to eat but once I called her in she tried to tell me she wasn't hungry anymore.

Next week is also the last week of NLA for Kellyn with me. It's our home away from home on Wednesdays. We have another full year of our Wednesdays together until she can join big Sis at the Explorers class if she chooses. She's always so curious and asks so many amazing questions every day.

Our girls are learning so much, thriving, enjoying life and enjoying childhood. I'm proud of the little ladies they are. I'm looking forward to more of our homeschooling journey, learning things right along with them and sharing answers to things that I do know. (I don't know everything, shocking I know!) My life as a mother is so different than I envisioned even just 2 years ago. I pictured my girls in school and I hoped to be the Mom who helped out often in the classroom. I knew I would want to be extremely involved. I am this Mom but in such a different way. I get to experience so much with my girls and I wouldn't trade our time for anything.

One of those days....

Today started out really great. The girls woke up, I made coffee, they ate breakfast and the sun was shining bright through the front room. Claire opened one of her birthday gifts from a friend and started building a fort. I played my new Frank Sinatra record and a little bit of Shirley Temple and I felt pretty good even though I'm running on little energy. Kellyn comes into our bed every night, she starts out in her bed and sometime after midnight she comes into our room. Most nights are fine and we sleep as well as you can with a 3 year old. The past few nights she is karate kicking her legs and whining at the same time which wakes me up every single time. My hubby and I are just starting the process of buying our first home. I'm not knowledgeable in this area at all so I've been reading and researching and I decided to call the bank. A "quick" phone call. I let the girls know that I was going to be on the phone with the bank and to keep playing and building forts. The phone rang maybe three times and Kellyn was on the floor crying because she couldn't get her headband on her head. I hurried to help and thought the crisis was averted. I was talking to a man named Ryan and looking up info on the computer at the same time for our phone call and I look over to see Kellyn chowing down on her third Babybel cheese! Not one or two but three. I hadn't even been on the phone for ten minutes, she inhaled them. She also had a Stonybrook yogurt smoothie and was asking me for a second one while her third Babybel cheese was still in her mouth. I told her she couldn't have another smoothie and I headed upstairs while she cried. I'm such a terrible Mommy. As I sat at Chris' desk upstairs in our room Kellyn followed me up and decided it was time to jump on our bed and clap as loudly as possible.....Ryan is still on the phone talking to me about interest rates, estimated mortgages and other things that I couldn't tune into. He was kind enough to just email me all of the information he told me. I was on the phone for far too long and was thankful when that call was over, I'm sure Ryan was also.

Things kept going downhill after that. Claire said she was done building her fort and wanted to get ready for the park after lunch. I asked her to pick up her rods and connectors. It was too much and with the whining, lack of sleep, unnecessary behavior during the phone call I just got done with and again, lack of sleep. I lost my cool and screamed my head off. I literally threw a tantrum worse then our 3 year old, stomped upstairs and closed the door. Man, I hate when this happens. I try so hard to be calm, understanding and work through things but every once in a great while I turn back into a toddler who can't express my feelings except through yelling and stomping. The girls cried, I cried and then once I calmed down I talked to them about how I was feeling and I said I was sorry. We ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and headed to the park. I'm really grateful for friends, sunshine, and fresh air. The girls burned off a lot of energy and it's always nice to have time to talk to friends about how crazy I'm feeling.

I'm super tired and just feeling blah. I'm trying to just shut my brain off so I can sleep for the night. Blogging or writing in my journal helps. I'm looking forward to not having weekly obligations. I will probably sound like a whiner to some considering the girls and I have a pretty flexible and open schedule during the week. Lego Club for an hour on Tuesdays, NLA for 3 hours on Wednesdays and dance for an hour on Fridays. I really love our places each week but I also feel like I need some more down time. I want more time to prep meals, cook dinner regularly, read books and just time to be with my girls doing our own thing. I'm having one of those days when I feel like I want to do it all but I can't do that. I'm logging off and heading to bed really early. I'm hoping to feel much better in the morning and a be more realistic about the expectations I'm putting on myself. Why can't I wiggle my nose like Samantha and have a spotless house and gourmet meals, is that too much to ask?

What are we up to lately?

A little update on the girls.  We have one less tooth in the family. Claire lost her very first tooth and she's anxiously awaiting for her new tooth to start coming through. She asks me daily to check her gums to see if anything is there. We've been busy with friends and enjoying the beautiful weather. We recently filled up our bird feeder and have been watching all the different kinds flying around. The cardinals are my favorite. I think we need to see if hummingbirds are in our area and get a feeder for them also. Grandpa came to visit which was really great. The girls had a lot of fun. He spent a whole day with them while Chris and I went to NASCAR. They spent time outside, got muddy, took a bath, made a glitter mess and kept Grandpa busy just about the whole time. I'm thankful he got to come visit Georgia!

We worked on some balancing skills. Some friends met up with us at a skate park and Claire borrowed a skateboard. She was determined to try to move on it standing up and she fell a few times in the grass. She liked it though. Grandma and Grandpa sent her a really cute Frozen skateboard for her upcoming birthday! Also a new scooter and accessories like a new helmet and pads.

 

Kellyn and I enjoyed the trail at NLA together several times. She usually likes to run through it.

 

Books, books and more books! We always check out a crazy amount of books from the library and there was recently a used book sale that we went to. We got a bunch more books we need to make room for somewhere. We are starting to have books lining up in the hallway upstairs along the wall. If we owned this house I'd want built in shelves for the huge wall we have in the living room. Some of our favorites have been picture books like Journey and Quest by Aaron Becker, he has a new book coming out this fall called Return that I'm looking forward to getting too. Also Iggy Peck the Architect and Rosie Revere the Engineer are a hit too.

 

Claire is really into math and it's typically at the most random times. It usually comes up in the car. Numbers seem to be flowing through her mind while she's sitting in the back seat. She likes adding numbers and/or counting. It's an amazing thing to hear your child start skip counting all on their own. She started counting all the way to 20 and then skipped by 10's and counted all the way up to 70. I've never worked on skip counting with her. Here is some math she wanted to do and asked Daddy for help with. They like it when I count to 100 and Kellyn works so hard to count up to 20 and then she skips to 100.

One of the many Lego builds she creates. The girls build just about every day.

 

I had a full day with my peanut one day while Chris took Claire to Monster Jam. It was fun spending one on one time together and we had a great day. She's my silly girl. We splurged on chocolate cake at Ikea and shopped 'til we dropped.

Kellyn is having a heck of a time with her new scissors so she just uses both hands and shreds paper like Edward Scissorhands.

 

Kellyn is great at drawing people. It's pretty much her main thing she likes to draw. It started out as a circle with two eyes and a straight line for a mouth and over time she's started adding legs, arms, hair and smiles. One day she started to add eye lashes. It was just one of those little details she seemed to pick up on and it was great to see. On these people she glued googly eyes on them which is fun. She's very artistic and gravitates toward music more then Claire. They are so different and I love seeing their differences. Kellyn really picks up on lyrics from music we listen to in the car and lately she doesn't want me to put on kid music.

This year our focus isn't on reading. There is no need to push it, sit down lessons just aren't our thing. Claire has a good amount of words she can spell and she writes in all caps. She has written her letter I in a lower case for some time now but the rest of the letters are upper case. Just over the weekend she brought us a piece of paper to show us her letter e. She was so proud and she did it on her own. It's really so amazing to see this process of her learning new things on her own when she's ready. Also for the past couple days letter sounds have been on her radar. When she asks for help to spell certain words she understands most letter sounds but it's not something she's mastered or really cared to. Now she's on a roll and is doing so well with the sounds. On the way home from the aquarium today she was just sounding them all out and I loved hearing it. I'm sure reading will be sooner then I think it will be.

The girls have been finding some big rocks out front and she wanted to break one in half to see what it looked like. She discovered it's a bit sparkly and rough.

Kellyn really enjoyed our new king bed this morning while we watched cartoons! We also spent a couple hours at the aquarium checking out the penguins, sea turtle, whale sharks and sting rays.

Growing up is so tiring!

We've been busy with life and so many questions come along with that. We have some big carpenter bees that hang around in our front yard so I've been asked many questions about bees and stingers. We had a huge box that we turned into a big cardboard play house in the front yard and today Claire asked me how boxes are recycled. I need to remember to look that up on youtube. Kellyn has been showing interest in gymnastics but I'm hesitant to sign her up for anything right away. She also wanted to try ballet with Claire but decided she didn't want to on the first day. She's not quite 4 and I'm not in a rush to try a bunch of things, we have lots of time for that.

 

Lego Club is starting a new term tomorrow so we will be at the Learning Village each Tuesday for the next 8 weeks. We are enjoying NLA and Explorer's until summer break. I think Claire will enjoy NLA summer camp as long as we are in town for it. I also bought a 1st grade curriculum and have been feeling more confident about it the more I read it. It's a very gentle and hands on curriculum. It doesn't have worksheets or busy work, it's something we just incorporate into our everyday lives. I'm looking forward to that once we start it. I was totally panicked and freaking out a bit once I actually bought it, it can be so overwhelming with all of the choices out there for homeschooling families. I'm feeling better about it though.

 

Some things we have coming up to look forward to:

Claire turns 6

Easter is 4 days after her birthday this year

The kittens turn 1

Kellyn turns 4

Danny and Milan are getting married

Road trip to Boise and Portland

Lauren and Jeff are getting married, we get to meet cousin Gavin

Jake turns 9

Lots of hot days at the lake with friends

Trying to help my BFF plan her wedding this fall! It's hard being so far away 

We've had a good start to 2016 and I'm grateful for all of our adventures!

The cold bug strikes

This week is so different from last week. I was hopeful that the cold bug wouldn't visit us this winter but we couldn't avoid it. Chris was sick a few weeks ago and we was quarantined to the bedroom for a few days and he's feeling better. I have a head cold that worked it's way down into a chest cold. I want to kick this fast and not miss out on events this week with friends.

Kellyn did some water paints last week at the Learning Village while Claire was at her Lego Club.

Claire was moody last week while we snuggled so I had fun taking goofy pics while she was watching a cartoon.

The girls and I had a lunch date at Chick-fil-a and headed to the library afterward. We picked up a bunch of books at the library and went back to get icecream cones. Once we got home Kellyn wanted to bundle up with blankies while wearing Claire's sweater and eat cold icecream.

The girls have been having a lot of fun with dominoes lately. Kellyn likes to line them up in different rooms and Claire tried lining them up into letters to knock over.

 Kellyn likes messing around with this Eric Carle learning pad that Claire got from her friend in Oregon. It comes with several books and you can spell out words, listen to letter sounds or listen to animal sounds. She's pretty quick with it and as always it's fun to see her looking through books. She's our little bookworm.

Sweet Sisters

Heart sunglasses from Grandma!

Heart sunglasses from a Valentine from a friend in her Explorer's class.

The girls each got a new Lego set on Saturday after the Lego Friends build we went to. It was a lot of fun for Claire. She felt slightly nervous at first but warmed right up. It was themed like camp like the new Lego Friends camp sets. The kids were put into groups to think of camp foods they like to eat, camp activities, decide on a camp flag and color and to free build as a team. Claire was in a group with two other girls and they chose to be the purple unicorns just like Claire's shirt. They all built a tree fort together and had a great time.

Kellyn really started to not feel well Saturday and ended up crawling into bed on her own around 7pm. She woke up a little while later crying and upset so I helped her change into pajamas and got her settled back into bed for the night. I started to not feel that well that night too and felt worse on Sunday.

Unfortunately Valentine's day wasn't spent doing fun, lovey things together as a family or as a couple. Chris got me and the girls cards and he got me a coffee bean grinder which is totally awesome. I made breakfast for Chris and tried resting the rest of the day. Monday was a lazy day. Kellyn napped, I tried to rest, Claire kept herself very busy which was  nice to see.

Today is similar to yesterday. Kellyn isn't 100% but she's full of more energy and sass. The girls have been busy with Lego's, watched a couple movies, played with Littlest Pet Shop stuff and Kellyn glued a bunch of paper together for me as a gift.

We are hoping to be well enough for NLA tomorrow but I will most likely drop Claire off for her 2 hour Explorer's class with friends. I asked her if she would be alright with being dropped off and I can pick her up right after. Usually when their class is over the big kids walk over to NLA where the Moms are with the little siblings and with Ms Joy. Claire says she wants to go over to see Ms Joy and to play with her friends still. I'm so thankful to have a great community of friends who are willing to keep an eye on Claire and help her out if she needs to while she hangs with friends for an extra hour.