This is science week for us. I chose this week mainly because fall has finally arrived and Natalie has been asking many questions about the leaves falling, the animals, the plants that die and the ones that live during this time of year. I remembered a while back that there is a section in the Science curriculum that focused on the world around us and recognizing the changes that occur as we enter each season, etc.

We just started this section and Natalie loves it. It also happens to be the same thing they are doing in class so that’s a huge plus. She only got as far as Spring yesterday with huge plans to finish that section today. However, it’s late and she might be a little tired tonight. She usually logs in after breakfast and before he bus comes in the morning.

The plan is to incorporate the lessons with real life activities outside. We live in Virginia, the souther part, and the weather is still somewhat mild around here. Side note here —>It’s really strange, however, that sometimes we play in the fall leaves and it’s 75 degrees outside, other days you have to wear gloves and a hat. Anyway, we went for a walk in our yard to find the flowers that grew in the spring and to talk about the changing colors now that fall is here.

I’m learning and enjoying this particular lesson as much as she is. Autumn and spring are my favorite seasons of the year, but I do look forward to snow and the crisp winter air– what better way to enjoy a hot cup of cocoa with marshmallows–yum!

I hope everyone is enjoying this colorful time of year as much as we are!

Terie

This week is focused on Math for Natalie. Since she did so well over the last few weeks on her Language Arts, we decided to take a brief brake to focus on numbers. Natalie is making some progress on recognizing coins and their value; time and the value of each number on an analog clock as well as counting by fives and tens - both of which are important when learning to tell time.

Today Natalie came home from school with “two good news.” “#1 there’s no school tomorrow; #2 I counted by fives all the way to 100.” OK now that’s good news. I told her that this means she should be able to read the clock on the kitchen wall. Now she makes it a point of going to that clock to read the time. She looks at the clock and once she figures out where the “little chubby hand” is then she counts by fives until she reaches the “long skinny hand” to figure out the minutes. Pretty smart huh? OK so I’m biased. Anyway, I’m very proud of her accomplishments with numbers.

Another exciting thing that happened this weekend was her showing off her lessons to my dad. My dad does not speak English nor does he even understand computers. But he sat next to her and watched her work and then figured out what she was doing and even joined her in some of the sorting and counting lessons. It was very sweet. You have to understand, we don’t see Abuelo often enough and we all miss him very much. My kids don’t speak spanish and that’s my fault, sort of. English has become more second nature to me because I don’t really have a community of spanish speaking friends to speak with on a regular basis so I got a bit lazy and failed at teaching a second language. I am working on that because I do want them to talk to my dad next time we see him. It would be cool if we had a program like T4L to help them learn while having fun. Any recommendations?

Well, that’s all for now. Hope everyone is getting over the cold, flu, and any other issues going around.

Good Night.

Terie

Well, like many of you, we have had one of those very strange weeks.  I am the last person to get sick in my house so when I do, you know things are getting ugly.  My husband injured his ankle with an axe- that meant a few hours in the ER–once he got passed the pain, we laughed it off and the ER was totally empty.  It was a complete housekeeping accident, he’ll be fine once his stiches are heeled. Both my older kids have had a perpetual cold due to the seasonal allergies, my dad is visiting from the Dominican Republic, he’s a diabetic so I have to be careful what I feed him–you know I can’t get away with pizza and Mac N Cheese, plus I totally expected him to get sick as well.  He did not so far–Thank God!  He did however get a small stomach virus which lasted a day.  He’s also fine.  The baby did not get sick but he’s teething, which means I’m not sleeping.  Natalie has a bad cold which caused her to stay home from school today.  She’s better now but was up three times last night with either a headache, a fever or needing water.

OK so basically, I did not sleep last night and kids for some reason, get better during the day, while mom’s are still trying to recover from lack of sleep.  I asked Natalie to go online and do her lessons so that I could rest while the baby takes his nap.  She was so sweet. She said, “if I do all my lessons, can I have an extra halloween treat?”  I said, “I will give it to you in advance if you let me take a 1/2 h our nap.”  Negotiation at work here.

Natalie did a few lessons, read some of her stories, practiced her words and was so, so good for me today.  I did not nap, but I was able to have a mental break.  Once the time was up, because she was not about to forget when time was up, she showed me all the work she had done.  She’s very excited working on the first grade material now.  She is looking forward to doing the same in math, however, she has a little bit of work to do there first.

So after all this chaos in my house, it was not only my positive attitude that kept me from cracking under pressure, but having time4learning to keep my little Natalie busy while I took a recovery break.  You guys are the best…I agree with that!!

Thanks.

Terie

Good Morning Everyone,

I have very exciting news! My little Natalie currently in Kindergarten attending public school has moved from her Kindergaten Language Arts to First Grade Language Arts Curriculum. She was so excited when she did the last review and realized that she knew everything.

I noticed over the last couple of weeks that she avoided the Kindergaten Language Arts lessons. Finally I said, why don’t you just do the review so we can see how much you know. She went through all three reviews in about 15 minutes with flying colors. I told her that she will be able to work on 1st grade lessons from now on which is good because they are working on some of these lessons in school as well. That was music to her ears. She was so excited and asked if she could tell all her friends and maybe have a sleepover–Ha Ha!! Anything to get her way. She will have a play date with some of her friends later this month- she earned it.

The reason, I believe, she did she well is because we started over the summer and although she may not do lessons everyday, she does well and really enjoys the online programs as well as the playground activities provided. She can recognize many of her site words and is doing really well recognizing words in her first reader books. I give her different books just to be sure she’s not memorizing but actually reading.

I just wanted to share this with everyone– this has been a great week for Natalie!!

Terie

I am posting this blog because recently I’ve been reading or hearing in the news the statistics about children with adult diseases. I am not surprised to hear the latest statistics on diabetes and high blood pressure in kids.  It is sad but so much can be done to prevent such problems from occurring to our kids.  I visited my daughter’s school last week to attend a PTA meeting after which I decided to have lunch with her and some of her friends.  The girls, all in 8th grade, had little or no concept of nutrition or what they were putting in their mouth.  Cafeteria food may not be the most balanced meal out there, in my opinion, but still kids can have a decent meal if they choose to or they can bring their own.

However, I don’t blame the cafeteria food or the fast food industry for the problems these kids face.  To my point, it all starts at home.  I honestly don’t rely on PE in school to keep my kids in shape and really teach them the importance of nutrition, reading labels, and most important portion control.  I truly believe in teaching children by example.  My plea to everyone out there…homeschoolers and traditional education alike, make physical fitness and nutrition a part of your child’s curriculum.  You don’t need special equipment or books to be a good role model for your kids.  I’m a fitness instructor and personal trainer certified by AFAA but I work mostly with adults and seniors.  I love working with kids because they tend to have more energy, like me.   One of my favorite websites is kidshealth.org.  This site puts the information in a language kids and parents can understand.  Here you will find information about everything and anything about kids health, including a section about fitness and nutrition.

It’s obvious to me that we all want the best for our kids, otherwise we wouldn’t be on this blog getting excited over every little achievement.  In fact, use what they learn in their Time4Learning lessons in reading, math, and science to teach them about the nutrition label, bones, muscles, digestive, respiratory and cardiovascular systems, etc..  It’s never too early to make them aware of what part of the body does what and why it’s important to live a healthy lifestyle.

Natalie and I used one of the Kindergarten Math lessons to learn about nutrition:  In the lesson she was asked on which day of the week a certain meal was served in the cafeteria…etc.  Basically, she had to learn to read a calendar.  She was pretty excited when she was able to find her birthday on the calendar–anyway, after the lesson we created our own calendar for the current month and then she asked if we could write in what we were going to eat on each day.  Of course I jumped on that idea.  I told her that we had to make sure each meal had one from each food group: Grains, Veggi or fruit, Protein, Dairy, etc.  We had a great time working on this project, which has become a weekly activity.  We only do one week at a time as it is a time consuming project.  Ever Sunday we cut cupons and make a menu for the following week.  It’s really a lot of fun and great bonding time for us as a family– my older kids have joined in the fun too.

Many of you probably already do this…Kudos to you!