Hello everyone,

Welcome back to class.  It sure has been a season of colds and stomach bugs, sleepless nights and exhausting days, visits with the doctors—WOW!  I really feel like “super mom.”

Anyway, that’s all done now and we are ready to catch up and get back in gear.  Natalie is looking forward to doing her work online starting today.  She actually told me that she missed not going on her “homework page on t4l”–I guess she can’t get enough.

The one thing I have to say to everyone here is that it is amazing to me how quickly Natalie is learning to read.  I am just amazed and proud to see how well she progressing through letter sounds and words and her ability to read her books to me instead, although I have to admit that she wants to read to me at night and that usually means I fall asleep before she does.

I know that the time she spends on time4learning has been a tremendous help in her learning.  I now I’ve said this before, but I’ll say it again, I’m so glad I found this program.

Terie

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

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

Yesterday Natalie signed on and decided to start working on the Science curriculum which is really a 1st grade level. Needless to say I was a little concerned because it is a higher grade level. However, it so happens that she had reviewed this same subject in school.

The first section is called “Distinguishing Living and Non-Living Things,” lessons one and two are “What lives in the ocean” and “Ocean’s plants and animals.”

What made this particular lesson exciting is that we have been reading bed-time stories that relate to the ocean’s plants and animals and we recently visited a small aquarium with a huge tank that makes you feel like you’re underwater with all the creatures of the Chesapeake Bay. Natalie really enjoyed working on this section. She finished each lesson very quickly and came running to tell me how easy it was, then she went back to do the quiz and got a “mastered” score.

It was one of those really good days for her and for me, I just feel good to be able to help her make the connection from school to the real living things. Very exciting! It was an “Aha” moment for her and a great opportunity for hands-on experience.

I think it’s a good idea for kids to experience as much as possible of the real world so whenever possible we try visit the historic sites in our area as well as museums.

Everyone, keep up the good work.

Terie