Well we have been busy and thing are still rocking and rolling with normal “stuff”……   We were gone all day Saturday and although it was not freezing, it was chilly.  The boys had a great morning with Kati’s kids at the park and then we flew almost 2 hours away to a Master’s Institute program that was a reenactment of the Oregon Trail.  It was an incredible day all around but the kids were outside all day from about 9-6pm and Q ended up a little bit under the weather.  He had been fighting the same cold that we all have had and the day out in chilly weather got him.  Sunday was a very quiet day for him and this morning he is still under the weather…. No big deal, the boys never get really sick and this will hopefully be our only sickness of any kind this winter!

With that being said I am bound and determine that they are going to stick with the schedule and they are going to not get out of school work for any reason other than loss of limb or the one day that we are actually traveling all day to go to Florida.  There will be no excuses, no begging, and no skipping of days this year for any reason.  So I was ready….  Armed and prepared.   They woke and did their normal routine for the most part, turned on water for hot cocoa (but I talked Q into hot green tea with honey for quicker healing), got breakfast, and got on the puter to play a game.

Enough time passed for them to finish breakfast and wake up and I told them to get started on school work.  They both signed on.  Of course, Z said: “Q’s sick so we should not have to” but that is as far as it went.

I know that I tend to gush…..  But hey…..  When you have something that is working it is fun to gush….

Thank you all for your kind words.  John, I am glad that the blockage was found before surgery.  I was very nervous about surgery because his white count was ok, but I worked with the surgeon for several years and trusted his judgment.  He said that the white count is not always raised in appendicitis.  They gave us pictures of the inflamed little booger…..I will upload them if everyone wants to see…..  Hey science for the kids….   They are Eeeewie, but not to bad.  

First off let me say WOOOHOOO to Z ( and mom) for completing the LA lessons!!!  That brings to mind a question about the LA section.  Are the extensions a part of the LA curriculum or are they just “extensions or extra practice” ?  ( Is that proper punctuation…the ” followed by the ? …  I think mom needs more grammar….aaahhhh) Also, has anyone come across the need for using the writing tool ?  I am wanting my children to do weekly writing assignments but have not seen where the writer is used?   

As you know we are new to homeschooling.  We have had the usual objections from parents…they are supporting but reluctantly. On Tuesday my son will go and take a academic assessment test given at our local university, ( the girls already took it last week during the appendix issue) ….so the girls will spend the morning with my mom.  Thanks again to T4L I will not have to worry about their school work.  Hopefully seeing how great this program is and how much fun the kids have with it my mom will be less reluctant…..   I will keep you posted!!

Hi everyone! ) I hope this finds everyone doing well. Our family is STILL coughing and sniffling, but I suppose with the weather changes in our area (warm, cold, warm, cold), that is to be expected.

I was wondering, with the holidays approaching (and approaching so fast…I just put away my Christmas decorations from last year, didn’t I?!?), what kind of schedule does everyone keep? Homeschoolers – do you take the same breaks as the school system in your area? What about the public schoolers – do your children do their supplemental T4L even though school is out?

In the past, when we used a different curriculum, we would literally take from Thanksgiving to New Years off. There was just too much to do between family visits and shopping, cub scout stuff and Christmas caroling at a nursing home with our homeschool group… and more shopping… ) Not to mention how intensive the preperations were for the other curriculum, it was just SO much. I am really looking forward to this Holiday season. Having Time4Learning in our lives, I don’t really see any schedule conflicts, which is such a relief. Not only do I not have to feel guilty about Bailey not doing any school work over the holidays, we won’t have to make up so much time during the summer. )

Also…I would LOVE some recommendations for some good Holiday (we celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas, but we are interested in teaching about the other holidays that occur in this time of year as well) activity type lessons. The last couple of years, I just Googled information and printed some worksheets and stories. That worked out, but I noticed last year that a lot of the stuff I was finding we had already done, or it wasn’t age appropriate.

Thanks and I hope everyone is having a great week! )

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