Mission of the Month: Happy Holidays

November Mission Update: My November mission to prep for the holidays by creating Christmas Countdown Binder was a success!  I began using a planner by Organized Christmas, but discovered quickly that it needs some adjusting.  Week One was very simple and involved getting organized.  Week Two was reality check.  We decided this year that we were going to send out Christmas cards, but the question was what to send?  Do we buy cards?  Do we make them?  Do we send pictures?  We came up with two solutions -- make half and then the other half include a photo.  Decision made.  With our Master Christmas Gift List made and the inventory of the Gift Closet we are well on our way to completing our Christmas shopping early.  I have also set up a holiday housework plan and have delegated chores to each family member.  I even started on the stockings that I found on Family Fun!

I'm BACK! (September/October Update)

Yes, I know the last post was September 20 and after a dozen emails AND phone calls, I am finally getting around to posting our activities.  I know that there were some things I forgot to put in my September post so I will the time to do that now as well.  Be prepared we were busy during October and there will be a lot of photos and maybe even a video if I can figure this out.

November Mission of the Month

In my last post, I gave the update on my successful October Mission!  Now it is time for me to make my November Mission but my mind is blank.  In the past I have had no problem making a list a mile long of things I need (or think I need) to do.  I know there are things that need to be done or that I want done, but sitting here my mind is blank.

October Mission of the Month Update

As I was cleaning this month, I found a trivet (really I knew where it was) that was given to my by my dear mother-in-law that she received for a wedding gift:

Apology
Although you'll find
our house a mess,
Come in, sit down, converse.
It doesn't always look
like this -
Some days it's even worse.

This month I took the advice of Mary Poppins and found that "element of fun." 

September Mission of the Month Update

Since I cannot post to the About Mama page (don't ask I don't know), my personal posts will be on the home page as well.  As I will be 'experimenting' throughout the rest of the week (and most likely the weekend) be forewarned that when you come back to visit, it will probably not look like it does now.  So on with the story.

Who is your hero (fiction or non-fictional)?  At this very moment mine would have to be Ms. Mary Poppins.  Mary Poppins, the woman who could do anything.  As a child, I remember laying on the floor with my brother watching Mary Poppins for the first time (on VHS).  Although I have no idea what my brother thought of the movie, I know I was in awe of how fun she made life.  Being able to jump into chalk drawings was cool, but "In every job that must be done, there is an element of fun. You find the fun, and - SNAP - the job's a game!"

International Talk Like A Pirate Day. . . (was yesterday!)

Ahoy me hearties!  Shiver me timbers, ayeterday was International Talk Like a Pirate Day! (Yes, indeed there is such a thing!) Did you participate?  We did as we do every year.  If you didn't you should be sent to Davey Jone's Locker you should!  We even had our own treaaye hunt with map and all!

If you hear me come to my voice. . .

Last night, Gert and I attended a triage assessment course provided the the local CERT program.  Although I have taken this course before, I found there was a lot I had forgotten and it was a great refresher course.  Now Gert had never been exposed to this so it was all new to her.  Originally she was just going to play games on my phone but quickly decided since everyone was pretending to be hurt she would too -- her first assignment was to play dead! 

Leaping Lizards

Finally!  We made it outside!  We took pictures of a number of buildings that are in our community - the market, the County Historic Preservation  building, one of two churches, one of two parks, the nature preserve where they filmed Hoot, and the Fort Lauderdale Fire Museum.  If you watch the new TV show The Glades on A&E, one of the episodes was filmed in a friend's home so we couldn't pass it up to take a picture of her there either!  We wanted to make it to the other park and the swing bridge, but it started to sprinkle and we thought it would be best to head back home.  

One thing a mother must always save for a rainy day is patience.

"Tell me and I'll forget; show me and I may remember;
involve me and I'll understand.”

As adults, sometimes we forget this one simple thing ~ 'Involve me and I'll understand.'  We learn by doing.  We all learn differently.  Some things work, somethings don't and for me books are boring.  I need excitement.  I need to do, but being raised in the public school system books are our guides.  I frequently ask myself, how can I make school fun?  This was a request made specifically by Gert ~ 'Make school funner.'  So this summer I began to think, but once again I fell back to the old standby of books/workbooks.  

Monday, Monday. . .

Did you know that Monday was International Chocolate Day?  Me either until I looked at my Teacher Vision Events Calendar.  It was also Milton Hershey's Birthday.  Hum.  I see a correlation.  So of course I had to make brownies.  Yum! Yum!

As for our activities, we talked about the life cycles of different things.  Of course the easiest thing for me was to talk about how we grow and change.  We looked at pictures of Gert as a baby and each year after then pictures of her now.  It is amazing how she has changed through the years.  She looks so grown-up now.  Can I put a brick on her head?  She quickly responded with no and 'Mom, it won't work.  it will just make my head flat and I will look funny.'  We also talked about the life cycles of butterflies and ducks.  In the spring, plant a butterfly garden as well as our own butterflies.  I think it will be neat for all of us.

We also talked about our community.  The plan was to take pictures of our neighborhood and to talk about all the different places within our neighborhood.  Once again, we had to alter our plans.  It rained.  So we decided to do it on Tuesday.        

Week 2 Summary

Well, Week 2 was different. . .

As we all know things don't always go as planned and we have to make adjustments.  This was the first week we had to 'adjust.'  Tuesday went very well.  We talked about different habitats around the world but also about habitats in South Florida.  We also talked about how how plants and animals are different in each habitat and how we adjust to where we live.  For those living where in Missouri it is going to start getting cooler, which means jackets and long pants.  For us here in South Florida, we get to continue to wear our shorts and sleeveless shirts and of course Gert mentioned 'SWIMMING!'  Now occasionally it does get cool in South Florida and earlier this year we had to turn on the heat!  I know you are probably thinking 'Oh you poor thing.'  For native Floridians that is a big deal.  

Week 2

I really wish that summer didn't have to end. . .

Well that makes two of us, but we as we all know 'the show must go on.'  Yesterday we started school at 10:30 AM which is late for us.  Gigglin' Gert was not feeling well, but I guess I am the evil Mom because I made her attend school.  It took a lot longer than normal, but we accomplished all of our school subjects.  My thought process is if she is running a temp or is throwing up, then school will be 'canceled.'  I don't know if that is the right choice or not, but I don't want her to use 'I don't feel good' as an excuse to get out of school.

Week 1 Summary

The first week of school is always interesting for any student (or teacher) whether in public school or homeschool.  You get an idea of what is going to work or not work, and can start to tweak it as need be.  I learned real quick that for Little Miss Sunshine, if I wanted her to continue to be the happy go-lucky child that we all know, I was going to have to break up our writing activities.  Due to her need to grip the pencil like it is going to run away, her finger starts hurting.  As for what I had planned, things went very well.  As we all know what you have planned and what actually happens are two entirely different things.  We had one interruption that caused one day to be a complete washout, but we had a goal in mind and were able to conquer the rest of the week.  Monday and Tuesday went very smoothly.  Wednesday was our washout day so Miss Sunshine visited her Daddy's office and met her new 'best friend in the whole universe'.  Due to the event on Wednesday that involved some construction in our home, Thursday and Friday were a little more stressful.  Due to allergies, we both were suffering.  I have to admit that I was very proud of her this week.  We got a lot accomplished and I think we will be able to reach our goals of the year.

~ to be continued ~ 

All About Mama

Do you ever feel overwhelmed by your to-do list?  Well, I know I do.  I love to plan, but my plans seem to take on a life of their own.  I plan BIG!  Due to my big plans, they frequently become overwhelming and I find that I lose my self-esteem before I even get started or I get started and get discouraged or lose interest in the middle of the task at hand.  I have had trouble breaking my plans into smaller, bite-sized pieces to make them more likely to be accomplished.  On top of that I get distracted easily.
 Earlier this month I read about Mama Jenn and her challenge to her fellow blog readers to join her in Mama's Mission of the Month.  What is this you ask?  Well, Mama Jenn started this to hold herself accountable for the goals she had set for herself.  Many find that if they post something about something they are going to do it helps them accomplish their goal -- as they feel they are being held accountable for that job.  Mama Jenn decided to challenge others by starting Mama's Mission of the Month.  

I am taking the challenge, and joining Mama Jenn {and many others} in their Mission of the Month, but what do I choose as my first mission?  My to-do list is enormous!  As I said before, the goals I set for myself are radiculous.  In order to accomplish any of these goals I need to start by breaking them down from gigantic projects to bite sized pieces.

Like so many other people I want to de-clutter, reorganize, redecorate, and just simplify my home and my life.  It would be fantastic if someone from the many HGTV shows would show up and get rid of everything in my house and help me start from scratch, but until then I have to do this on my own.  My ultimate goal is to completely organize my home.  Yep, that's what I said -- completely organize my home.  *sigh*  Now that is a BIG task and just saying it discourages me.  It would be easy if we were moving -- I could purge as we went, but I don't see that happening anytime soon.  So I have to take it into my own hands.  I know that it is not something that will happen overnight or in one month, probably not even tow so i must break it down.  I keep telling myself one room at a time, but even that sometimes feels overwhelming and I often use the excuse that I need my husband to help {but then again sometimes I do need his help.}

Before I even heard about this Mission of the Month idea, I made a goal for myself to organize all of our school stuff -- books, workbooks, office supplies, art supplies, games, flashcards, etc. before we started school.  Well. . . I started. But I just kinda stashed things in various places so I don't have to look at them.  The old outta sight outta mind.  Our home is small and we really lack storage.  What I have organized has helped with the frequent question of 'Mommy, where is. . .?' which typically resulted in 'I don't know.  Go look for it.'  We all know what that is followed by. . .'I can't find it!'  You then stop whatever you are doing and go look for it yourself.  I have tamed the beast {for now} by using the Workbox Program, but I know that the dragon will burst through those doors rearing its ugly head and once again I will find myself discouraged.  On top of the various homeschooling supplies and activities, I have a one terabite of homeschool stuff I have downloaded from various websites that offer free homeschool items.  Unfortunately due to my lack of organization, I have not been able to use {or find} items I could really use.  {I think you are beginning to see my situation here.}

I have started to organize my bedroom and my daughter's bedroom which have also managed to find themselves tossed to the abandoned list.  There is not much to do in either room, it is just doing it.  Since I already began in my daughter's room this month, I am going to continue that goal through the month of September.  I have 21 days to complete my goal.

This will include but is not limited to:

1. Cleaning out the closet.
2. Buy a rod to hang clothes on.
3. Clean out the storage above the closet.
4. Buy curtain tiebacks and hang them.
5. Hang lights and clock.
6. Find pictures, print pictures, and hang pictures on wall for the Family Photo Wall.
7. Buy and paint plywood for the game closet doors.
8. Take toy box.
9. Go through clothes -- donate or take to storage.    

Now for a personal goal I want to lose 10 lbs by November.  I know you shouldn't plan a diet on or around the holidays, but more of just watching the amount of food I intake, but also to start getting back in shape.  I have started by doing 10 sit-ups a day for the last week and my goal is to increase that by 10 each week.   

There we go.  That was easy.  Mission set {here's hoping that I can use the mission accomplished tag at the end of September!!!!}

I promise most posts will not be this long!  

UPDATE:  As I am still learning about this bloggin' thing (and apparently still don't understand about pages.) Please follow my post at the primary page http://newriverlearning.blogspot.com/. 

Day Two . . .

This morning we, correction I got up at 9:00 so we got a little bit of a late start.  Not a big problem as Kira whisked through boxes 1, 2, 3, and 4 before lunch.  While she was busy working on her activities for the morning, I was busy printing items that I didn't print prior to our starting school.

This afternoon was not as productive.  After lunch my happy little princess went to grumpy in 2.2 seconds.  BUT I did not lose my cool.  I remained calm, didn't raise my voice and remained positive about the entire situation.  I decided to reach into my tactics bag.

The First Day of School

Our first day of school 2010-2011!

We started our morning at 8:30 AM.  Not that I really wanted to get up at that time, but we did.  We had breakfast and then at 9:00 AM we officially started school.  We started out by saying the Pledge of Allegiance followed by our morning activities calendar consisting of 'What day is today?,' 'What is the weather?' and practicing writing the date which helps reinforce her handwriting.  This was followed by our Social Studies activity.  This year I purchased the Harcourt Second Grade Social Studies as a guide (more as a guide for me than for her.)  It came with an activity book and although I don't plan on using either all year.  I wasn't planning on buying any 'books' per say, but I needed a little more guidance starting out this year.  Next was spelling.  Ah, I have fond memories of going through my spelling words with my mother in the kitchen while she washed dishes.  I am sure my mother has her own memories! Anyway, this summer, I did some research into what words a 2nd grader needed to learn to spell.  It seemed like everyone had a different list!  So taking the easy way out, I found list on Super Teacher Worksheets that had a list for 36 weeks with worksheets to correspond!  Today's activity involved Kira to read each word to me (some she actually had to sound out - of course with protest!) and then write each words twice.  Tomorrow she will do a 'fun' activity by writing each word with each letter as a different color.  Originally I planned to do box 1, 2 and 3 followed by lunch, but I didn't realize that we would go through those boxes so quickly!  So we traveled on to math.  I am using the Math-U-See program supplemented with other workbooks that will help Kira in her math.  Math is a subject she LOVES!   

Oh, let me tell you about Workboxes.  I chose the Workbox option because of the following:

• Independence ~ Kira needs to learn to work independently.  Not everything is done alone, but moving and working toward self-directed learning is something I really want to instill in her.  For me this allows me to do dishes or sweep the floor so when she is done with school, I am almost done with my work as well!
• Motivation ~ She will be excited about some of the fun things she sees waiting for her.
• Routine ~ The schedule strip creates a solid routine, in which we have been lacking.  Kira made the statement this morning that 'This helps me know what to do!'  If our day gets interrupted for whatever reason, we can stop and come back to the boxes as needed.
• Creativity ~ I can clearly see what Kira will be doing each day and if I need to spice it up a little and add variety to our school day.
• Resourcefulness ~ I will finally be able to use some of those cool things that have been sitting on a shelf or in my resource box that I have found at the Target $1 section, on clearance, or stuff my Mom sent down!
• Accountability ~ Ten empty boxes in my face remind me that I need to do my job as her teacher and get school ready for the next day.  Ten full boxes remind Kira that she needs to do her job and work hard throughout the day. (So far so good!)
• Accomplishment ~ Kira will take pride in a job well done when she finally finishes a box!  I will also feel that I am accomplishing something in our homeschooling.
• Individual Education ~ I love being able to give my daughter a personal education.  Yes, there are days, I ask myself, 'Why am I doing this?' (Specifically when she is whining about reading.)  The reason I am doing this is not religious, but that I have one unique, important child on my mind.  
• Easy Transition ~ Last year at times as we were going from one activity to another, we couldn't find our crayons or our pencil needed to be sharpened, or whatever else went wrong went wrong.  So in the midst of getting thing together, I lost Kira - her attention span went completely out the window.  The boxes put an end to our craziness.  We now flow from one activity to the next because everything she needs is right there in the box.  I have duplicates of many things {i.e. glue, scissors, crayons, color pencils, you name it!}  Before when I would lose her, getting her back would be frustrating for both of us.  Then one of us {or both of us} would get mad and then sometimes I would just give in or we would both have to take a time-out.  Last year school went into summer so she did not have as long of a break as students that were in the public school system {but that is not necessarily a bad thing.} 
• Time Saving ~ This goes hand in hand with some of the other things I have already listed but as I have already noticed we have got more done in less time!  Who can argue with that? 

So the basis of the system is to have 12 'workboxes' (we have adapted it for us and have 10.)  Each workbox holds one activity that Kira is to do that day.  Each box is numbered, so she will know what needs to be completed and in what order.  Besides seeing the workboxes, Kira has a schedule strip.  The schedule strip reinforces the workbox order and also allows me to add additional schedule cards for activities that won't fit into the boxes {i.e. play outside for 30 min, lunch, computer time, etc.}  Kira will match the number on the schedule strip to the box and by the end of the day, all of the tags should be removed from the schedule strip and all the boxes empty.  By 10:30 AM Kira was done with boxes 1-4 and lunch was the next thing on our list -- so we decided to change it up.  FREE TIME!  Currently this is our schedule but of course I can change it up as need be.  After lunch we will continue on to Language Arts, Writing, Science, and Reading.  

 

Although we kinda started the workbox system last year we really didn't stick with it.  I was really worried how Kira would handle this new year with the new schedule - but she said she likes it much better.  I am also looking to add 'centers' and lapbooking (more on that a little later.)  So if she is happy I think I will be too!   

A Note From the Teacher . . .

I have been really excited about starting school until this week.  My original goal was to start school on Monday, August 23 with the rest of South Florida pubic schools, but that didn't happen.  Why?  You would probably think that with all the planning and organizing that I have done, I would be all ready to start school.  But I am not!  The only reason is because  . . . make sure you are sitting down . . .

I am completely and utterly scared! 

There I said it.  So now I have to take the bull by the horns, stop making excuses, and dive right in head first to face my fears.  This week seems to have stood still yet still move like the speed of light.  My kitchen table looks like an organized tornado has gone through leaving it buried under neatly piled books -- some of which I will use, some I would like to use {but probably won't}, and others well won't be so lucky.  

So to get my thoughts on papers, I have started this blog.  Another blogging homeschool mother wrote the following:

‘I have discovered that one of the benefits of blogging is that in some strange kind of way, it helps to hold me accountable. If I blog about doing something, I am more likely to make sure that it gets done…which is why I have decided to start up Mama’s Mission of the Month. Basically, I will post about something that I want to accomplish for that specific month. The following month I will post about my accomplishments and what I plan to accomplish for the upcoming month.

This is  really a means of holding myself accountable so that I can get more things checked off of my never-ending-to-do-list! However, you are all more than welcome to join in with me! On the 25th of each month I will put up my Mission of the Month.’ 

So I going to give it a go.   

As for school, I have another goal . . . become more organized by keeping to a schedule.  Which for anyone who knows me may think that is completely impossible and for those who don't know me well, well I am easily distracted.  You know in the movie 'Up!' the dog that is talking and then says 'squirrel!' Well that is me although I see things to clean, to organize, or I just simply procrastinate.   

After much research, I have decided to use a concept called Workboxes developed by Sue Patrick.  {I will go into more detail another time.}  This program is to help me be more accountable to actually plan and use the curriculum in which is currently collecting dust on my shelves and allow the many 'unused' manipulatives see the light of day instead of being trapped in various locations throughout my house.

I have read that it will encourage me to be more consistent with our school day.  While I already have an overall idea of how I want our day to go, this will give me a little more consistency in working through the day. {Remember I am easily distracted.}

As many using this concept, we have altered the Workbox idea with our own.  My dear daughter will be able to see what is happening each school day, because there will be a definite order to each day.  This won't apply just to her, but I will be able to see what we have accomplished and what we still need to do!

My sweet princess is extremely strong-willed {very much like her mother} and independent but like us all she needs encouragement and guidance ~ we both need to work toward a goal that is achievable.  {I personally find my to-do list is out of this world and it frequently bothers me that I cannot accomplish what I have set out to do.}  This way we both have something to look forward too at the end of the day, and we have encouraging goals to work towards.

It would also encourage both of us if I added more 'fun' into our school day: lapbooking {another I will explain later}, learning games, nature walks, learning centers {a specific request made by the princess}, trips to the science museum or one of the many nature parks in our area.  Although currently during the week I am limited to activities within walking distance, we will have to adapt with what we can do.

As many know I am a person of lists {thanks Mom!} and so I have list upon list of all of our curriculum books in addition to resources {i.e. games, flashcards, music, books, websites} that I want to incorporate throughout the year.  Each day her box will have a fun 'new' thing in it to do and I hope that she will look forward to seeing what is planned!

So back to work.  I almost finished with planning the first three weeks of school.  Once I get that accomplished and I start printing worksheets and other activities, I will be ready!  That is unless my printer decides to go on strike.