Tadpoles!

Brenna and I are now the proud owners of about 30 tadpoles! My Mom and Dad have a nice pond in their front yard and every once in a while a frog will decide to litter it with eggs and then Dad is overwhelmed with hundreds of tadpoles. This time Brenna and I decided to 'save' some of them (most don't survive the doom of Dad's big net!) and raise them until they metamorphose into tiny frogs, and then of course we will release them into the yard. What am I going to do with 30 frogs!!?? :)
So this is officially our first science lesson about frogs and their metamorphosis. I will have to come up with some kind of chart or maybe even keep a daily journal that Brenna can dictate to me about about the changes they make. I have already looked up and printed some things off the Internet about taking care of tadpoles and it seems pretty simple. Right now we have them all in one container but since there are so many I will have to separate them into two or they will start to eat each other! Once they get all four of their legs you transfer them to another container that has rocks they can climb onto. And when their tail is gone that is when you release them. They eat all sorts of things too - fishfood, flies (time to clean my window sills! haha), and the best thing they say to feed them is lettuce. Who would have thought!

Brenna is so excited and says that she is their new Mommy. I reminded her today that we are not going to be able to keep them when they become frogs and she nodded and said that she knew. So we'll see when the time comes. Right now they are in her room on her dresser. She will be in charge of feeding them and help me change the water when needed as well. I will post pictures as they change. I think this is going to be a pretty cool project!

Making a Quilt

So Brenna has been entered in her first quilt show! It will be in September and her and Grandma are making a darling little quilt together.

Dea Jae came down last week with her sewing machine and her, Kastine and Brenna went shopping and picked out material (Kastine is making one as well). Brenna, of course, got all shades and patterns of purple. On five of the blocks (out of nine total) Brenna drew pictures with crayon on white material and then Grandma ironed it to set the colors. They sewed some of the blocks together but ran out of time before Grandma had to go back home. She will be back the end of August though and they will finish it then. I will definitely post a picture of the finished product.

Just an Update

We really haven't been doing anything really exciting lately. The library thing is over but we have still been going and checking out books about once a week. Actually we need to make it over there today at some point.
Brenna has had three playdates in a row this week. Tuesday and Wednesday she went over to Erica's house (her 2 year old teacher from pre-school) - she has two kids that are 5 and 9. Brenna has a great time playing with them. Yesterday she went over to Grandma Dawnie's and played with one of the little girl's that she tutors. I told Brenna that today she is ALL MINE. :) I really miss her when she's gone. Not sure what we are doing this weekend. I know that we will go to the beach Saturday or Sunday - that will make it five weeks in a row that we have gone.
Next week Grandma Shore will be in town and will be staying with us. I am seriously NOT saying this to kiss up to my mother-in-law (HAHA!) but I really look forward to her coming down. For those of you who don't know her, I am a very lucky girl to have a MIL like her. :)

So Brenna has been doing much better with reading and tries to read anything she can - signs, stuff on the computer, things on tv, ect... I found her in her room the other day reading one of Brendon's books, "Tiger Woods - How I Play Golf". She is all about learning to play golf and Brendon said that he is going to get her a couple clubs and start taking her. That will be nice for them to spend that time together. I have tried to play golf and I am just not that coordinated and I get very mad. :) So maybe I will go just to take pictures.

Well I hope everyone has a good Friday the 13th!

A couple passages from a book that I wanted to share....

I am reading this book right now called "Homeschooling - Take a Deep Breath, You Can Do This". It is a great book and is written by a Mom who home schooled her kids for many years. There is a chapter in it called, "The Good Stuff Most People Won't Tell You". It lists about fifteen wonderful things about homeschooling. One of them really stood out to me and I wanted to post some it for whoever is interested.

"Your children will grow up knowing you better than their traditionally schooled friends know their parents

We always know best those we spend the most meaningful time with. When my children were traditionally schooled, they had a very long bus ride in each direction. By the time they got home, rested, and did their homework and chores, there was barely time to play, much less have family quality time.... My children spent more time in school than they did at home with me doing what I wanted them to do each day.
I began to see that their teachers had more influence over their values and ideas than I did. Since I was responsible for the way they turned out, I was concerned. By the time my children came home from school, they were tired. They had been with other people all day long and just wanted time alone. They didn't want to think or have serious discussions. I began to feel I was losing control of our relationship simply because we didn't have any time together.
As your children get older they will begin to develop different ideas that don't always match your own and they will spend more time away from you. This is natural and healthy. However, removing your influence from your child too soon can be dangerous. The popular view is that children should develop their own beliefs, and this is true...eventually. However, a child needs some sort of foundation for the building of beliefs to be placed upon. ..... The best way to give a child values is to spend time with him and to let him see how you live your life. You act in a way that reflects what you believe, you talk to him about things that matter and you tell him about you, your life, and your choices. Your child will know you better because he has spent meaningful time with you, learning, serving and growing together. This builds a family that can last forever. That's a benefit that makes every minute worthwhile."

One more thing that I came across in this book was something that somebody once told me when they found out I was going to homeschool. They said that Brenna needed to experience the "real world" and deal with bullies and all that classic 'kid stuff'. Well I don't think this would have stood out if that had not been told to me and I just wanted to share this too.

"People will try to tell you that learning to cope with bullies is just part of life. So is teasing or name-calling. Think carefully about your adult life before accepting that. Do you intentionally put yourself into situations where you will be abused? When you are an adult, there are laws that protect you from being picked on in the workforce or anywhere else. Adults aren't supposed to take it - only children are. Does that make sense?"

Ok, I guess that's enough for one post. haha! I just think this book is great and wanted to share some things. Thanks.

At the Library

Geez, I don't post for about three weeks and then I post three days in a row! :) Hopefully people are keeping up with me and my sporadic blogs. :)

So I just had to share something funny that happened at the library on Monday. Brenna and I went for our tri-weekly library day and Monday they did not have the story time or anything (not sure why?). Well I didn't want to waste a trip to the library, since we were already there, so we turned in our books and proceeded to look for more to take home. With Brenna this is a very long process and takes forever! She is very picky about the books that she chooses. So we finally get a stack of about 15 books and make our way to a table to "decide which books are good enough to check out" *eye roll*. It's very cute...really. :) So we are there at the table and Brenna sees this baby who is smiling at her and making noises. Of course she wants to go say hi and asks me so I tell her that it is okay. I do not have a problem at all with her going up to people and making conversation as long as she is with me - and she knows this. She is a VERY friendly little girl. The baby is with her Mom and her other little girl. After introducing herself and talking with the older girl, the Mom asks her what grade she is in and of course she goes on to say that she will be in Kinder and that her Mom is going to homeschool her. The Mom looks at me with a big smile and tells me that she is going to homeschool her oldest as well and proceeds to gather her things and come over to our table. As this was going on I overhear the conversation between Brenna and the other little girl:

Brenna: "So how old are you?"
Girl: "I'm 5 years old."
Brenna: "Wow! What a coincidence! I'm 5 too!"
Girl looks at Brenna and then looks at her Mom with wide eyes: "Wow Mom! This girl is really smart!!!"

Oh my gosh, it was HILARIOUS! You really should have seen the look on that little girl's face when Brenna used her "big word". To be honest, I felt very proud. :) I guess me speaking to her like an adult and doing the 'word of the week' thing really pays off. :)
Anyway, it was nice though meeting another homeschool Mom. We talked a little and she asked me all kinds of things about homeschooling. She had not done much reading about it and had just decided to do it so all of my studying really paid off just in that one conversation. I think I might have over-whelmed her a bit. haha! We exchanged phone numbers though and will get the girls together to play and we can visit as well. It is so nice meeting other Moms who are going to homeschool. Someone told me not too long ago that the library is probably a really good place to meet other parents who homeschool - especially once school starts and you go during school hours. With Brenna being as friendly as she is I am sure that we will meet tons of new people. :)

Getting Prepared

Wow! It's already July! I am still getting my ideas and thoughts together for the upcoming homeschool year. I have come up with a lot of brainstorm ideas on things that I want to do with her and things that I need to purchase as well. I am not getting a whole lot this year - I can utilize so many materials that I already have. My Mom was a 2nd grade teacher for six years so you can imagine how many cool and useful things I am getting from her! :) The things that I really want to get is a year pass for the zoo and an endless supply of art supplies. Some of the things that I have written down as well are:

• learning to tell time (she's already learning the hours and can recognize when it is exactly 2 or 4 o'clock - just need to work on minutes)
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• work on writing letters correctly and then advance to words
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• choose an animal to study each week for science (can also lead into Social Studies with studying the country they are from)
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• plant a small garden for science including flowers and vegetables
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• addition, subtraction and simple measuring for math (she knows the concepts, just needs to practice more)
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• study holidays for history


• start learning and identifying States
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• creating a "Chore Chart" to learn more about responsibility and working together as a family (yes, that is the 'neat-freak' in me coming out! haha! But she has to learn at some point, right?)
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• play Mad Libs to learn what nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs are
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• continue working on her reading


• start keeping her own journal - good for pre-writing skills and developing sentence structure (can tell me what to write until she learns to write herself)
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• start including her in cooking
  
• lots and lots of art projects!!

There are probably many other things that we will come across that I just have not thought about yet - but it's a start. Besides, she is so good at asking lots of questions so she will give me ideas as we go and take the lead with some things as well.

It was pretty cute last night - Brenna was watching some show with Brendon and one of the kids was speaking French. So then she proceeded to go around the house pretending to talk in French. I told her that if she really wanted to learn French then we could get her either a DVD or computer program that would teach her (kids this age pick up other languages a lot quicker then adults). Then Brendon went and got the globe and showed her where Europe was and then where France was. He went about it very well and first located Texas and then our city and showed her how far it was from here to France. He told her all about Grandma Shore living there for a year when she was younger and that led to showing her where Australia was because that is where Grandma is right now. So you see how that all happened? She learned something new at 9pm, right before bed because she instigated it by pretending to speak French. You just have to take advantages of opportunities like that when you are homeschooling. We could have elaborated on it but considering the time it had to be a very short lesson. Things like that happen all day long at our house though - that was just one example.

One thing that I am trying to decide on is how I am going to do our school calendar. Some homeschoolers follow the public school calendar, some do year round with 3 weeks on and 1 week off, others do school 4 days a week. I am not too concerned about it this year but next year when we start a structured curriculum I will need to decide how I want to do it.

There are just so many details that I still have to iron out. It is going to be a learning experience for the whole family - but one that I am really looking forward to!

Books, books and more books!

So I FINALLY got a library card a couple weeks ago and Brenna and I have been stocking the house with new books every week. They are everywhere and I love it! Mine, of course, are all homeschool related (I just can't get enough information!) and Brenna has been getting a combination of 'easy readers' and fun books for Mommy and Daddy to read to her. She is getting so much better at reading and is slowly finding a love for it. She is still somewhat stubborn, gets very frustrated and will only read when SHE wants to but I am not pushing her. Like I said before, I don't want to make her dislike reading or make it seem like a chore. She will, in time, discover the beauty of being able to pick up a book and curl up and get lost in the words. But until then I tell myself, she is only five. :) And for a five year old she is doing better than I could ever expect - I am very proud of her. When I see her reading I almost (ok, so I have!) get tears in my eyes. I really could sit and listen to her read all day long.

We are still going to the library a couple times a week for the Children's Reading Program and she gets to do crafts and watch puppet shows and listen to story time. She loves it and so do I. After all of that we will go and pick out our books and then she LOVES to sit at a table and we both quietly sit and read our books for about 20 minutes. She just thinks that is the coolest thing and she looks like such a 'big kid'. :) There are only a few more weeks left of activities there but we will definitely do it again next summer.

On to another subject... We went to the beach again yesterday for the third weekend in a row. This time Aunt Jenny and Uncle PJ went with us and we had so much fun. Brenna did some more boogie boarding and Daddy got brave and started taking her out further and further to some bigger waves (with me supervising and staying close to her). She could still touch of course - it stays pretty shallow the first 30 yards or so. That little girl held on so tight and rode them in all the way! She is getting to be a pro at it. We will be going to the beach again next weekend - we just have way too much fun to NOT go! Our goal is to try to go every weekend this summer and hopefully beyond that too. It is a very inexpensive way to have a good time. :)

Well I am off to read books with Brenna before it is time for bed. I will post again real soon. :)