Golden Acorn Homeschool

When I got home from co-op today, these were waiting for me in a lovely box from amazon.com.

Because I enjoyed them so much, and because I had to send back the ones I borrowed, and because they were nearly 50% off!  For the whole set!  How could I resist a deal like that?!?

Also gracing my shelves today is Stephanie O’Dea’s new cook book, Make it Fast, Cook it Slow.  I cannot wait to crank out some yummy recipes with my crockpot!

The happiest days are the days when new books arrive in my home.  *happy sigh*

So, my week long internet hiatus is at an end.  I have so much to share, but not enough time to share it in at the moment.  I will probably be blogging my thoughts on my “unplugged” week here rather than myspace, but I am not sure when I will get to it.

Our homeschool is thriving in the meantime!  Super-boy checked out 15 books from the library last Wednesday and has read 12 of them already!

He earned enough points on Book Adventure for a new video game and couldn’t be happier.  (Yes Heidi, it’s a parent inventive prize).  I took him to Game Stop yesterday afternoon to pick out his game and spend some quality time with just him.  It was nice, and I am so proud.

We are nearly done with our 2nd term of school.  We got a little behind with that darn flu bug in February, but I dropped a couple of books from our schedule (Parables from Nature, and Trial and Triumph) and can combine a few weeks to catch up and still finish during the last week of June and have July and August off for summer break.  We will resume in September for Year 2.  WOW!  I can’t believe it has gone by so quickly!  Of course, I will have Diva as a full time kinder in the fall as well.  Time is surely flying right by me.

So far this year, I have done ALL of the reading since the kids just could not pay attention to audio books.  However, Super-boy is definitely showing signs of an increased attention span, and he was able to listen to a story online the other day from Librivox and then narrate it beautifully.  If I can have him listen to some of his stories on Librivox in the fall it will really help me schedule enough one-on-one time with both kids for lessons that they need my full attention on.  It’s a huge relief to me to know that I can let him be independent with a few things.  He worked all of last week on memorizing his basic addition facts and I can see the results of that too.  I think we will be ready to move forward with Math-U-See next week and finish that up on schedule as well.

All in all, things are going well, and I enjoyed my time offline very much.  I certainly feel like I have a better balance on my time and energy.  More from me soon….

“I think I should read four books a day; two in the morning and two at night.”

Those might be some of the sweetest words ever uttered from my eight-year-old’s lips.

THANK YOU BOOK ADVENTURE AND AUTHOR CYNTHIA RYLANT!!!!!

On a side note, he is also learning the value of saving for something he wants, rather than spending right away.  He has 800 points, and he has to save 5000 points for a three month GameFly membership.  :-D

Super-boy is a reading fool this week. Ok, relatively speaking. He has read three books this week, and taken the quizzes over at Bookadventure.com. Yipee!!

I have finally found a series of books that he enjoys reading and are right at his level: Henry and Mudge by Cynthia Rylant.

They are perfect for him. He loves the stories and laughs his silly head off, and they are easy enough for him to read confidently, but still offer some words he has to work on here and there. Right now, since what *I* want is for him to enjoy reading, I feel like I struck gold. The library here has tons, and tons of them, so his new library card is a getting a workout as we searched online tonight for some books to place on hold.

We are about to start our “spring break” and my goal is for him to read one book each day and take the corresponding quiz. I also want him to work with his math flash cards and try to get those math facts memorized. He would be done with his math sheets soooooo much faster if he would just memorize them already.

I plan to do some spring cleaning, some painting of the house, and some yard work. Right now, our spring break is scheduled as one week, but I just might make it two. I love that I can do that.

OH! I just met the new youth pastor and his wife at church this morning (they are in the process of moving here from NY). Guess what? They homeschool! Yipee! I am so excited, and since I am about to launch my Mommies Bible Study/Small Group, it would be so great if she could join too. Life is good.

Super-boy is growing up in little ways, and not so little ways too. He is getting pretty tall, and showing some beginning signs of mature decision making, even if it’s frequently followed up with very immature behavior. It’s tough being a kid!

We took all of our school supplies and books to the library on Monday just to get a change of scenery. It was very nice for me since the girls could play with puzzles and toys, and read tons of books while I worked on “school” with Super-boy. Plus, it’s just nice to get out of the house for school. I cannot wait for warmer days spent on blankets outside at the park. I love being able to be outside learning!

Anyway, while at the library, Super-boy expressed an interest (finally!) in getting his very own library card. I was thrilled! He was so burned out on school by the end of last year (public school), and reading especially, that I was worried he would never want to read another book again. He can read, and he reads just about at grade level, but he was struggling with the method they taught him; minimal phonics, and too many sight words. It was a recipe for disaster that had him guessing at too many words in the books he was trying to read, and he was frustrated. I decided to lay off making him read this entire year. I offered a few incentives, but I have not asked him to read at all. Everything we read for AO Year 1 has been with me reading aloud. This might seem like a misstep to some of you, I realize, but I had to trust the idea that he just needed a break and time to come around on his own. I did buy him a video game at Christmas that I knew he would love, but required a lot of reading of character dialogue, or he wouldn’t know what to do. :-) Sneaky mommy!

Back to the point! He asked for his own library card, and I was happy to oblige. I helped him fill out the form, and we stood in line together for the card. He is so proud of it, and he carries it around in his wallet all the time. He even put the little key chain mini-card on a lanyard and has been wearing that all over the house too! As soon as he had that card in his little hands, he was off looking for books. He asked me to print a list of books he can read and earn points with at BookAdventure, and he has already read one and earned 100 points. Hooray!

In addition to this welcome turn of events, I have been slowly having him read more and more of his AO readings. He has taken over reading aloud from the Bible during circle time (The Young Reader’s Bible), and yesterday I had him read both of his Aesop Fables, and I gave him the digital voice recorder and told him to go ahead and narrate when he was done. I went up and took a shower, and when I came back down he was all done and beaming! His narrations were great, so I know he not only able to read the fables, but he understood what he read.

My plan is to have him slowly, over the next couple of years, take on all of his readings. By AO year 4, he will be expected to read just about everything but the family read aloud on his own, and be doing written narrations on what he reads. These small, but significant steps, are placing him on the road to independent learning, and hopefully, a love of reading great books!

I have so many things I want to get involved with, but I feel like my time is already a little strained. Waking up earlier to exercise is definitely on the agenda, but I realize I need to prioritize my time better to squeeze in a few other things. I will be posting more about that later. While I do have things fairly streamlined, I like flexibility.

This morning, for instance, we enjoyed a nice long snuggle time, but it was a little too long (is there such a thing?), and it threw off the whole day. Or maybe I am having trouble with keeping a tight schedule because of this fantastic weather! How can you not play outside when temperatures are in the 60’s in January? That’s what I love about being flexible and homeschooling. I can tell the children that we simply MUST get outdoors and enjoy this weather while it lasts and we will catch up with school later. I am sure there will be many dismal days of winter when we can do plenty of studying because we can’t be outdoors! I chalk it up to nature study and the fact that Charlotte wanted the children to spend several hours outdoors every day. That’s my story, and I am sticking to it!

Super-boy signed up for Book Adventure today. I found it months ago and I signed up as a parent, and then forgot all about it. While reading my friend Heidi’s blog, she mentioned it and I remembered that I wanted to use it. Duh. Super-boy logged in today and checked out all the features. I made a list of prizes that I would be giving him if he reached certain reading goals. The object of this site is that the child reads a book, answers a quiz about the book, and earns points. A certain number of points earns a prize; either a prize offered from Book Adventure, or a prize the parent has offered. My prizes are quite simple – earning a game night, no chores for a day and so on, all the way up to a trip to the movies or a new video game. He is very excited!! I hope that encourages him to read independently a little more often. :-)

We have so many leftovers in the refrigerator that I am off the hook for cooking dinner tonight so we are going back outside for more play time before the sun goes down. We’ll catch up on reading before bed tonight. *grins*