Settling into a routine

We're starting to settle into a routine now that we've finished a week. Cooper and I get up when we get up in the morning. I fix him breakfast and give him his medication. He eats and watches an episode of some educational show. The current favorite is The Magic School Bus. That gives me time to eat and shower.

First off we do calendar work. We're learning days of the week, months of the year, seasons, and weather. Then we use our hundred chart to count days of school. We'll be using this to reinforce place values as we go along.

We typically start with handwriting. We spend about five minutes working on fine motor skills, writing, and penmanship. My main goal is to slowly increase his stamina for writing. And working towards legibility.

We do math next. I had three different math programs I was choosing between. I think I've settled on MEP for right now. Miquon will probably be used for reinforcing concepts. Singapore may show up later, but it isn't a good fit for right now.

Next is reading time. We are using this to cover science and letting Cooper's interests lead us. Right now we're learning about all the different types of animals and how the human body works. We've learned songs about breathing oxygen and why we're glad we have joints. We have learned about mammals and insects. We've sorted animal cards into insects, mammals, something else. We've filled the bird feeders (very enthusiastically.)

More formal reading instruction is being resisted a little. We're using Bob books, and some Hooked on Phonics. He knows all his letter sounds, but he doesn't like putting them together yet. I think it's time for some building block letters so we can build words.

Of course, we don't do all this back to back. We play games and watch videos and do art and stuff. Afternoons are pretty freeform. Legos and errands and trips to the library. It's been good.

First day of school

Wednesday was technically our first day of school.

Throwing some kind of gang symbol.

Setting up dominoes to knock them down with his car

Figuring out how to make the path turn corners

Practicing classifying

Practicing which group is bigger with the crocodile mouth

Cooper's done pretty well with school. I think the harder adjustment has been for me. It's taken me a few days to realize that he really is five and really does have a five year old's attention span. Some of my grandiose plans have been shelved for a year or two. So far one of the biggest hits has been the series of My First Discovery Books that his Aunt Sarah sent him. He has decided that his favorite insect is the Colorado Potato Beetle. He made me promise that if we find one, he can keep it and feed it potatoes.

The crocodile mouth was a huge failure. He doesn't like it when the animals get eaten, so he kept adding animals to the smaller group to make both groups the same size so the crocodile couldn't eat either group. We had the same problem a year ago with the Pig Tails game. He refused to play it half way through because the wolf eating the pigs upset him so much. I need to remember this for future activities.

Sweet dreams are (not) made of this

You know how sometimes things happen in dreams, and then you wake up, and you aren't sure if they really happened or if you are just dreaming?

So, the Queen of England is trying to convince Switzerland to support her plan to make the US give Alaska to her and the Russians, because it's not culturally American anyway. She had maps and stuff.

Waking up from that one was a doozy. It was like last night's march of nations was a reminder of all the countries she used to own, so she decided she was going to do something about that.

Giving Alaska to the Canadians would be entertaining politically, though.

Random tidbits

1. I chopped my hair off again. It has never been this short, I don't think. My mom will be happy because it is physically not possible for my hair to fall into my face. Unless it has previously fallen out of my head.

2. Insomnia is teh suck. Luckily I have an appointment with my doctor on Monday because oooooooohhhh myyyyyyyy, this is like having a newborn again, except without the sweet baby head to snorgle, or the tiny little hats, or the general smooshiness.

3. I cleaned out my office this week. I kind of cried. Maybe. Also, I have a lot of books. I think I need another bookshelf. Or two. That seems to be a recurring theme lately.

4. Also, I went to that new used bookstore. It was okay. Nothing fantastic, and the shelves weren't labeled, which is kind of annoying. Also, it mostly seems like an excuse for random hipster guy to just play his guitar and get paid for it.

5. I do not know how to play guitar.

6. Between the moving out of my office and the changing of the living room into the playroom, there is a lot of framed art that needs to get hung stacked up against various walls in my house. Apparently, I like pretty. There are also giant fly guts on my wall that I need to clean off, because I just killed a giant fly. Apparently sleep deprivation does wonders for my reflexes...Okay, now I have cleaned the giant fly guts off my wall, because ew.

7. I cleaned up my bedroom yesterday. (My mom is going to be so proud of me with this post.) Apparently I fling my clothes when I take them off because I found dirty laundry in the oddest places.

I have a blog?

Oh yeah, I have a blog.

Poor neglected little blog.

Let's see, what have I been up to in the last six weeks?

I have a totally new yard. We've been saving for years and this year we did it. Patio, fence, new grass, xeriscaping in the front. It's fantastic. It also involved a broken water line to our house and a flooded basement. That was not so fantastic. We also installed egress windows in the basement which has made the basement so much more liveable. I'm still trying to figure out the best way to take advantage of the increased livability of the basement. I think there has to be a way to turn one of the windows into a little reading area, but I haven't figured out the exact best way to do it yet.

Geekboy managed to fall into one of the window wells. He's still healing from the cuts and scrapes. Cooper has managed to lecture his father on not falling down holes multiple times in the last few weeks. "You are not supposed to fall down holes. You take the stairs and if there are not stairs you take the elevator. You do not just fall down holes."

We have pretty much moved every piece of furniture in the house except our bed and dresser. The living room is now in the playroom. The playroom is now where the living room was. It's also been turned into a learning space, so the table and easel that were in Cooper's room are now upstairs and the train table is now downstairs, and... you get the idea. Of course, as all those little things lost places to live they ended up on the kitchen table, so the last of them finally got rehomed today, so we used our kitchen table for the first time in about, oh, a month today for lunch. That's not quite as horrible as it sounds because we have been using the table on our new patio to have meals and it is so lovely to have a patio to have meals. When Cooper's done, he gets up and runs around the yard and plays and Geekboy and I sit in our fake Adirondack chairs and we all just hang out and it is lovely.

The semester is over. I have to go clean out my office sometime in the next week. I'm not sure where I am going to put all the books I bring home. Oh, the books. We moved all the bookshelves in the house and reorganized them, and for about six minutes there was actually empty shelf space in my house but then homeschool happened to them and there are no more empty shelves. I also found a new used bookstore in town. I have not yet been there to check it out, but it is within walking distance from my house. That may discourage me from buying books that are not truly necessary (what? what does that even mean?) if I have to carry them home.

We adjusted Cooper's medicine back down. He was too focused, wouldn't stop what he was doing to eat, and becoming obsessive in his play, like to the point he couldn't make himself stop long enough to use the bathroom. He is on one extended release tablet in the morning, but he may go to a multiple pill regimen once he is at home full time. We'll see how he handles schooling on the lower dosage before we make any more changes to his medication.

I have lots of blog post ideas for the next few weeks. My feelings about transitioning to full time at-home momma, the end (for now) of being a professor, a full picture show of our awesome new yard, the schoolroom, first day of kindergarten, etc. The last six weeks or so have been chaotic, both at home and at work, and transitions are always difficult to process while in the midst of them. But I have lots of thoughts up in my head that will eventually make it onto the pixellated page.

Bad idea

Buying a rock pick for a five year old is a disaster waiting to happen, right? Right. Okay. Putting down the science catalog and backing away.

No idea

I have no idea how people homeschooled before the advent of the internet. Not only does it make it faster to review curriculum because you can download samples instead of having to wait for catalogs in the mail, or going to curriculum fairs, homeschoolers are a social bunch and love to share all their ideas and activities. I've been reading quite a few homeschool blogs to get some ideas of how to get started. Hint: do not buy everything you look at.

The best and greatest tool I've found is Pinterest, though. It's so great to be able to follow other peoples' boards and have this great idea bank of the best and coolest ideas.  And you know me and my believe that no knowledge will ever go to waste; I may have managed to assemble the most comprehensive set of homeschool boards in the (less than one year) history of Pinterest.

Of course, as soon as I did that, this new site called Learnist launched, which is basically like Pinterest but for educators, so, yeah.

But, until that gets up and going, Pinterest is where it's at, so I'm participating in a homeschool Pinterest board linkup.
Just click on the link to be taken to an index of everyone who is participating. And be prepared to spend hours.