Monday, May 16, 2011

Psssst, hi, it's me.

Hey, what's this? A blog? What's a blog? I have a blog? When did that happen?

Hee-hee, yes I do remember that I have a blog. I just haven't been in a blogging mood for awhile. But I've been getting the feeling back, that feeling I get now and again to write. I'm not a terrific writer, but I do love to put down my thoughts.
So I'm back.

Here's what's been going on here:
The same thing that always goes on here. Life. It moves at lightning pace. Always.

Dino is an amazing child. He is growing so fast I'm afraid to sleep for fear he'll be married with kids when I wake up. He'll be 9 in a few months and is just finishing up third grade.
**A quick aside: I know plenty of homeschooling parents who do not pay attention to what grade their child is in. I am not one of those homeschooling parents. While I don't follow the curriculum set by the state, I do tend to follow the general idea and teach the boys according to what grade they would be in if they were in public school. And even then, I have noticed that we are still different sometimes. Dino and Frog both have birthdays that are within days of the cut-off date for starting school. So I started kindergarten with both of them just days after their fifth birthdays. Some in our community have kept their children of the same ages back a year. So no matter what, we are different. It's all good. But back to me, I just work better with the thought in my head that each of them would be in such and such grade, so we should be teaching this. Works well for me that way.**
Dino is just finishing up another season of baseball. He really enjoys it. He isn't the best player out there but he enjoys the game. His coach tells me that he really gets the rules. He pays attention and tries to do what the coach tells him to do. He just isn't extremely blessed in the athletic area. (takes after both of his parents) He is also already looking forward to football season. And he's going to try playing basketball this winter.
Yikes. For a non-athletic child, he really plays a lot of sports. I want him (all of the boys) to stay active as much as possible. Being an obese woman, I am determined to not pass my eating habits and sedentary lifestyle. So I try to keep the boys moving as much as possible. Sometimes they think I'm the meanest mom in the world because I make them stay outside for hours.
Dino is doing really well in school. He loves history. I love that our curriculum is literature based because it has so many wonderful books to read. Dino has become absorbed in the books. He loves to read. Loves to read!! It is not hard to get him to read his school books. (not quite so easy to get him to do his math....) I love to watch how engrossed he gets in a book. He will read and read and read. He bought himself the complete set of "The Chronicles of Narnia" and read the first book, "The Magician's Nephew" the first day he had it. I love that he loves to read. Does my heart good!

Frog is growing fast, too. He will be seven in a couple of months and is finishing first grade. He is reading now, too. I wondered how it would go with him. When I taught Dino how to read (in first grade) I had switched to a new curriculum. After using it, I decided I didn't like it as well as what I had been using, so I switched back. Then when Frog was ready for first, I got all the Sonlight material to use. Even though I knew it was wonderful material, I was worried that I wouldn't be able to teach Frog how to read as easily as I taught Dino. I was worried that Dino was just a natural reader and I didn't do much, and that the curriculum did more. So switching curriculum on such a fundamental skill worried me. I know, I know, silly. But reading didn't seem to click as quickly for Frog as it did for Dino and I spent much of the year worrying. And as it turned out, all for naught. Frog is a reading champ now. He's been reading everything he can get his hands on. He's finished all the readers for first grade and is now reading some of the second grade readers. I've got to find something for him to read this summer so I can save something for him to read in school next year. Again, I love it!
And Frog is really good in math. He has almost caught up to Dino. It's not making Dino happy, but I don't want to hold Frog back. So we'll take it a step at a time.
Frog just finished up his soccer season. He's getting better all the time at that. He is more athletically inclined than Dino, but still not the superstar of the team. Hub and I just don't seem to make 'em too sports-minded. Oh well. Just so long as they stay active......

Monkey is, well, he's my baby. I want him to stay a baby. Okay, not really, but maybe a tiny bit. He's now four years old and trying to do everything his brothers do, everything. Sorta. He wants to do it his way, For instance, when we signed the older two up for baseball and soccer, we asked Monkey if he wanted to play a sport. He was not even remotely interested. He told me, "If you can sign me up for a train building class, I would do that." And that is him all the time. Always wants to be in charge, always. At one point I was worried that he was color blind because anytime we talked about colors he always said green or red. Never any other color. Then one day he just told us all the other colors correctly. He just didn't want to do it before.
He's like that with everything. If he doesn't want to do it, no amount of persuading will get him to do it. I tried to get him to write his names for a long time. He flat out refused. Then one day, out of the blue he wrote his name. After that I tried to get him to write some other letters. No way, no how was he going to do it. Again, he flat out refused. He would write numbers all day long, but no letters. Now he's writing some letters. Not the ones I ask him to write, but what he chooses to write.
I thought about starting him in Kindergarten this fall, watching him this past year has made me rethink that thought. He and I are not ready to tackle that job. I will not stress myself out that way. We will take it a day at a time and see how pre-K goes. We'll start Kinder when we are both ready.

So, that's what's been going on here. Well, sorta. That's what's on my mind tonight. I just put in my order for next year's curriculum so homeschool is what's on my mind right now. Next week I'll have something else on my mind and will be ready to post again.

Oh, one quick thing about me. I am a knitter now. Ha! Imagine that! I never thought I was crafty. But it turns out I am when it comes to knitting. We had a homeschool co-op last fall and the moms could take one class. I took knitting and haven't looked back since. It just clicked for me and I can pretty much do whatever I want. I haven't tried a sweater yet, but I have done so many other things. A whole new world has opened up for me. I love it. So maybe my next post will be all about knitting. Who knows. I just have a feeling though that I am feeling the need to blog more now and so at least there will be a next post. Yay!!

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