Last Days of Summer

We woke this morning to temperatures near freezing, WOW 39 degrees, a thin layer of frost on the ground and quite a chill in the air. Selena was still insistent that she was going to get outside and do some more bike riding. We had some things to do inside before we could head outdoors, plus we had to let it warm up just a bit, well quite a bit.

We moved Selena’s desk back out to the living room, since I will not expect her to do any school related work in her bedroom. She was very happy to get her desk moved back out and happily sat at it ready to do whatever I asked her to do.

As we still continue to build upon on our reading and math skills our main focus here is writing. I told Selena that today I wanted her to try very hard to write some of her letters independently and not just copy the ones in the books. She worked by herself for nearly a half hour when she finally announced she was done. While that seems like a long time for us only getting lower case a and b from her, it took a lot of gaining that confidence, and focus to do so.

We got two and a half lines of lower case a, and one line of lower case b, of course you know she practiced by copying the ones in the workbooks first. I was very proud of her work though and gave her smiley faces besides her work. She did get a unhappy face on the lower case c page as she did get a little distracted and scribbled on the page. We talked about how we don’t scribble on our workbook pages, if we feel like we are done then we just put the workbook up for grandma to look at. However, I did give her a small happy face for at least copying a few of the lower case c’s. Yes, I am a sucker for the little efforts of trying.

By this time the weather was warming up enough so outside we headed. Though Selena has had kind of a whiny day, I feel all and all we have had a good day. Tomorrow we will be going to check out Classical Conversations, while I am not sure yet if we will add this as our co-op option or not, I figured I won’t know until we go and see. I will let you know of our decision in another post.

Where We’re Headed

Yesterday morning Selena woke up and when she realized the kids were headed to school, she did ask about it. We talked a bit and she came to the conclusion that maybe staying at home for at least one more year would be great. No sooner could she decide this that she started hunting down her workbooks.

While she still is unsure of trying her writing on her own, she does enjoy copying the lines to form the letters. Yes, every workbook has to do with writing and she had to have everyone of them open at one time. After this activity she pulled out her color books and crayons and actually spent quite a bit of time just coloring.

She really wanted to go out and ride her bike after lunch, and just knew that the rainbow she seen that morning meant the rain would stop so we could do just that.

That wasn’t the case though. She ran in and picked out her clothes got dressed only to look out the window and exclaimed, “It’s raining Grandma!” She was disappointed, but quickly grabbed the scrabble game and set it up to play a game.

We have decided that we will continue to homeschool for the next couple of years. Papa will be retiring within that time, and we have talked about looking at some areas including Papa’s hometown where we will have more options for schools or even homeschool co-ops. This plan is not in gold, but it is something we are considering and praying about.

In the meantime we feel baby steps are needed to help Selena handle her anxieties, fears, and help her to understand what being in a classroom setting is suppose to look like. I doubt we will do AWANA this year, but will step out for Team Kid. I feel this might be a good place to start since Selena knows many of the kids who attend, there will be about 15 to 18 kids, ranging from 5 to 12 years old. Since it is the Pastor’s wife that teaches this, Selena will know her very well, and she will know Selena very well. She will be able to team up with an older child who can help her through, and there will also be a couple of the Youth there to help with the class. We will also access the Y for swimming lessons and some PE classes, which will give her more exposure to formal instruction.

At this time we don’t know where our journey will take us, but we know that what really counts is that Selena is happy and continues to have that drive to learn. I will say this much, now that the stress is gone from Selena, (worrying about school), we are seeing our little girl once again wanting to grow, mature, and come back to all the activities she loved before we even started talking about sending her off to school. When asked what she wanted to do today when she first woke up, she informed me, “Clean the house! What else would we do Grandma? You clean the kitchen and dust the living room, and I will mop and vacuum.”

Our Decision

Our decision as to how to proceed from here has not been easy. We’ve prayed, talked, asked Selena, prayed some more, cried, laughed, had our own anxiety attacks, but there truly was only one answer we could come up with. We considered everything the Principal had to say such as our reward list had to be approved by them should we choose to give her rewards for not having anxiety attacks (WHAT?).  We finally decided if we did not hear from the Principal by Friday letting us know when Selena could even go back to school we would start looking at our options. That call I was waiting for never came in. I jumped into action and decided to pull Selena out.

We have some options still at hand, so we will still be sifting through these options to figure out what will be the best fit for Selena. We have until April to make this decision, enough time of Selena working on her anxieties with the psychologist, as well as more time to mature.

One of these options is a private school in our area. It is small only one classroom and Selena would enter school at the first grade level. Yes, the cost is a factor, but God has graced us with the ability to pay off the vehicle which would more then cover the tuition.

The other option is to continue to homeschool. I still want to do my homework into what activities they have at the Y as well as in the community before I commit to this.

Anyway there you have it we are homeschoolers again for at least one more year. Now to figure out where we are going from here and what we are going to learn.

Our First Week of School

I debated over writing this post and sharing it with all my readers, but then I decided that there might be something my readers might be able to take away from our experience. I wish I could report that our first week in school was a dreamy, happy experience, but unfortunately it has been a nightmare.

Selena has not been able to adjust easily into the classroom setting. Since the teacher had not said anything to me that she was having problems, I planned on going to a Women’s Bible Study on Wednesday. Selena was worried that I wouldn’t be home while she was in school, and we discussed that it would be OK that Grandma would be there to pick her up. I even let her watch as I set the alarm on my phone telling me it was time to leave to get home in time.

We had a bit of a melt down when we first got to school, but I thought we had worked through it and Selena jumped right into the classroom and went right to work on her craft.

It was nearing time when I would be picking Selena up when my phone rang, I thought at first it was my alarm, and was getting my stuff to leave. I grabbed my phone to realize it was a call from the school. It was a call from the Principal, he had Selena in his office and needed my assistance for some behavior problems. I called as I left the church and let them know I was on my way. What was to come is very disturbing or it was to me.

I arrived at school to find Selena pacing back and forth with her back pack on her back, she was pale, and beginning to look bluish gray, she wasn’t breathing, she was hyper ventilating. I hit the door and quickly stormed in, only to catch Selena in my arms, now sobbing over the sight of me. I got down on my knee and told her to breath, all the while looking around to see why someone in the office had not realized that Selena was not breathing and close to passing out.

The Principal called us into his office, which triggered another anxiety attack, which I quickly was able to calm Selena’s nerves. What was to come next was hearing that my Kindergartener on her 4th day of school was going to be suspendered from school. Yes, you are reading that correctly, she was being suspended because she had an anxiety attack in the classroom and couldn’t breath, so she got up started passing washing her hands, then passing back until it became a run around the classroom, trying to figure out what to do. I came home called our Pediatrician immediately and made an appointment for the very next morning.

I don’t think I have to say how unpleased our Pediatrician was with all of this, she was as upset as I was, and called the school to talk with the Principal. She also recommended that we take Selena to a Pediatric Psychologist who can help her with her anxieties.

When we came home I called to talk to the Principal, I left a message that I wanted a plan in place to prevent this from happening again. It didn’t take him long to call me back. We will meet as a team him, myself and her teacher on Monday to create this plan. Then Selena can return back to school on Tuesday.

Our Pediatrician said we are not to have them even mention IEP, and if in the plan they do not include the opportunity for Selena to test for the accelerated classes, she is to get another call so that she can yet again intervene. It has been very trying and very disturbing to us, and we fully feel the school over reacted and handled this situation in a very poor manner.

We do not know at this point if we will continue with the Public school, that is yet to be determined. I guess if there is any advice I can give is, know your child, have a good relationship with your Pediatrician, and do not ever let the schools take over the situation. You be the proactive party and do the work with the help of those who know your child the best. Don’t let anyone in the school system even begin to label your child unnecessarily. They don’t always have the full picture before placing these labels, and believe me these labels go with your child throughout the rest of their educational years.

Selena’s Take On School

Yesterday afternoon we finally sat down to ask Selena a few questions of what she thought of school. Basically she told us that everything was her favorite.

She preferred playing with the animals over coloring us a picture to bring home.

She enjoyed recess.

Her most favorite part though was the tour around the school.

Her teacher read two books, one she truly loved and told us all about it.

Though I haven’t read this book, from Selena’s description, I would say if you have a little one preparing to start school for the first time this is a book to check out and read. She said that the baby raccoon was scared to go to school, so the Mama raccoon kissed his hand and told him it would be OK. Then by the tree were all the other animals that he would meet in his class and become friends with. From her description it sounds like an adorable book.

How to be a Friend was the other book that the teacher read to them. Selena must not have liked it as well as she couldn’t tell me a thing about it. I had to chuckle over that.

She was thrilled to discover that the other girl that was in her VBS class is also in her Kindergarten class. I was really hoping she would be, and she lives very close to us, so hopefully we can get some play dates in soon.

She is already prepared for her second day of school  She has already picked out her clothes and has them laid out ready to put on. I am so happy that she seems to love school. Oh, I guess she did raise her hand and the teacher called on her, all Selena wanted to know, “When is Grandma and Grandpa coming to get me?” That is my little girl!

First Day of Kindergarten

We have now crossed over from homeschoolers to afterschoolers. I do believe it has been an anxious time not only for Selena but for myself as well. Though, as seasons change, so does life, and we find ourselves changing as well. Moving towards new adventures, traditions, as well as new beginnings.

Tuesday evening we went down to meet Selena’s Kindergarten Teacher, Mrs. L. as well as to see her classroom. She was quite excited for this, but I must say that it scared her even more so then ever before. The thought of actually going to school didn’t set well with Selena. She began cutting her hair that evening right down to the scalp in some areas thinking that by doing so we would not send her to school.

As you can see from the result of her cutting her hair in many places now it just sticks straight up in the air. The cute whispy bangs she had now are cut to within on inch from her hair line.
When the day came for the first day of school, she laid awake in her bed trying to not make a noise thinking we would forget to wake her up. I finally talked her into getting up, but she refused to eat breakfast, had a hard time getting convinced to get dressed. Before I knew it she was a total mess. However, we kept moving forward and when it came time to leave she was pretty excited and ready to go.


Off we went, beginning that first walk to school. In the second picture you can see Selena making a fist, she felt she would be more comfortable if she took her imaginary Kitty with her, so she is walking him/her to school too.

Once at school, back pack hung up, name tag found, attendance stick in the “I am Here” can, Selena went straight to the table of farm animals for play. Mrs. L said we could stay until school started, but Selena told us to leave. One last picture and off Papa and I went to make our way home. We both know this was a huge step for Selena but we also know she is coming out the other side with many lessons learned, as well as more confidence and maturity.
Welcome to Kindergarten Selena!

Our Official Kindergartner

This will come as a huge shock and surprise to many of my followers, while I support and stand behind homeschooling especially when you are able to do the homeschooling. I have so loved these former years, being Selena’s first teacher, moving through the pre-school years and teaching her so much, I have been becoming very tired, always struggling inside as to where to proceed from here. I had set my timeline goal in my mind that Monday morning would be the day that my decision would be made. Either I would go enroll her in Kindergarten while we might still have a chance of being picky over what class and what teacher she would be with, or that we would continue to homeschool.

Yesterday morning upon waking up, and again fighting with myself about doing any type of school at all for the day, it just hit me. I asked Selena, “How would you like to go down and register for Kindergarten?” She was out the door before I could even grab all the filled out forms, that laid very conveniently by my purse until I made my decision. Selena was so thrilled to go into the office with me, she stood at the counter with a huge smile on her face while we turned in the paper work, and they made copies of the necessary documents.

Why did I finally choose to go this route? There is something to be said about once you have raised a family, become empty nesters, your mindset becomes more about you and your husband. You begin to make like friends who have raised their children, you begin to do things that empty nesters do. This has been the hardest struggle for me since we got Selena, I have missed my friends. I miss the bible studies, the lunch dates, and in general just getting together to visit. While I have no regrets in our taking Selena into our home and our decision to raise her, I just am at a point in my life that I need to regain the me again. Sure my life will still revolve around Selena and we will be doing the After Schooling, but I know with everything inside of me that I need this time that she will be in school to redefine me again.

Sure I worry about how Selena will do in school. When I look at what they will be learning in Kindergarten and realize that Selena knows so much of what they will be learning, the phonics, all the sight words, then some, the beginning reading, she will really gain a lot from the writing, and social aspect. Her Social aspect has always been a little concern of mine, not that we don’t have ways of socializing her, through the homeschool group, and P.E. through the local Y, these are things that still need my time. As I see myself going from here to there to meet this important part of Selena’s life, I see myself loosing that much more of myself.

I have seen so much growth and maturity in Selena in this short time that we have started T-Ball, that I know with everything inside of me that we are making the best choice here, that she will love Kindergarten, and enjoy this time to be with other adults, and children. I will enjoy just getting back into some of the things that I so miss doing for myself. I really believe this decision is going to bring so much more balance in our home, in our relationship with each other, and who could ask for more then that.

We have one very excited Kindergartner, who was a wee bit disappointed when she discovered she had to wait until next fall to start school. She was so sure she would just get swept off to a classroom and that would be it. 

Preschool Corner/Week in Review

Our week started out strong with a fun math activity to look at odd and even numbers and patterns. Selena even enjoyed practicing her writing, working on some mazes in her Kumon Workbooks, and did a lot of coloring. Then things just seemed to go by the way side there. I had some great plans and ideas for this week, to start looking at the the first pilgrims and to start a Thanksgiving theme.

Our little earthquake began the distraction, while I used this experience as an opportunity to explain to Selena what earthquakes are, why they happen, and what to do in one all she really got out of it was they are scary and we hide under the table. We didn’t think at first that we sustained any damage until Wednesday night when a water pipe under the house broke. I had heard a little water running in the bathroom after the quake but figured maybe the toilet was just running a bit. Wednesday evening when we through a load of wash in, the pipe really broke and the water gushed. Since it is under the house there is no water damage, but we are without running water until they get it fixed.

Selena came down with the nasty cold that I fought for almost three weeks. She is feeling pretty rough, and sleep does not come easy with her stuffy little nose. We did get up Thursday morning to discover a tiny bit of snow, so she was all about making snowflakes. Maybe I can get my lesson plans in next week before Thanksgiving. If not we will just have to study it after Thanksgiving before we move on to Christmas.

I am linking this up at Homeschool Creations.

Preschool Corner/Week in Review

This has been a fun week with Selena, she is exploring writing, spelling, reading and numbers more these days. She always seems to be busy through play and learning. We have spent a lot of time baking together, playing games, coloring and reading.

Thursday we baked a cake together and Selena told Papa just how we did it: “We used oil, water a little bit of egg, and lots of chocolate, turned on that thing, put it in the pan, turned on the oven, waited and it came out as a cake.”

Papa enjoyed counting money with Selena this week or as she still calls it The Penny Pot. She also had him help her with her clock and many other math related activities.

Selena has enjoyed many games and variations of the game of Scrabble this week. It is amazing how many words she can make on her own. She really enjoyed when we used the pieces while reading Mouse Makes Words, to make rhyming words.

Selena has had hours of fun with her covered wagon that we made, though it is no longer covered. She hauls all her little dolls and doll house furniture around in it everyday.

  Selena decided to try to stand her books up one on top of the other in the window the other day. She loves to use her books to build houses and such, but this is the first time she has tried to stack them in this fashion. She actually got three books stacked on top of each other before they fell. At first she was having problems and asked for help, we told her to figure it out, so she examined the books and wasn’t long after trying different variations that she figured out the fatter book on the bottom worked the best. What great problem solving skills she showed with this activity, not that I want her doing this all the time.

We missed dance this week, as we had to take Papa to get some blood tests done, he is fine, his thyroid was just off a bit. We did however get her dance shoes this week in the mail. She was pretty excited about that, and I was glad to see that they fit her since I really didn’t know what size to order. We were suppose to have a play date on Thursday and that ended up not working out, Selena was quite disappointed as were we, but those things do happen.

I am linking this up at Homeschool Creations.

Preschool Corner/Week in Review

I didn’t link up last week to Preschool Corner with anything since we were on the road so to speak in Everett so I am going to make this a two week review.

Reading:

We are 3/4 of the way through Selena’s first reader and are working on some of the sight words that go with it. Selena is doing very well and only stumbles over a few words. We’ve also had a lot of independent and shared reading from many library books. I believe this is the most library books we have had checked out at one time. It seems that with each passing week Selena’s passion for books grows and grows.

Math:

After reading The Penny Pot We had to take advantage of some work with money. Selena is enjoying counting all the pennies we have in the penny pot every evening.

We also made a clock to help us follow the time frame in The Grouchy Ladybug. Selena and Papa had fun working with the clock, and I am happy to say that we now have fixed for our wall.

Selena also used a lot of math in the story she made up here. It was so nice to hear her use some math skills so smoothly and easy without hardly even thinking about what she was doing.

Science:

We had quite a bit of Science the last couple of weeks. We started out one week with a sensory game. Selena had asked for this game after seeing an episode of Sid The Science Kid, so I put one together for her. She had fun guessing what the items I had picked out for her just by touch. She did very well explaining the textures of each item.

After reading The Leaf Man we had fun with our dried leaves to see the affect wind has on them. Selena came to the conclusion that Leaf Man wouldn’t be able to exist here for very long with the winds we usually get.

We then found a caterpillar to examine. The thrill of Selena’s week is when she can use her magnifying glass to observe things up close.

Geography:

Selena had fun helping me put her State cards on a ring so she can now compare them with the work she has done in her scrapbook and also on our United States map.

Other:

Selena is really starting to get back into her art work again. She really enjoyed making her own pet after reading The Best Pet Ever.

  She also worked very hard to re bead a necklace that she broke one evening. I was very proud of her for getting so many beads on all by herself since she was just using fish line to bead them onto. Only if I would have realized the knot at the end was not large enough to hold the beads on when she picked it up. I finally tied one of the beads to the end of the string so she is still working to see if she can finish this up.

I have to admit the last few weeks have been so great around here with so much Selena based school. She is having fun and learning so much.

I am linking this up at Homeschool Creations.

Preschool Corner/Week in Review

I was amazed at how nice our weather turned out this week though it was a bit muggy all week. We spent as much time as we could out side because we know at anytime our weather could take a change and we might not see this nice weather again until next Summer.

Reading:

We continue to read our way through Selena’s first grade reader. She is becoming more and more confident in her reading. She loves to read in bed at night and her little stack of books is getting taller and taller. I keep joking with her that one day I won’t find her for all her books in her bedroom.

Math:

I have to admit we didn’t do a lot of math this week. Selena did count on her 1 to 100 poster, she made it to 27 before she decided she was done. I asked her if she could count higher then that and she informed me, well of course I can but I don’t want to.

Science:

We discussed why the glass could stay on her face. We looked at suction with a medicine syringe. Selena enjoyed this experiment.

We even fit in a nature hike and Selena filled her basket to the top with leaves. We then made a pretty bouquet from some of the leaves she gathered.

Geography:

We finished up looking at Islands. Selena learned that we have many Islands right here in the Puget Sound, and that there is possibilities to go visit them without having to cross the ocean.

Other:

Selena had fun making her Autumn card and after much thinking she decided not to send it to Uncle TJ but to keep it for herself. We have it hanging on our wall with the rest of her art work.

Selena continues to work on her writing. She loves writing letters to members of the family and then taking them to the mail box to mail them. Now if only she could get some mail in return it would make it complete. Anyone out there with children who would like a pen pal? She doesn’t write much now, but it has been a great way to get her to write.

I am linking this up at Homeschool Creations.

Preschool Corner/Week for Reflection

I had to use this week to examine how we are teaching, and learning. While Selena does enjoy her curriculum doing workbook pages, she really enjoys a lot of freedom and hands on activities. This summer when I was feeling a little burned out we slowed way down on these activities unless they were family outings, which yes, Selena loved, we all did. When we started school again, I didn’t prepare myself well enough with a lot of hands on activities. I guess I figured they would just happen, but you know they don’t just happen, we have to make them happen.

Monday evening was a real eye opener to my lack of being organized. Let me first say when we went to look at the church building, I should have gotten a babysitter for Selena instead of expecting her to go and just understand that we were doing grown up work. Usually when we go to places like this old church building we are going to a museum where we learn, there is a lot of hands on, talking, discussing, Selena input and fun. That night our focus truly was on being with the others in the congregation looking at every aspect of this old building to see if we felt it was something that we really wanted to take on. Selena did not understand this, and expected it to be a field trip for her. We truly did not include Selena in any of the experience, but expected her to just be there while we investigated.

I had to ask how could we have approached this differently? Well, as I mentioned we could have gotten a babysitter. Though, we didn’t we could have been more careful in including Selena a bit more then we did. As I said I didn’t even take my camera. To be honest I don’t know much about Hoquiam, so I had no idea what we were going to see. I had never even heard of this church, let alone realized before we got there that we truly were going to see some history.

Many times others who are not around Selena do not give her credit for being as bright as she is. Selena does not take to having her intelligence questioned. It wasn’t long after she told our Pastor her hypothesis, that the melt down began. Pastor’s wife asked her what she thought of the basement classroom, she didn’t even give Selena a chance to answer her question, now Selena was really getting frustrated. While I am strong in my beliefs that Selena needs to learn and to understand that at these times she does still need to behave and not question our authority, or any other adult. I have to step back a bit and put myself in her shoes. She truly thought we were on a field trip, but we were not teaching her. She wanted to be taught.

What have I learned from this experience, and what do I want to share with all of you, our children deserve to know that even we as parents make mistakes. They deserve the right to know that even we can learn from our mistakes, we can make changes, and by working as a family can bring peace back into our home. We are their model, if we expect them to learn from their mistakes, then we have to set the example of how this is done. We need to show them that not every mistake is horrible, and that their are some great ways to resolve our mistakes, change things around to make things better. We will be going through our curriculum and enhancing it with more hands on.

While this week was a huge eye opener for both my husband and myself, we embraced it with joy that we learned together more about our granddaughter. We look forward now to moving forward implementing more Selena inspired learning, and truly just having fun in our school.

We finished up the week with many hands on activities. We worked a little more with our new math concept in geometry.

We did some art work:

But mostly it made me rethink how we will be doing school yet again this year. It also made me rethink how we would be doing school from here on out.

Selena started dance this week. She had fun, but was a little disappointed when she found out she would not be taking tap dance after she practiced so hard all summer to learn how to do the shuffle step without holding onto something. Instead they are visiting jazz this year. Now we have to go see if the shoe store will exchange her new tap shoes for jazz shoes.

To see what others are doing in their preschools visit Homeschool Creations.

Preschool Corner/Week 5 2010

This was a light week for us. With Labor Day and my CT scan we just didn’t have the time for a lot of formal schooling. We did do a lot through play, reading, and just discussing different things of interest to Selena.

Reading:

We did half of her work in her reading and phonics this week. We will finish the rest up either over the weekend or next week. She continues to work well through her material, but as I keep saying she is so wanting to get over all this review. I consider jumping ahead, but I know there are new concepts being presented through this time as well as the review.

Math:

We worked on writing our numbers 1 – 9. I basically see the same thing with her numbers as I see with her alphabet. She knows how to write all the numbers, yet like her alphabet, she is lacking the self confidence, so insists that I cup her hand while she does all the work.

Geography/History:

We had fun reviewing the materials we have already learned. I enjoy seeing that Selena is retaining so much information, making comparisons, and identifying so much information correctly.

Science:

We found a green moth caterpillar and did a little examination and discussed how it will become a moth through metamorphous, Selena just wondered where it’s cocoon was. We also talked about it’s camouflage. Papa was quite impressed that his little girl understood these concepts so well, and could easily explain what these concepts meant. Papa often gets surprises like this since he isn’t home to see all that Selena is learning.

Other:

This week just seems like it went by with no real eventful other things for Selena. She did realize that if she takes certain rectangles and fold them in half she has a square. I think this is probably the first time she has actually demonstrated the concept of the difference between a square and a rectangle. She had so much fun with this activity. Next we will work on making a triangle out of a square.

I am having a struggle with one of her handbooks. I wasn’t sure that we really needed it to begin with, but since it was Kindergarten and not preschool, I ordered it thinking there would be some new concepts for her. I opened it up this week for our material to find a handgun pictured on the page. Maybe it is just me but I do not feel a child at 3 or 5 needs such a formal introduction to a handgun. I am going to shuffle through the rest of the book with a much closer look now to see what we will or will not be using from this book.

I had my CT Scan, which I mentioned previously and am happy to report all is well.

Come on over to Homeschool Creations to see what other’s have been doing in their homes.

Preschool Corner/Week 4 2010

This was a week that was used for a slight review, catch up on some of the work that we didn’t get done from last week, as well as an introduction to some new things.

Selena showed a little disapproval about her phonics and reading curriculum when she was being asked to do the letter puzzles all the time. So we discussed why this was important in training her eyes and mind for reading. Once this was explained she moved forward with her work, I just cut it back on the amount that she had to do.

I could tell from this that she was getting a wee bit bored with the material, so I jumped a head a bit and we started looking through her site words that she will use with her reader. We first went through them to see how many of the words she can read. She knows 75% of the words already from last year, this made her happy.

We continued to work on our pre-spelling work. Which Selena really does enjoy. If you missed how this pre-spelling is done you can read about it here.

Selena loves her math book, so this area went very smoothly for her. She ran around the house all week adding 1 to everything. I loved hearing her say “one plus one equals” and really knowing that she was processing this new concept. In fact I asked her how old she would be on her next birthday and she informed me to just add one to her age now.

We wanted to explore another State in our geography but doesn’t it always seem that our best laid plans don’t always work out. I have to go buy ink for my poor old printer again. Although I really wonder if it is low on ink since it has been telling me that I am low on yellow ink since I changed the ink the last time, but now it says I am low on black too, so I probably am. A new printer/scanner is on my Christmas want list.

Art is becoming a challenge here. Selena just really doesn’t want to participate in any formal art project unless it is geography.  She loves to color on her own, or do her sticker books, but rebels over formal art. We did however make a baseball math chart, though I had more in plan for it then we got, I figure we will just add the rest to it as we go along.

Selena is still enjoying Yahtzee, and plays it a lot, even when I am busy. She also has picked up her Boggle Jr. and flips through the cards reading them all the time.

She is so excited for dance to start, and was thrilled when we went and bought her new shoes. She also got a new pair of tennis shoes, but wouldn’t change style from her last pair, so we are still wearing the same princess shoes with little lights just a larger size.

To see what others are doing in their preschools come on over to Homeschool Creations.

Spelling/Phonics

I thought I would share how we are doing our spelling. I know that I have tried to describe it in my weekly wrap ups but I thought a little pictorial would help to bring it to light. First of all Selena is given a card with the vowels we are working on thus far in phonics.

I read from a list of words, that begin with these letters:

• is     ax     end     exit
• if      apple     indeed     instant
• egg     in     animal     engine
• insect     Abby     India     Emma

As you can see these are not all real familiar words for Selena, so she does have to listen carefully to each word. Then she has to point to the letter that she thinks the word starts with.

This gives her practice in quite a few ways. First is makes her really listen to the words and their sounds. It also asks that she processes these sounds and think carefully what sound she heard and which letter made the sound. Yes, there are times that she confuses the sounds of e and i, but those times are used to go back and ask her to listen even closer to the word.

In her curriculum, as we move on we will be adding consanants to the mix. So then she will be listening for the first two letters of the word for instance “sa” “se” “si” “so” and “su”. It progressively moves forward from there.