August 8, 2007
One addition to our home school schedule! I just signed Natalie up for gym classes at a place called Fit Kidz, here in Pickerington. She'll have one hour sessions every Tuesday at 1:00. We visited this place when it was just opening last year, and it looked like a lot of fun! We've wanted to get the kids there, but it was always too expensive. They recently started a home school class with a 9 week rate of only $45, which is less than half the normal 9 week session rate. Yay!

August 7, 2007
I just finished writing up our home education notification form, which I'll be sending to the local school superintendent this week. As an addendum to the 'intent to home educate' statement, Ohio requires you to send in an outline of what you plan to study in the coming year. After writing it all, I thought I'd copy and paste it here, so we can look back at what our plans were for our first "official" year at homeschooling! Here's a look at what we will be doing with ourselves in the coming months! (I'm just waiting on her readers to get here in the mail - everything else is ready to go! Natalie would have loved to start YESTERDAY.

Briefly before I get to that, I wanted to note that Ella is now standing up with just holding onto things with one hand (she's wanting to be ever more mobile -and quickly!). This weekend she started something else that is really cute: she points to someone until she has their attention, then she waves to them. Cute cute cute!

Tomorrow will be our NINE year anniversary! It's so hard to believe it's already been nine years. Even harder to imagine that it's FIFTY-NINE for my grandparents! Maybe next year we'll all have a big party. This year I think Phil and I are just going to drop the kids off at church for normal Wednesday night stuff, and we'll go out to get dessert at Melting Pot or somewhere else non-kid friendly. 

Okay, here's the notification addendum that I wrote. 

Addendum to Home Education Notification Form

 (6) Brief outline of the intended curriculum for the current year.

Monday-Friday daily:  Bible reading & memorization, History & Geography, Read-Alouds, Science, Phonics & Language Arts, Handwriting, Math.

Bible: daily reading and 1 verse memorization per week.

History & Geography: Daily reading on historical figures and places, other weekly activities, e.g., creating a timeline, customs, people groups, world foods, planets and space, maps and globe.

Read-Alouds: Daily reading from various children’s classics.

Science: Daily text readings and accompanying worksheets, and vocabulary. Average of 1 science experiment per week based on each week’s material.

Language arts: Daily phonics work, weekly introduction to parts of the dictionary, daily reading using Grade 1 readers, daily handwriting practice using dictation and copying.

Math: Daily instruction using text, workbooks, and manipulative blocks.

Additional weekly activities:

--Developmental activity such as measuring, cutting, gluing, and colors and shapes.

--Topically appropriate field trip once every two weeks – e.g., the zoo, COSI, botanical gardens.

--Physical education will be daily and will include 1/week dance and/or gymnastics lessons, outdoor play.

-- Once per month, we will complete a longer writing assignment, e.g., personal narratives, creative expression, explanations. These exercises are scheduled as part of the language arts curriculum.

-- Music education in the form of piano instruction, singing, and recorder.

-- Art education utilizing primarily Usborne books, e.g., “I can draw…” series, “What shall I paint?” series, and “Things to Do” series books. Also fingerpainting, mixing colors, learning color wheel.

-- Health and wellness along with kitchen and personal safety.

(7) A list of;

            textbooks, commercial curricula, other basic teaching materials

Sonlight Curriculum Ltd. will be used for all core subjects except math. Instructor’s Guides are to be used, which includes a schedule of all daily activities, readings, worksheets, writing exercises and science experiments.

Additionally I will be supplementing the Sonlight readers with grade 1 Reading textbooks from Houghton Mifflin and Scott Foresman companies.

All subjects will use the list of books included with the Sonlight Core C (Kindergarten) package, including many Usborne books, and classic children’s stories.

A timeline book will be created over the course of the year.

Handwriting will be using Getty & Dubay Book A.

Math curriculum will be from the Math-U-See company. We will be utilizing their “Foundations” program, which will include, for year 1, addition, subtraction, reading a clock, place values, and skip counting. The program includes video instruction, a teaching manual, workbook, manipulative blocks, and additional practice sheets and tests.

Other materials to be used: piano, recorder, music books, art books (as noted above), white dry erase board, chalkboard, a globe, state, USA and world maps, consumable and non-consumable science kits, home computer, TV and VCR (math instructional videos), tempera paints, other basic school/home supplies.

August 3, 2007
Wow, I am really exhausted. Today I did something that I haven't done in over a month, and I'm not sure I really should have today, either. I took the kids, all three, out of the house by myself. Last night I practiced, with Phil close by, crutching around with Ella in my Moby.  It seemed almost simple enough, at least in the short distance of the living room and down the two garage stairs. I tried to see if I could hobble behind a stroller, using it as a walker, but when I tried it by holding onto the handles of the wheelchair, I quickly discovered that I was nowhere near ready for that yet -- and the wheelchair is a lot more stable than a stroller, besides. But crutching around the room and out to the car didn't seem too bad. So today I decided to take the plunge and get my poor, bored children out of the house for awhile.

First stop was the post office, where I would have never guessed that they wouldn't have button-operated, or automatic doors. Well, they didn't, and on top of that, I had to go through three sets of heavy glass doors to get in. Natalie and Ethan helped with the doors, but they were very heavy, so we all did a lot of struggling. (Meanwhile there were workers and customers inside who just stood there and watched.) After the post office --we did get help going back out, thankfully-- my foot was already protesting in pain, but I had brought some  meds with me, and we were already out (what I thought would be the hardest part) so we went on with our plans. I drove to Eastland mall, to have lunch at Chick Fil-A, then afterwards to let the kids run around in the play area.

I thought I'd find a handicapped parking spot right by the food court entrance (I have a temporary permit), but the place was packed, and every handicapped spot was taken. Only one of those cars had a handicapped sign displayed. (Something I've noticed is a big problem. I'd seen people parking in those spots before, but now I'm particularly aware of it...) At that point, I really should have given up, but I've been feeling really bad all week about my kids being stuck inside all month long, and they really wanted to go play. So I parked in the closest spot I could -- which was in the first row, but the very LAST spot. I got Ella in the Moby, put my diaper bag backpack on my back, got the other two out, and started our long hobble into the mall. I don't know know long it took to get in, but by the time I made it to the food court, I was sweating buckets, my left foot was throbbing, and my right foot was protesting all the weight being put on it. Sitting down with our lunch was a welcome break -- after I got the high chair pulled over to my table (NOT easy) and Ella off my chest. After lunch, I got Ella wrapped back up, and we walked over to the play area. I'm glad we did - the kids had a lot of fun and it was nice seeing them run around. Even Ella got down on the floor with them and crawled around a little. The kids seemed to be very happy to be out.

I was very glad to get home and get my foot back up, though. I don't think I'll be trying that again until I can push the baby in the stroller. It's just too much extra weight to crutch around with. But at least now I know it CAN be done, if I have to go somewhere. 

Yesterday was my first physical therapy session. All she did were some stretches on my foot, but it HURT! Especially when my foot was pushed up or down. My side to side movement isn't too horrible, but up and down just isn't happening. I was also amazed at how much my calf muscle was sore last night, like I'd been doing heavy leg lifts all day. I guess that's how it feels when you stretch your feet out for the first time in a month - my whole leg is really weak. I have to go to P.T. twice a week for the next 6 weeks.

One final thing for today, completely switching topic -- yesterday Ella started really making sounds. She is now babbling all the time;  her two most frequent sounds are "ba-ba-ba" and (smile) "ma-ma-ma". She seems quite pleased with herself, too.