Monday, January 23, 2012

randomness

~Today is Chinese New Year. Fun times at Yinghua Academy!

~Josie likes hot sauce.

~I visited RiverTree school the other day. It is a Charlotte Mason School. How they do school there is very interesting!

~Lost. Season 1. I'm six years late, yes. It's addicting.

~I have been enjoying my Wednesday morning job at church. Love that I can take my kids with me to a job I get paid to do...and the kids love it. It satisfies the people-person side of me too.

~Steve started working overnights again. It's working better so far this time around.

~The kids have declared that they will be famous traveling singers (together) someday.

~Google Translate is fantastic!

~I want house plants. I need house plants!

~I continue to be refined daily. By God. It's hard.

~Reading aloud to Jeneva is very important to her even though she can read on her own. She prefers being read to. It's a relational thing for her.

~Josie is doing pretty much everything a tad bit earlier than the other two.

~I got a duvet cover that perfectly matches my bedroom at Ikea for $7.99

~Jude gets cold sores on his lips just like me.

~I love Frank Asch books.

~We are having orange rolls and smoothies for breakfast. I can't wait!

~We just Skyped with the Morse's in China, but the sound wasn't working.

~I just ordered the book "For the Children's Sake" on Amazon for 1 cent.

~I'm not really enjoying following the curriculum I have for Jude's homeschool preschool.

~We are watching "Heidi" as a family. It's good, but I wish we would have read the book first.

~We ordered ants for Jude's ant farm today. They will arrive in the spring.

~I have two loads of laundry staring me down right now, and the next episode of Lost. Better get to it! Steve will be home soon from Cub Scouts with the kid he mentors. G'nite!

5 comments:

Hoichi said...

I love your randomness! I think it's a great way to remember the daily things. :o)

Curious to know what preschool curriculum you are using with Jude that isn't your favorite?

I'm also feeling the daily refining part. It IS hard, but good.

Happy Chinese New Year to you too! :o)

tiffany said...

Hey Debra,

Thanks! In reference to your question: It's not the curriculum's fault. I think the content is really really good. I'm just having a hard time getting into teaching it I think. I'm doing My Father's World the Kindergarten packet. I'm so used to teaching a classroom of children, so it's kind of hard to follow a curriculum with just one student. I like the day to day learning with my child--which I enjoy (though I do find so much value in children learning in a classroom setting with other children), I just find myself trying to follow it too much and then I feel frustrated b/c I'd rather do my own thing with him. I need to chill out a bit and not feel like I need to follow it so closely because that's not working for me. Even though I think the content is good with MFW, I think if I were planning to homeschool thru the elementary years I would probably keep looking for something different that would fit my style more. Not sure what that would be though.... :)

Hoichi said...

Hey Tiffany,

Thanks for answering my question. :o) I haven't done MFW-K program, but I'm thinking about starting Caleb on their 1st grade curriculum next year.

I've heard several people recommend FIAR (five in a row) for those who like to do their own thing more and pick and choose different projects they'd like to do based on the literature. If that's helpful at all. I don't think it's too pricey either, maybe $35? I think the premise is to read the same book 5 times in a row (once each day of the week), and then they have different subjects that relate to that book. Like with Ping the Duck, one lesson would be on Geography (pointing out China and the Yangtze river), another would be math (counting his family members), things like that to get a lot of mileage out of one story, or something like that.

Whenever I bring library books home, Caleb kind of latches onto a favorite anyway, so I kind of wished I would have looked into it more this year. Who knows, maybe we'll do it this summer just for fun. :o)

Grace to you all!

tiffany said...

Good to know! I may have to look into it for the future! That does sound like something I would like.

Marie said...

Ooooh, I LOVE for the children's sake, and I want to visit that Charlotte Mason school!!! How was it? I have a hard time imagining how her methods would actually flesh out in a group classroom setting.