I figured it was time for a school post again. I am horrible about posting about our school days, which was one of the original reasons I started this blog. Inhaven't had any real cool ideas come to me this year. I sort of became the boring teacher that I didn't want to become. The "Get your math book and do this page...great, now let's do phonics" kind of boring teacher. I don't know what happened after summer break. I lost something. When we went to our school eval last year and the teacher mentioned specific text books, something happened. Something in my brain sort of shut off and the creative side of me went in that direction. We haven't done a single lapbook yet, and our timeline notebook has yet to be started. I really need to think this all over again and get back to what was working so well last year. At this point we are just doing school because we have to, and I hate that. It is so totally opposite of the way it was before.

Jacob is doing great regardless of how boring it likely is for him. We are working in a 3rd grade Math book right now, and he is having very little trouble getting through it. His problem is simply taking forever to actually do the work. LOL He gets bored and then distracted. I'm probably going to start taking random problems off of the pages and actually go through more than one lesson a day on the topics he seems to get with no trouble. Phonics is a breeze as well, but he hates the writing. I can't really take that away though, because he needs to work on the handwriting quite a bit. When he had his 1st grade eval, the teacher said his handwriting was typical for the age, so I am not concerned about it. I think it looks like typical boy handwriting for sure. ;)

Bible lessons are going well. We have been reading about Adam and Eve this week from Jacob's "Kid's Devotional Bible". Then he does worksheets and coloring sheets. He still hates doing word searches, but the true and false, fill in the blanks, maze, and crossword puzzles are huge hits.

Jacob has also been attending a weekly art class with our homeschooling group. So far he has made a pinch pot that he will paint in the next week or two. Last week was a watercolor painting that was based on a story the art teacher read about the seashore. The teacher and I were talking a little and she said if she could get more of the older kids around his age to come than she would love to teach more technical aspects of the drawing. I know he would love that!

Joshua is doing really well also. He does surprisingly well with his math. He's better with subtraction than addition, which I did not expect. I have been taking large addition flash cards this week and laying them on the floor. Then we take a huge basket of cars and he sets up the problems in a visual manner next to the card. He gets the answer almost immediately. He doesn't seem to get that he can do the same thing with his fingers, but I think we will get there in a few more weeks.

We also have been using the magnetic letters for phonics. He is starting to make more reading connections. I take some cards for him to copy a word from. We then make new words with the same sound by changing one letter. After a few times, he reads a word or two on his own. Hopefully it will start clicking sooner with him.

We did a science experiment today on sinking and floating objects. We started off by reading a short one-page story from "Discover and Explore" ( a Timothy Goes to School book). We went in all of the rooms of the house and grabbed some objects to stick in his basket. Then filled the sink and made a chart. He had to choose an object from the basket and tell me if he thought it would float or sink. We'd mark down his prediciton and then mark what actually happened when he placed the object in water. He had a blast since he loves playing in water. He also has been telling me the weather this week, so we are going to make a weather chart later today.

Cassidy has been going to art classes with Jacob and really enjoying them too. She had a blast with the pinch pot, but when we did the painting I didn't think we would ever get to leave. She is VERY independant all of a sudden. We had to wet the paper before painting and she was soaking one little spot and avoiding the rest, so I tried helping her with the brush. You'd have thought I was ruining the thing. I was plainly told she wanted to do it by herself. Eventually I did get the paper wet for her and then she had a blast mixing the colors on the paper. We have both her and Jacob's paintings hanging on the living room wall.

Potty training is going so well with her now that I can't believe it. Cassie even pottied in the store bathroom on Sunday. I am so proud of how well she is doing. I set up a potty chart and it seems to be the final push she needed. The stickers weren't doing any good apparently until she saw them being gathered on a piece of paper.

Elena is keeping up just fine with the others. She makes sure she is included in every activity they are involved in. Her favorite phrase is "Fun-ny" right now. She giggles all of the time. That's one huge difference between girls and boys.....girls giggle a LOT. She pretends to read, plays dress-up, does "school", and still dances up a storm. She freezes when the new Barbie movie commercial comes on - the 12 dancing princesses or something like that. It cracks me up to see her. We got the Barbie Swan Lake DVD from the library a few weeks ago and her dancing reached a whole new level with that one. We have lots of arm movements and leg lifts to go with the spins and sways now. It is so cute watching her, because she is so serious. And there are times where there is no music so she will sing her own little tune to dance to. Absolutely adorable. :) So, there is no telling what she will be doing when she sees the new Barbie movie. LOL

Not much else to tell, I guess. Scrapping has been very slow. I hit a slump and have had little time the past couple of weeks. I've done very little scrapping most nights. I do have a few new pages, and I will post them when I get a chance to do so. I got a Wacom tablet for my birthday, and I am still playing with it and trying to figure out all of the nifty things it does. I have been using the pen as my mouse to try to get used to how it moves and feels. It definitely will take a lot of practice. It seems to be causing some of my tools in PS7 to not work now, so I have also been trying to figure out my way around those issues. I'm sure it is a simple fix that I just need to find time to figure out, but goodness, there are not enough hours in a day to do everything I need to do AND the things I want to do. LOL Maybe this weekend will slow down a little and I can play with it. :)