Thursday, May 24, 2012

Homeschooling Update

So I got behind and didn't get this post out on Monday.  Oh well!  Here's an update in pictures of the fun stuff we've doing in pre-school.  Enjoy!



Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Clean It! - Wednesday is kitchen day

My lovely husband is in charge of the dishes:).  So for today, which is kitchen day, the fact that the dishes got washed in the dishwasher was the extent of cleaning the kitchen...ha!  My goal is to sweep, mop, wipe down counters, shred papers, and clean out the fridge.  However, today was a icky day and I almost slept through dance class so I am letting go.  I'm OK with the fact that all the other stuff didn't happen because sometimes that's just life.  Plus tomorrow is grocery/errand day and I don't need to run out for anything so I can catch up tomorrow:).

Toodles!

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Clean It! - Tuesday is master bedroom day

So today is master bedroom day and I have not done it yet...ha!  So after I hit "publish" I will go into the bedroom and tidy up so I can check it off the "Clean It!" list:).

The way I keep the room organized is to keep it DE-CLUTTERED!  It's hard with little kids, but I try really hard to keep the toys out.  I read somewhere that you should keep your room free of kid stuff and although some would disagree, I LOVE this!  Now don't get me wrong, when I have an infant in a bassinet I make exceptions.  But keeping this "rule" in mind has helped cut down on how much I have to clean when I clean this space each week.

So I'm off to clean my space!

Night:)

  

Monday, May 7, 2012

Clean It!- The Schedule

So I'm on this kick that I'm praying will stay with me and become a habit.  It's called cleaning my home.  Not a novel idea at all, but one that many women and men struggle.  So I sit somewhere between,"I must clean until everything is in it's proper place" and "who cares because my kids are awake" and I think this a good place to be:).  I want people to come into my home and things be tidy, but not at the expense of loosing out on valuable family time.  I want my husband and kids to feel like they they "live" in their home without fear that mom is going to chop their heads off because they dropped a cheerio or didn't put their shoes in the shoe bucket.  So now that I'm out of the,"you've had a three babies in the past 4 years" fog I can wrap my brain around a cleaning schedule.  Yay for me!!!

Luckily I have some wonderful family and friends who feel the same way that I do about this and they have physically helped me numerous times in my endeavor to get my house in order!  They have organized clothes and closets, cleaned floors (YES, on their hands and knees), kept the girls occupied, and helped me fold laundry.  I have some wonderful friends:).

So on to the schedule.  I don't know why, but I get really excited when I begin to schedule anything!  You should see my notebooks that I write in.  They have several versions of schedules because the first schedule you write is never the final plan:).  So anyway...I have a room that I clean each day and some items that should be done every day.  So that this post is not crazy long I am going to just talk about Monday and then for the rest of the week I will blog about what I cleaned on that particular day.

Monday is bathroom day.  Yuck!  Hey, but it's got to get done.  I clean everything in each of my three bathrooms.  I clean the shower while I'm in it, sweep/mop the floors, clean the tubs, toilets, sinks, and mirrors.

The items that should get done everyday are the following:

*Take a load of laundry out of the room with you in the morning (I'm still working on this habit and I want to fold and put this away right after lunch.)
* Vacuum the dining room and living room (I do this because I have carpet in my dining room and it's awful if I don't vacuum or at least pick up big stuff off the floor every other day)
*Dishes (t\This is actually my husbands job and he loads and unloads the dishwasher every day)
*10 minute pick up (I haven't actually implemented this yet, but I want to start.  I think I'm going to do this at lunch, dinner, and bedtime.

So there you have it!  Day one of the cleaning schedule:).

Homeschool Monday - The schedule

So I've been doing a lot of research on homeschooling and I can successfully say that I am obsessed...ha!  I love the idea sharing, the life sharing, and the love that is felt in each and every blog that I find.  So tonight I've decided that I would try blogging about our experience just to put it out there and join in on the love:).

The first installment will be our schedule.  Now I have to give a disclaimer that this is what I have down on paper, but doesn't always happen.  So part of the reason I am sharing this is so that I can be more accountable to the plan.

9 am Calendar Time (Days of the week song, Month song while we march in a parade with our instruments, weather, colors review with color circles, counting, introduce the letter of the week)
9:30 am  Story time (Right now we read whatever the girls want, but next year we will change it up a bit and include our Before Five In a Row story.)
10/10:30 am Letter of the week worksheets from "Confessions" (Dot letters, collage sheets, lacing pictures) and letter find worksheets from this site
10:30-11 am Craft Time (I tend to be free with craft time.  There isn't a theme right now and may not ever be for the moment.  The girls pick from our supplies we have in our school room and create!)

I do have a little one that doesn't do any school yet, but I do have some Montessori inspired trays where I put toys she can easily access.  So right now she just crawls over to the shelf and plays while I do pre-school with big girls.

After this the girls free play and I do my best to keep the TV off and play music.  My girls are always moving so on the days when the TV is on more I don't sweat it at all:).

So my dilemma has been how much to school the girls.  Right now, I'm very chill about school.  We either do Monday, Thursday, or both of those days depending on what I want to do or how much the girls beg me for school (I absolutely LOVE that they LOVE learning by the way).  Next year, though, I'm leaning towards a Monday, Wednesday, Friday (Friday is our library day).  However, we will do the calendar everyday (even weekends) to keep up with the order of things.  I am also tossing around the idea that I will school everyday in some way.  For instance, I came across this idea to map out where the food and other things you buy come from as a geography lesson.  So this is something that I could do with girls while I'm in the kitchen cooking.  We would simply have a map in the kitchen, take out an item form the kitchen or tag in someone's shirt, then put a push pin on the map and talk about that area of the country.  Simple learning that I can do on the "off school" days.  LOVE it!

So there you go!  Our schedule and my thoughts on the whole deal.  Anyone got any great ideas to share on how you school your kids?