September 28, 2004

Career and Frog Day

Today's themes were careers and frogs. An odd combination I know. Ciaran, as many of you know is obsessed with frogs, and wakes up every day asking if today can be frog day. I decided while I will wait for a full blown frog day until F week I need to feed his interest now. So we started with two nonfiction books on frogs and they really hold his attention - he can name them and tell you the differences between a variety of frogs and toads. We went for a frog hunt but did not find any. We talked about how they will hibernate like bears (continuing yesterday's lesson) and he was very unhappy about that. On our frog hunt we kept a list of C words we saw, from that list: canoe, crabapple tree, crickets, crooked sign, cold, children, crack, creek, Cheney (as in Bush Cheney sign Rhia pointed out), chair, can, car and carraige. We made different frog sounds and calls and he had some coloring sheets.

This afternoon we started talking about C. I started with the theme of careers because I found several short books about different jobs that start with C. We began by showing them all the book covers and telling them they were related to careers and asking what they thought that meant. Rhia said "It is something you do" and then we talked about work/jobs and careers. We started naming some different careers and talked about computer programming (Serona's field and Ciaran's C vocab word). Then I read books about cowboys, custodians, cooks/chefs, cashiers and carpenters. From other books we read we also talked about president, Secretary of State (Colin Powell), heptologists (frogs), composer (bach, beethoven), artist (Cassat). We ended by talking about what they might want to do. Ciaran picked heptologist (surprised anyone?) and Rhia said a chef.

Ciaran took a nap and Rhia had quiet time and then finished her daily lessons. We also started working on the Homeschoolers for Bush unit study. For copywork today she began writing George Washington's "Rules for Civility" (we will try to write one a day until the election as part of the hs4bush study)and we talked about who we call to make sure they are registered to vote and how we can help people register to vote.

Rhia and I also worked on archaelogy today and collected various items to bury for our archaeological dig that might help someone understand our culture if they found them. Serona and I will bury them in the sandbox so they can excavate them tommorrow. It was fun to have her help pick what would represent our culture and it will be interesting to see how she does with the excavation proccess.

Been keeping up in Phonics Pathways, Miquon math, Story of the World and First Language lessons, bible memorization and our other usuals. Today's language lesson was fun - it was narration from a picture and then a review of proper and common nouns. She is really gettting much better about using complete sentences in her narrations. At the wedding she received a compliment on how well she always speaks in full sentences.

Off to clean and make dinner. Peace,
Tenn

3 comments:

  1. Anonymous12:14 PM

    I love your site and find it useful for ideas in teaching my preschooler. What I want to know is - how do you find time to do all of the things you do: school, reasearch, keep up your home, and pursuit of personal interests and reading? And also, how do you find the patience? I read what the other lady posted in her reference to kids "not being a burden." I don't view my 2.5 year old as a burden, but I just can't entertain her all day long. She wears me out sometimes! I have to do other things because I also work at home as a medical transcriptionist, and I have an 8 week old. Sorry for the long post. I admire you and all you do. I guess I feel like I should be doing more! :) Any tips?

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  2. Thanks for your kind words and I want to answer all your questions but there is so much to say! First let me assure you that it gets easier. Believe it or not I find having three easier than having two was and as they get older they can and do entertain each other quite a bit.

    I think I will make some blog entries to answer these questions in more detail over the course of the next week or so but in breif, there are a few things that I really believe help me to get done all that I do.

    First thing is I don't watch any television and have not for over 10 years now. Occasionaly I will watch a movie we have rented or own but we do not have cable or even network TV, I am very uninformed about the entertainment world as I do not give it much time or attention. I firmly believe this has given me large amounts of time that many people may not realize they are using in front of the TV.

    Second, my husband and I have made priorities and we try our very best to stick to them. This does not always make us popular as the needs of our family almost always come first and that can be hard for friends and extended family to understand sometimes. While many people say that - we really live it even when it means having to cancel plans at the last minute or change our priorites and involvement. Even when it means saying no to things that are great opportunities or that we would enjoy or be good at. We have really tried to figure out what is important to us and then stick to just that and stop the things that interfere or take away time from those priorities. But the downside is we have lost friends, upset family and been considered selfish.

    Third I've changed habits and tried to form good routines. I admit to being a FLYLADY dropout - I can not keep up with the program as she has it - but I did learn LOADS from her and still use it every day in my life. If you have never heard of her visit www.flylady.net and subscribe. It changed the way I viewed housework and gave me methods to apply. My timer is my best friend and I try to do atleast 15 minutes of cleaning in the morning and at night, keep the house generally picked up and stay on top of laundry.

    Research and reading come naturally and easily to me. I have a background in debate and research and I am a news junkie (not TV news). Reading is relaxing to me and research is important to me and rewarding. These are the things I enjoy doing and feel I do well, I suppose they are my hobbies.

    Lastly, there are other areas of my life that suffer. It is easy to focus on all the good as that is what I chose to record in my blog and there is a lot of it in my life. However, I am terrible at sending letters, pictures and thank yous to family and friends who deserve it. My garage and storage area are very messy, my dogs get less attention than they should, I'm sleep deprived and always double tasking. I hardly ever sit still and seem to always be busy. Some friends and family simply do not understand us and may feel hurt or neglected from time to time.

    There are always areas we are each strong in and we need to love ourselves for who we are. We can continually improve ourselves and learn from one another but should never feel like we need to do more because someone else is. That took me a long time to realize as a mother.

    I think for me the key is I am comfortable with the wife, mother and woman that I am. I can always improve and I always try to get better - but improve in the areas that I can and want to and let go of the rest. I am a solid Christian and my faith in God gives me peace and patience even when I don't think I have it. I lean on him and his strength and find that he gives me what I need for the moment.

    Sure I lose my temper from time to time - I try not to but we all do. I've been blessed with patience though I did not realize that until I had kids. When I get real tense I try to think like my 3 year old and it often gives me perspective. Sometimes we just have to do something crazy - like run laps or walk like tigers back to the car, sometimes I just need to hand the kids to Serona when he walks in the door and sometimes I just need to go out of my kids earshot and scream or cry. But most often I just pray and God gives me the patience I need.

    I am sure you are an excellent mother and you have lots of responsibilites that are competing for your attention. Your baby is also only 8 weeks old! I was not doing all of this at 8 weeks! Cut yourself some slack and appreciate all the good that is in your life and that you are able to do - choose a few areas you want to improve on and work on them slowly, being very generous with yourself.

    Find inspiration, ideas and support from other people but do not let yourself feel like you need to do all that everyone else is doing because you simply can not and they can not do all that you do. I also found that blogging helped me realize all the good that was in my life as I really started to keep track of it more.

    If you have specefic questions feel free to email me at tennielNOSPAMS@NOSPAMSgmail.com (be sure to take out the nospams). I'll try to offer some more in depth answers of how I developed these habits slowly over time in my blog.

    Peace,
    Tenn

    Peace,
    Tenn

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