2012-2013 APEX Schedules

Options will have a new name next year as it is being taken in by our local school district.  So, now the once a week public school for the homeschooled will be called APEX.  In any case, I just sent in the girl's schedules for next year, so here they are.  Should be fun.

Sierra (5th grade)

1- World Percussion

2- Musical Theatre

3- Musical Theatre

4- LUNCH

5- Spanish A/B (with Bailey)

6- Mythology

7- Art (with Bailey)

Bailey (2nd Grade)

1- Science 1

2- Passport to the World

3- Keyboard 2 (or PE if she can't do piano)

4- LUNCH

5- Spanish A/B (with Sierra)

6- Intro to Musical Theatre

7- Art (with Sierra)

Blake of course will be in the Kindergarden program which is set by the teacher

Reading to Music

I've started working with Blake on reading. We're currently on lesson 10 in Teach Your Child to read in 100 Easy Lessons where he is learning to sound out simple words like "sam" and "cat". He's excited and doing well. Oh please let it continue like this!

So, when and where do I fit in this 1 on 1 with Blake? First thing in the school day, of course. Sierra is busy practicing her guitar in the living room, Bailey is practicing her piano in the family room, and Blake and I are snuggled up on my bed "reading". Jingle Bells, Greensleeves, and "aaammm" "am" going on all at once. It's music to my ears.

Happy Belated Birthday Blake

Way back when Blake turned 5, we were planning on having a party for him. Unfortunately, it was the Saturday before Thanksgiving, and all but one of his friends couldn't make it. So, we decided to move it. To January. When everyone could make it. When we weren't all busy with Christmas stuff. Ah, life. Sigh.

Anyway, we had a great time.

My kids made the monster cupcakes. The eyes were the best parts. Yum!

Happy 5th Birthday Blake!

During Tough Times, School Time is Tough

When I was still pregnant with twins and completely exhausted, it was hard to get homeschooling done. I would often stay in bed or lie on the couch and have the girls come to me if they had questions. We also sometimes cut down school to only math, Sierra's guitar, and Bailey's reading, but even that was hard to do some days. I'm so grateful my husband was around to help.

Because he works from home, and business is slow, he was able to homeschool the girls on the days when I was just to exhausted. Especially when I started working part time in the evenings. He would also clean up, make the kids clean, make dinner, and let me rest all day. True, his standards are lower then mine, but it was by far more then I was capable of doing at the time. And I really appreciated it. Especially the fact that, because of him, we are still on schedule to finish our school year before the baby is born.

Well, now that work is over and my energy is coming back, we're easing back into our normalish routine. The house is getting cleaner, our meals are getting better, the girls have music, math, writing, spelling, grammar, handwriting, etc., and Blake does his workbook pages. We haven't added back the afternoon routine yet, but I figure we can do that after Christmas break.

So I guess, when times are tough, do what you must, and eventually things will get better.

Paring Down a Bit

With all of the stuff that we had planned to do this year, I soon discovered that it was a bit much. While being overly ambitious to begin with, I also found that my basement is taking up a lot of my extra energy. Reality hit, and I had to find ways of cutting back for my own sanity. So, here's what we've done:

*We now have history once a week, instead of twice, with science on occasion.

*The girls no longer have logic.

*Sierra's piano is no longer mandatory (though she likes doing it, sometimes that and guitar in one morning is just too much).

*Latin has been re-set to the beginning so that the girls are reviewing what they've learned last year instead of doing things new.

*We're skipping Blake's interactive preschool work for now, though he still gets to do his workbook.

*I've given up biking for the time being and mostly do walking with occasional swimming for exercise.

So far, it has made a huge difference. Hopefully, when I've got the basement done, we can add stuff back in, like Blake's preschool work, history twice a week, and regular science. We'll have to wait and see.

Options 2011

We now have our Options schedules set for the year.

Sierra:

1- Colorado History

2- Rapid Math Skills

3- Guitar

4- lunch

5- Art

6/7-Musical Theatre

Bailey will be with the 1st grade class all day learning math, science, art, music, spanish, reading, etc.

2011-2012 Schedule

We started school this week, and this is what our schedule seems to be settling into. We just move from one subject to the next until we are done:

9am (M,T,W,F. Thursday is Options)

All:
Stretches, calisthenics, yoga, biking, walking, etc. 15 minutes

Sierra (4th grade):
15 minutes guitar
20-25 min. piano (with Dad on Monday)
-SNACK-
Math (Horizon's Math)
Handwriting (Zanner Blosser)
Grammar (Easy Grammer)
Spelling (Spelling Workout)
Logic (Building Thinking Skills)
Typing (e-mail and blogging)

Bailey (2nd grade work):
20 min Piano (with Dad on Monday)
Read a book to Blake
-SNACK-
Math (Horizon's Math)
Handwriting (Zanner Blosser)
Spelling (Spelling Workout)
Copy Work (that I have written)
Logic (Building Thinking Skills)

Blake (Pre-K):
20 min preschool work with Mom
Read a book with Bailey
-SNACK-
Workbook page (generic preschool stuff)

Mom:
20 min. Preschool work with Blake
Help Bailey read to Blake
-SNACK-
Baking, banking, cleaning, etc. while stuck in the kitchen/
help the kids where needed


2pm (M,T,W. Thursday is Options. Friday is playgroup.)

All:

M,W-History (Story of the World)

T-Science (Adventures with Atoms and Molecules/Physics Experiments for Children)

Sierra:
Read 30 minutes/One chapter
Latin (Rosetta Stone)
Cleaning

Bailey:
Latin (Rosetta Stone)
Read book 15 minutes
Cleaning

Blake:
Clean

Mom:
Clean/Read/Rest/Whatever

Change of Pace

It crept up on me over a long period of time. It actually took me a while to notice. Things were not going how I wanted. I was loosing control of the situation, and it was stressing me out.

School was taking forever!

Why? Well, the biggest culprit was that the girls, Bailey specifically, would take forever to do their chores in the morning before school, sometimes a couple hours for something I could do in about 15 minutes. It would set the whole day off to the wrong start. They would be hungry (because it was almost lunch time) before they started doing their school work, making that take longer along with a lot of whining. Blake would be bored. I would end up chained to the kitchen, which also made me edgy. And so it went.

Then, one day while complaining about this to my spouse, he suggested that I do the cleaning last. I resisted at first. I've always done cleaning before school after all, but then I started seriously thinking about it. I decided it wouldn't hurt to at least try it out.

My husband was a genius! It has made a huge difference. We still start around 9, but I've added a short 15 minute workout (calisthenics or yoga) at the beginning of school. The kids like that. It helps get their wiggles out and helps them focus. Then Sierra is off to piano while I work with Bailey on reading and Blake heads out to play. When I'm done with reading, I fix a snack for the kids, which they eat, and then I busy myself cleaning the kitchen while they are doing their school work. I even make lunch. Then the kids are free to play until 2 when we have our afternoon school work. When that's done, they are sent off to do their chores, and they can't play until they are done.

It has made vast improvements to out family life. I, who am a control freak, can keep the schedule I want. I can also make a lot better use of the time that I am stuck in the kitchen. Both of these help keep my stress levels and annoyance way down. The kids get to do their school work when they are still energized and in a good mood. Blake isn't left alone for as long. Another surprising thing for me was that the house is nice in the morning because it was cleaned after all of the days activities are over.

As an added bonus, if Bailey wants to take two hours to clean, it doesn't bother me one bit. It's only her time that is being waisted now. Not mine. Not Sierra's. Not Blakes. What a relief. I think I'm going to like this.

School for Me!

My kids aren't the only ones doing school this year. When they started learning Latin, I said "Me too!". When Sierra brought home a typing program, I said "Me too!" again. Oh, and I've also started teaching myself the clarinet (I played the oboe for 6 years, but I don't have an oboe. I have my husband's old clarinet instead, so I figured, why not make use of it?)

So now, while my kids are doing their school work, I happily busy myself for 10-15 minutes learning to type correctly. I never actually learned before, and while I can easily type 20+ words per minute, I'm not very efficient and have to continually look at my hands.

After typing, I go off to my room and practice the clarinet while the girls continue their school work. (They come and find me if they need me, but this way I don't distract them.) Since I have prior band experience, I'm flying through the lessons. It's somewhat nostalgic to see those old songs that I used to have problems with in junior high. I can easily whip through them now on a new instrument because all I'm really learning are the different fingerings and ambusher (mouth positioning). I don't have to learn all of the mechanics over again. Makes me want to try other instruments once I have the clarinet down. (I'm seriously looking at relearning the piano-I only played it for 2 years-and eventually want to learn at least the trumpet and flute).

Later, typically toward the end of morning school or while the girls are having down time, I get back on the computer and do Rosetta Stone Latin. So far, so good. It's interesting how many English words are Latin based, making it easier on me in the long run. Feline, canine, elephant, aquatics, ambulatory, etc are all very similar to the Latin root.

It's kinda' fun learning along with my kids. Now, hopefully, I keep it up.

Our Schedule, So Far

Here's what our days look like so far this year (including what we plan on adding when Options starts):

Monday:
Options from 8:15-3:15
Sierra: PE, Drama, Science, Computer Skills, Piano, and Art
Bailey: K program combining Science, Art, Reading, Math, PE, etc.

Tuesday-Friday Mornings:
starting around 9am and going from one subject to another until complete, usually in this order
Sierra: Cleaning, Piano, Math, Handwriting, Dictation, Spelling, Grammar, Computer Work
Bailey: Cleaning, Math, Handwriting, Spelling, Copy Work, Reading

Tuesday Afternoon:
Together: Latin
Sierra: 30 minutes reading

Wednesday Afternoon:
Together: Latin and History
Sierra: 30 minutes reading

Thursday Afternoon:
Together: Latin and Science
Sierra: 30 minutes reading

Friday Afternoon:
Homeschool Playgroup

Back to Normal-FINALY!

We started school this week.

It's really nice to have a semblance of routine to our days again. I didn't realize before how much I appreciated that. Really.

These last few weeks have been listless blahs. Cleaning, shopping, cooking-they all went haphazard. Oh, there were fun days too, like when we went to the fair, but most of it was spent sitting around being very unproductive. Reading binges, anime binges, playing at the pool. . .it all gets boring after a while.

Don't get me wrong. Vacation is very nice. I've just realized that there can be too much of it too.

I'm thinking next summer we'll only take one month off. Two, while nice, was way to long.

Let's Get Organized

Our summer vacation time is swiftly coming to a close, and we're starting to get exited.

Yesterday morning, the kids and I went to the store and got all of our school supplies; binders, crayons, pencil boxes, pencils, paper, etc. They were so excited by it all that we were soon pulling packaging apart, putting school boxes together, coloring binder labels, and having a grand old time. I even went so far as to put together their math and language arts binders, an activity which involved pulling apart a number of 100+ page workbooks, hole punching them, and organizing them with deviders. I even made and printed out and hole punched a bunch of experiment pages for science. It took me a good few hours. Before we knew it, it was time for dinner!

I still have to get History ready, which involves pulling apart another workbook, scanning the pages, making a disk, printing them out, and hole punching them all. We also need to finalize our daily and year-long schedules, but there's still time.

We start school the second week in August.

We're almost there.

Vacation is nice, but we're getting ready for life to be normal again.

Oh Yah. . .

Did I froget to mention that school is out for the next two months. Woohoo!

5, 4, 3, 2, 1!!!

The countdown begins.

Five more days of school, and then we are off for two whole months! The reason for that long of a break is because I decided I wanted to start school around the same time that the school district in town was. That way there's less confusion, I can capitalize on the back to school sales, and I won't have to start using the Options curriculum part way through the year.

So what are we going to do with all of that time?

Swim.
Paint the house.
Camp.
Visit Family.
House projects.
Read.
Denver Science Museum.
Relax.

It's going to be a great summer!

2010-2011 Longmont Options

Well, Sierra and Bailey have both made it into the Longmont Options program for next year. They will be attending regular classes starting Friday, September 10, 2010 and continue most Fridays from 8:15-3:15 until Friday May 20, 2011.

Bailey's classes will include:
-Science
-Language Arts
-Math Skills
-Art
-Music
-Spanish
-Physical Education

Sierra's classes will include;
-Art
-Spanish
-Drama
-Science
-Piano
-Computer Skills

Both girls are really excited. We are looking forward to another fun year of Options.

The New, Improved Battle Plans

Things have changed a bit since we started the school year, adding in things like swimming lessons, piano lessons, the Options program, and so forth, so I thought I would give an update on our daily routine. Hope it makes sense.

Mon. Tues. Wed. & Fri.
7:30 am- I go exercise for about 30-45 minutes rotating between swimming, jogging, and biking.

9:30 am-School begins. From here, we just keep going until we're done with the morning work.
Sierra & Bailey Step 1- Clean up time. Bailey usually takes longer on her chores, so they go at their own pace from here.
Sierra Step 2- 15 minutes piano practice, Alfred's Basic Piano Library A-1
Sierra Step 3- Math, Horrizons 2nd grade
Sierra Step 4- Zanner Blosser Handwriting, 2nd grade cursive
Sierra Step 5- Spelling Workout

Bailey Step 2- Math, Horrizons Kindergarden work
Bailey Step 3- Zanner Blosser Handwriting, Kindergarden printing and copy work
Bailey Step 4- Headsprout online reading program

Everyone, next Step:
Monday- Grocery Shopping
Tuesday- Swimming lessons by me at Rec. Center
Wednesday- Library
Friday- Homeschool Playgroup

Lunch

2:00 pm Blake goes to bed
Monday- History
Tuesday- Science
Wednesday- Sierra Piano lessons


Thursday we have Options
8am- take Sierra up to Loveland (School starts at 8:30
10am- Play group with Church

Lunch

2pm- Blake down (unless I have to take him with me at 3)
3pm- Leave to pick up Sierra (School gets out at 3:30)

Sierra and bailey will both be going to the Longmont Options next year, not the Loveland one. I Signed Sierra up too late for Longmont this year. It's a very popular program, and the Longmont one is run very well.

First Day Drama

Poor Sierra. She was so excited about going to "real" school for her first time today. So excited, in fact, that she was bouncing up and down in her seat at the short assembly before the kids were to go off to their classes. When I left her, after seeing her to her first class, she seemed eager, shy, uncertain, and still excited.

Fast forward seven hours. When I came to pick her up, I had no idea where to find her. Was I supposed to wait for her to come find me, or go find her myself? After a few minutes, I decided to go find her. When I did, she was with Mrs. Gresham, the music/drama/math teacher, who was trying to calm her down. Then Sierra turned around and saw me, threw herself into my arms, and, burying her face, tried to hold back tears.

Mrs. Gresham explained what had happened, and soon Mrs. Ford, her science/writing teacher, came out and explained the rest. They could tell she'd never been to school before and promised to keep special watch on her next week. They were very nice about it really.

Turns out, Sierra had gone to the wrong class, twice. She mixed up her music and PE classes as well as her writing and science classes. It was also a lot longer of a day then she has ever experienced (her longest school day to date being a total of 2 1/2 hours). And to add insult to injury, she got hit in the head twice with a ball. Sierra had had enough. School hadn't turned out at all as perfect as she'd expected.

So, I held Sierra's hand as we walked to the car. She didn't want to talk. In the car, I babbled a bit, then asked her what she did in PE. No response. I asked again.

"We ran around the room," was all she said.

"Anything else?"

"We played with a bean bag."

Her sniffling was easing up, and she was starting to look a little better. Good. "What did you do in art?" I asked.

"I drew a picture."

"What did you draw?"

"I don't know." Her lip started to tremble again. OK, steer away from that subject. (I later found out she'd simply forgotten what she'd drawn).

"Did you make any new friends? It's OK if you don't remember their names."

"Yes."

"Did you have fun?'

No answer.

"Did you eat lunch with all of the kids or just the younger ones?"

"They were all my age," she replied. Then, she finally started offering information. "They have lots of rules at lunch. Don't hit anybody. And I'm glad I didn't bring any peanuts. One kid forgot and had a peanut butter sandwich". There is a family who is VERY allergic to peanuts, so we were asked not to bring any.

"Do you remeber any more?" I asked, trying to keep the conversation going.

"No. They were just mostly about being nice to people." I nodded my head. She continued, "it's OK the first time, but if you do it twice, the call your mom. And if you do it three times, they have to sit with someone".

"Like having a time out", I commented.

"Mm hm. And there was this girl my age who had a little brother. He was mean. He threw the ball at my head on purpose".

"Are you sure it was on purpose. It could have been an accident".

"No. He tried to do it a second time, but he missed".

"I thought you got hit twice," I said.

"Yah. A older boy hit me. It was an accident. He didn't really mean to".

We were getting close to home at this point, so I just reminded her that next week would be much better because she would know what she was doing, and I wasn't going to let her stop going until she'd tried it out for a good couple months at least. She complained that she had never had a hard time in preschool, and I reminded her that yes, she had. On her first day she'd been scared stiff, even though Teacher Wilson is one of the nicest ladies I know. She didn't believe me, so I told her all about her first day of preschool. I think I was able to finally convince her.

When we got home, I pulled out her schedule and room map showing her where she's supposed to go when and for what. That seemed to reassure her. I think she'll be fine next week, and if it doesn't, then maybe the week after that. She'll eventually get the hang of it, and when she does, she'll really start enjoying it.



P.S. For those of you who are not aware, Sierra is going to a publicly funded Options school designed specifically for homeschoolers. They meet once a week and have things like group activities, arts, drama, PE, and so forth. The rest of the week she is still at home with me as her teacher. I like it because it gives her that social aspect of school in smaller doses, gives her the extracurriculars I don't teach, leaves me in charge of her main education, and has small class sizes (there are only about 13 second graders). And because it's through the school district, I don't have to pay for it.

The Battle Plan

We've just about finished our first week of our new school year, and things seem to be settling down into a workable schedule. Sierra is now doing second grade work, and Bailey is doing Kindergarden. Blake, he gets to entertain himself while we work.  Here's a quick run down:

Step 1: Clean up and snack. Anywhere from 30-60 minutes, depending on the mess, our moods, and the day.

Step 2: I help Sierra with her grammar for about 5-10 minutes.

Step 3: Sierra goes off and reads a book to Blake while Bailey reads a Bob Book to me. About 5-15 minutes.

Step 4: Sierra does Math while I help Bailey with her Math, Handwriting, and Reading lessons. About 30 minutes.

Step 5: Sierra does her Handwriting and Spelling.  About 15-20 minutes. (Monday and Friday have Spelling Tests.)

Step 6: Monday=Library.  Tuesday=swimming/shopping/errands.  Wednesday=Church Play Group.  Thursday=swimming/shopping/errands.  Friday=Homeschool Play Group.  Anywhere from 1 to three hours.

Step 7: Lunch/Break

Step 8: Blake goes down for a nap.  Monday & Wednesday=History.  Tuesday=Science.  Thursday=experiments/projects.  Friday=Free Day.  About 1 hour.

Step 9: Quiet/Rest Time.  Decompression.

We just move from one step to the next until we are done.  Typically, we'll start the whole process around 9 am.  Rest Time starts around 3 pm.  It's busy, but not half as crazy as I was afraid it would be.  Only about 2 to 2 1/2 hours are actual class time.  The rest is fun stuff and errands.

Preschool Graduation

My four year old graduated from preschool last week. Her class had a little ceremony where they sang songs, danced a little, and paraded around wearing graduation caps. They even got a little diploma. It was really cute! Their teacher does an absolutely wonderful job. I honestly don't think I could have found a better preschool.

Even so, I'm glad it's over. I'm such a snot. I like doing things on my own time frame, and I really got annoyed at having to plan my day around drop-off and pick-up times. If Sierra got her school work done fast, we'd be sitting around for a half an hour with nothing to do. Sometimes Sierra took too long and she wasn't done by the time we had to get Bailey. Then we'd have to break off and pick it up again later. Not as easy as it sounds. Then there were those days where Bailey had preschool and we didn't have school at home. A couple of times I just kept her home.

Really though, I'm glad Bailey got to have the experience. She got to make her own friends away from her sister, explore, have fun, learn songs and do projects. Best of all, Teacher Wilson worked her though the beginnings of handwriting, counting, cutting, pasting, and so forth, and Bailey always came home with a huge smile.

It was a good year, but it's time to move on.

Thank you Marilyn.

Count down

We have three weeks left of this school year! We only have four weeks to do it in though. This is the first year that I've actually kept track of the days, and it's been a little more difficult then I thought to fit them all into one year.

Colorado law says that you have to school for 172 days each year. That's about 35 weeks worth. Considering that there are 52 weeks in a year, that may not sound like much, but it can be. I've been sick a lot this year (because my forever sick two year old keeps giving me his colds). There are also unplanned visits, vacations, and so forth. I cut it a lot closer this year then I meant to. We've been behind since last summer when we took an extra week off because I miscalculated our vacation time. If I'd followed my original plan, we would have only had about a week left right now instead of three. Oh well. It's one of the benefits of homeschooling. Things are flexible.

But flexibility has it's limits. Sigh.

Three more weeks. We can do it! Just three more weeks.

Then we have a two week break before second grade starts. Oh well. Enjoy the break while it lasts.