Hello again!

Posted on April 23, 2013 by justakrazymom

I’m BACK.. at least for today. So how is everyone? We are most excellent here. We just finished up our school year and are on a short break. We will start up “Summer school” in a week or so. During this down time I have been getting ready for next year .. one thing we had done for half of this past year was a varied version of Workboxes, and we had a chart for each kiddo that they would move various topics along each day as we completed them. At the end of the week each space each subject moved was worth a point. The points were for spending at school store ( items I have purchased on clearance or at the dollar spot/store). The poster we used to keep track was LARGE.. I wanted something smaller so here’s what I did!

I bought 3 of these:( note they are the SMALL tri-fold’s)
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Then I spent and afternoon cutting up construction paper and decorating them:( this one is Taejans)
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this is what the “finished” product looks like:
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I kept it low color and low key.. I figure the kids can add more stuff if they desire and it also leaves it expandable as we add other topics.

I used the workbox tags, shrunk the printing scale and laminated. I also purchased small velcro dots as the “normal” size ones are too big!
On this side are our 5 day a week subjects:
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then the center has the tasks we do 5 days a school week
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and then the subjects we only do 2 days a week.
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The kids advance each item ahead for every day they complete a subject or a task. The smaller size and ease to store these has me excited for using them in the fall!

One Gigantic Post…

Posted on February 10, 2011 by justakrazymom

Oh my.. another what..almost 2 months since I did a real post?? Not sure why I can’t seem to get in the bloggy spirit anymore.. I’m going to try harder..I promise!

So here is a most gigantic picture post.. this isn’t even all the pictures over this time period..lol

The pictures are in NO order..cus I’m lazy and don’t want to try and sort them.

We’ve had SNOW… snow like we have not seen in decades.. barely 3-4 days has gone by in between “Storms”.. it’s crazy…

Has anyone seen my fence??

We’ve done snow science and made snow cream:

It really tastes better than it looked….

We did lots of little experiments with packed verses unpacked snow and melting…

And observed snowflakes..

we weighed packed and unpacked snow..

We had a major leak in the schoolroom from the snow and ice…sigh: this whole window tract was full of ice, the water was dripping down the wall.. the carpet was soaked, the padding ruined. If it wasn’t for the kitten we would have gone longer without knowing. The treadmill padding kept us from knowing the carpet was soaked..thank you kitten!!

Trying to soak up and dry up as much water as we could while Eric was still at work..

carpet pulled up, padding thrown away.. now we are drying the subflooring..took 3 days with 3 oil heaters going 24/7 to dry it all..

It was soooo wet..unreal..no clue how long it had been leaking..

We fixed it, saved the carpet and replaced the padding:

Here’s where all my school stuff lived for almost a week:

No pictures of it now since it’s all put back together and you’d never know it happened!

Taejan and Ziah did skating lessons: Taejan in orange..

Ziah in green

We’ve had more basketball.. this is the last week of regular season games! Ziah is on the right..camo leggins..

Declan is the blonde with the long hair..he’s easy to spot!

Taejan isn’t playing on a team ( he was but for the Y and it was NOT good so we stopped)..he’s doing Clinics at the Boys n Girls Club and loves it!

In all navy

We have completed one session of Homeschool Swim lessons and now have started another!

We’ve done lots of schooling:

The kids did meal worms but um..nope I hate bugs and I wouldn’t actually have them in the house so we watched a few youtube videos!

Since we are studying early Colonial times Ziah made a spoon doll.

and they dug Dino eggs..

Taejan did magic Milk

and oobleck

We learned about Martin Luther King Jr.. the kids watched his I have a Dream speech..

We studied our math facts..

and used the learning pallet

Boring ole seatwork..

Night School…

more boring seatwork..

Taejan watching one of his Leapfrog video’s while I was doing seatwork with the other 2..

practicing his counting,.

We’ve gotten lots of new curriculum: Abeka Science 4 kit from Home Science Tools.

All our new books. We have jumped InTo the box..after 4.5 years of doing our own thing sticking with no one curriculum we have gone to Abeka for all 3 wee ones for all subject but History. So far we are loving it.. especially Declan. He started 4th grade the other day and he already says he loves Abeka. We restarted Ziah on 2nd grade.. so far she’s doing very well..I am just trying to find my groove with the curriculum.

we painted a Chameleon Puzzle for our friends soon to open dance club ( i will be working there several nights a week)

Taejan built an awesome building:

We had dance classes:

and have read stories:

I promise to try really hard to get better about blogging..but um..don’t hold your breathe!

Schoolroom 2011

Posted on January 1, 2011 by justakrazymom

First off a big ole Happy New Year to all!!

Second..sorry I’m not around much anymore.. kinda lost my blogging mojo… I’m sure it will be back eventually.

Third.. we start a new “session” on Monday.. we hard core school in Jan and Feb.. winter will do that to ya.. so organized and got all our stuff ready to kick it into high gear..wanna see?

Here’s a 360 of the schoolroom all set up to begin the 2nd half of our year.. we are currently “officially” in 3rd,2nd and K.. BUT We are doing a combo of 3/4(Declan), 1/2(Ziah) and K/1 ( Taejan) .

We were given a new to us Treadmill and since the schoolroom is centrally located we put it in here. The kids all use it too.. in fact I started a little competition to encourage them to expend some of that excess energy on it..

Looking from the deck area into the schoolroom

one set of bookcases.. here we have crayons/markers etc, Taejan’s rice box, science kits ,paper and craft stuff. then we have our history box,scale, chapter books,readers etc.

our History box..all the books, activities books, story books etc we are using as we study USA History..

our craft “closet”

on the right is more craft supplies, curriculum not in use,storybooks and leveled readers, on the left is various reference books and some Hooked on Phonics sets..on top is our Animal Encyclopedia..

various games, manipulative’s and such..plus construction paper. Then a box of various folders and such and a crate of items I need to sort.

file cabinet with printed ebooks,lapbooks,etc..our hands on science box,then cubbies with various supples. The wire shelves have reams of paper,completed lapbooks and then 3ring binders with ebook curriculum we are currently using.Hanging are various hands on aids I made for learning to read and such.

the table.. we do most of our school work at the kitchen table in the winter since the schoolroom is a 3 season sunroom. It gets cold..very cold and heating to useable temps with that heater in the 2nd picture is costly..lol. We do keep this table in here for playdough and such.

the 3 ring binders on the shelf.. various ebooks we use.

2 crates of file folder games, things to sort and such. Then the cubbies of schooling stuff. Above is the clear plastic “thing” I put the kids completed work into. Once their space is full I go thru the items and pic what is going into their portfolio.

close up of the blue cubby. Taejan’s school books on the left, our Tag system and our Hot Dots systems along with a few things of Wrap ups, then each kiddo’s “kit”. They have crayons, markers, glue,scissors etc for each kiddo ( color coded of course)

white cubby.. left is Ziah’s school book ,right is Declan’s.

another bookcase.The bottom bins have various “office supplies. Middle row has more supplies plus hands on items.

This is all the teachers books for each kiddo.

the kids portfolios ( yes I work on them all year so I don’t get overwhelmed) then our 39 clues books and a few DVD’s…

All our Abeka readers and then some not in use yet Abeka stuff

pencils, pens,dry erase markers etc.

the door between the kitchen and the schoolroom. That’s Taejan’s alphabet tree and one of our white boards..

Giant catch up post…

Posted on November 1, 2010 by justakrazymom

Ok..welcome November..dang you arrived fast! I realize I have been a really bad blogger but in my defense we have one heck of a busy schedule..between schooling, Noah working 2-3 days a week,wrestling,soccer, karate, bball times 3 kids, dance and ya know..sleeping every once in awhile..I just don’t have time nor desire to blog much right now. So I am about to post a huge overwhelming post of the last 2 weeks.. schooling and fun.. and they aren’t in chronological order..

Taejan working on the letter Cc:

Declan doing the dance he does when he needs to remember something for schooling:

And working on his research project:

Playing Boggle Jr

Helping Taejan.. he’s big into spelling and writing things right now:

Princess helping herself to some of my sweet tea:

Taejan loves taking the Boggle Jr cards and the white board and practicing his writing skills!

Declan using the Hot Dots:

Things aren’t perfect with the two cats..we still have LOTS of fights daily..but mostly cus kitten wants to play and big kitty does NOT..but they are tolerating each other better:

I “winterized” the schoolroom. We don’t have real heat out there and it’s only a 3 season room. So we don’t work out there much in the winter ( i do use a little heater but I don;t get it real warm). Between that and the fact the kids hate working at their own desks it was time to rearrange:

Ziah had her 7th birthday party.. she wanted a trick or treat party..

Instead of party bags I set up 3 trick or treat stations..it was fun!

More lessons:

Finding stuff for our Compost Jar as part of our Global Warming science unit. We are studying how recycling can help global warming and one of the projects in our lapbook is a compost jar:

Ziah got a great necklace kit from Lila and family and was enjoying making some jewelry:

The kids have been very antsy lately..we were spending too much time either stuck in the house or running around at activities..so on a very nice fall day we walked to the lake and explored for hours..they had the best time ..it was so nice to see the 3 wee ones just being NICE to each other and having fun ( Noah was at karate then home doing school work):

The day before her actual birthday Ziah had her 4 best homeschooled friends over for a Princess tea party.. Declan helped me make all the food:

Then all 3 got dressed up nice ( Noah was at work)..Taejan and Declan were the waiters btw:

All 5 girls..they had the best time!

Jadziah’s last picture as a 6 year old:

And first as a 7 year old:

The public schools had a half day so we had friends over:

The girls painted for hours…

Then we had the city’s Halloween parade with our krew of friends:
Ziah and her other half Autumn:

Hubby and I:

3 of my best girls and I:

it was COLD..smart kids:

Declan and his best peeps:

Then we had Trick or Treating with our krew of friends:

Of course we ended the Holiday weekend at my bestest friend’s house..
Noah, Ephiphani and Ashley ( notice Noah’s new glasses?? He has had glasses for 7 years but he now has to wear them all the time)

Taejan dancing:

Scott and Joni:

2 of my boys:

My friend of 30ish years Missy and her husband..they were some people from “Jersey Shore”?..I don’t watch it so I was clueless..lol:

Brian and Deb:

Taejan and Ashley:

Taejan and I:

Lots of dancing as always:

oh some random cell phone pictures..LOL.. so the hamster we bought Ziah when her other one died apparently came to us pregnant.. we discovered this about 3 weeks after we bought her when we went to clean the cage and there was 2 babies.. sadly only one lived and his name is Shayman and he lives in Declan’s room now!

We took the krew to 6Flags for Fright Fest( Noah was with us but off with his friend):

More random school stuff:

Declan and one of his best buds jake:

Our city has this downtown “fair: type thing called Third Thursday every month from May-October.. we go to most. This month the kids got to Trick or Treat. 2 of our best peeps and their kids joined us:

Well I think I am now caught up…lol.. for now!

Taejan’s Letter Tree

Posted on October 9, 2010 by justakrazymom

Taejan has not , up until this week, been overly interested in too much formal learning. He knows some of his letters and some sounds but not a ton.. he’s just 5 and would only be in pre-k if in school so I haven’t been too worried. This week he made it well known he needs and wants more and I better find a fun way to do it..lol.. I have been reorganizing our day so that the first 30 minutes is pure kindergarten time while the other ones do independent work.

I got the idea for a letter tree from seeing one on lots of blogs. We’ve never read the book that inspired it on those blogs but that’s ok. I wanted to make this tree from paper but I knew my 2 kitty’s would just scratch it to shreds,so we decided to clean off the glass door that is between the kitchen and schoolroom ( a tough job btw) and paint a tree. Ziah and I got down to business!

The class all clean..wow we had a lot of adhesive residue ..lol