Official Notice :)

This is my notice that there will be no new posts on this blog. I am keeping it open since there are people who come visit by searching specific Montessori things and such in Google, but there will be nothing new on this blog! Given the lack of substance in the posts for at least a few months now, I'm sure this won't be too great of a surprise. ;) Just thought I would make it official so those who aren't subscribed but keep visiting will know there will be nothing new to check!

I'm not keeping up with this at all, am I?

Life is so very busy! And with Christmas holidays nearly here, it means the "work crunch", lol, as well as all the usual Christmasy stuff we do. I think we'll skip the Festival of Trees this year--although that's only being encouraged by the fact we're busy, not the sole reason. Every year, it's been less and less interesting, or they've had fewer and fewer activities. Kind of disappointing. I don't know, we'll see, I guess.

It's been very cold here these past few days, but finally warming up a bit. I do envy those who are in warmer places!

It is cold!

The weather changes far too quickly. It's hard to adjust to the cold like this. Sounds like a good time, though, to think about including seasons, winter, something along those lines into our schooling! :) I just hope it's not too cold for Halloween.

October has been insane. Between birthdays, Thanksgiving, an early Christmas, get-togethers with friends, families, school activities, a visit to Telus World of Science to check out the Lego exhibit (very cool, I highly recommend), and the kids' extra-curricular activities, it has been crazy. Some things have had to be skipped over because they conflicted with something else. So busy that one friend said to me after we had lunch together one day and she'd heard about it all, "I'm honoured you fit me into your October!" lol.

Just a few more days of October. November will still be hectic, but not insane. I hope. ;D

One month done!

I guess it was an okay start to the year. We need to work on our work habits!

Social studies is actually turning out to be okay, at least for now. The first unit is on globalization and has lead to some interesting conversations.

I haven't been doing German with my two. That's a shame. Have to work on some goals and plans for October.

September was quite busy; October is going to be even busier. Expect even fewer posts from me!

Free Admission Sunday!

Just read about Free Admission Sunday going on tomorrow. The city offers free admission to city-owned attractions, such as the zoo, and some of the rec centres. Maybe we'll try to get in on that!

Could life be any busier?

Not sure what to recap on. Life has just been so busy around here! Meeting up with friends, the weekly French get-together, evening activities, visit to Telus World of Science, a birthday and more. Stuff has gotten done school-wise, but it's been slow going. The weather has not been helping at all--until the past few days, dreary, cloudy, often rainy, cold. And we've all been fighting off something!

The latest

Um... LOL.

Can't skip Social 10. So, Bob has to do all three social studies within the next 2 years. We will do it! Darn province!

Other than that, it feels like the school year is going by far too quickly. This month is already half done. I need to make sure we stay on top of our work, while still making time for fun stuff. :) One thing we want to do this year are visit Telus World of Science a lot. Not sure what else! Too sleepy this morning.

Busy, busy!

Very busy around here with schedules all over the place between some kids in school, then not, and after school and now Bob has decided he's going for a diploma! So, on top of his Math 10 Pure (unofficial, because the province dropped it for Math 10-C, but 10P is a better choice before 20P next semester and his facilitator gave him the go-ahead), his Science 10 and half of the ELA 20-2 this semester, we need to add Phys. Ed. 10 and social of some sort. I'm hoping we can skip Social 10 completely. Maybe we'll work towards finishing ELA 20-2 this semester so we can move up to 20-1 next semester. We're meeting his facilitator within the next week so we'll be able to get everything sorted out.

Other than that, not much to report! Progressively getting into work here. And the weather is crummy. :(

Labour Day, the day we don't work ;)

Funny, isn't it?

I'll just think of it as a day to prepare ourselves to get working. School starts "for real" this week! All the discussing and planning are done, well, almost, and we are ready to get going. I've already decided no outings for the month, other than the essentials (library, meetings with facilitator). Well, maybe impromptu outings if the work is kept on top of. ;)

Had fun yesterday!

We met up with some friends yesterday and had some fun at a playground. It was so nice to chat and the kids had fun playing. :)

We're still not in work mode, but that's okay. Some schools don't start until Tuesday. We've still got some things to buy and some decisions to make. Hard to get started when things aren't all decided!

Donna Young

If you don't already know about this site http://donnayoung.org/index.htm , do check it out! Lots and lots of free printable stuff.

The environment

And no, I don't mean the one we normally talk about! I'm talking about the immediate environment of the children.

I have observed two striking things this week on how the environment affects children. The first was when my nieces and nephew arrived Monday morning to a completely different layout for the living room (our front door opens onto the living room, essentially) and different bookcases. This was a huge change for my 2.5yo niece and she came over to me and needed the security of being in my arms! She normally just gives me a smile and goes about her merry way. But this "new room" wasn't part of her sense of order, of how things *are* when she comes to my place, and it made her feel insecure. I don't recall how long she stayed in my arms, but I didn't make a big deal of it nor try to separate her from me and once her security level was back to high, she played and moved about her day like nothing had changed.

The second striking observation on how important the environment is on the children and how it affects them was today. I was finishing up getting things in order in the family room, but there was this one little table there that dh had brought down from the living room. I had no idea what his plans were for it, so I set it up next to the one rocker-recliner. I didn't think anything more of it, but knew the girls needed some activities they could do independently while I kept trying to get everything in order elsewhere, so I pulled out some different things on the shelves and put them at different spots at the kitchen table. Not only did that work beautifully, but my 5yo niece came downstairs to see what else was in the shelves. (Shows she recognized everything as having been from the shelves.) She picked something, saw the little table there, pulled up a little stool we have in the family room and proceeded to work at this little table. She naturally had to share this delightful experience with me :D--and it truly was delightful for her. This little change in the environment, providing her with a different experience, truly delighted her. Of course, it was a humbling moment as it pointed out to me that I do not regularly provide variety. :S

There is so much to be learned from children!

I *was* reading "Real Boys"...

I had started reading the book "Real Boys" by William Pollack. Although some of the information in the early chapters gave me some "aha!" moments on my son, most of it felt like I was dragging myself through it. And I haven't made it very far in the book. I decided to pick up the reading pace a bit this morning while eating breakfast and got to a part where he takes a definite jab at Michael Gurian (another person involved in raising boys, understanding men, all that). He took some quote of Gurian's (did not even provide a source for the quote) that was completely out of context and to me, was not even saying what Pollack was trying to make it sound like Gurian was saying.

My interest in the book is now killed. However, I may just start looking into Gurian's work. :)

Off to get moving on another busy day!

Who has time for homeschooling?!?!

I can't report on any homeschooling progress. Been far too busy the past couple of days to be able to even think of homeschooling. Now my focus is really just to hopefully have the house back in order before school really starts next week!! The busyness for the week isn't done...

Hehe, my typing doesn't keep up with my thoughts

If you read yesterday's post, you might have noticed that I indicated the piano was $10 at the music store. I've now corrected my mistake--it's $10 CHEAPER at the music store. ;)

Since I'm in here, let's see what I've accomplished:

*I have a very basic plan for the week written out: math and/or handwriting each day *with* ds (not just have him do it, but do it with him); dd will be asked to do at least 30 minutes of some sort of school stuff (yes, it can be piano, although she's not as interested since she's waiting for the new one and we can't find the damper pedal for the current one); with my 5yo niece, if I only do one thing this week with her, it will be to practise letters in sand, especially a's and other similar letters. A's and d's I think would be particularly good, without any mention of b's. And finally into her whole name--she has a tendency to do some of the letters in capitals, with the rest in print. Yes, I'll be doing it in print, but that's because she always writes her name in print and she'll be heading off to Kindergarten next week and I think showing her how to write the letters in her name a little better is perfect preparation.

*Got the books moved over from the living room bookshelves and even took some books that had been stuffed into the den on the new shelves. There is STILL room for more! Yay! Also moved over all of the CD's that were in the aquarium stand (aquarium was on top; cd's and bookshelf stereo underneath). Dh still has to empty the aquarium, although I did manage to pull two other snails out yesterday.

*I have some thoughts down for Bob's first week, which is really only 3 days. The following week is only 4 days. Nice way to start the year, I think! What are my thoughts? Well, I think we need to start out quite structured and let the structure disappear as needed as the semester moves along. I did that when he and his sister first started and it worked very well. What I did NOT do was restart and insist on the high structure in subsequent years; I think that made things more difficult as everything slips into entropy and it all just seemed to get worse year by year.

Okay, enough thoughts for now. Time to get on with my day!

So much to do!

We are just a bustle of activity right now, and in the middle of that bustle of activity, I still have to try to figure out school stuff, routines, etc.!

We decided to purchase some new bookcases and a "sofa table" for our living room, which, of course, requires emptying the old ones and whatnot. Dh has given up waiting for the fish to die of old age, so they were given away yesterday, but the tank is still not emptied--dh spent most of yesterday afternoon and into the evening putting together the new furniture. There are still about 10 snails in the tank and I hope to be able to rescue them and add them to the almost 30 rescued yesterday from the decorations, and I'm not sure how many snails the mom who took the fish took. We had a lot of snails. Just little guys, but still.

So, there's trying to get the books all moved over in a reasonable fashion, figure out what to do with the games we were keeping upstairs (the new shelves don't have any doors, so no toy bins or games can be hidden behind with them) and all that. Dh is actually out at my mom and step-dad's today helping reshingle their roof, so I've got to try to get through what I can today on my own.

Once the upstairs shelves are emptied, dh can move them elsewhere. One of them will go into the family room, where we've been complaining about not having proper room for the dvd's and blu-rays. There, problem solved. The other of the same size and style, I think dh was going to put in the den. That means cleaning up and moving around some stuff in there. I don't know what he was going to do with the shelves the aquarium is now on. It might become the new tv stand for the tv in the basement (the tv is actually on a very small, cheap night table--the whole thing wobbles if you're not careful!).

Add to all of that, part of the rearranging will involve having a new electronic full-size piano--which I don't have yet, would like to buy from a specific store, but they don't know when it'll be in. I don't want to move the old one out until the new one is in, even though the old one is all crackly and undependable for the sound. I may give in and go to Best Buy. I'd so much rather support the music store, though. Besides, it's about $10 cheaper, I think, at the music store. ;)

I have been working on plans for the school year. I need to be a little more specific with Bob's plans because the school wants deadlines and resources and such, at least for his science and ELA. We're doing math on our own (not through homeschool registration; we need to keep him as entirely teacher-directed) because the province decided to drop that math course, but he needs that math course to be able to do the best he can 2nd semester in Math 20 Pure, which the province has not yet dropped. Confusing.

For my kids, I don't have a month-by-month plan yet. So far, I've worked out some things for dd for September:

*German: This is mostly my job, making sure to add new vocabulary each day, use it with her, we'll keep track of words maybe on a large sheet of paper that's out in the open, make some labelling cards, etc. There's no specific goal here other than just get going with it and keep adding on to it!

*Math: Life of Fred. I've told her, and will remind her, that I want her to do a minimum of 5 hours a week in math. That sounds like so much. I might be willing to make it 4. Then she can easily break it down into 4 hour-long sessions and take a day off, or spend 2 days doing 2 hours. I'll talk with her about it. My main goal is to make sure she's working on it. She's only on the first book right now, which is definitely below her "grade level" (not that that matters), and I know she will enjoy the next book, so I want to ensure that she gets through it, completes it, has that satisfaction of having it done and moves along. I will ask her if she wants more tables practice. She's gotten bored of sheets, but seems to like random problem solving questions here and there or collective game style.

*French: September's goal is to get her writing a bit each day in French. It can be just a decent-sized paragraph, but she has to get writing in French. She reads a TON in English and writes a TON in English, even though French is her first language. I would not forgive myself if I let her French slide to the point that she will finish school not feeling capable of reading and writing in French!

*Science: I don't know. She was very interested at one point this past spring to study human biology. I may just have her get going on that, kind of following typical APS or high school outcomes.

*Social Studies: I'm going to encourage study of Aztec and other similar civilizations. I'm not sure how Montessori junior highs cover this kind of thing, or even if they specifically do, but rather than the elementary level's focus on needs, her fascination is on their beliefs. I think studying specifically their religion and government would fit well with her age level.

*Music: She already has this decided upon: piano. I think as part of all of her work, I will give her a tracking calendar so she can track when and how long she is spending playing piano, etc.

*Art: At least once a week. She can go with her own idea or work her way through the art course books we have. I bought the grade 7 and grade 8 texts that our school board uses (I could have rented them, but I but them both for cheaper than the price of renting a single text for the year!), plus we found a really good painting course book. Just have to get her started on it and she'll be good to go.

*Religion: She has decided that she does want to be confirmed this year. I haven't figured out a plan really for September yet. Mass, of course, and I think I might work through the grade 4 book of Faith and Life with her. It's got nice, simple foundational things in it. I need to check the contents for the grade 5-8 books and maybe see about getting some others to use during the year. Due to scheduling conflicts, she might not be able to participate in all of the sessions our parish runs for those seeking Confirmation, so I definitely need to do some things on the side. And I'm not thrilled about the fact our parish's preparation for Confirmation is pretty much a session each week for six weeks in a row--that doesn't feel like much of a preparation to me. So, we'll use the year to cover topics, questions, etc., through other resources than just the preparation sessions. Of course, encouraging daily Bible reading is always good! :)

*Health: September's focus is on healthy eating, specifically, on eating enough fruits and veggies. I've slowed down my raw food exploration, but it's gaining momentum again and I hope to be able to provide some alternative things for her rather than just basic fruits and veggies.

Whew! That's a lot. Time for me to get back to reorganizing things!

Oh, forgot--who needs button dressing frames???

Yesterday, I served as a large-button dressing frame for my 2.5yo niece. I was feeling a little cold and grabbed a cardigan with large buttons, but left it undone. Well, this was just way too much temptation for this little one. We were on the sofa and she did one of them up. I got up and she kind of fussed that she wasn't done. LOL. So, I stood until she had finished doing all 6 or something buttons. I'm thinking it might be a good idea to leave that particular sweater out so that she can keep doing it next week if she wants to.

This reminds me, too, that my 5yo niece has recently learned how to tie shoes. I can't remember if she'd ever done any of the practice stuff in the past, but if so, it wasn't all of the steps. I showed her a couple of times last week, her mom showed her 2 or 3 times and the 5yo said her dad showed her once, too. Well, she's got it. Sure, like all beginners, she doesn't quite get it tight enough, but she does the whole process masterfully. Just goes to show that when they are ready, away they go!

A little blogging this Saturday morning

I thought I'd just babble a bit this morning. Lots of thoughts in my head!

First thought: Next week's gentle start to school time. The kids have honestly been so very good at keeping themselves reasonably busy, I don't feel guilty about not having had things prepared to do with them if they got too crazy. This past week was a sluggish week for us all in general--the weather, the forest fire smoke... I was feeling bad because here, again, I'm not anywhere close to 100%, but then I realized none of the kids really were, either. My 2.5yo niece had 3 days in a row of naps--for a girl who was having one nap every 3 days, that's a lot. My 5yo niece fell asleep on the sofa yesterday afternoon. They've all just been tired and affected by the weather and smoke. It's maybe a good thing that I wasn't prepared because then I would have felt like I had to present something!

But next week... Next week, I've already told my two that I want them to do some work. Now, at first, I was just thinking, for ds, that I'd give him a choice between handwriting or math facts. But I saw something in him last night, kind of helped by my current reading of "Real Boys", that he's been so busy with everybody else, he needs and wants to "reconnect" with me, so to speak. (He wanted to do some rowing last night at 7:45 and invited me to stretch near him. lol. I told him it wasn't a good time to be starting to exercise and we ended up playing Guess Who? instead. He beat me 4-0. Then he, dd and I watched part of X-Men in bed. He just wanted to have some time with me!) So, my thoughts are now turning towards what he needs right now, which is some time with me. I can still bring in work stuff, but I need to change the focus of it so that I make sure I'm with him, maybe doing the same type of work next to him or something we can do together.

Dd has pretty much planned to do piano all week. LOL. I'm thinking I might encourage her to get going again with Life of Fred (her math), but without "Bob" back, she might not be quite ready to move into those kinds of academics.

For the little ones... The littlest one (2.5yo) has found herself by herself a fair amount this week due to the bigger kids playing games in a dark basement--not quite the 2.5yo's thing. She is sooooo used to pretty much having her sister's constant companionship (is that a word?), that she was kind of out of sorts and didn't know what to do with herself (the 5yo is usually the one who decides or initiates things and the 2.5yo just follows). She wanted *me*, therefore, to do all kinds of things with her. Sometimes I would say yes, other times I would say, "Give me a few minutes," because I was busy with something else, and she would usually find something else to do. That said, I think it's time (haven't I written this before?) that I really consider starting her on the Montessori sequence of activities. She has been kept so busy with her sister and has tried to do everything her big sister's been doing, that there wasn't really the room to give her her own presentations. Big sister is going to be starting full-time school in a week and a half (well, kind of--kindergarten, so it'll be a half day or full day here and there, with school time increasing as the month of September progresses). And although I will have the others and need to keep them on track, especially Bob with his high school courses--not so much leeway there--this is a child who is going to want to be doing. Her big sister wasn't really like that, I don't think. She's always been the type to hold back, to watch, to just do something comfortable, although that has been changing the past year (she even allowed a crab on her hand the other day! this is the child who would not feed herself at age 1 because she didn't want to touch the food!). The littlest one, ever since becoming mobile, has been the one to do, do, do. She does love "reading books" and the like, but I also know she'll love doing practical life and sensorial and all of that. With a little 1yo boy being added to our mix in October sometime, it will also give her another focus. :)

Isn't that interesting. All the thoughts about school and planning and all that just seemed to stop. Must be time to go exercise. ;)

Insets--5yo style and 2yo style ;)

My 5yo niece decided to get creative with the insets. This is what she did the other day:

Her 2.5yo sister decided to do her own version of the creative version:

:D

I wonder what Maria would have done...

...if she had but a few children in the classroom and they all showed up tired, crabby and easily weepy?