I got an email yesterday asking me to save the date of May 8th. For what you ask?
Skeese Greets Triathalon
So today I swam 1300 yards and my arms are jello. Maybe by May they won't be.
I am back to week four of C25K
My bike is still hanging in the garage with the last Skees Greet number on it!
Saving up some change to register myself and get this body back into shape!
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Strep........neg Flu ..........positive
Poor Neil. All the kids tested neg for strep but Neil tested positive for Flu A. He is on tamiflu and doing well. Honestly he wasn't sick enough to be dx with flu.
Clorox wipes, lysol, and hand sanitizer have all been pressed into service. We are praying he doesn't share..... have I told you I have a surprise weekend planned for just hubby and me? Yes I do. I have it all arranged and then the flu germ decides to set up shop in our house. But by the Grace of God I have an amazing friend who is still willing to watch our kids germs and all because she knows how important a weekend away is with your man (plus there's payback :) )
Prayers appreciated because really when someone volunteers to take all five of your kids for the weekend you really don't want to infect them with the flu.
Monday, February 7, 2011
strep
We had one positive for strep last week and I think she has shared the love. In a desperate attempt to stave off 6 trips to the ped I am taking 4 kids in for strep swabs. I am also pounding vitamin c and water. Here is hoping we can nip this in the bud or tonsil or whatever. Here's to a fridge full of pink medicine.
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Ch-Ch-Changes
We have change going on in our homeschool It's all good just different. After a year from H-E double hockeysticks, what with diagnosis, surgery, more surgery, and depression...... I have finally decided to do something different. My kids suffered from a checked out mom last school year and I have been having a tough time getting things done in school because emotionally I am recalling last years failures and adding them to this years.
I have moved my eldest into her daddy's home office where she sits and does her work where he can see her and keep her accountable. She is away from all her annoying and highly distractive siblings. We had pulled her out of PE as a consequence but she will be joining again next week as a reward for taking this change with a good attitude.
The other change happening is my newly minted teenager, Hannah, will be starting Classical Conversations Challenge A class. It is a once a week class with instruction in 5 courses. They then have assignments that I will assist with for the other four days of the week. She knows 3/4 of the kids in the class all ready and I think it will be a challenging but good fit for her.
In the fall I plan on signing up the other 3 for the elementary portion of CC, Foundations. Ian will take the additional afternoon class called Essentials.
I will still be homeschooling but we have a bit more accountability with the tutor and some fantastic classroom discussion that I just couldn't get to at home.
I have moved my eldest into her daddy's home office where she sits and does her work where he can see her and keep her accountable. She is away from all her annoying and highly distractive siblings. We had pulled her out of PE as a consequence but she will be joining again next week as a reward for taking this change with a good attitude.
The other change happening is my newly minted teenager, Hannah, will be starting Classical Conversations Challenge A class. It is a once a week class with instruction in 5 courses. They then have assignments that I will assist with for the other four days of the week. She knows 3/4 of the kids in the class all ready and I think it will be a challenging but good fit for her.
In the fall I plan on signing up the other 3 for the elementary portion of CC, Foundations. Ian will take the additional afternoon class called Essentials.
I will still be homeschooling but we have a bit more accountability with the tutor and some fantastic classroom discussion that I just couldn't get to at home.
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Timberdoodle Review~ Critical Thinking Co.
I was so excited to try out three of the books from the Critical Thinking Press provided to me by Timberdoodle
The first one I opened up was Math Reasoning Level B which is for the first grade level. My 6 year old daughter was between math books when I received it. She had completed a first grade math curriculum but I was eager for her to review and master some concepts with a fresh approach. When I opened up the workbook I was greeted with 264 bright, colorful pages. The pages were not crowded or chaotic. My daughter took to it instantly. I was impressed with Critical Thinking Co's math vocabulary and how they applied it to this level. For instance, instead of asking the kids to draw a line to match objects, they use the term "line segment" thus laying the groundwork for proper term usage preparing them for advanced math. Besides that, when your six year old busts out with "that's a line segment" in a group of parents, it makes you look like a fabulous teacher :)
The book itself was written to the standards of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics and offers an introduction for the parent to understand the approach that is being taken. It goes over numbers and operations, geometry, time and measurement. It was just the thing I needed to bridge math for my daughter who wasn't quite ready for a second grade level. She willingly picks up this book and does two pages without being asked. This book could easily be used with an advanced Kindergartner or an average first grader. At $39.99 it offers a well rounded math curriculum for one year.
I chose Building Thinking Skills Book 3 Figural for my 14 year old daughter. I had forgotten that in the past I have previously used Critical Thinking skill books for busy independent work. When I showed her the book and asked her to work a page a day she gladly agreed. This book is 259 black and white pages of building figural thinking skills through the use of similarities, analogies, classifications and sequences for $29.99. I really think of this book as a brain sharpener. The concepts are presented clearly and again the pages are not crowded. A full answer key is included in the back of the book. Building Critical Thinking Skills Level 3 figural can be used for grades 7-12+. The 12+ is for adults like me who can't help but grab the book and do a page or two just to clear out the cobwebs of the ole brain.
My 13 year old got to help me review Editor In Chief B1 offered at $16.99. She is the writer out of the five kids, so I figured this might help her fine tune her writing. Editor In Chief B1 is a workbook for grades 6-8 which put her in the mid range to do this book. It has 33 exercises in just as many black and white pages. Each exercise is presented like the sample page below. The student is given a picture with a true caption and a paragraph that has errors. The errors can range from grammar to content. Each exercise lists how many errors the student should find. We found it difficult at first to count the errors as we would sometimes count two when the text considered it to be just one. Despite the initial frustration with figuring out how it was done, this workbook opened up opportunities for us to discuss the errors and talk about what she perceived as errors compared to the answer key in the back. Some of the errors just plain made us laugh as homophones were used incorrectly. I added this book in as a busy independent workbook for my daughter to sharpen her writing skills. I like the concept enough to have her continue working on one or two exercise a week.
Disclaimer: I received copies of these workbooks for free in exchange for an honest review
The first one I opened up was Math Reasoning Level B which is for the first grade level. My 6 year old daughter was between math books when I received it. She had completed a first grade math curriculum but I was eager for her to review and master some concepts with a fresh approach. When I opened up the workbook I was greeted with 264 bright, colorful pages. The pages were not crowded or chaotic. My daughter took to it instantly. I was impressed with Critical Thinking Co's math vocabulary and how they applied it to this level. For instance, instead of asking the kids to draw a line to match objects, they use the term "line segment" thus laying the groundwork for proper term usage preparing them for advanced math. Besides that, when your six year old busts out with "that's a line segment" in a group of parents, it makes you look like a fabulous teacher :)
The book itself was written to the standards of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics and offers an introduction for the parent to understand the approach that is being taken. It goes over numbers and operations, geometry, time and measurement. It was just the thing I needed to bridge math for my daughter who wasn't quite ready for a second grade level. She willingly picks up this book and does two pages without being asked. This book could easily be used with an advanced Kindergartner or an average first grader. At $39.99 it offers a well rounded math curriculum for one year.
I chose Building Thinking Skills Book 3 Figural for my 14 year old daughter. I had forgotten that in the past I have previously used Critical Thinking skill books for busy independent work. When I showed her the book and asked her to work a page a day she gladly agreed. This book is 259 black and white pages of building figural thinking skills through the use of similarities, analogies, classifications and sequences for $29.99. I really think of this book as a brain sharpener. The concepts are presented clearly and again the pages are not crowded. A full answer key is included in the back of the book. Building Critical Thinking Skills Level 3 figural can be used for grades 7-12+. The 12+ is for adults like me who can't help but grab the book and do a page or two just to clear out the cobwebs of the ole brain.
My 13 year old got to help me review Editor In Chief B1 offered at $16.99. She is the writer out of the five kids, so I figured this might help her fine tune her writing. Editor In Chief B1 is a workbook for grades 6-8 which put her in the mid range to do this book. It has 33 exercises in just as many black and white pages. Each exercise is presented like the sample page below. The student is given a picture with a true caption and a paragraph that has errors. The errors can range from grammar to content. Each exercise lists how many errors the student should find. We found it difficult at first to count the errors as we would sometimes count two when the text considered it to be just one. Despite the initial frustration with figuring out how it was done, this workbook opened up opportunities for us to discuss the errors and talk about what she perceived as errors compared to the answer key in the back. Some of the errors just plain made us laugh as homophones were used incorrectly. I added this book in as a busy independent workbook for my daughter to sharpen her writing skills. I like the concept enough to have her continue working on one or two exercise a week.
All three of these workbooks can be found at Timberdoodle.com You can check out their Free Homeschool Catalog filled with tons of amazing products while you are there.
Disclaimer: I received copies of these workbooks for free in exchange for an honest review
Saturday, January 29, 2011
The One where Traci has two teenagers in her house......
alternate Title
Happy Birthday Hannah
Today my sweet second child becomes a teenager. 13 years ago she made a grand entrance in the afternoon. Now she would love to sleep that late! She has presents from family to open and a full day of activities. So busy in fact that a party has to be planned later.
Happy Birthday Peanut..... her first gift will be a facebook and gmail account:)
Friday, January 28, 2011
TOS REVIEW ~Ten Marks
Ten Marks is an online math program that helps students learn and practice math. There were several aspects of this particular website that I liked. The first being that it was more than just boring math problem after boring math problem. The parent gets to set a reward for their student for completing a certain number of worksheets. That gives the child motivation to keep going. I was notified via email when my son earned his chosen reward.
But let me back up a little. The child(ren) has their own account with personal login and password. When the log in they see a screen similar to this one. This is my son's home page
The highlighted box tells him what his current worksheet is. He can choose to click on the learn button and will get a new window with a a couple of different video lessons to watch. If he feels confident in the concept he can proceed straight to the worksheet. With each question he gets multiple choice answers. I am not a huge fan of multiple choice on math, well I was when I was a student but not so much as a parent! However, I felt the choices did drive the student to complete the full problem without giving too much away in the answer set. For each question the child can request 3 hints and 1 video. When you take a look at their lesson it will tell you per problem what help they required. After each worksheet is completed the little persons at the bottom start to fill up. My 7 year old loved this part. You can see that he has all ready had some successes with certain concepts. As they work through the worksheets they can also unlock games that are just for fun. Several times I found my guy logging in just to play the games. Ten Marks also builds in tests. My frustration with the test scheduling was that the tests were off to the side and overlooked by my kids, so by the time they realized they had tests in the side bar they had two or three.
At just $10 a month, $49 for 6 months or $89 for 12 months it offers a good product for a good price. I believe that you can use it as either a supplement or a complete program. My oldest still wasn't convinced it was what would get her through Algebra I and the hints didn't always help her but she was WILLING to sit down to it every other day and do two worksheets, which for her is progress in math and made the product worth pursuing.
Ten Marks offers its services to homeschoolers, parents and teachers. There is even a free trial on their website. So give them a try.
See what my other crewmates thought of Ten Marks here.
Disclaimer: I received access to this website for free in exchange for an honest review.
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