aelfie: (MnM Librarian)
I just got an email that the Waldorf school managed to snag an Eurhythmist one day a week. I really wanted Ike to take that class, especially since the teacher they snagged is a specialist in Curative Eurhythmy. Something Ike definitely needs.

So what's the problem? Not the money. The time of the class.

Tuesday mornings at 9:00-9:30.

Right smack dab in the middle of our school time. I don't know if I can manage getting him down there once a week in the morning and then pick up our school day.

Then the next question is...what do I do with the girls for that time? I can't really hang out with them (well, okay, I can in the good weather...)

Ooo....this stinks.
aelfie: (Default)
Verse Verse from "Autumn Story" Autumn, Pg 66
Spanish
Yoga Abundance, AB 45
Music Mary had a little lamb
Handwork: Finger Knitting

Monday and Tuesday are an Autumn/Fall Mini-block as the first day of autumn is Tuesday.

Monday:
  • Ike: Autumn Story, draw picture of a Tree with Hedgy Hedgehog and Squirrel Nutkin
  • E&G: Noisy Gnomes
  • Baking Day: GF Bread, Something for Desert Night
  • Gym Day
  • Handwork Day (afternoon)

Tuesday:
  • Ike: Narrate and summarize story from day before. Put summary in MLB. Make Applesauce as apples are in season!
  • E&G: Picture Book
  • Form Drawing: Curves again. Needs lots of practice. Curves to the Left this week
  • Painting Day: More playing with Blue and Yellow
Wednesday:
  • Ike: VII, Riddle (AJTWM, Pg 16) Draw a Rainbow in MLB, write "There are VII colors in the Rainbow and VII days in the week."
  • E&G Noisy Gnomes
  • Modeling Day: More basic play. That stuff is really hard to work with...I think we just need practice sessions
  • Gym Day
  • TKD for Girls @ 3:30

Thursday:
  • Ike: VIII, Riddle (AJTWM, Pg 16) Draw diamond with a lemniscate in it. Write "I can skate with the number VIII"
  • E&G: Picture Book
  • Form Drawing: More Curves
  • Copywork Day: Verse from Monday's story
  • Music Day (afternoon)

Friday
  • Ike: Forest Friday at Sanborn Park
  • E&G Preschool at KidsPark
  • Trip to library and park after getting Ike.
I totally rewrote what I was planning to do this week. I had planned to spend the week on both Autumn and Michaelmas. And then spend next week wrapping up this math block. Instead we'll split everything up. Autumn this week and Michaelmas next week.
aelfie: (Default)
I've decided NOT to post every single picture I've taken of Ike's work for the last two weeks.

I am however posting some of the highlights and a link to the online photo album for those who are interested and want to see more.



This show Ike's introduction to King Equals and Math. Ike definitely likes King Equals.



This was the riddle for the number 4. I thought the drawing came out quite nicely.



The Riddle for Number 6 and the Verse for Copywork. I think my handwriting's getting better. I need to work more on making everything the same SIZE!!! Its pretty straight though. (No smart-ass comments you.)

Some of Ike's work.






And here's the link to my photobucket album where I'm keeping all the photo's of Ike's work. Its hard to find pictures of "normal" Main Lesson Books. Most people only post "best work". So I'm going to share it all, so that there's at least one comprehensive example of a normal kid.

aelfie: (MnM Librarian)
Verse Crowning of the Year, A Journey Through Time, 167
Spanish maria tenia una corderita, Bilingual 248
Yoga Respect, Angel Bear Yoga 117
Music Mary had a little lamb
Handwork: Finger knitting

Monday:
  • Ike Number III, Riddle (AJTWM, Pg 14)  Draw Mommy, Daddy, Ike in MLB, Write "Mama, Daddy and me are III"
  • E&G Goldilocks and the Three Bears
  • Baking Day: GF Bread for me, Something for Tuesday Night Dessert Night
  • Handwork Day (afternoon)

Tuesday
  • Ike Number IV (Or IIII), Riddle (AJTWM, Pg 15) Draw picture of Elements, write "Fire, Water, Earth and Air are IIII"
  • E&G Picture book
  • Painting Day Yellow sun on blue sky (last week's, but I didn't get to it 'cause I'm sick)
  • Form Drawing Revist Curves, Curves up and down
  • TKD for Ike (if he wants to go)
Wednesday
  • Ike Number V, Riddle (AJTWM, Pg 15) Draw hand outline picture, write "I have V fingers on each hand"
  • E&G Goldilocks and the Three Bears
  • Modeling Day: Lambs
  • TKD for the Girls

Thursday
  • Ike: Number VI, Riddle (AJTWM, Pg 15-16) Need to think of  a picture, write "I can touch and see and hear and smell and be!"
  • E&G Picture book
  • Form Drawing: Curves Revisited Ascending and Descending Curves
  • Copywork: Verse of the week
  • Music Day (in the afternoon)

Friday:
  • Ike: Forest Friday at Sanborn Park
  • E&G First day of MOPS for this year.
  • Possible trip to library and park after getting Ike.
aelfie: (MnM Librarian)
A couple of thoughts worth jotting down.
  • talking through a prop is VERY effective at getting the kids to behave
  • keep the prop out of their reach. King Equals does NOT like being abused. And he's vocal about it too.
  • Circle time still feels contrived and very frustrating. However, I skipped it one day this week and the school morning went much smoother. A couple of deep breaths and a start seems to work fine.
  • Still need more Brain Gym I think
  • Must rethink recorder lessons. Ike is having a hard time reaching feeling the holes. I'm not sure if its his level of frustration interfering or his lack of fine motor skills. I'll keep plugging away with him and see how it goes. Might need to switch to penny whistle (sounds good and cheap) or the pentatonic flute (sounds good, but expensive). Either way, I'd have to start all over again. He did manage to get a G and an A  in the right order. I'm thinking its more lack of self confidence.
  • Need to think about knitting soon. It should help him with his fine motor. Debating on whether to start with two needle knitting, or spool knitting.
  • Need to work on keeping the kids from abusing the chalkboard drawings. King Equals didn't last a day without someone screwing up the drawing. And it was a good one too!
  • changing my behavior requests from "Stop doing X" to "You may do Y" seems effective.
  • Forest Fridays are awesome. Ike came home with big smiles, but was very upset that I didn't give him Mac N Cheese in his lunch (friday's Mac N Cheese day)  He had a good time playing with the other kids, building dams in the creek and getting all scratched up.
aelfie: (MnM Librarian)
When drawing on the chalkboard, I should smudge each layer as I go. When I do, it makes a better picture.

Too bad I figured this out after I completed tonight's picture....but I'll remember for next time. (I still smudged it...looks a lot better than before I did...I just know if I did each layer, it would look better. Hey. I'm learning to draw...cut me some slack.)

I'll post pictures later this week.

I finished!

Sep. 7th, 2009 04:07 pm
aelfie: (Default)
Introducing...Math Gnomes!



Joe very kindly took the "big" kids to the park so I could have a bit of quiet time, and Gray to have a good nap. So I took the opportunity to finish up my Math Gnomes! As you can see they all have their "operator" on their bellies. I'll be using these to introduce math to Ike this year. I only needed King Equals this week, but I wanted them to be done! They are very cute!

aelfie: (MnM Librarian)
Math Block! We'll be learning the properties of numbers in this block and Roman Numerals

Weekly:
Verse: Rosy Apple, A Child's Seasonal Treasury Pg 36
Spanish: Autumn Leaves are Falling down (week 2) Bilingual, Pg 106
Yoga: Freedom, Angel Bear Yoga, Page 77
Music (Ike's requested a music change) Mary had a little lamb
Handwork: Applebutter (if I can get apples at the Farmers Market),

(NB Music is going slow...I think we will be working on Mary had a little lamb for the foreseeable future. Ike is still trying to figure out that the left hand goes on top and how to blow hard enough, but not too hard to get a good sound. Once he tackles that, we'll move onto fingering. Big frustration here is that Elli and Gwen want to play too, only they just want to blow their flutes, not actually learn how to play their own (which is fine). The problem comes in the fact that they are bothering Ike with their playing. And he keeps getting distracted and frustrated.)

Monday:
  • Holiday! Daddy's Home! Memorial Service in Late Afternoon
  • Baking Day: GF Bread for me, GF Brownies for Dessert on Tuesday

Tuesday: 
  • First Day of School at Morning Glory, we'll attend and participate in the Rose Ceremony (graduation to First Grade)
  • Painting Day: Yellow Sun in Blue Sky
  • Form Drawing: More Curves

Wednesday:
  • Ike: Number I, Riddle (AJTWM Pg 13) Drawing the Sun in Main Lesson Book with Phrase "Our Sun is I"
  • E&G Three Billy Goats Gruff
  • Modeling Day: Suns

Thursday:
  • Ike: Number II Riddle (AJTWM  Pg 14) Draw Sun and Moon in MLB with "Our Sun and Moon are II"
  • E&G Noisy Gnomes
  • Form Drawing: More Curves
  • Copywork: Weekly Verse

Friday:
  • Ike: Forest Friday at Morning Glory
  • E&G: KidsPark
aelfie: (MnM Librarian)
I'll post pictures later, but I wanted to jot down some things I learned this week.

-Don't read the stupid 20+ page report from the Doctors telling you how bad your kid has autism. Which also includes statements saying that homeschooling is a really, really bad idea. Its like getting car advice from someone who not only doesn't own a car, but rides their bike everywhere.
-The report is a snapshot of one day. Its not the continuum that you see everyday.
-Heavy protein breakfasts help Ike to focus and not be so hyper.
-Ike also responds well to 250 mg of both L-Tyrosine and GABA.
-Circle time needs to be short, sweet, and standing up.
-Lock Charlie the dog in another room. (And I mean lock, the girls will let him out if they get a chance.)
-More Brain Gym.
-We need more free drawing time with the block crayons. Ike gets frustrated with them as he's trying to use them like a crayola stick crayon and he's making lots of drawing errors (i.e. drawing a line somewhere he didn't mean to). In the mean time, simpler blackboard drawings.
-Hey! There's onion skins between the pages in the Main Lesson Book
-Erase each word of the copywork verse as he writes them, Ike gets lost looking at the whole thing (I'll let him grow up a bit more before I try that again)
-Now I know why, when looking at pictures of other Main Lesson Books, there are little stars between each word. They are not decorations, they are word spaces...they just also look really, really pretty.
-ratio for watercolor paint to water is 1:4
-I'm going to add another day of form drawing to our week I think. He needs the will practice. Its also very good for kids on the Spectrum.
-I need to look into a ballet class for all three kids. (Though I'd prefer a Eurythmy class)
-GFCF chocolate chips are hard to find.
-I'm really not looking forward to going GFCF
-Its okay to still use bribery (Ike's fave currency is M&M's) its one of the only way to train kids on the Spectrum (and yes, its very much like dog training)
-Ike's counselor thinks the report is much more pessimistic than reality. Which is actually a bonus as it will make it easier for him to get services.
-Getting Ike services for his Autism will make getting the diagnosis from Kaiser seem like a cakewalk.
aelfie: (MnM Librarian)
Block for the Week: Form Drawing!

Verse: Winter Spring Summer Autumn, A Child's Seasonal Treasury, Pg 3
Spanish: Las Hojas se caeran (Autumn Leaves are falling down, sung to London Bridges) Bilingual Book , Pg 106
Yoga Position: Adventure, Angel Bear Yoga Pg 49
Music: Summer Goodbye, Sing a Song of Seasons Pg 28
Handwork: Yarn Angel, EarthSchooling September Pg 64
(I've made plans for all of these for every week. I recognize the fact that the Spanish and the Music might take more than one week to be learned and might be repeated.)

Monday:
    Ike: Week 1, Part 1 of Wise Sophia (Journey through Waldorf, Pg 78), curved form (draw on chalkboard, in rice, on our backs, in the air, walk in the driveway, dominant and off hands) (curve left, curve right, curve up, curve down, nesting curves, ascending and descending curves) Talk about the curve of the old woman's back, who lives in the curved house, with the curvy path, and the curvy backed cat.
    E & G: Sheep and Pig, EarthSchooling September Pg 34
Gym Day for everyone
Baking Day! We will bake wheat bread (more forms!) and brownies for dessert night, and possibly some GF bread for me

Tuesday:
    Ike: Week 1, Part 2 of Wise Sophia (Journey through Waldorf, Pg 78), straight form (draw on chalkboard, in rice, on our backs, in the air, walk in the driveway, dominant and off hands) (shorts, longs, ascending, descending, verticals, horizontals, interspersed, diagonals) 
    E & G: I'll pick a picture book
Painting Day: Back to one color painting. Yellow
TKD day for Ike (If he wants to go)

Wednesday:
    Ike: Week 1,Part 3 of Wise Sophia (Journey through Waldorf, Pg 78) wavy running form (draw on chalkboard, in rice, on our backs, in the air, walk in the driveway, dominant and off hands) (horizontals and verticals
   E & G: Sheep and Pig, EarthSchooling September Pg 34
Modeling Day: the forms
Gym Day for everyone
TKD day for E & G

Thursday:
    Ike: Draw a picture of the family in Wise Sophia, narrate and summarize the story so far. Form draw review of curves and straights combined.
    E & G: Same Picture book as on tuesday
Copywork Day: Verse of the Week

Friday:
Mom's day off. KidsPark in the Morning, park for the afternoon with a trip to the library in between. (Eventually Ike will be going to school at Njeri's Morning Glory on Fridays. On Forest Friday's they spend the entire day, rain or shine, at Sanborn park. Needless to say I've spent a chunk of change on rain gear for Ike. This satisfies my desire for him to be in a structured, class-like setting that is still outside and satisifies his counselor to fulfill his need for socialization and practice his social skills. This class starts the friday after Labor Day.)

Whew! Sounds busy!
   



Pictures

Aug. 28th, 2009 04:02 pm
aelfie: (MnM Librarian)
Since this week was teaching Ike the basics of working with the block crayons I thought I'd post some results. From the few other blogs I've seen with pictures, Ike's pretty typical.


Two Color Underwater scene, those blobs are fishes


An attempt to make a rainbow only using the 3 colors


A pine tree. That blue blob is a hill.


A regular tree.



I've got to find to find a better place to take pictures, these are really dark and its hard to see the colors.

I need to be working with Ike on developing his Will forces. He wants to rush through his pictures and just be done. Although he is willing to try...and that's the important thing.

We didn't get to everything I'd planned 'cause I realized, I need more practice before showing Ike... =)

aelfie: (MnM Librarian)
Overall, quite well.

The Good:
Ike listened.
Ike was open to taking instruction from me
Ike followed instructions
We had fun
Pretty art was made
Ike seemed to get the idea of the how something was to be done
Transition songs rock
Using my helper of the day to get things done (set up and clean up)

The Bad:
When one gets hyper, they all get hyper
I'm still getting too frustrated
Its hard getting Ike to focus with the girls around distracting him
Ike tries to instruct the girls

Yea! No "The Ugly"!

The Needs Improvement (now this we have)
Snack trays made before people get up
Premixing paint and getting paper ripped out of pads before people get up in the morning
Getting all supplies out on counter before starting circle time
Circle Time
The sink must be empty and clean after breakfast on Painting day. I need the sink empty to soak the paper, nothing interrupts the flow like having to stop and empty the sink of dishes.

Brief Mention of next week's plan:
Block Crayon drawing (more involved plan before the end of the weekend)

It would be easy to get totally down on myself and say "I couldn't get through my circle time plan, I couldn't get Ike to do mental math on the walk, etc, etc" and get very discouraged. But I'm remembering that this is new, it will take baby steps to teach the kids the difference between normal being at home time & school time (although its cute that Gwen wants to call me Teacher). And I'm still figuring all this out. But after this week, I'm thinking its going to be a great school year.

Assuming I get enough sleep.
aelfie: (Default)
I called the elementary school down the street this morning and told them that Ike would not be returning.

Ooo. That was a very scary move.

But a necessary one.

But still, pretty scary. I'm walking the weirdos path.

Not that this is the first time, but still....
aelfie: (MnM Librarian)
So I'm going to get into the habit of posting the plan for each week, partially for a written record, partially to let people who love my kids know what's going on.

Week of August 17-21:Its painting week. I'll be following EarthSchooling Watercolor camp

Verse: I like Red, Bi 58
Spanish Verse: Me gusta el color Rojo Bi 58
Music (fingerplay this week, I'll start recorder lessons next month) Now that I am four Bi 48

Monday:
All day at Kaiser's Autism Spectrum Clinic
Tuesday:
Intro to painting, story to introduce colors Rainbow Gnomes (Camp, 14), walk through painting set up (clean water in jars, painting rags, smocks, painting boards, soaking paper, sponging paper, keeping "Gnomes Beard" clean. Two colors today, Red with the Apple and Star sotry (Camp) Blue with Turtle and Skybowl
Wednesday:
Review set up, Colors Yellow with Purse of Gold, Intro to Secondaries, painting red and adding yellow.
Thursday:
Review set up, More secondaries creation, Red background and adding blue, blue background and adding yellow.
Friday:
Review set up, Free painting session

depending on how well this goes I may go beyond intro'ing the secondaries and do a full blown lesson with stories. I'm trying to keep this fun and an introduction on how to do the wet on wet watercolor painting. And yes, the girls will be joining us for these session, they are completely appropriate. And like I could really keep them away, lets be real.

Done!

Aug. 9th, 2009 10:16 pm
aelfie: (Default)
And OOOO!!!!! It looks so pretty!



One Big Chalkboard! And there's only one goof that I have to fix with a couple of layers of paint (I went above the tape...its hidden behind the lamp)

aelfie: (Default)
I don't have a spare room in my house to designate as the "Schoolroom". By necessity, we'll do our school work in the dining room. As many who have visited our house know, the resident Picasso's love to draw on that wall.

After Joe's Mom left in June, we washed the wall. It looked much better.

But not good enough.

Tonight. I repainted it. Its the exact same color as before, so any screw ups will be minimally visible. It looks really, really good.

Next step. Chalkboard paint.

I bought a laser level, I'll tape off a large rectangle on the wall and fill in with Chalkboard paint. I think it will look awesome!
aelfie: (Default)
So many of my compatriots online who are homeschooling for the first time this year are starting separate blogs to document what's going on. I gave some thought of doing so myself.

I decided not to. Homeschooling is part of my life. This blog is a reflection of my life. Homeschooling is not something that's distinct. So I'll just keep up with the Homeschooling tag I use.

I've been playing with my block crayons and the book "Coloring with Block Crayons" Here's some of my attempts of drawing. I'm not an artist. I am trying to teach myself how to draw, I am getting better. I need to play more with these crayons, which I will be doing lots of for the next year. I'll get better.

The colors are a bit dark (should of used flash) and the angle is a bit weird...but you do get a good idea of what I'm up to.















aelfie: (Default)
So a couple of months ago when I announced we are going to homeschool Ike I said that I was going to use the Oak Meadow Curriculum.

I changed my mind.

I figured out that it is Waldorf based, started reading about Waldorf, realized that it could be more "Waldorfy" and found a different curriculum I like MUCH better. (Melisa Nielsen's A Journey Though Waldorf, combined with extras from Kristie Burns' Earthschooling if anyone is interested in knowing.) One of the things I like best about Waldorf Education is the fact that it is very art heavy. Academics are introduced in an artistic fashion. (Check out some of these Main Lesson Book Pages). Lots of drawing, painting, modeling and handwork.

Anyway I've been listening to different MP3's put out by them and others (Donna Simmons over at Christopherus, Eugene Schwartz over at Millennial Child) and they keep using the word Holistic to describe Waldorf Education. Makes sense. You are taking a look at the whole child to before presenting subjects to make sure they are ready or even if its something they need. You aren't just looking at some published by the school district benchmarks to determine the academic path.

Many have decried our current public school system as being too...um. Left Brained. Works on developing linear and logical reasoning to the detriment to everything else.  Which is one of the things I hate about it. I hate the fact that art is no longer being taught, nor is music, PE. The kids are being taught to the test. They aren't being taught how to think or to love learning. I think a lot of teachers want to, but the Test constrains them.

While reading "Drawing on the right side of the brain" today* I found a chart that gives a comparison between the functions of the Left and the Right side of the brain.  The very last word on the Right side is "Holistic: Seeing whole things all at once." Then it hit me.

A Waldorf Education literally teaches kids to use their entire brains. How cool is that?

I may be slow...but I still wanted to write this down.


*Man [livejournal.com profile] mollygm  must be hating this post! Too many linkies

aelfie: (Default)
Part of my prayers every night.

For myself: To grow, change, and adapt to become the parent my children need me to be.

My Goal as a parent.

To help my children become: Strong, capable, and competent. I want them to be, empathetic, kind, and caring. I want them to have deep roots so that they can "Stand Fast, no matter the squall", so that they bend at what life may throw at them, instead of breaking.
aelfie: (Default)
So I am working with a Curriculum consultant to help with my planning the academic year with Ike and the girls. We haven't actually started yet, but she's got a weekly podcast I've been either getting up extremely early to listen to live, or am downloading to listen to later.

This week she gave all the Mom's an exercise to start the planning. To get out the drawing paper and draw your child as a plant. And later meditate on that plant and on how the Universe sees your child.

Now when she said picture your child as a plant (I haven't had a chance to do the drawing yet, but its firmly in my mind) a picture of a cactus immediately popped into my brain. Now I'm not picturing a Wile E. Coyote cactus...but something from the Mammillaria genus, I think. (I'm still looking for a good picture of what I'm thinking of...I really want to know what kind it is). Anyway, the cactus I'm thinking of does not have spikes sticking straight out, but they have soft, fine spines which blossom and curve outwards from a center point.

Meditating on it later, I was wondering why in the world do I picture Ike as a cactus?

The Universe spoke:

This kind of cactus is prickly, but soft. It has a vulnerable core which the spines protect. If you move slow and gently, you can touch it, and no one gets hurt. And like all cacti, with a lot of sun, some love, and a little bit of water, they will thrive.

Pretty clear message if you ask me!

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