Thursday, April 28, 2011

Small Successes

Well, I feel like I don't have very many successes this week - the house is a mess, the girls are spending most of their time watching TV and playing Wii games, but I am calling this spring break, so I guess that's okay. I think we all need a break around here!
FaithButton
1 -
I have been frustrated for some time with Eva's phonics program (Seton), and I decided that for the last quarter of the school year, we will stop with phonics and move to PAL writing and All About Spelling (from The Institute for Excellence in Writing) - so my biggest success this week was the prep work for All About Spelling. I assumed that the magnetic tiles would come as, well...magnetic tiles! However, they come as two laminated pieces of card stock and sticky backed magnets. So, in about three hours, I got all the tiles cut out, magnetized, and organized. Also in that time I broke apart all the cards for the program (I am so thankful those were scored pages and I didn't have to cut all those, too!)

2 -
I have had magnetic primer and chalkboard paint sitting in our school closet since we moved into the house, basically. But now, my magnetic chalkboard closet door project is underway. The closet doors are down, and I am just about done with sanding the old finish off - I have to pick up a couple of foam smooth rollers for the paint application. Originally, I was going to get them yesterday, and spend today doing the painting, but I didn't get to the general store in town before it closed. That's probably just as well, because there needs to be seven hours of drying time between the five coats of paint - and with girl scouts this afternoon and bible study this evening, I don't know that I could have finished the project. I have a good incentive to get the project done, because I can't park in our garage until I am finished.

3 -
Hubby hasn't been feeling well, and when I suggested that maybe he needed to see a doctor, he agreed. So, I made him an appointment (gotta love his job, I made it for 11:30, so he went to work early to get the cows fed, then we went into town, and got back in time for him to feed in the afternoon, too.) While he saw a nurse practitioner, the girls and I made quick trip to the grocery store, and played at the park. I think that going to the park is probably the only thing about living in town that the girls miss - we used to go often, but when you are 16 miles out of town, it makes it hard to just go in for a park trip, and we usually have so many errands to run in town that we just run out of time.

More small successes at Faith and Family Live!

3 comments:

Kansas Mom said...

My kids feel the same way about parks. Even though we have one less than two miles away, it seems weird to me to pile them all in the van when we have a slide and swings right here, but they love it!

RealMom4Life said...

I've been homeschooling for 12 years and just discovered All About Spelling as well. Amazing program!

F&F website seemed to think I was a spammer and it wouldn't take my comment about speech therapy. But, since I promised to pass it on I just clicked over to your blog.

Here is what she had to say.

While I’ve done this at home, I would pass on a word of caution about “do-it-yourself” speech therapy. Anyone wanting to do this at home should probably meet with a speech therapist first. I once encountered a homeschooling mother asking about at-home speech therapy on a forum; it turned out that the mom who asked the question was from a non-English speaking country and spoke with a thick accent. If the parent doesn’t know how to form and teach the targeted sounds correctly, attempts at correction can make it more difficult to fix the problem in the future.

With that word of caution in mind, here’s some resources I’ve used. LiPS is what helped the most. http://www.ganderpublishing.com/LiPS/ (It also taught me how we produce the various sounds.) Mommy Speech Therapy is another great resource. http://mommyspeechtherapy.com/?page_id=55 That website (run by a speech therapist) has worksheets and loads of information, plus links to other highly specialized resources for specific sounds. Say It Right is another good resource for speech therapy materials http://www.sayitright.org/EWS-009.html

Good Luck!

Luke said...

http://www.home-speech-home.com

RealMom4Life is right if you don't know how to help your child the right way you could cause more damage than good.

Some of the resources we offer on HomeSpeechHome cater to the needs of home-schooling parents.

Our speech and language screeners can help anyone determine if their child is struggling in a particular area. It can be used for any child age 0-11 years old.

We have a lot of great resources and suggestions for those doing home speech therapy.

Take Care.

Luke Barber
Co-Founder
HomeSpeechHome.com