Educational Poster FAIL

I just opened up a "Landmarks and Symbols of America" poster pack that I ordered and I am disappointed. 

First, the picture they had for Abraham Lincoln was a poorly cropped photo of the statue from his memorial.  What???  Why not use one of the good, contemporary, and highly recognizable paintings of him?

Next, I was hoping the "Constitution of the United States" would be the text of the Preamble.  But instead it is a photo with the preamble in the background on old paper, and a pair of Ben Franklin-type glasses and a feather in the foreground.  Pretty, but useless.

The "Pledge of Allegiance" poster is also completely useless.  Again, I was hoping for the actual text.  But instead I got a picture of a girl with her hand over her heart with a fuzzy American Flag in the background.

But this one takes the cake.  The little information booklet that came with it had this gem of knowledge about the flag, "There are many nicknames for the American flag, including Old Glory, the Stars and Stripes, the Stars and Bars, and the Star-Spangled Banner."

Did you catch it?
I'll give you a second.  Go back and re-read that.

Ready?  THE AMERICAN FLAG IS NOT CALLED THE *STARS AND BARS*!  That was the name given to the flag of the Confederacy!

Good job, educational materials publisher.  FAIL.

So Much!

Practically daily I fluctuate between excitement and anxiety about what to teach my daughters in our homeschool.  That's because there is just so much to learn! 

I go a little insane when I'm in the homeschool stores or the library.  I just want to buy (or check out) it all!  It all looks so fun! 

But then I think, "Holy Cow, how in the world will I have time to teach her all this stuff?  Where do I start??"

I'm still working on finding a good balance.

Pet Peeve

"Homeschool" is not a typo! 

This is my new pet peeve. 
Why must Microsoft Word and Blogger insist that I spelled it wrong? 
Come on, dictionaries, get with the program!
I'm starting to feel a little marginalized over here.  <pouts> 
Ok, so maybe that's an exaggeration, but it's still really annoying.

I thought I had a great idea...

We meet with our ES tomorrow and Ms. Szper told me that she definitely wanted to see some kind of documentation this time of the things Primus has been doing at gymnastics (Fliptastic-which the school is paying for.)

A few weeks ago I took a ton of pictures of Primus during her class.  And that same day, I sat her down and helped her write up a report about gymnastics (fill in the blank questions about her favorite thing to learn, the hardest thing, etc.)  But I have been procrastinating ever since and haven't gotten around to picking which pictures to print and include with her report for Ms. Szyper. 

Like I said, we meet with Ms. Szyper tomorrow so this morning I was working on our learning record and starting to stress that I still hadn't picked out the pictures.  I knew that it would take me forever to choose which pics were the best. 

But then I had a stroke of genius!  Primus can pick her own pictures!  She is almost 6; surely she is computer literate enough to do this on her own.  So I showed her how to scroll through them, and instructed her to write down the numbers of the pictures she liked.

It worked!  Kind of.  Out of 91 photos, she successfully narrowed it down to 11.  But then I was picky and got rid of 7 of them and added 14 of my own choosing.  So question is...did I really end up saving myself any time at all?  Oh well, at least Primus got some computer experience and she had fun doing it.

Craft Round-Up

I want to share some of the crafts we've done in the last month.  It is so easy to be crafty during the holidays!

1. Craft stick star ornaments.  The kids painted the sticks white, then I hot-glued them into the star shape.  The kids put on the finishing touches with Elmer's glue and glitter.

 2. Craft stick tree ornaments.  Again, the kids did the painting and glitter, and I did the hot-gluing.  I tried to get the kids to glue little beads as ornaments for their trees, but Primus wasn't interested.  She only used a single yellow bead in place of a star.

 3. Glass balls ornaments.  I got clear ornaments and poured a little bit of tempera paint inside after removing the hook part.  The kids then shook it up until all of the inside was coated with paint.  Then glitter-glue designs were done on the outside.

4. Stuffed Turkey.  This was made on Thanksgiving Day.  I cut 2 circles out of paper bag and punched holes all the way around.  The kids glued on the feathers and turkey head.  Then the circles were laced together (so the part where the feathers were glued were on the inside.)  A couple balls of newspaper in between the circles before they were finished being laced up made the turkey nice and fat.

5. No-mess painting with wax paper.  This is the same method I used when we made those fall leaves a couple weeks ago.  I love this method!  Fun, easy, looks cool, and no mess!

6. Handprint Santa.  Made for a cute, quick gift for Great Grandparents.

7. Pipe cleaner candy cane.  Nothing spectacular here.  I just handed the girls a couple pipe cleaners and they whipped up a few of these to put on the tree in only a couple minutes.  Not all crafts have to be complicated!



New Nativity Blocks

My children were given a nativity set to play with a couple years ago.  But, being that it was ceramic, it has several broken pieces.  I think the donkey's ears broke off only weeks after we acquired it.  And recently one of the wise men lost his head completely.  So, the search was on for a new set for them. 

When it comes to Nativity scenes, I am very picky.   This did not make my search easy.  Especially since there aren't many nativities for children on the market.  And I had a complaint of one form or another about all of them.  Plus, we're not in a position to be spending much money on extras right now, anyway.  So I decided quickly that I would need to get crafty and make my own.  I saw the idea for the following set on some blog.  But then I had to find a nativity clipart set that I liked.  That was even harder!

Anyway, I finally found some great, simple clipart on JennySmith.net.  The only thing it was missing was a donkey.  But I was able to whip one up on Windows Paint pretty easily. 

I cut out all the pictures and simply Mod Podged them onto my Melissa and Doug wooden blocks.

The stable, the star, Mary, Joseph, the manger, and the donkey.  As you can see, I cut the stable and the star into multiple pieces.

The wise men and even King Herod!  So cool that I was able to teach my kids about this antagonist and the important part he plays in the story of Christ's birth and infancy.

Shepherds, sheep, and angel.

Advent Calendar

I wanted to do an advent calendar with the kids this year so I searched Pinterest and found some great ideas to get my creative juices flowing.  And then I came up with this:

I painted a big Christmas tree on poster board and glued on 24 little pieces of the scratchy side of velcro.  Then I cut out 23 little ornaments from felt.  (As you can see, the 24th ornament is a star.)  Actually, every ornament consists of an ornament shape with a circle shape glued on top to create a pocket.  And then that puff fabric paint was perfect for writing on the numbers.   

Each ornament's pocket contains a scripture about the birth of Christ and then a coordinating song.  So every night we take the correct ornament out of the bag, read the scripture, sing the song, and then put the ornament on the tree.

I am really pleased with the way it turned out and the girls are loving taking turns putting the ornaments on the tree.

Preschool Discontent

Today Secundus had a field trip to a gymnastics place.  While the kids did their thing, the moms sat on the bleachers and talked.  There was a group of 4 or 5 of us that especially had a really great discussion.  I learned that I am not the only one who is incredibly dissatisfied with the preschool class. 
I won't go into all the reasons here, but suffice it to say that everyone thinks that sending their kids to this class is a waste of time.  I am pulling Secundus out at Christmas break time.  And it sounds like several others may do the same.  Several moms have gotten on the wait list to transfer to the morning class with a different teacher. 
Anyway, it was very eye-opening for me to hear that my criticisms of the class weren't unfounded.  I even found out about a couple reasons why the class is so bad that I wasn't even aware of previously.  Very interesting.  I wish I could find out how many kids are left in the class in January!

Sistine Chapel

This is an awesome self-directed virtual tour of the Sistine Chapel.  Trust me-it is amazing.  You definitely want to go check it out.

http://www.vatican.va/various/cappelle/sistina_vr/index.html

Nephi and the Brass Plates

Tristan over at Our Busy Homeschool did a review of Nephi and the Brass Plates DVD from Living Scriptures.  She also had a copy to giveaway...and I won!

I grew up on the Living Scriptures videos!  I am so excited that I get to share this great part of my childhood with my own children.  The animation is worse than I remember.  But the story and music are just as awesome as I remember.

Fall Crafts

Here's a couple fun crafts we've done lately:

Fall Leaf No-Mess Painting

Here's what you do: Put a large piece of wax paper on the table.  On top of that, put a small piece of poster board.  Then let the kids decide which colors they want placed where on their paper.  Just put little drops of paint at random places.  Then put another piece of wax paper on top. 

Then comes the fun part: the kids just use their fingers to spread the paint around and blend colors together as desired.  When you're done, peel off the top wax paper and let the poster board dry.  When it was all dry (the next day-we used a lot of paint!) we used a leaf we collected to cut a couple leaf shapes out of our poster board.  We even discussed the veins on the leaves and drew those in and then used the real leaves' stems as stems for our painted ones.

Bonus: after we peeled off the top wax paper, we placed a piece of regular paper on top of the paint that was left behind and rubbed to transfer it.  So here is what that looks like.  Isn't that neat?



These things are supposed to be Turkey Centerpieces.  The girls made these at Lakeshore.  Lakeshore does free crafts like this every Saturday.  This was the first time we had gone and it was fun. 

At the beginning of November, I made this construction-paper Thankful Tree.  Every morning during our calendar time, Primus has to think of one thing that she is thankful for and then I write that on a leaf.  My favorites so far that she has said she is thankful for: "the Earth because Jesus made it," "library books", "all the trees," and "My mommy is my teacher."

The next couple pictures aren't crafts, but rather a way that we display our crafts.  It was super cheap and easy.  I just put a couple big nails in the wall high up by the celing and tied a white shoelace to the nails.  Add some clothes-pins, and you're good-to-go. 



Big Book of History

The Homeschool Village wrote a review a little while ago abou the Big Book of History.  They also held a contest to give 3 away.  And guess what?  I won!  We were super excited when it arrived in the mail. 

The Big Book of History is just a fold-out 15 foot long timeline.  It is made by a Christian publisher so it starts with Adam and Eve and ends with today.  It has so much information about a ton of stuff.  World history, Biblical history, technological history, etc. 

We all had fun looking at it, reading a couple entries, and just marveling at how many years have passed since several different events.  While the information is mostly too advanced for Primus right now, it is very helpful to be able to give her a visual representation of how long ago things happened.  And I really like that it includes Biblical events because she can easily find the entry that says, "Jesus is born."  And then that gives her a good reference point for anything else that we are studying. 

Love it!



Super Easy and Yummy Cookies

My friend Cindy shared this recipe with me.  They are sooo yummy and soooo easy and quick to make.  And I like to assume that they are healthy.  My children may-or-may-not have had at least 2 of them each for breakfast.

1 (30oz) can of pumpkin
2 boxes of spice cake mix
1 bag chocolate chips

Mix it all together.  (Do not add anything to the cake mix.  Seriously, just dump the powder in the bowl with the pumpkin and chocolate.)  Drop by spoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheet and bake for 15 minutes at 375 degrees.

To appease picky spouses or children, these don't even taste like pumpkin.  And they don't taste "healthy."  They're just really yummy, super soft chocolate-chip cookies!  I used my medium-sized Pampered Chef cookie scoop and it made 5 dozen cookies.  That's a lot of cookies but they went fast!  After we inhaled about half in a day or two, I had to throw the rest in the freezer so I would have some to share with my sister-in-law and family.

And since this recipe is so simple, it is perfect for getting children to help.  My little ones can totally handle dumping 3 ingredients into a bowl and then stirring.

Principal for the Day

Today I participated in the first annual "Principal for the Day" event for San Juan Unified School District.  Every school in the district was assigned a member of the community to be their Principal for the Day.  I am so glad that I got to be at my school of choice. 

So basically what I did was follow around the regular principal as she went about her business for 3 1/2 hours in the morning.  I was given a tour of the school and we observed almost all of the classrooms for a few minutes. 

Right at the beginning of the day, as we walked out to the playground to make sure everyone got to class, the principal asked me if I knew anything about the school already.  So I told her that my friend's son told me, and I had observed, their morning walk arounds.  She enthusiastically said, "Oh, yes!  Our Striders!"  So I told her that I thought it was awful and that it looked like a prison.  She said something about it being about promoting healthy exercise and that the kids love being able to walk around with their friends.  So I told her that playing and running and climbing are fun and good exercise for kids, too.  I also told her that when I talked to the school secretary about it on the phone, she didn't tell me that the reason for the walk arounds is about discipline and limited staffing, but that I am sure that is part of it.  I also recognized that schools have to do the best they can with what they have, but again, I think it is weird.  When I got done saying all of this, the principal was notably silent.  She didn't say anything until we arrived in a classroom to begin observations.

The rest of the day went well.  All of the staff was really nice.  I found out that this school has a large population of English-as-second-language learners.  Also, a lot of the families are poor.  This year they were declared a Title 1 school, which means they were granted lots of extra funding. 

After our observations were done, we headed to the Citrus Heights Community Center for a really nice lunch.  This included: principals, principals-for-day, select school board members, select community leaders, and the teachers/staff of the year.  The lunch was catered by the students of the culinary institute at the new San Juan High School.  Entertainment was provided by Rio Americano's Jazz Band. 

I was hoping that at the lunch I would be able to voice my concerns about our tax dollars being mismanaged and spent too much on junk (like this event) and administration, and not enough on actually educating our children.  But in actuality, it was nothing more or less than a PR campaign.  And I feel silly for hoping I would have the opportunity to turn it into anything else. 

The program for the lunch was on a strict agenda.  Most of the time was spent listening to a couple people (who each were very charismatic speakers, and liked to hear their own voice) go on about how wonderful this school district is.  The theme of the event was that schools are facing challenges and budget cuts, and the media is telling us that our public schools are failing, but San Juan is doing great!  Too bad their own statistics say that every grade has 30 students per classroom and only 30 out of 60 schools "meet the California goal of an 800 or higher score on the Academic Performance Index."

We were told there would be time for participant comments.  But actually what happened is that they told us to discuss with our table the positive things, the successes, that we saw in our observations today.  And then four volunteers were given the chance to share with the big group.  The four people who spoke were also charismatic men who liked to hear themselves speak.  And they had nothing but wonderful things to say.  They were all big cheerleaders.

One good thing that I learned is that the whole event was actually sponsored by ACSA (Association of California School Administrators.)  But my next question is, where does ACSA get their funding?

I'm glad that I participated because I saw a lot of great things that the school was doing, or at least trying.  I collected some great ideas that I will hopefully be able to implement in my own classroom. 

How to Eat a Lollipop

We were unable to watch General Conference on Conference weekend so instead have downloaded it.  We are picking our way slowly through it, watching a talk or two at a time.  (Should I emphasize *embarrassingly slowly*?  We just finished the Saturday afternoon session finally.)

Tonight the kids were told to each pick a sucker and then sit down to listen.  The plan was that the suckers would keep their mouths busy and keep them quiet.  We had only watched a couple minutes, though, before Secundus had already chewed up her sucker completely and Primus had thrown hers away because it was "too hard to bite" (it was a very thick one.)  My plan didn't work!

So we paused the video, we each picked new lollipops, and Hubby proceeded to give them a thorough lesson on how to enjoy it.  The lesson was complete with demonstration and practice of licking, sucking, and saying, "Mmmm...tasty."  The number one rule was, "No biting!"  The kids thoroughly enjoyed it.

We learn very important lessons in our house!