So I'm not sure what happened to Blogger this week but I couldn't sign in!! so this post is a mash of all we did this week excluding spelling lists,reading chapters and exact exercises for math... Wednesdays story time we got to take Caiden's best friend Ashton ( his school is on spring break) they did the giant floor puzzle of the ocean after stories :) unfortunately my phone is no longer allowing me to download pictures and I forgot to take my mom camera :( so her is other things we did this week ......

bird house he painted...

cat house he built...

and they like it :)

growing brain plant

Caiden and my fish tank which required feed everyday; corals have to be target feed. That's Caiden's job :)

We have made it to book 3 of Dripping Fang Forest series. We read this at bed time :)

Caiden and his daddy (favorite person in the world)

This is the first time he has been clean shaven in 8 years LOL

and this is the poem Caiden wrote about his daddy (favorite person in the world). I love it!

Caiden on book two (he's on book three now) of Beast Quest series. This is his free reading book :)

Caiden's sister Brooklyn teaching him and his cousin Trace her track workout. Those boys were whipped when she was done with them :) LOL

and last but not least; Caiden's picture of cats on a fence with garbage piled next to it and dogs barking at them :) lol love his brain.

3/22 "I just want go back to bed". From caiden?

I knew from the moment he sat down today was going to be a long day. I made this decision based on many cues but the big one was when he thought he should just move his cereal bowl to his lap because he was to tired to pick his head up! ugh....yep that's how our morning went. to tired to get dressed, to tired to write, to tired to think...imagine my surprise when at about 11:15 he says "I just want to go back to bed". If you know my child you are in as much shock as me. Bed is something to be avoided at all cost read till you have to hold your eyelids up with your fingers, one more trip to the bathroom, dehydration caused by not drinking for 24min. one more drink. I can't blame him, ask my husband, he gets it from me. The later it gets the harder it is for us to fall asleep :/  SOOOO knowing it's going to be a rough one we start language arts, which today I thought would be relatively easy; he was writing a letter to his friend Rhiannon.

 I knew this would not be the case when he looks at me and says " I forgot how to spell dear". To which my reply was "That's a shame I think I forgot I was going to build with you after school work is done." Amazingly he instantly remembered the correct spelling of dear. This stubbornness of his I also cannot hold against him but I don't think I get all the blame for this character trait. There are 4 lines of genetics this particular trait could be blamed on  :) So dragging his feet and definitely taking his time he finished his letter with no free time left. So we start math, his favorite class. He did his fraction worksheet with ease and then I got out his timed math sheet and a noise cam out of the boy that would make you think I just cut his favorite stuffed animal in half! I look at him and ask if there is a problem? To which I get the reply "why do I have to do this again? I HATE them!" HATE is a bad word at our house the lecture goes like this: hate is a very strong word that can easily upset other people and hurt their feelings and you should only use it when you truly feel that way. There are few things in the world to truly HATE. This has also been turned back at me; my own lecture repeated to me followed by I truly HATE timed math worksheets! They make it to hard to think!He did his math drill but left me with something to think about.... science and reading of Who was Queen Elizabeth went quickly. Mainly because that is when I read to him. This is where we break for lunch and just talk. I love to listen to him ramble off his thoughts. Today was a discussion about smallpox(queen Elizabeth brought that on),Poland(Rhiannon is moving there),worms and if it hurts them when the birds pull them apart, how old Connie(a relative from Georgia) is in "regular people years" if she only has a birthday every 4 years and just had her 13th birthday, and how much he would rather go back to bed than finish the school day LOL. I suppose it was worth one more try. On to His reading: one chapter of Sherlock Holmes and I found a better website for kids news: http://www.timeforkids.com/news-archive/all?page=1 . So we hopped on there and read about a new search for Amelia's plane, and a girl that collects bikes and donates them to her local Chicago school where they are given out to kids with good grades and perfect attendance. The school reported it has been a wonderful incentive for the students to try harder. After this LONG HARD day ,it was 2:30, he went to relax in his lego pile and as soon as I am finished on here he plans on looking on the website that goes with his Hero Qwest books. They have mazes and problem solving games! Thank goodness he doesn't have to think anymore today ;)

NO thinking here! LOL

3/21/2012 storytime, a play date and new soccer nets :)

So let me start by saying story time does not start until 9:30, so I was quite surprised when I had to wake Caiden up at 9:10 so we could go! I should also say my boy has been continuously hungry and tired for approximately the last 5 days. I have very little doubt he is going to be taller than me by age 10 (that's his goal); in fact I will be quit surprised if he's not taller than me by age 9. He is 51 1/2" tall and growing like a weed and I am 62". Anyway like everywensday we headed to the library for story time. Today's theme was spring :) We didn't stay for chess or puzzles but went out to McDonald's for a play date instead (it was wet from all the rain we originally planed for the park). But Caiden had a good time; he and 2 other boys played star wars. I believe play time with kids he does not spend alot of time with is very important for his problem solving skills as he spends much of his time with adults ,who tend to just let him play with the toy he wants, and his sister age 16, who tends to let him play with the to he wants. It's good for him to wait his turn! We  also expect rational responses from him when we talk to him which causes him problems when he expects the same from other kids he is playing with. We have never excepted temper tantrums or fits, he is expected to talk to us and solve his problem respectfully. This causes him alot of confusion when he has to deal with someone his own age who throws a fit or name calls when they don't get their way but I find it very important he knows how to deal with "life" for lack of a better word. That parents raise their children in many different ways and that people have to choose to be kind, caring, and compassionate. OK. sorry rambling over....We can home and he finished off his "Globe Theater" out of the foam bricks grandma and grandpa peyton gave him.

 We put up our new soccer nets, HURRAY! So we spent some time practicing because as of today he is officially signed up with the cedar valley soccer association, and with the $'s we have spent I REALLY hope he likes it. Then (I mentioned the continuously tired thing right?) he took a long "rest" (I think he fell asleep for a few min.) in his inertube in the middle of the yard. Sorry I didn't get a picture of that! After his refreshing "rest" we brought the tortoise's out and cleaned their home. He is required to help as Darwin belongs to him! Delilah is mine :) They have come out of hibernation this week and needed cleaned and moved back into the sunny living room. One of our projects over the next couple of weeks(I hope) is to build a outdoor tortoise playground :)

3/20 and 3/21 a date with noodles and a new schedule

3/19/2012
 Today we were supposed to start our new schedule but daddy took a vacation day and told Caiden if he got his work  school work done soon enough he would take us to CR  to eat lunch and go to the book store. So we had a very basic school day: a timed math drill that again didn't go so well :/ Although Mrs. Olsen (our teacher who checks in with us makes sure Caiden is progressing well and helps me with finding resources) suggested giving Caiden the option of going back and checking his answers AFTER he had done them as fast as he can and the timer is off.  He read a chapter in Sherlock Holmes and I finished off Who was William Shakespeare; so for language arts he wrote his list of things he remembered about Will.For science we read Your Heart and Your Blood. ( I had no idea the sharp pain in your left side when you run alot is called a stitch and is caused by your spleen,you learn something new everyday!) and last but not least our new spelling list:
change
off
play
spell
air
bend
send
mind
offend
sand
land
draw
object
feature
label
steps
 First attempt 10/16 not bad. Daddy took us to Noodles and company for lunch yum yum, and at Barnes and Nobles Caiden got two books: every boy NEEDS a dictionary of knots lol :)

and Beast Quest by Adam Blade; which is a scholastic little apple chapter book. It only has 8 chapters 5 of which were done before bed time! Should have bought a thicker book but it is a whole series and he is definitely enjoying it :)

3/20/2012

I think I'm going to love this new schedule! We started with language arts: underlining titles of books and movies;which he used his entire hour(no surprise to me). So I gave him a 5 min. break and we did a math timed drill.He forgot a couple of times and I seen him double checking but much better with a time of 12.01 min. Thank you Mrs. Olsen! Now we just work our way to 5 min. (seems like a lot of problems and I may change it to a 50 problem drill at 2.5 min.) we will see how this week goes.We also did exercise 40 in his math book because he REALLY wanted to. The next 5 exercises are about fractions which Mini Mike (Caiden) finds fascinating..... I don't get the excitement but I'm glad he has it!He finished his math with 41min. to spare but had to finish what was left of language arts  before he could have free time; so in the end he ended up with about 27min. between math and science. Today in science we read Teeth and Where does your food go? I love the diagrams in these books.

We went ahead and I did my reading with science since neither take much time or deep thinking from Caiden(just listening skills). We started Who Was Queen Elizabeth and it was so interesting we read three chapters! Then time for a lunch break. 20 mins. for lunch 40 min. of basketball and back for spelling list which he got 13/16.

pinewood derby weekend (ya..not school)

Just wanted to share!

3/16/2012

Short and sweet today! This is the first time I have seen the inside of the house today besides grabbing things to take out :) Caiden did a timed math drill today's time was 12.43 min. (100 addition) With a lot of confidence boosts from me about the fact he knows the answers; he doesn't need to double check himself.......For language arts today we skipped our work book to write a paper for the new library contest: How the Independence Library has made my life better.

He got 15/16 on spelling; experiment has an "I" and according to Caiden that makes no sense! LOL

I am a little behind in our Who was William Shakespeare (first week of beautiful weather.Can you blame us) so today we read 3 chapters ,outside, and will be finishing it Monday. Mister is on chapter 5 of Sherlock Holmes and loves it :)  We practiced our states and capitol song and Continent song for ss and read about coughs, sneezes, and hiccups for science. Then off to play soccer and hunt for water bugs at the creek :)

3/15/2012

 Today we are going to split our day we have a lunch date with a good friend of mine; woohoo Chong Garden and lunch with another adult( have I mention I miss my husband ALOT this week, who has 50+ hours in already on a thursday morning!) A split in the day will be good for Mister anyway he is growing like a weed and he is ALWAYS hungry and tired!We are going to do math,spelling,and language arts before lunch and science ,ss,and reading after. The reading makes me smile knowing he will probably take a book to lunch and after telling Kristy everything important in his world he will dive into his book and ignore us :)
 For math we are doing timed math drills, which Caiden is not enjoying he is much more concerned with accuracy than speed. His statement to me was this " If I try to go really fast I might get some wrong and you always say do your best. My best is when I go a little slower and get them ALL right!" How do you argue with that? I hate when one of my own parental statements comes back to bite me in the butt LOL. The goal is 5min. 100 written addition  problems (we have done this with flash cards where I control the speed but not written. I watch him double checking every problem and don't know how to get him to just do them with speed :/ today's time 15.57 min........( please don't get me wrong I am very proud of my boy He has a very good grasp on addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, beginning fractions and he can tell time. That being said I feel doing the timed drills WITH CONFIDENCE is also an important lesson)

 Language arts will be lesson 2.14 quotation marks in dialogue. To which I got the response "I know,I know those little marks around things people say." Amazingly enough this went very quickly today!

 Spelling list is more of a test for fun he got 16/16 yesterday, but I want to see if he can do it again with no reviewing between test ( normally we study missed words just like kids at school). I bribed him with a girl scout cookie,bad mom :)

 For science we will read our section in My Body and Me; which includes a activity. He has to sit in a chair for 1 min. and count how many times he breaths out then run around for  2min. and count again. We will also be starting some flower seedlings. His grandparents gave him a brain flower  and he is very excited to get it started! We will also "research" the flower :)

 The whole point of this blog is documenting so....enjoy:

 Tomorrow we will be trying something completely different in time management thanks to daddy :) Mike pointed out there is really no incentive for him to work quickly because after one subject is another ( sometimes one you like even less!) So starting tomorrow our day will be broken up into one hour blocks. An hour for math and as soon as his assignment is completed he can have free time until the hour is up them we begin a new subject.This should alleviate the excessive amount of time wasted, and our day really won't take any longer but should be more enjoyable for us both :) I hope!

3/14/2012

STORY TIME DAY!! love Wednesdays. Today's stories were about ST. Patricks day;with a leprechaun coloring page. WE played a game of chess (I lost) and he showed Mrs. Vance his two new Ninjago graphic novels(that he read in two days,for fun) After story time we went to grandma and grandpa Peyton's where we helped with some spring clean up on the farm and found some new building supplies. Caiden built a small windmill out of a fan blade and a old coffee cup holder (yep he's mini Mike). He read 20 pages in The Wonderful Wizard of OZ in the car during our travel. As soon as we got home he left with grandpa Tracy for fishing lessons ;) He caught five fish and lucky me gets to cook them tomorrow :p

3/13/2012

 So today was tedious to say the least. The boy had no interest in school today and was taking his time on everything, including his timed math drills ( he did not care that the word timed was the key to the assignment.) We do not have days like this often I'm blaming it on the warm weather and long hours at the park! :) SOOO we fought our way through language arts review of commas, then timed math drills which I will not even post the times for (ya that bad!) reading went well he is very much enjoying Sherlock Holmes,he is also reading MY Wonderful Wizard of OZ graphic novels by L. Frank Baum (just for fun).we covered bone function and # of bones in science and he played my amazing human body 1.2 (the computer game that goes with our science book). Today I had him look at news for kids (we will be doing this daily)http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/17313486. Today he read about the resent solar flares and we discussed  what larger flares could do to Internet and cell phones and how he thought that would affect our day. (best part of the whole school day). I read a chapter in Who was William Shakespeare. Then off to pick up niece Kassidy from school and to the park!! Tomorrow will be better !! Says me :)

3/12/2012

Starting day off with new spelling list:
1)land
2)different
3)home
4)us
5)move
6)bump
7)stump
8)clump
9)stamp
10)clamp
11)camp
12)question
13)experiment
14)predict
15)observe
16)guess

Caiden's favorite part of spelling lists is the  personal challenge. It has little to do with wanting to have the knowledge of how to spell a large number of words but to see how fast he can learn to spell them. I made an agreement at the beginning of the school year that the first day of the week he gets all 16 correct we are done with that spelling list (never thinking he would put such effort into it).We have had 2 weeks where we had no spelling list after Tuesday! 5 days that our list was done on wed. and honestly most Fridays spelling list are nonexistent anymore. To him this was a HUGE incentive to do his best and study his words :)
Language arts (Caiden has explained this subject as the worst thing I have EVER made him do in his WHOLE life! lol) : today was apostrophes in possessives to which I got the reply "OK I got it! If it says something is someones I put an apostrophe, do I REALLY  have to do the worksheets?" Yep that's how everyday goes for this subject!

Math is always met with excitement, and always saved for the last subject of the day for two reasons(according to caiden)  One it's easiest and two it's the most fun :)  Today he has his review for the first 39 exercises in our work book to which he responded " easy peasy"

Caiden recently had his name drawn at the library for a stuffed animal sleepover. His friend Max the dragon was chosen as most likely to enjoy the library, because in case you are unaware dragons LOVE books :) To be entered into the drawing you had to complete 8 requirements which were:
check out 3 books at a time, read an award winning book, read for 30min., listen to an audio book, watch movie from library's collection, read book and write review, like the library on your facebook page or read article on library website, and bring a friend who has a library card to library with you(Caiden brought Mike) :)

We will be taking all of our reading  to the library today. We have volunteered to sit in the lobby for two hours today and help people fill out a county statistics survey. ( I don't anticipate being terribly busy on a Monday afternoon)

3/9/2012

Wow what a week! With the extra  kiddos (who I love to pieces, and were very good) and my love being gone it was a long week.Not bad just not our normal week. You know what I mean you get VERY good at living your schedule and it wears you out a little to jump into a different one. I love when the other Peyton babies come though, the kiddos love each other sooo much :) 
    Anyway to school...Caiden has read 3 chapters in Sherlock Holmes, and we are on page 18 of Me and My Body for science. Today his "homework" (lol I giggle every time I write that word) was to talk to one of his grandparents about what school was like when they were kids and what kind of games they played ( this section is about generations and families).
  In language arts today he was working on commas in compound sentences,yesterday was commas in a series,and of course our spelling list. He also wrote an acrostic poem  using the word robot.

Robots are cool and awsome
Other robots can control each other
Building robots is fun
On my dresser there are robots
They are very cool machines
Sumtimes robots break
(I did not correct his spelling as I typed. I find it cute still :D)

  In math we have been working on money for a few weeks now. He was working on subtracting and adding $0.99 from different numbers. Example: problem 1) $4.30-$0.99=$3.31 The problem is not hard in anyway but the lesson here is to get him to figure it out in his head. $4.30-$1.00=3.30+0.01=$3.31 or -.01 for addition problems. I never have trouble with  math it is his favorite subject. Yesterday (after school lol) we learned about Pi and how to use it to find the area of a circle and it was "so much fun". I am truly glad he has this love of anything number related. I personally never put the words math and fun in the same sentence (unless I'm talking to him).

no pics. today sorry :(

3/8/1012

We started today with painting. He had his derby car on the table before breakfast because yesterday he made me pinkie promise he could do his derby car "first thing first" this morning.

Yep it's a shark! :)  After we moved on to math, language arts, and a spelling list which we do almost daily. Next week ( when I'm back to just my baby)  post what programs we use for each subject.

  spelling list for this week is:
1)ask
2)went
3)men
4)read
5)need
6)short
7)core
8)sport
9)report
10)port
11)escort
12)solid
13)liquid
14)gas
15)size
16)texture
Them on to reading. his, mine, and science. Good day :)

storytime/ chess day!

3/7/2012  Wednesdays are our "really fun" school days. At 9:30 we go to the library for story time (next week I will take my camera).We listen to Vonnie (who we LOVE) read stories and them(normally) we will play chess or do puzzles but not today.Why,because daddy is coming home! He left for Florida last Friday and is "FINALLY" coming home today. We did stay and do the after story craft because todays stories were about robots, Caiden is obsessed with robots :) We normally leave the library around lunch time, eat and craft or build for the rest of the day (every otherWednesday we are done at 1:00 because the girls get out early). This is Caidens spider-bot. (sorry it's sideways)  
    I LOVE playing chess with him! The sad part is I don't always win (mike is teaching him how to beat me). My favorite part, my proud mama moment is when he looses, shakes my hand and says good game mom. Yep I swell with pride. I have taught my son (what I feel is a very important life lesson) that sometimes you loose,that's life. No participation ribbons no letting him win,although when he does he makes sure you know it (we are still working on the being a gracious winner).I love the pride you see in him when he  knows he beat me fair and square.

In science today caiden's task was to draw a picture of his family. We are on the Me and My Body unit (we use SW explore and learn series.This is volume 5) Caiden is not one to sit and draw very often he likes to build so these task are always challenging for him. He gets upset with himself when people and things don't look like they do in real life LOL, and just do your best is not what he wants to hear! So I was proud of him this morning when he didn't get frustrated but just did his best(sometimes mamas know what they are talking about).

As I said Caiden is a builder where it took him 45 min. to draw a family picture it took him about 20 min. to build his  thought sender." So if someone doesn't understand what your trying to tell them you just put it on set it and they will know because they will get your brain waves"" :) (ya I love this kid) LOL

Caiden also had to start a new book to read to me. His selection .....

Like I said I love this kid. He makes my job so easy (except language arts!)

So here's is our first "secret" Caiden does not get dressed most days until he is done with his school work! shocking I know, but come on if you could have went to school in your pjs everyday wouldn't you :) Mind you this is only true when it's to cold to go outside. As soon as it warms up outside he comes up the stairs dressed and requesting breakfast outside.

p.s. for anyone that knows us and notices,I have my nephew (and niece after school) this week hence the sippy cup on the table. Just in case you seen it (Tara) LOL

So yesterday( 3/6/2012) did not go according to "the plan" at all! We hit a REALLY good part in the chapter book we have been reading together and spent 4 hours taking turns reading :) won't complain about that to much though ;) We only had a 1/2 day because I had a meeting at DHS with our youngest foster daughter where she gave us the most amazing news.....She would like to be adopted! I am one happy mama and Caiden is one happy little boy. He loves her so much, we all do. So my apologies we didn't make it to math today LOL

No more PAPER work!

  I should start with I am a homeschooling mom of a very nice person named Caiden who is 7 years old and in first grade. I also have 2 teenage foster daughters(not that they aren't nice...but they are teenagers) who have lived with us for years. I have an online shop to sell my crocheted creations (crocheting is how I come up with enough Patience to make it through language arts with a boy who would rather do ANYTHING else in the world) and will soon be den leader for cub scouts.
 The problem with all of this....I HATE paper work and  I have recently been informed I need to become more efficient at documenting our homeschooling day,so I'm hopping if it feels more like playing on the computer rather than paper work I will do a better job at daily documentation. Here's hopping I'm right! Tomorrow will be day 1 of my new "homework" assignment. I would like to say thanks to Tara and Rachel for much needed motivation to just do this!