Wizard of Oz lapbook

We just finished reading the book Wizard of Oz. It is a fantastic book, filled with great imagery, and wonderful story telling. I have never read it until now, and It was soooo much better than the movie. In fact as we were watching the movie my daughter kept asking if particular parts of the book were going to happen and I turned to my husband and said- wow, she is going to be very disappointed in this movie. She wasn't but she thought they should have added a few more of the different lands, especially the china land. It was her favorite. It allowed for some great discussion though. We completed the lapbook as we went through the story, placing in different pieces as they happened. It was our first lapbook to complete this year, and I'm excited to be adding more of these into our schooling.

Here's a quick look at the finished Product

We found this lapbook off of Homeschool Share

Stay tuned

I had bigger hopes for this blog in the beginning. I had planned on making it some what of a journal of our homeschooling years, specifically our first, as well as a resource for all my homeschooling friends and I wanted it to be an encouragement to those just starting out like me. I completely underestimated how much homeschooling and life in general would consume any blogging time that I might have. I mostly use my time on the computer to glean great ideas from other wonderful homeschooling bloggers. I'm hoping now that our school year is coming to a close, I will have time to catch up and make this blog what I had originally envisioned. Although we are not actually ending school, I just plan on using the summer to do all those fun activities I didn't get a chance to get to, but certainly I should have more time... right?

Becoming Aware

Today as I was browsing through some blog posts from some of my favorite bloggers I came across this post. If you have some time, check it out. It really gave me something to think about. I am quite confident in our decision to homeschool, but after reading what Elizabeth had to say about her decision and especially after reading through the comments others made- I want to be cognisant of how I handle being a homeschooling mom. I homeschool out of my conviction that it is the right thing to do for our family. I want us to be the primary influence in our children's lives but on the same note I don't want our children to live a sheltered life- it's a fine line we walk. Something I have especially struggled with through this first year homeschooling is how to handle the relationships I have with other moms that have decided not to homeschool. Something one of the commenter's said has really made me question how well I have handled this.
"As a homeschooling mother, I must admit that homeschoolers-as a group come across as self-righteous snobs"
Another person posted how homeschoolers sometimes think of themselves as being elitist. These are just a few of the words that I never want to accompany my name. Although sadly I can see how easy it would be to fall into one of these categories. It's something I definitely need to give more prayer to. Relationships are important to me and I would hate for any of my convictions to become a stumbling block to someone else.

We are a little more than half way through our reading series with Sonlight for the year. I feel content with where Zoe is at in her reading. I am working on fluency but I think she has a good understanding of basic letter sounds, and for the most part can sound out unfamiliar words quite well. I'm looking forward to when she can just grab any book of the book shelf and read it to us.

Snow Day!

Another reason to love homeschooling. While most of our surrounding school districts were

in school today, we made snowmen, had a great snow ball fight, then followed it up with hot chocolate and a valentine craft!

Free Art

Art is not something we do too often, but I'm trying really hard to incorporate it more into our school time. It was always one of my favorite things to do in school, and I don't want our children to miss out. They asked to paint one afternoon after school time, and although I was hesitant do to my dislike of messes :) I decided why not? So we got it all out and let them go at it.

Revamping

I made today my "teacher work day." We woke up and right from the start everything started going wrong, the children seemed out of control, I was cranky, I couldn't find several things I was looking for and at that point- I felt beat and made the executive decision to take the day off and revamp our set up. I would like to believe that those who have been homeschooling a little longer than me have struggled a little with some of my issues. Although I have loved homeschooling thus far, I have struggled much with the balance of life and getting school done and I needed a moment to just breath and think through what wasn't working. We have been having schooltime in our playroom which has been working well, but because of the set up, I was keeping all my teacher materials and manipulatives in various places throughout the house. I was fed up with trying to keep track of where things were so I spent the morning moving things around, sorting and cleaning. It was a good feeling when all was done. I feel ready to have some really good productive days that will begin and end with organization that I didn't have before. I really believe that my lack of organization in most areas of my life are why I can't seem to really get control of things around here and why I get easily frustrated. I am going to work on putting a few things in place in the next couple days/weeks that will help me in this area.